"I have, I fear, digressed somewhat from the proper order in which to present things in theoretically pure ways; the invention of abstract units of caring is supposed to be a relatively advanced idea under the Law, to which your hand gets forced later."

"Let's go down a different path.  Suppose you've only got one of each kind of fruit that there is, but you've got, like, fifty different kinds.  You can't cut any of them into pieces or they'll rot.  Furthermore, each of your actions within the world can only swap one fruit for another fruit at a time, and you can't just call out to somebody to promise them a future transaction.  Because thought experiments, that's why."

"I claim to you that in this world, there is no choice but to give up all hope of figuring out how many cherries a banana is worth, since all you can do is trade one whole banana for one whole cherry, and very few hungry people would trade a big fruit like a banana for a small one like a cherry."

"At least, there's no way to do it without being some kind of dirty cheater."

"How do you cheat?"

"I have, I fear, digressed somewhat from the proper order in which to present things in theoretically pure ways; the invention of abstract units of caring is supposed to be a relatively advanced idea under the Law, to which your hand gets forced later."

"Let's go down a different path.  Suppose you've only got one of each kind of fruit that there is, but you've got, like, fifty different kinds.  You can't cut any of them into pieces or they'll rot.  Furthermore, each of your actions within the world can only swap one fruit for another fruit at a time, and you can't just call out to somebody to promise them a future transaction.  Because thought experiments, that's why."

"I claim to you that in this world, there is no choice but to give up all hope of figuring out how many cherries a banana is worth, since all you can do is trade one whole banana for one whole cherry, and very few hungry people would trade a big fruit like a banana for a small one like a cherry."

"At least, there's no way to do it without being some kind of dirty cheater."

"But maybe somebody here is a dirty cheater, I don't know.  If so, how do you cheat?"

"I have, I fear, digressed somewhat from the proper order in which to present things in theoretically pure ways; the invention of abstract units of caring is supposed to be a relatively advanced idea under the Law, to which your hand gets forced later."

"Let's go down a different path.  Suppose you've only got one of each kind of fruit that there is, but you've got, like, fifty different kinds.  You can't cut any of them into pieces or they'll rot.  Furthermore, each of your actions within the world can only swap one fruit for another fruit at a time.  You can give somebody a fruit without getting any back, I suppose - everybody has an unbounded supply of the empty fruit - but you can't make a transaction promising anyone that you'll give them more fruit on a later round.  Because thought experiments, that's why."

"I claim to you that in this world, there is no choice but to give up all hope of figuring out how many cherries a banana is worth, since all you can do is trade one whole banana for one whole cherry, and very few hungry people would trade a big fruit like a banana for a small one like a cherry."

"At least, there's no way to do it without being some kind of dirty cheater."

"But maybe somebody here is a dirty cheater, I don't know.  If so, how do you cheat?"