@lilithsaintcrow @cstross They're as real as money ever is. If you own those stocks and bonds, you can sell them or use them as loan collateral and buy real stuff. But since the demise of the gold standard, money has an imaginary component (bookkeeping in complex numbers?) and is subject to evaporation in a way it wasn't centuries ago. When the stock market crashes, (some of) those dollars don't go elsewhere, they are GONE.
@daviddlevine @lilithsaintcrow Gold is only ever valuable because people agree that it's valuable. Otherwise it's just a scarce electrically conductive metal like copper. (Graeber has a bunch to say about the origins of the "gold = money" fallacy in "Debt: The First Five Thousand Years".)
@cstross @daviddlevine @lilithsaintcrow The value of most things is simply based on consensus that that is their value. I usually tell people to look up the story of black pearls or chocolate diamonds to see how changing public perception can change something's perceived value.
@cstross Gold at least has the somewhat rare quality of STAYING SHINY.