Cyan comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Unnamed 27 May 2010 12:10AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (866)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Cyan 28 May 2010 02:42:33AM 5 points [-]

You could avoid selling Galleons per se by melting them into bullion first. Maybe Galleons are unmeltable? Or the gold turns into leaves and gorse blossoms when handled extensively by Muggles? It seems like with magic at one's disposal one doesn't have to rely on mere law to prevent wizard/Muggle arbitrage.

Comment author: gwern 29 May 2010 07:03:58PM 5 points [-]

Maybe Galleons are unmeltable?

No, that wouldn't work. In MoR, the routineness of coining Sickles implies that it's routine to coin ordinary gold into Galleons; if the coinage were irreversible, then you would see Gresham's law start to operate.

Ordinary gold would be more valuable then an equivalent weight of Galleons because you could at any time turn the gold into Galleons but with ordinary gold you have all the other decorative and magical uses of gold available. As Galleons are created and not destroyed, ever more inflation of Galleons and deflation of gold would happen.

(Have you ever bought funny money, like the Mickey Mouse money at Disney World? The Galleons would be like the Mickey Mouse money, and gold like regular dollars. Except worse.)

Comment author: Cyan 30 May 2010 12:37:47AM *  2 points [-]

I am edified and grateful for it.

Comment author: gwern 30 May 2010 12:53:08AM *  5 points [-]

(Magical) code is law, but the laws of economics are more akin to laws of logic than legal laws - try to bend them, and you'll either accomplish nothing or it'll bite you somehow. You need subtler tactics than just unmeltable coins or disappearing specie.