TrE comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 26, chapter 97 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: palladias 15 August 2013 02:18AM

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Comment author: thomblake 16 August 2013 03:51:32PM 11 points [-]

Hypothesis: The muggles don't possess much gold. Most of the huge stacks of gold in places like Fort Knox are clever magical replicas, and have been for a very long time. Any wizard can easily see through the ruse, but the muggles are clueless.

How do we have gold that we use as a conductor? Perhaps when a muggle handles fake gold, it gets magically swapped with real gold from a small supply elsewhere. Or else, maybe fake magic gold is a really good conductor.

Comment author: TrE 16 August 2013 05:28:22PM 1 point [-]

And what about all the new gold the muggles mine, day by day? Wouldn't that cause inflation in the wizard economy? And where does the swapped-out gold go?

Comment author: thomblake 16 August 2013 07:40:53PM 3 points [-]

Alternately: The wizards already mined all the real gold too.

Comment author: thomblake 16 August 2013 07:05:24PM 3 points [-]

It's like bitcoin mining - whoever steals Muggle gold first gets to keep it. Of course that's the Americans.