It always astounds me how the libertarians place such zealous trust in mere merchants and mercantile processes to organize a functioning, stable society.

And it truly does astound me that with government track records, others place zealous trust in regulation determined by a small group of citizens, versus all of the citizens(or at least those buy stuff...so I guess again, all of the citizens haha). Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing that this was a flaw in the past, it was absolutely necessary. But the ever expanding global connectivity no doubt improves local connectivity as well.

I have a hard time developing a response to your second paragraph...I don't intend to comment on how other people see fit to interact with the platform other than with my voting. What is valuable to one person is so subjective, but value is incapable of being "right or wrong", it is only an agreed upon value.

I understand that in the past, we looked to leaders with such high regard, and in some cases, very warranted. People used to believe Kings were chosen by a god, and in democratic states, people could choose. But there has never been a time where a ruler demonstrated the best outcomes for every citizen, in every person's individual opinion. I don't argue that as the goal, but I do argue that it will continue to happen. It costs some people value to their time, some people their freedom, some people their life...

The material that money is made up from never matters. That's why there's no difference in value between the USD backed by gold and the USD backed by nothing at all. The community continued to agree that it had value so it still does.