The degree to which you believe the guy will make good on his promise to always buy snail tails in exchange for water is the degree to which you believe snail tails are backed by water. We can be pretty sure the US government will generally make good on its promise to take US dollars in exchange for not prosecuting you for non-payment of taxes.

>I reject your definition of "intrinsic value". Sounds sorta' like "regular value" to me.

I don't like the term 'intrinsic value' at all, since it sounds like it's suggesting some type of absolute value, which I don't think very many people (at least, not the ones having these conversations) really believe exists. I think the way they mean it is more in line with the way I defined it, to distinguish between something some people buy for its own sake versus something people only buy so they can trade it away to someone else, who is in turn only buying it so he can again trade it away. The latter still clearly has value to those people who take it in trade, and 'intrinsic value' is a convenient term to distinguish between the two.

If I have a comparable amount of confidence in my snail tail guy as I do in the USG's hunger for USD, then snail tails are suddenly "intrinsically valuable"?

I agree that intrinsic value is sort of a nebulous thing to begin with, and I'm not convinced that the idea even makes sense to at all (as you've suggested), but your definition just seems confusing at best, and perhaps even useless (though if it's useful to you, then have at it).

>If I have a comparable amount of confidence in my snail tail guy as I do in the USG's hunger for USD, then snail tails are suddenly "intrinsically valuable"?

According to the definition I gave, yes. If you're thinking of 'instrinsic value' as meaning 'absolute value', then yes it's just as absurd to say snail tails have intrinsic value as it is to say anything else has intrinsic value. It certainly sounds absurd to say "snail tails have intrinsic value" for any definition of "intrinsic value", but then, it's absurd to be as certain some guy is going to trade snail tails for water as you are that dollars will buy you freedom from prosecution for non-payment of taxes.

>but your definition just seems confusing at best, and perhaps even useless (though if it's useful to you, then have at it).

Ya, I have no idea if it's useful or not. There are certainly people who are suspicious of using goods as currencies if they don't have 'intrinsic value', according to that definition. I don't know if that suspicion is well placed or not, but it is there.