A community dedicated to Strange Planet comics by Nathan W. Pyle.
This is one of those weird adult things I learned late in life were you can play dumb and ask people to gift you something in particular implicitly just by casually saying that you are in need of said thing. It felt partly magic and partly that I and going to become a manipulative psychopath. In the end both parties play dumb and its all play, I think its kinda neat.
Completely allowed and encouraged. Most people will enjoy giving something you actually need/want rather than gifting something generic that may not be useful.
Email a shared doc to your social circle
Everyone writes what they want
Assign everyone a random Secret Santa
Perfect gifts at lowest cost
Me emailing my entire social circle of one person: I wonder who my secret santa will be
Alien #1: In lieu of purchasing a gift, which carries the risk of being the wrong object you desire, I will give you 50 pieces of paper that is valued by this economy. You may use this currency to purchase something you desire yourself.
Alien #2: That is a logical and safe way of providing an appropriate gift .... I will do the same and give you 50 pieces of valued paper currency
Alien #1: Merry Corporately Comercialized Holiday Greetings to you
Alien #2: May the merchants give you holiday savings
This exchange reminds me of a joke:
The first economist says to the other “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The second economist takes the $100 and eats the pile of shit.
They continue walking until they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist turns to the first and says “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The first economist takes the $100 and eats a pile of shit.
Walking a little more, the first economist looks at the second and says, "You know, I gave you $100 to eat shit, then you gave me back the same $100 to eat shit. I can't help but feel like we both just ate shit for nothing."
"That's not true", responded the second economist. "We increased the GDP by $200!"
Trickle-sideways economics.
In the case of this comic and this cartoonist .... its Tickle Economics
I miss being able to make a big list of cool things that I'm happy to get a subset of. Now anything that would be cheap enough for someone to give me as a gift, is cheap enough that I'll probably just buy it myself when I want/need it, and if it's more expensive then I don't think I'd trust someone else to buy it for me.