The muffin-based economy

Because I'm sure you've always wondered, here's a sample of the sort of conversation that goes on after lights out in the Geek household:

"Are you still awake?"

"No. Maybe. Why?"

"I was thinking... You know that whole specialisation of labour shit? Well, don't you think that would work really well for day-to-day household chores? I mean, we like making muffins and I'm good at feeding parrots, so we could just do that, and someone who's really good at vacuuming could come over and clean our floors, and we could give them muffins and feed their parrots."

"But what if everyone started making muffins? We'd have rampant muffin inflation and they'd end up being worthless."

"No, that would be okay, because not everyone would be as good at making muffins as we are. And anyway, if they all did try and make the best muffins, that would lead to a muffin arms race, and someone somewhere would create the ideal muffin."

"That might be good for muffinkind, but not so much for our economy."

"But we'd still have the perfect muffin. And not just muffins, because then we'd move onto the next baked good. And the next. And we'd gradually evolve not only the perfect muffin, but the perfect cupcake, and the perfect chocolate fudge, and... and... everything! It would all be perfect! And we would eat it! Or the cleaning lady would."

"Oooh! Oooh! I have the best idea! Let's create little computers that can bake things and put them into a simulated muffin-based economy and let them evolve the perfect baked goods for us!"

(Then we slept and dreamed happy dreams of muffins and parrots and fudge.)