There exist a class of people who thinks money is the solution to all problems. In their sense of the world, there is no problem that cannot be solved with enough money.

I shall coin these folks cashhammers. As in, when all you have is hammer everything looks like a nail. For them money is that hammer. This is an examination on their thoughts and characteristics.

If you are crypto-informed, you may think of cashhammers as money-maximizers as a corollary to Bitcoin-maximizers. The same way BTC-maxis think every other crypto assets are scams, cashhammers think any solution not made of money is bullshit.

While that's true it is almost unfair. I intend to give cashhammers as generous a representation as I can.

You probably have experienced such a conversation with a cashhammer.

You: "This is a tricky situation. There are so many feelings here to take care of."

Cashhammer: "It's easy, just find them enough money."

You: "No it's not all about money."

Cashhammer: "What so you're saying they don't like money?"

You: "That's not what I'm saying..."

That's where you give up, not even sure it's worth the effort.

If you haven't thought this through before this writing, you will be tempted to tell them this at some point: "money isn't everything."

It's not untrue. Of course money isn't everything, nothing is everything. But it's so cliche it basically says nothing. It's so cringe that your standing dropped two rungs having just said that.

Cashhammers suffers from a form of tunnel vision. I would even say a failure of imagination.

In that their money-orientation narrows their vision to see every tangible and intangible problems as a money-issue. Their mental modes are trapped in a virtual sandbox that renders all issues into neatly shaped blocks that comes with cash-shaped counterparts hidden somewhere.

I'll illustrate. In the real non-sandboxed world, problems solvable with money are not considered problems. P vs NP is a true problem. Conversely, a broken shoe in need of repair is not a problem. The problem is finding the time to get to the cobbler.

Cashhammers though define problems the opposite way: if a problem cannot be solved by money, it's a problem to be ignored.

Therein lies their power. Imagine how much of the real world issues are filtered out purely by that criteria. Effectively here's a short list of things that are conclusively solved in the minds of cashhammers: cultural degradations, spirituality, mathematics, astronomy, philosophies, relationships, to name a few.

When cashhammers say "just name a price," there's a truth to it. Back to the no-time-to-repair-shoe situation, you may simply throw money at hiring assistants to get it done.

Astronomy problems? Throw enough money at telescopes and you see more stars. Not enough talent pool in the ecosystem? Throw more money into universities. Students too dumb? Throw money into schools. Our art is not cool enough? Throw money at artists. Need votes? Buy them. And on it goes.

I think cashhammers are right. But only at a large enough scale. Maybe someone offering a billion dollars worth of prize will incentize enough people to get into mathematics and solve PvsNP eventually.

But it takes a billionaire to do that. By becoming one you'd have billionaire-problems (to which they proudly proclaim to gladly inhabit for the privilege, confident they shall solve it with more money, not remotely interested in what those problems are).

In the real world though, cashhammers' mental model of "throwing enough money" is devoid of pragmatism. The definition of enough here is never within their reach, but they do insist to be correct in principle.

Interestingly, the cashhammers I know of happen to be acutely unaware of the issues that money creates. Their attitude towards them works like how most people think about death: if you don't think about it, it won't happen.

It's not clear to me if there's a part of cashhammers that know that there are issues that requires non-monetary solutions. Perhaps some population of them does but don't want to deal with the discomfort of having to deal with non-monetary problems.

The upside of such tunnel vision is the energy saving. Cashhammerism is an optimization strategy that spares you from having to consider any interests that are not money-shaped. After all what can history or calligraphy solve that money cannot? Just name a price.

Having such posture is immensely liberating. I suspect cashhammers take comfort in knowing very early that by establishing their cash-hammer to every nail in life, they will be well taken care of.

And they are largely right.

Though, the cost of living in a sandboxed Minecraft-like world made out of money-shaped-blocks is they are ultra low-resolution. There are much more to the real world that cashhammers cannot or unwilling to see. Being spiritually handicapped is the inevitable outcome.