Item Specification: Small Green Pieces of PaperCopy Anchor Link

"This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."

— The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Introduction

Small Green Pieces of Paper refers to the primitive fiat banknotes printed and endlessly shuffled by the human population of planet Earth prior to its demolition by the Vogon Constructor Fleet.

The Paper Movement ParadoxCopy Anchor Link

Galactic economists and sociologists have studied the economic history of Earth with profound bewilderment:

• The Root Problem: Virtually all the inhabitants of the blue-green planet were unhappy and miserable for most of their lives.
• The Proposed Cure: Rather than adjusting their psychology, abandoning their trees, or enjoying the oceans, the dominant ape-descended species concentrated almost all intellectual effort on shifting small rectangles of green cellulose between wallets, cash drawers, and electronic ledger accounts.
• The Guide's Observation: As the Guide wryly observes, this entire socioeconomic system was profoundly illogical, given that the paper rectangles themselves were completely content with their lot in life.

Comparison to Galactic TenderCopy Anchor Link

Unlike the Altairian Dollar (which allows a hitchhiker to roam the Galaxy for under thirty dollars a day), Triganic Puves, or Flanian Pobble Beads, small green pieces of paper lost all purchasing power outside the Sol system and were atomized during the clearance of Hyperspatial Express Route 42.