Saw this video about gold, it’s chemical structure and malleability. I still don’t understand why gold is worth anything at all……
In: 236
A lot of things have been used as “money” through human history. And, through trial and error of human experience, we can identify a few traits that make something practically useful as “money”:
1) It takes work to get it. People aren’t going to be conjuring it out of thin air. Gold takes work to get out of the ground, to refine, shape, etc.
2) Hard to fake, or at least, fakes can be identified. Weight, density, hardness, and electrical conductivity of gold can all be tested to make sure that a piece of it is of the quality claimed by the bearer.
3) Durable over time. Given the choice between storing bread for a long time and storing gold for a long time, you probably shouldn’t store more bread than you can use or sell.
4) Portable, translates well for sale wherever you want to use it. Wherever you go in the world, gold is gold.
Gold meets these criteria quite well.
Shiny rock is pretty
I will trade my shiny rock for what you’ve got ,there’s only enough shiny rock on the whole earth to fill one house
And you can wear shiny rock to let people know you got enough resources to get shiny rock
,people have been killed for shiny rock and do crazy stuff for just a little bit of shiny rock.
A lot of things have been used as “money” through human history. And, through trial and error of human experience, we can identify a few traits that make something practically useful as “money”:
1) It takes work to get it. People aren’t going to be conjuring it out of thin air. Gold takes work to get out of the ground, to refine, shape, etc.
2) Hard to fake, or at least, fakes can be identified. Weight, density, hardness, and electrical conductivity of gold can all be tested to make sure that a piece of it is of the quality claimed by the bearer.
3) Durable over time. Given the choice between storing bread for a long time and storing gold for a long time, you probably shouldn’t store more bread than you can use or sell.
4) Portable, translates well for sale wherever you want to use it. Wherever you go in the world, gold is gold.
Gold meets these criteria quite well.
Shiny rock is pretty
I will trade my shiny rock for what you’ve got ,there’s only enough shiny rock on the whole earth to fill one house
And you can wear shiny rock to let people know you got enough resources to get shiny rock
,people have been killed for shiny rock and do crazy stuff for just a little bit of shiny rock.
In Dutch we have a saying *”wat de gek er voor geeft”*, something is worth what you can get an idiot to give you for it.
It has electrical and engineering uses, and there are still people who fall for the expensive marriage ring trap in 2023.
More importantly, unlike diamonds, there isn’t a lot of it on the planet (though the universe is full of it)
Because it’s pretty, and most importantly, corrosion resistant and useless… or, rather, used to be useless until modern electronics hit the scene.
If you’re going to use a commodity-based currency, you want one that people will not use in things like construction or tools, otherwise a lot will be destroyed in circulation just for general utility. Good doesn’t make a good nail or hammer. It’s actually pretty useless. But it is pretty, so you can wear some jewelry and always have backup currency if you lose your purse or something.
African Americans actually started wearing obnoxious gold necklaces and shit to show business owners they have wealth and were less likely to do things like dine and dash. And if they couldn’t afford the bill, the owner could take the necklace and compensate the difference. Plus, wealthy people like showing off their wealth with stupid shit like gold.
It’s useful, it’s relatively rare vs its usefulness (compared to, say, water, pebbles, or seashells), it’s easy enough to verify to minimize forgeries/fakes, and people have used it as a medium of exchange for centuries because of this. It carries enough value that it’s a lot easier to carry than its value in, say, livestock, grain or marble stone.
Put these together, and it’s considered valuable.
In Dutch we have a saying *”wat de gek er voor geeft”*, something is worth what you can get an idiot to give you for it.
It has electrical and engineering uses, and there are still people who fall for the expensive marriage ring trap in 2023.
More importantly, unlike diamonds, there isn’t a lot of it on the planet (though the universe is full of it)
It’s useful, it’s relatively rare vs its usefulness (compared to, say, water, pebbles, or seashells), it’s easy enough to verify to minimize forgeries/fakes, and people have used it as a medium of exchange for centuries because of this. It carries enough value that it’s a lot easier to carry than its value in, say, livestock, grain or marble stone.
Put these together, and it’s considered valuable.
It’s shiny, and it stays shiny.
People like shiny things.
They’ll trade you lots of apples and salt and money to have shinies.
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