4 ms·

Could you give examples of other goods that were durable and valuable over a period of time of say 500 years but are no longer? I can think of salt that lost a

by lixtra 8y ago

Could you give examples of other goods that were durable and valuable over a period of time of say 500 years but are no longer? I can think of salt that lost about 80% of its value since ancient time. The loss is mostly due to the fact that energy got so cheap and salt is abundant. Gold is quite unique in its scarcity and desirability. Curious for your examples.

exHFguy1 8y ago
Diamonds worth a lot then and now. May not be the case in the future with improved ability to manufacture.
- yesenadam 8y ago
  Nah. The 'diamonds' thing was created by de Beers by advertising. Making everyone think you had to give a wedding ring when you get married - something everyone now believes. Getting control of all diamond mines, and restricting supply so prices are super-high. It's a huge and amazingly effective scam.
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    Whoops, I meant, a diamond ring. From the De Beers website (!) : "1930s Diamond sales in the US were at an all time low They were seen as an extravagance for the wealthy, and sales, already declining for more than two decades, had plummeted during the Great Depression. De Beers needed a strategy to create a multi-faceted demand for diamonds In the unique position of having to create demand for a product that hadn't been widely marketed before. 1938 De Beers hired advertising agency N.W. Ayer to craft a campaign They were chosen for their approach - to conduct extensive research on social attitudes to diamonds. A new form of advertising was born The brilliant concept was to create an emotional link to diamonds, the sentiment being love, like diamonds, is eternal. 1947 Frances Gerety A copywriter on the De Beers account at the advertising agency N.W. Ayer solidified the link between eternal romance and diamonds by suggesting the line 'A diamond is forever'. These four iconic words have been used ever since Making it one of the longest running and successful campaigns in history. By 1951 8/10 brides in the United States received a diamond engagement ring The engagement diamond tradition was established. An emblem of love 'A diamond is forever' became a symbol of enduring love weaving itself into popular culture and inspiring books, films and songs. 1999 Slogan of the century It's no wonder Advertising Age voted the De Beers campaign as the top advertising slogan of the past century." http://www.debeersgroup.com/en/our-story/innovation-hub/a-diamond-is-forever.html http://www.debeersgroup.com/en/our-story/innovation-hub/a-di...
exHFguy1 8y ago
BTW, given nature of gold (an element) vs diamonds (carbon in a particular structure), would consider gold as more reliable store of wealth. Hard to imagine cost effective way to make gold. but there are no guarantees.
- SomeHacker44 8y ago
  In terms of stability, diamonds are practically as stable as gold, for human temperatures, pressures and timescales -or even geologic or galactic timescales. Of course, they are much more manufacturable, as you note.
  - lixtra 8y ago
    I thought a diamond would survive if you flat burned down. Gold looses a few percent of valu the first time it happens.
moate 8y ago
Why does 500 years matter? Again, that's the survivor bias. "Gold is great because we all decided it was valuable for a long period of time, but based on no specific usage". It's desirable because it's scarce and has a historic usage as currency. To assume that will continue to be valuable because of those (arbitrary) points seems like a flawed assumption. Gold is valuable because there's a perception of gold's value. It works as a currency. Like Salt, or tea bricks, or gems, they have some applications, but were being used as trade goods because of the perceived value. My point is simply that people in the 1400's didn't know that petroleum would become as important as it is or that high purity sand reserves were magnitudes more valuable than "regular" sand or that pounds of sugar would only cost a fraction of a laborer's hourly wage. If the worry is "inflation/devaluation of a currency without without the complete collapse of modern society" SOMEBODY will have a valuable currency. You could just as easily say that instead of storing gold you could store bank notes from several different nations. You could also store bitcoins, or bricks of drugs, or all sorts of things that carry value in the current climate. Hoarding wealth in the form of non-useful items is a gamble. You're assuming someone will want your currency. It's plausible they won't. Wealth, as opposed to trade goods, is only worth how much someone else wants it.
- lixtra 8y ago
  > Why does 500 years matter? Again, that's the survivor bias. If you compare why in the last 10k years the Himalaya and Venice Beach did not reach the same altitude you may say that's survivors bias. But it's not. One thing has different characteristics from the other and they lead to different outcomes. If it is survivors bias, then starting with a homogeneous cohort, over time fewer and fewer samples survive under some stress. So all I'm asking for is that homogeneous cohort that gold started with and that it accidentally survived. There should be something vanishing each 100 years. I don't see that. I think gold has very specific characteristics that made it survive and yes, I agree, today the myth of gold is also one of them.
  - moate 8y ago
    Currency is a product of culture. There is no homogeneous culture. You can't design a perfect experiment here. It's not an accident, that's not what survivor bias is, it's just that it's also not "gold is valuable because god himself ordained it and therefor it always will be until the end of all time". Gold is valuable because we decided it's valuable. Other things have been used as currency, but people simply decided that gold is a good thing to use as a basis of an economy. The fact that our current culture says gold is valuable because in the past it had been repeatedly valuable and therefor it will be valuable in the future is an illogical statement because of the part at the end. You can't predict the future. You can't actually know that the train of thought that made gold valuable in the past/present will keep running in the future. Maybe we move to away from capitalism and skills are more useful. Maybe a giant meteor full of gold is found and it becomes less valuable than silver or platinum or uranium or any other semi-rare stable element. The point is, trade goods have their value tied up in need instead of perception and currencies are the opposite. Hoarding gold has shown to work in the past when. This has less barring on it's value in 100 years than you're trying to say.

by lixtra 8y ago

exHFguy1 8y ago

Diamonds worth a lot then and now. May not be the case in the future with improved ability to manufacture.

yesenadam 8y ago
Nah. The 'diamonds' thing was created by de Beers by advertising. Making everyone think you had to give a wedding ring when you get married - something everyone now believes. Getting control of all diamond mines, and restricting supply so prices are super-high. It's a huge and amazingly effective scam.
- yesenadam 8y ago
  Whoops, I meant, a diamond ring. From the De Beers website (!) : "1930s Diamond sales in the US were at an all time low They were seen as an extravagance for the wealthy, and sales, already declining for more than two decades, had plummeted during the Great Depression. De Beers needed a strategy to create a multi-faceted demand for diamonds In the unique position of having to create demand for a product that hadn't been widely marketed before. 1938 De Beers hired advertising agency N.W. Ayer to craft a campaign They were chosen for their approach - to conduct extensive research on social attitudes to diamonds. A new form of advertising was born The brilliant concept was to create an emotional link to diamonds, the sentiment being love, like diamonds, is eternal. 1947 Frances Gerety A copywriter on the De Beers account at the advertising agency N.W. Ayer solidified the link between eternal romance and diamonds by suggesting the line 'A diamond is forever'. These four iconic words have been used ever since Making it one of the longest running and successful campaigns in history. By 1951 8/10 brides in the United States received a diamond engagement ring The engagement diamond tradition was established. An emblem of love 'A diamond is forever' became a symbol of enduring love weaving itself into popular culture and inspiring books, films and songs. 1999 Slogan of the century It's no wonder Advertising Age voted the De Beers campaign as the top advertising slogan of the past century." http://www.debeersgroup.com/en/our-story/innovation-hub/a-diamond-is-forever.html http://www.debeersgroup.com/en/our-story/innovation-hub/a-di...

exHFguy1 8y ago

BTW, given nature of gold (an element) vs diamonds (carbon in a particular structure), would consider gold as more reliable store of wealth. Hard to imagine cost effective way to make gold. but there are no guarantees.

SomeHacker44 8y ago
In terms of stability, diamonds are practically as stable as gold, for human temperatures, pressures and timescales -or even geologic or galactic timescales. Of course, they are much more manufacturable, as you note.
- lixtra 8y ago
  I thought a diamond would survive if you flat burned down. Gold looses a few percent of valu the first time it happens.

moate 8y ago

Why does 500 years matter? Again, that's the survivor bias. "Gold is great because we all decided it was valuable for a long period of time, but based on no specific usage". It's desirable because it's scarce and has a historic usage as currency. To assume that will continue to be valuable because of those (arbitrary) points seems like a flawed assumption. Gold is valuable because there's a perception of gold's value. It works as a currency. Like Salt, or tea bricks, or gems, they have some applications, but were being used as trade goods because of the perceived value. My point is simply that people in the 1400's didn't know that petroleum would become as important as it is or that high purity sand reserves were magnitudes more valuable than "regular" sand or that pounds of sugar would only cost a fraction of a laborer's hourly wage. If the worry is "inflation/devaluation of a currency without without the complete collapse of modern society" SOMEBODY will have a valuable currency. You could just as easily say that instead of storing gold you could store bank notes from several different nations. You could also store bitcoins, or bricks of drugs, or all sorts of things that carry value in the current climate. Hoarding wealth in the form of non-useful items is a gamble. You're assuming someone will want your currency. It's plausible they won't. Wealth, as opposed to trade goods, is only worth how much someone else wants it.

lixtra 8y ago
> Why does 500 years matter? Again, that's the survivor bias. If you compare why in the last 10k years the Himalaya and Venice Beach did not reach the same altitude you may say that's survivors bias. But it's not. One thing has different characteristics from the other and they lead to different outcomes. If it is survivors bias, then starting with a homogeneous cohort, over time fewer and fewer samples survive under some stress. So all I'm asking for is that homogeneous cohort that gold started with and that it accidentally survived. There should be something vanishing each 100 years. I don't see that. I think gold has very specific characteristics that made it survive and yes, I agree, today the myth of gold is also one of them.
- moate 8y ago
  Currency is a product of culture. There is no homogeneous culture. You can't design a perfect experiment here. It's not an accident, that's not what survivor bias is, it's just that it's also not "gold is valuable because god himself ordained it and therefor it always will be until the end of all time". Gold is valuable because we decided it's valuable. Other things have been used as currency, but people simply decided that gold is a good thing to use as a basis of an economy. The fact that our current culture says gold is valuable because in the past it had been repeatedly valuable and therefor it will be valuable in the future is an illogical statement because of the part at the end. You can't predict the future. You can't actually know that the train of thought that made gold valuable in the past/present will keep running in the future. Maybe we move to away from capitalism and skills are more useful. Maybe a giant meteor full of gold is found and it becomes less valuable than silver or platinum or uranium or any other semi-rare stable element. The point is, trade goods have their value tied up in need instead of perception and currencies are the opposite. Hoarding gold has shown to work in the past when. This has less barring on it's value in 100 years than you're trying to say.