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You can drive a truck to a vault and pick up your gold. Try emulating that with bitcoin. You can't use burned computer cycles as a door stop or to make jewele

You can drive a truck to a vault and pick up your gold. Try emulating that with bitcoin. You can't use burned computer cycles as a door stop or to make jewelery. Just because people speculate in gold doesn't give bitcoin legitimacy because they speculate in that. Gold has value as a financial instrument because it is tangible, it is something bitcoin can never be.

wyager 5y ago
> You can't use burned computer cycles as a door stop Is your understanding that people value gold because they can use it to fashion a door stop?
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  If the price of gold hit zero, you would still have a lump of pretty, malleable metal. When bitcoin hits zero, what exactly will anybody actually have? At least with other manias like tulip bulbs you could grow a flower. You can't even wipe your bum with bitcoin.
  - wyager 5y ago
    And? Do you think the fact that having a “lump of pretty metal” if demand disappears is what makes gold valuable?
    - smackeyacky 5y ago
      Yep. Bitcoin value is nothing more than a collective illusion. I especially like the marketing aimed at rubes who think "proof of work" means value creation in the same way as ore mining. Its an elaborate scam without parallel in history. When its over and the illusion disappears, people will still value gold but will delete their wallets.
      - wyager 5y ago
        Well I’m glad you’re so smart that you can see through the illusion that’s fooled all the rubes :) After all, it’s inconceivable that your model is incomplete - you’ve given such a good argument for where gold derives its value, after all - you can make door stoppers out of it! > "proof of work" means value creation in the same way as ore mining You’re at least as silly as your own strawman, because ore mining doesn’t “create value” at all. You’ve fallen into the same trap that a lot of people with folk economics fall into - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value
        smackeyacky 5y ago
        If I was smart I would have stopped under-estimating the stupidity of the average rube and bought a pile of useless Bitcoin back when it first became a meme. I don't consider myself to be particularly smart but I do know a scam when I see one. If somebody already mined the first coins everybody getting involved afterwards is either getting ripped off or will have to rip somebody off to get out before the realisation hits that what you are trading in is burned computer cycles and promises of a "new means of exchange" that doesn't actually work except for criminals activities. What happens when a country abandons a fiat currency or devalues it via inflation, you end up with wheelbarrows full of worthless paper and nobody to take it. yet at some point it was valued highly and people hoarded in mattresses and were happy to exchange goods for it. I like to think about it this way: People stop worshipping a particular god and the whole religion disappears, leaving nothing but stories. Nobody makes material sacrifices to that god any more, the temples fall into ruin, the high priests run out of money since their temples are no longer supported and followers move on to something else. c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurvanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurvanism Gold however has been sought after for thousands of years and still has uses outside of being a very inefficient currency (super compact boat ballast? why not). Bitcoin does not, can not and never will.

wyager 5y ago

> You can't use burned computer cycles as a door stop Is your understanding that people value gold because they can use it to fashion a door stop?

smackeyacky 5y ago
If the price of gold hit zero, you would still have a lump of pretty, malleable metal. When bitcoin hits zero, what exactly will anybody actually have? At least with other manias like tulip bulbs you could grow a flower. You can't even wipe your bum with bitcoin.
- wyager 5y ago
  And? Do you think the fact that having a “lump of pretty metal” if demand disappears is what makes gold valuable?
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    Yep. Bitcoin value is nothing more than a collective illusion. I especially like the marketing aimed at rubes who think "proof of work" means value creation in the same way as ore mining. Its an elaborate scam without parallel in history. When its over and the illusion disappears, people will still value gold but will delete their wallets.
    - wyager 5y ago
      Well I’m glad you’re so smart that you can see through the illusion that’s fooled all the rubes :) After all, it’s inconceivable that your model is incomplete - you’ve given such a good argument for where gold derives its value, after all - you can make door stoppers out of it! > "proof of work" means value creation in the same way as ore mining You’re at least as silly as your own strawman, because ore mining doesn’t “create value” at all. You’ve fallen into the same trap that a lot of people with folk economics fall into - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value
      - smackeyacky 5y ago
        If I was smart I would have stopped under-estimating the stupidity of the average rube and bought a pile of useless Bitcoin back when it first became a meme. I don't consider myself to be particularly smart but I do know a scam when I see one. If somebody already mined the first coins everybody getting involved afterwards is either getting ripped off or will have to rip somebody off to get out before the realisation hits that what you are trading in is burned computer cycles and promises of a "new means of exchange" that doesn't actually work except for criminals activities. What happens when a country abandons a fiat currency or devalues it via inflation, you end up with wheelbarrows full of worthless paper and nobody to take it. yet at some point it was valued highly and people hoarded in mattresses and were happy to exchange goods for it. I like to think about it this way: People stop worshipping a particular god and the whole religion disappears, leaving nothing but stories. Nobody makes material sacrifices to that god any more, the temples fall into ruin, the high priests run out of money since their temples are no longer supported and followers move on to something else. c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurvanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurvanism Gold however has been sought after for thousands of years and still has uses outside of being a very inefficient currency (super compact boat ballast? why not). Bitcoin does not, can not and never will.