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None of that is disputed in the article or the talk, you seem to have missed the point: it's not that the intrinsic value of things "isn't real", but that peopl

• taeric 4y ago
  Right, my point is that it seems Stephenson seemed to have originally felt that there was intrinsic value to something. And then starts asking why you and friends would care about the trinkets you can sell, when that is irrelevant. Typically, by definition, you sell things that someone will give you more currency for than you currently value it.
  • hgsgm 4y ago
    He says that buying stuff in games (which he considers achievements as the ovly valid stuff, disparaging cosmetic items) is gauche. People pay for a lot of bad things, and Stephenson opposes that. He thinks crypto is fine for buying things of value.
    • taeric 4y ago
      But that is just it, what are "things of value?" If I have a waterlogged copy of a book, it is worth less, even though the argument would be that the value of the book is the story in it. (I don't even have to get into books that have had their covers removed by sellers and then were not recycled properly. Clear evidence that the book has no intrinsic value.)