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What is gold good for again? I haven't found any use cases where aluminum isn't just outright better to have around. Aluminum is a lot easier to find too.
by Rhapso 2y ago
What is gold good for again? I haven't found any use cases where aluminum isn't just outright better to have around. Aluminum is a lot easier to find too.
- egberts1 2y agoMetals are problematic after radiation exposure. You will be first ditching your gold rings and jewelry preferably as your first big barter before people get wise. Unless you absolutely had them buried under 3' of earth.
- Rhapso 2y agohttp://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q13412.html http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q13412.html Looks like the half-life of radioactive aluminum is only 2.3 minutes, should be safe after a day or two. edit add: https://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2003-03/1046983737.Ph.r.html https://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2003-03/1046983737.Ph.... And gold would only be unsafe for a month or two.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Rhapso 2y agoWhat are the other people going to do with the gold? what could they use it for? (Hint: gold is a useless metal in the modern era)
- tekno45 2y agoPeople liked it before we had the internet, people will like it after. Shiny and rare is enough for some people.
- egberts1 2y agoFor one, paper currency have finite lifespan (modern or caveman civilization). They will dwindle in circulation, coupled with a deafening booming demand for such "In God We Trust". Credit card, debit card, and gift card are all expected to be unusable even in long term (lookup EMP)
- Rhapso 2y agoSo you think gold has value only because other people think it has value, not because it has any other intrinsic use? I bet you like fiat currencies too!
- egberts1 2y agoCoin is the next best thing to have, but you need like a huge vault for that.
- Rhapso 2y agoThat seems like a hazard. Anything "valuble but too heavy to move easily" would mean people would rather own the spot where it is sitting right now. I would need a LOT of gold to convince somebody to give me a few chicken fledglings in exchange for them in a "after the fall" situation. It sounds like no matter how you look at it, stocking up on gold is a kinda dumb waste of money.
- tim333 2y ago>gold is a useless metal in the modern era It's still handy as jewelry, the core use for several thousand years in the past and probably several thousand in the future. The use as currency has always been a secondary thing. Try getting married with a plastic wedding ring if in doubt.
- roenxi 2y agoEconomic forces swing in to play quite quickly. I'd expect after 12-24 months of status quo gold would start to regain value. It is hard to guess where it would sit relative to any other commodity in a post-disaster world, but gold being gold there are worse things to bet on. Other metals might be better. Although Aluminium corrodes so there must be some situations where gold is superior.
- Rhapso 2y agoSure aluminum oxidizes fast, most of the time that actually protects it. There is just so damn much of the stuff laying around, melt it down every few years, pull off the slag and cast it again. Toss in an extra can after a year or two to make up for the loss.
- throwup238 2y agoWithout global oil infrastructure for refining and shipping it around, every single vehicle will be useless except for its scrap value and anyone with a little knowledge of backyard casting would be able to recycle it.
- kibwen 2y agoMuch cheaper to stock up on fake gold and bank on the fact that nobody else remembered to stock up on aqua regia.
- kibwen 2y ago> What is gold good for again? It's for the future archaeologists who will excavate your cooked husk from its underground tomb, so that they can write papers on how people of our times would outfit the dead with valuable trinkets with which to bribe Charon to cross the river Styx.
- throwup238 2y agoGold actually becomes a little more useful in an apocalyptic scenario. It’s one of the few metals that can be pounded into a thin foil with hand tools. Aluminum foil will disappear the moment we cant operate continuous casting machines any longer, but we’ve been hammering gold foil for ages.
- Rhapso 2y agoAwesome! That is a real answer rather than goldbug sales propaganda! I still don't think gold will hold value very well outside of the context of our current prosperity though.
- throwup238 2y agoIt definitely won't be anywhere near as valuable but I think it's easy to underestimate how important it would be to rebooting civilization. It's malleable, relatively chemically inert, resistant to corrosion, solders well, and can be easily used to gold plate other objects without a modern supply chain for reagents. There are lots of cheaper industrial replacements available now but once those are gone, its practical importance goes way up. Recycling all of our gold crap is going to be easier than restarting titanium mining, for instance, and that's pretty critical to getting modern industrial chemistry and biology working again.
- Rhapso 2y agoSo stockpile actually medium term useful things and take everybody's gold and then be a gold kingpin in the post-nuclear Renaissance?
- throwup238 2y agoMy recommendation if you survive the apocalypse is to immediately go take control of a hydroelectric dam. They're usually easily defensible and as long as you have megawatts of power, restarting civilization is relatively easy. As long as the turbine windings haven't melted, they will last for years. Preferably find a dam that used to power a smelter on site so you can recycle all the now useless cars into new metal. That would quickly turn you into a post-apocalyptic kingpin. You can also subjugate downstream communities by threatening them with sudden water releases. Bonus points if the only approach to the dam can be washed out with a release.
- next_xibalba 2y agoYou already made the case for gold (such as a case can be made). It’s rare(er). Also it’s prettier. But it’s sort of a bottomless question for any store of value. What is the dollar good for? It’s good bc you believe it will be accepted by others. The paper itself isn’t inherently useful beyond that. Since gold has been used as a store of value for millenia, it seems like a decent bet for the post apocalypse.
- hollerith 2y agoGold is good because people will barter valuable things they have for gold because they expect in the future to be able to barter the gold for valuable things they need. I.e., gold is expected by most people to continue to be considered valuable by most people.
- Rhapso 2y agoHow long do you expect that "gold has value" delusion to last in a crisis situation?
- defrost 2y agoAt least as long as a prepper can survive alone in a bunker on rations. It'll be a bit like that "WWII is still going" delusion that held out deep in the jungle on isolated islands.
- hollerith 2y agoI think you are assuming that after the nuclear war, survivors continue to live in fallout shelters and need to focus all their energies on personal survival for years and years whereas I believe that society and technological civilization reconstitute itself over months.