But we do have many processes by which gold is destroyed in a way that is unrecoverable or significantly more expensive to recover to make it not viable. We als

But we do have many processes by which gold is destroyed in a way that is unrecoverable or significantly more expensive to recover to make it not viable. We also have government to devaluing gold by not adopting the gold standard and adopting the "full faith and credit" standard instead. So I think this analogy can still apply. No modern country has any real backing to its currency besides bullets.