Gold. Intrinsic or Tautological.

[Necronic]

I had an argument with my brother recently about currency and central banking which inevitably lead to the whole gold argument. Part of it may have been because I was finishing up Atlas Shrugged where a big point for her is moving away from printed currency to gold. Anyways, he got onto the whole "Gold has an intrinsic value" argument.

Which is bullshit.

I ask him "why does gold have value?" to which he replys (more or less) "because it's valuable".

So there is no intrinsic value to gold, there is tautological value to it. Doesn't matter if you are talking about jewelry or whatever. The value exists because we say it does. Which is absolutely no different from printed currency.

Could someone explain to me what the intrinsic value of gold is?

 

[GasBandit]

You can't make high quality computer parts without it.
Added at: 17:43
Also some other stuff.

 

[strawman]

It is scarce.
It is easily worked.
It is easily purified.
It is an amazing electrical conductor.
It has a very low reactance to other materials.
It doesn't tarnish/oxidize.

There really are no other materials that compare as favorably.

However, it's true value lies in scarcity - if it were as common as water we'd be using it for plumbing.

If water were as scarce as gold, we'd be using it as the base for currency.

Gold is both high in value and low in availability - which fits the requirements for a currency base very well.

 

[Necronic]

HA. Man I had a line at the end that said "Don't bring up the circuitry BS". This is mainly because you really don't need that much gold to do it. Definitely not enough to justify the cost of gold

Edit: Also, for actual industrial useage and whatnot Copper is about a million times more useful than gold.

Edit2: Jesus that link is terrible. Here are there uses:

Jewelry - tautological
Dentistry - obsolete
Medicine - true of any element known to man nbd
Computers -Circuitry
Electronics - Circuitry
Aerospace - Circuitry (wow they are really stretching this one)
Awards and symbols - .....wow ok thats jewelry you morons
Gold Leaf/gilding - god damnit.
Glassmaking - ok wow didn't know about that one.

So there are 2 uses. Circuitry (where the content is in the MICROGRAMS) or exotic glassmaking.

Tell you what that is pretty impressive.

 

[strawman]

Also, for actual industrial useage and whatnot Copper is about a million times more useful than gold.

Hahaha.

No.

 

[GasBandit]

HA. Man I had a line at the end that said "Don't bring up the circuitry BS". This is mainly because you really don't need that much gold to do it. Definitely not enough to justify the cost of gold

Edit: Also, for actual industrial useage and whatnot Copper is about a million times more useful than gold.

It's very scarce. It's the best it is at what it does. Your smart cell phone literally would not be possible without it.

Gold does have an intrinsic value, and it is critical for electronics. However, you can then go back to your friend and say that its value based on utility is less than a century old.

Copper tarnishes and corrodes extremely easily.

 

[sixpackshaker]

My personal argument against a gold or silver standard is that they limit available wealth. In an expanding economy having your monetary system based on pretty metals held out of view makes little sense.

Gold is...
pure
resists tarnishing
entirely recyclable
capable of being hammered/laid extremely thin with out losing any of its qualities
great conductor of electricity - electronics may get more expensive now

 

[Necronic]

I ninja edited you a bit, sorry. Ok, for what you are talking about I would believe it with respect to Platinum, but not gold.

The amount of gold that is used industrially worldwide is laughably small compared to the global supply. If the value of gold were defined in its current industrial uses it would be worth ~1-200$ per ounce.

 

[sixpackshaker]

Platinum is highly valuable to me. It is what will cure my cancer.

Now I am chock full of platinum and dynamite!!!
Added at: 00:02
Glen Beck says that it will keep you safe, in the coming fall of Western Civilization.

Except gold is not bullet proof.

 

[GasBandit]

I ninja edited you a bit, sorry. Ok, for what you are talking about I would believe it with respect to Platinum, but not gold.

The amount of gold that is used industrially worldwide is laughably small compared to the global supply. If the value of gold were defined in its current industrial uses it would be worth ~1-200$ per ounce.

Now you're making a different argument... you started off saying gold had NO intrinsic value, now you're just saying the price is inflated. The former is not true, the latter probably is.

 

[sixpackshaker]

I am still waiting for the "gold bubble" to burst. Fox has done a good job of getting poor people to buy gold at a high price, now it is time for it to fall. That happens with every bubble as soon as the everyday slob buys in, the market collapses.

 

[GasBandit]

I am still waiting for the "gold bubble" to burst. Fox has done a good job of getting poor people to buy gold at a high price, now it is time for it to fall. That happens with every bubble as soon as the everyday slob buys in, the market collapses.

The question becomes, will gold collapse before the US dollar does.

 

[AshburnerX]

All you need to ask yourself about the value of gold is this: If the economy were to collapse tomorrow, which would you rather have? A few bricks of gold or something else?

Basically, gold is only worth something because you don't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, where your going to sleep tonight, or what you are going to do come winter... or to be even clearer, because the people in charge don't have to worry about those things. As long as there are people who are comfortable, gold will have value... because it's a mark of their comfort. Having/wearing gold is announcing to the world "Look how powerful I am! I can waste my time/resources on this useless metal without going hungry! Come sleep with me! My genes are AWESOME!". People want to announce this and gold was simply the easiest/flashiest way of doing it for thousands of years.

This is the entire reason why jewelry was invented: To announce to others that you are worthy of fucking. Gold is valuable because it gets you laid. PERIOD.

 

[MindDetective]

Isn't all value extrinsic? That is, it is people that do the valuation of resources and objects. They perceive the value and their perception is influenced by social pressures. I imagine white rhino feces are extremely rare but that doesn't make it valuable. For it to become valuable, people must also want it, and that is not intrinsic to the item. Valuation is a social phenomenon.

 

[AshburnerX]

Isn't all value extrinsic? That is, it is people that do the valuation of resources and objects. They perceive the value and their perception is influenced by social pressures. I imagine white rhino feces are extremely rare but that doesn't make it valuable. For it to become valuable, people must also want it, and that is not intrinsic to the item. Valuation is a social phenomenon.

Mostly true, except for some things. For instance, a house has intrinsic value because you can live in it. How much it is worth may be subjective, but any house that you can live in is valuable BECAUSE you can live in it.

 

[MindDetective]

Mostly true, except for some things. For instance, a house has intrinsic value because you can live in it. How much it is worth may be subjective, but any house that you can live in is valuable BECAUSE you can live in it.

But the value there depends on the usefulness to the thing that needs it in that case. A house has no value to a whale, but great value to a human. I think you're closer to the mark, though.

 

[Adam]

Value as a function of use is the argument being made against gold having intrinsic properties. A house has intrinsic value because it meets a basic human necessity: shelter. Not because of its rarity. Food has intrinsic value in much the same fashion. Gold bricks won't feed you through a winter. Looking back to the industrial age, it wasn't gold that drove economies, it was skills. Gold will only ever be as valued as those with the gold want it to be.

 

[Norris]

Gold is only valuable because we live in a society (a worldwide one) that values it. In the event of a complete collapse of western civilization, everything going to pot, money means nothing anymore...it would be pretty fucking useless.

 

[MindDetective]

A house has intrinsic value because it meets a basic human necessity: shelter.

A house isn't intrinsically valuable either, since it's value is relative still to those that can use it. As an extreme example, you could have a tiny shack that cannot fit a big fat man. A child can still use it for shelter but the big fat man cannot. If the shack had intrinsic value, the big fat man would still want it. Since it is relative, the value is still extrinsic.

 

[Hailey Knight]

Gold is only valuable because we live in a society (a worldwide one) that values it. In the event of a complete collapse of western civilization, everything going to pot, money means nothing anymore...it would be pretty fucking useless.

Until people get out of a hunter-gatherer state; then they'll want a currency system rather than bartering. People criticized Land of the Dead for using money, but in that situation, there was a city and it needed to function regardless of what was going on outside its walls.

 

[Adam]

A house isn't intrinsically valuable either, since it's value is relative still to those that can use it. As an extreme example, you could have a tiny shack that cannot fit a big fat man. A child can still use it for shelter but the big fat man cannot. If the shack had intrinsic value, the big fat man would still want it. Since it is relative, the value is still extrinsic.

Your extreme example is absurd. In the absence of shelter, the fat man will still take the small shack. In the absence of food, thevhungry man will still eat Lima beans. Satisfying Base needs will always provide anvintrinsic value to an item

 

[AshburnerX]

Exactly. Even if the shack doesn't completely fulfill the need, it's still better than being out in the rain.

 

[Zappit]

It is scarce.
It is easily worked.
It is easily purified.
It is an amazing electrical conductor.
It has a very low reactance to other materials.
It doesn't tarnish/oxidize.

Plus, it's shiny. Most valuable metals and minerals either shine or sparkle when clean. People are like magpies that way. It sounds simple and stupid, but shine is how it got its value in the first place.

 

[figmentPez]

Circuitry (where the content is in the MICROGRAMS)

If gold weren't valued for jewelry and as currency, would the content still be in micrograms?

Basically, is the title of this thread a false dichotomy. Gold is valuable both for it's intrinsic worth and for it's perceived value. If gold suddenly were to only be valued for it's practical applications, and it's price per ounce somehow reset to reflect only it's application in electronics, I imagine that the amount used for circuits would go up significantly. That gold is used at all in circuits, while it's value is so inflated by it's history as currency, really speaks to it's intrinsic value to electronics.

 

[MindDetective]

Your extreme example is absurd. In the absence of shelter, the fat man will still take the small shack. In the absence of food, thevhungry man will still eat Lima beans. Satisfying Base needs will always provide anvintrinsic value to an item

I did preface that it was an extreme example. And if the fat man doesn't fit inside of the shack, it is useless to him. The important part is the "to him" part. It just happens that 99.99% of all houses would be useful to 99.99% of most people. That still doesn't make the value of the house intrinsic. (<---that part is the whole point)
Added at: 16:06

That gold is used at all in circuits, while it's value is so inflated by it's history as currency, really speaks to it's intrinsic value to electronics.

So before circuitry existed gold had no intrinsic value but when circuitry was invented it suddenly had it? It seems to me that your example is still speaking to an extrinsic value that is placed on gold. Value is a perception. It occurs in the mind, like colors and emotions.

 

[Norris]

Until people get out of a hunter-gatherer state; then they'll want a currency system rather than bartering. People criticized Land of the Dead for using money, but in that situation, there was a city and it needed to function regardless of what was going on outside its walls.

True. However, right now you still have allocate your monetary resources to obtain it and there is no way to predict how long you will be in a base survival phase. When you food (or a munition, or water, or medicine, etc) supply runs low, it will not matter if you have five milligrams or five kilograms of gold if no one has a use for it.

If a person truly believes that a day will come in the immediate future where the U.S. Dollar is completely worthless, the U.S. Government falls apart, and things go all fucking "Road Warrior" (which I don't, as a matter of fact such predictions remind of the 2012 and Rapture bullshit), then the idea that they would be spending their cash on a metal whose primary worth is "looks pretty" and "used in electronics" (neither of which are very practical applications after the end, and make no mistake that the U.S. completely falling apart would fuck up the rest of the world pretty badly) is just asinine to me.

 

[AshburnerX]

True. However, right now you still have allocate your monetary resources to obtain it and there is no way to predict how long you will be in a base survival phase. When you food (or a munition, or water, or medicine, etc) supply runs low, it will not matter if you have five milligrams or five kilograms of gold if no one has a use for it.

If a person truly believes that a day will come in the immediate future where the U.S. Dollar is completely worthless, the U.S. Government falls apart, and things go all fucking "Road Warrior" (which I don't, as a matter of fact such predictions remind of the 2012 and Rapture bullshit), then the idea that they would be spending their cash on a metal whose primary worth is "looks pretty" and "used in electronics" (neither of which are very practical applications after the end, and make no mistake that the U.S. completely falling apart would fuck up the rest of the world pretty badly) is just asinine to me.

This has always been my argument for people that buy it too. I'd rather have bullets, medicine, gas... a hundred other things. Gold would only be useful if you have some means to survive until the economy became large enough that you'd NEED a monetary system again.

 

[figmentPez]

So before circuitry existed gold had no intrinsic value but when circuitry was invented it suddenly had it? It seems to me that your example is still speaking to an extrinsic value that is placed on gold. Value is a perception. It occurs in the mind, like colors and emotions.

No, most of the practical uses for gold throughout history have been since supplanted by other metals. There is great value to gold's ability to be easily worked and refined.

Of course value is a perception, but that applies to anything of value. If we all value dying of starvation more than we value food, then not even an apple has any inherent worth. If you want to argue that practical application is just perception then you're just being stupid for the sake of making an argument.

 

[MindDetective]

Of course value is a perception, but that applies to anything of value.

Exactly.

If we all value dying of starvation more than we value food, then not even an apple has any inherent worth. If you want to argue that practical application is just perception then you're just being stupid for the sake of making an argument.

I am not arguing anything about practical application, just the value of the commodity. Practical application is a context through which people perceive the value. It isn't inherent in the commodity at all.

 

[figmentPez]

I am not arguing anything about practical application, just the value of the commodity. Practical application is a context through which people perceive the value. It isn't inherent in the commodity at all.

Bullshit. Gold has the inherent properties that allow it to have practical application.

Oranges are a commodity. They have the inherent property of being edible. The practical application of oranges being eaten is inherent to the commodity.

 

[MindDetective]

Bullshit. Gold has the inherent properties that allow it to have practical application.

Oranges are a commodity. They have the inherent property of being edible. The practical application of oranges being eaten is inherent to the commodity.

Of course gold has inherent properties. Value just isn't one of them. It is like meaning, it is relative to the experiences, the context in which they are used.

What about someone that is allergic to oranges? Should they still value the oranges because of their "intrinsic" value of being edible? Value. Is. Relative. That means it is extrinsic. It is purely in our heads.

 

[figmentPez]

What about someone that is allergic to oranges? Should they still value the oranges because of their "intrinsic" value of being edible? Value. Is. Relative. That means it is extrinsic. It is purely in our heads.

They can still buy and sell oranges to other humans. The lack of use to one person does not invalidate their inherent value to the world at large. Relative does not equal extrinsic. The position and motion of all mass is relative to other mass, hover that does not mean that energy is an extrinsic value that is only in our heads.

 

[MindDetective]

They can still buy and sell oranges to other humans.

A social phenomenon, not a physical property of the orange.

The lack of use to one person does not invalidate their inherent value to the world at large. Relative does not equal extrinsic. The position and motion of all mass is relative to other mass, hover that does not mean that energy is an extrinsic value that is only in our heads.

Getting into semantics here. We're definitely not talking about relativistic physics. We're talking about how the utility of the commodity is relative to the organism using it. This means that the property is not universally valuable but relative to each each organism that is doing the valuing. While you can try and cram value into the commodity itself and explain the commodity as valuable, it is not very parsimonious to do so, since you have to explain how the value comes and goes with each organism. It is really only the organism (usually us) that are doing the valuing. If we did not exist, the value would not either.

 

[AshburnerX]

The lack of use to one person does not invalidate their inherent value to the world at large. Relative does not equal extrinsic.

This is the important thing. Just because you can't use a resource does not mean that it loses value. As long as you can trade it for something you can use, it retains it's inherent value. This is the entire basis for a barter based economy.

If we did not exist, the value would not either.

If we did not exist, another life form would be competing for the same resources instead. An apple has value whether it is possessed by a man or by a beast, especially considering the fate of the apple is still the same.

Who desires a resource is irrelevant to the inherent value of the resource, as long as said resource can be used by the one who desires it.

 

[MindDetective]

This is the important thing. Just because you can't use a resource does not mean that it loses value. As long as you can trade it for something you can use, it retains it's inherent value. This is the entire basis for a barter based economy.

Again, this is a social phenomenon. You say yourself that it is dependent on your ability to trade the item. If you are on a desert island with a grove of orange trees and you allergic to oranges, they are valueless to you. You canot trade them and you cannot eat them. It makes very little sense to say that the oranges suddenly do not have value any more. And no castaway would begin hoarding oranges they could do nothing with. Valuation is social and entirely dependent on the relationship between the organism that values the commodity and the commodity being valued, not in the commodity itself.