• MrNesser@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    The imaginary money you invested in gold is worthless if civilization collapsed, so it’s in the rich person’s interests to keep things going so they can pull that investment back.

    It’s more likely we are heading to another US recession, hopefully not as bad as the 1930s

    • HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca
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      1 hour ago

      If only there was a digital version of gold, that had a permanent record of everyone’s ownership right back to the first nugget of gold, that would be untouchable/secure in a collapse/near collapse scenario. Something that you could bring with you wherever you go in the world, yet no need to physically bring anything with you.

      Man I would be investing in that so hard right now.

      • titanicx@lemmy.zip
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        51 minutes ago

        You mean Bitcoin, the imaginary thing that literally could be destroyed at any moment in time and the rich people use to manipulate their prices and game more money all the time? You mean that type of thing? Honestly gold is way better than investing in that.

        • zqrm@lemmy.world
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          31 minutes ago

          Destroying Bitcoin would mean destroying the internet. Money will be the least of your problems when that happens. The price of Bitcoin being manipulated is not something that is inherent to Bitcoin. Anything that gets big enough will attract the big boys and they will try to manipulate anything for a little gain. Bitcoin being transparent, unmanipulatable and portable actually makes it better than gold though.

        • HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca
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          35 minutes ago

          Yes lol. But I’m way past the point that people’s opinions of it have any bearing on my decisions.

          I’ve had this conversation a million times. You don’t understand Bitcoin, and that’s ok, I don’t mean it as an insult… it’s complicated. I can say that with 100% certainty based on your comments. This just means that there is more for me, at a cheaper price.

          Yes there is manipulation going on, you’re not wrong. But where you are veering off track is where you throw out the concept because of it.

          Money is manupulated. Constantly. That’s what happens with money. Bitcoin is no different.

          Do you understand that Bitcoin has been around for 16 years, has never had an error or security breach (all cases of losing money are due to malicious actors or careless users), can send billions of dollars across the world for literal pennies, has over a TRILLUON dollars of market cap.

          Please don’t get stuck in the early days mindset. If Bitcoin was “destroyable” it would have happened long ago, as the threat it poses to fiat based sovereign currencies is huge.

          I know I’m not changing any minds, but you can’t say you didn’t have the opportunity. You’re standing in your own way.

          Gold is good to invest in too now though! No shade on anyone who does that, just missing a better opportunity.

      • QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works
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        9 minutes ago

        That thing sounds like it needs a functioning internet and communications system. If society collapses I wouldn’t bet on the blockchain being usable.

    • thepompe@ttrpg.network
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      9 hours ago

      I’m sorry, what? Gold has value regardless of if there’s a government backing it or not. That’s the entire point of investing in it, as a buffer for when fiat loses its value.

      • ranzispa@mander.xyz
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        5 hours ago

        The value of gold lies in the fact that other men may be disposed to work their ass off in order to have some shiny things to gift to women in order to have sex. As you can imagine, the power of gold amongst married couples drastically decreases.

        Besides this… History shows humans always gave value to gold. For some reason we got very used into associating gold with value. As such, it is probably something good to have if economy collapses. But it doesn’t really matter if society collapsed.

        • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 hours ago

          Gold is supposed to represent something finite that’s hard to dig out of the ground. It’s like the antithesis of fiat currency that way. i think of it like a hedge against the dollar like with some cryptos. Thatt said I only think US civilization would collapse while the rest of the world moves on or divvies up its corpse.

          • ranzispa@mander.xyz
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            4 hours ago

            That is valid for many other resources: iron, silicon, carbon, carrots whatever. Gold has always been attributed some special value, throughout history. That is ok. I don’t think US civilization is going to collapse, why would you think that?

            • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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              1 hour ago

              Gold has always been valued because it has some important attributes that few, if any, other substances have.

              It won’t tarnish or oxidize, so it will look just as shiny and beautiful a thousand years from now.

              It is extremely malleable, easily crafted into any shape. It can be hammered thin enough to be a foil, or drawn into a wire as thin as a human hair.

              It has a relatively low melting point, making it easy to cast.

              It is extremely conductive, and is the conductive material of choice when price is no object.

              There are other unique properties, but the point is that much of Gold’s value derives from being significantly, even uniquely, different from most other substances, giving it an intrinsic value beyond its monetary value.

              • ranzispa@mander.xyz
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                26 minutes ago

                How many things relevant in your life are made out of gold? I guess jewellery, computer and phone. Real things that matter to people the most are completely unrelated to gold.

                The fact that it is a material that does not degrade makes it a good choice as a vector for value. It is good to be used as money for that reason. If you use iron as money it will eventually rust out and leave you broke.

                The other properties of gold are quite irrelevant to the fact that it has been selected (over and over again through history) as a value vector.

            • SippyCup@lemmy.ml
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              1 hour ago

              Gold as a unit of currency is only about 2500 years old. Prior to that it was used heavily in jewelry and adornments. Probably because it’s not good for much else and it happens to be fantastic as a jewelry material. It’s shiney, doesn’t tarnish, and is easy to work with hand tools.

              The association with wealth probably came about as a result of being associated with expensive jewelry.

              To be clear, modern historians do not look for piles of gold to determine relatively how wealthy a society was. They look at their ability to produce grain and other things that facilitated trade. Because gold is only valuable as a mechanism to facilitate trade. To a civilization more worried about feeding itself than foreign luxuries, it’s quite worthless.

            • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 hours ago

              The very article linked to this post talks about civilizational collapse of the US similar to the Roman republic.

              Turchin doesn’t track gold but he does track political and societal instability. He believes America has entered what he calls a “revolutionary situation,” where long-running systemic stress can no longer be contained. “It’s not a prophecy,” he said. “It’s modeling feedback loops that repeat with alarming regularity.”

        • Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de
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          4 hours ago

          Jup, many drugs have a market price similar to gold, so better invest into that, they can always be sold…

          (Di$claimer: The information provided is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or advising on drug trafficking. No guarantee is given regarding the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the content. Any investment decisions are made at your own risk. The author assumes no liability for financial losses or other damages resulting from the use of this information.)

      • Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
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        9 hours ago

        What value? Can’t eat it, makes shitty tools. It’s shiny, but I’m not going to trade ny potatoes for shiny in a survival situation.

        You can starve sitting on a pile of gold.

        For gold to be valuable you still need social stability.

        • Danquebec@sh.itjust.works
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          3 hours ago

          It’s more for when things have settled down a bit. Imagine you’re leading a group of people who secured a good territory and you’re growing more potatoes than you need. You may want jewelry made of gold to show how powerful and prosperous you are, both to your followers and to those outside. And you can give gold to particularily important followers, and to other leaders, in a very public ceremony, to show everyone that those leaders are beneath you.

          • Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
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            3 hours ago

            Totally. I was more commenting on the theory of gold having this magical inherent objective value. Which it doesn’t, it’s a commodity like any other.

            Honestly as a value store, land is probably better.

      • Legianus@programming.dev
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        9 hours ago

        He means regular money would be worthless as well as stocks and such. And as rich people own gold, but own much more of the other, he argues they would like to avoid collapse.

        However, I don’t think they really can. Also, if it comes to recession very rich people tend to profit.