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Re:Ending Bitcoin Support by CPLX on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @02:51PM (#16216951)
Gold has "real" demand though in jewelry. It's distributed and longstanding and it has utility. People wear it and use it in real life and value it and wish to keep it in order to look at it and possess it.

That's as tangible as anything else. Nobody would say that there's no demand for musical instruments, or baseballs, because they are optional parts of life that aren't food or shelter.

Gold has intrinsic value in part because people seem to intrinsically like it for what it actually is, not just it's utility in exchange. That's fundamentally different.

Re:Ending Bitcoin Support by nerfhammer on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @03:27PM (#16217327)
the modifier "intrinsic" doesn't add anything though. "people intrinsically like" --> "people like"; "gold is intrinsically valued" --> "gold is valued".

"intrinsic" seems to imply an innate persistence despite not being able to justify such innateness, just empirical persistence. It just implies things that are arguably not justifiable needlessly. gold has been persistently valuable. The universe doesn't give it an innate value.

Re:Ending Bitcoin Support by marshray on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @03:59PM (#16217630)
'Intrinsic' here means that the property of the object remains even if people's preferences and culture change. Gold's utility for electronic applications is a fundamental property of the number of atoms in its nucleus, whereas there have been cultures that had it readily available yet didn't find it particularly desirable for jewelry.
Re:Ending Bitcoin Support by CPLX on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @05:37PM (#16218527)
That's nonsense. People's long term interest in electronics is far more unproven and fleeting at this point than their interest in gold.

Seeing as how cultures that considered gold a highly valued item developed independently in Europe and uncontacted pre-Columbian America, and the preference remains global today, there's clearly something durable about this concept.

Re:Ending Bitcoin Support by nerfhammer on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @12:05AM (#16220474)
gold has intrinsic physical properties, yes. that does not imply a particular intrinsic value to humans relative to other things humans could be exchanging things for.

you could say that the reasons for valuing gold probably aren't going to go away anytime soon as far as anyone can guess. though even then, the market value of gold has fluctuated by a factor of like 10 in recent history as the durable abstract reasons for wanting it have not apparently changed as much. did anything intrinsic about gold change from 1980-1981, when the price crashed 82%?

Re:Ending Bitcoin Support by masklinn on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @03:00PM (#16217058)
marshray never denied any of that, they just pointed out that the intrinsic value of gold is significantly lower than their valuation.
Re:Ending Bitcoin Support by ricardobeat on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @03:31PM (#16217361)
Being valued by people 'liking it' is exactly the opposite of _intrinsic value_.