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Re:South Korean prosecutors say Do Kwon 'obviously on the ru... by timmytokyo on Monday September 19, 2022 @01:49PM (#32901546)
Exactly. There are plenty of other precious metals that could have been used for the same purposes as gold (e.g., platinum, palladium, iridium). But they aren't. For various historical reasons.
Re:South Korean prosecutors say Do Kwon 'obviously on the ru... by sulcate on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @04:11AM (#32909002)
But elements are not interchangable and have important differences in properties, difficulties in refining, and workability.

Gold is tremendously useful for many applications and I believe all that you mentioned are brittle in comparison. I believe it's also rarer than a few on that list.

Mainly, I've heard a few people in my life contend that we only arbitrarily decided that gold has a use, or that it's mostly hype. I don't think that's the full case. It's workable, useful, biocompatible, profitability extractable, and obviously stunningly pretty. Not so much just culturally significant just on a whim or something, it's useful.