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Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
wraith808:
Just because someone is attracted to something doesn't define an intrinsic value. I think intrinsic value is pretty much universally taken to be characterized in terms of the value that something has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or “in its own right.” Gold has no value in and of itself, other than as you say as a shiny bauble. Therefore, gold has no intrinsic value.
The concept of the intrinsic value of gold is more related to the belief that gold is a safe investment vehicle is based on the presumption that a rare shiny yellow metal has intangible value because it has been used as a store of value and a commodity currency in the past. While this holds today, that does not mean that in the future, gold will be regarded as a "precious metal."
With that in mind, the fundamental intrinsic value of gold, in my opinion, is equivalent to the demand for gold in productive applications. Not as jewelry, but in production- the same yardstick that you are using in bitcoin vs. the electricity used. While it is true, as you say, that gold can and is used in electronics, that is not the store placed on its value. Indeed, if that was the only thing that gold was useful for, it would be as valuable as other metal materials used for the same purpose at the same rarity, especially as the reserve would be larger as jewelry applications would not compete with the use in productive applications.
As such, if you take away the perceived value because of shiny baubles, there is not much in the way of intrinsic value in gold. It's value is what people see it as.
tomos:
Yeah, it's getting down to what *is* money - and what do we want money to be like. Maybe even what do we want the world to be like. When you think about it, once we're fed, clothed and have a roof over our heads, we as a society can chose to do anything we want after that. I know that many people dont get beyond working to get enough for those basics. There are people who argue that fiat money causes scarcity. I'm not expert enough to know if that's true. But I do know (look at Ireland) that where it screws up, and there's a shortage of money, you are then screwed - you might be able to work, there might be people who would like you to work for them, but without the money nothing works. (There are other ways to allow people to work i.e. without fiat money, but that's moving onto another topic I think.)
I dont know how Bitcoin as a currency will affect any of this - not much really I suspect. But if it became popular/usable as a currency - it might, in & of itself, be the regulation for the money-system that the governments these days are failing to implement.
eleman:
Just because someone is attracted to something doesn't define an intrinsic value. I think intrinsic value is pretty much universally taken to be characterized in terms of the value that something has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or “in its own right.” Gold has no value in and of itself, other than as you say as a shiny bauble. Therefore, gold has no intrinsic value.
-wraith808 (January 24, 2014, 12:46 AM)
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I wouldn't discount the shine as a source of value. Value is defined as the likelihood to get something else in return. I could imagine shiny rocks buying services to some caveman in a cave bordello. In other words you could use it in barter, even before the invention of money. I can't imagine that for random strings of numbers.
And I wouldn't discount jewelry as a functional use. People like it, so it is valuable. In your logic, aesthetical choices do not deserve value, and for instance, you would not pay extra for a fancy house paint color, given limewash is cheaper, and does the bare function of keeping the walls clean. But we do pay extra to paint our house walls green, pink, champagne etc. don't we? Because our sense of aesthetics imposes the function, hence the value. Saying electronics count as a legitimate use, but jewelry doesn't isn't very consistent.
So, gold is valuable in and of itself. Perhaps not the value it fetches today, as it is also considered as a safe investment instrument as you mention, but still some. Say it would command $4 per gram, rather than today's price of $40. But it would command "a price" nonetheless.
What would Bitcoin hashes go for, if it weren't for the implicit agreement that they are a medium of exchange?
tomos:
^ I think you're getting bogged down here eleman:
Gold has some value based on it's use industrially and on it's use in jewellery. So, moving on - where does that leave us, money, the dollar, and bitcoin?
Off the top of my head, things of value are: food, your time, things we make that other people want. If we only use things of actual value for trading, we will have to revert to barter :-/
What would Bitcoin hashes go for, if it weren't for the implicit agreement that they are a medium of exchange?
-eleman (January 24, 2014, 03:44 AM)
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the same as todays dollar - and all other money I know of. Not an argument against Bitcoin, unless you also use it as an argument against money as we know it today.
eleman:
What would Bitcoin hashes go for, if it weren't for the implicit agreement that they are a medium of exchange?
-eleman (January 24, 2014, 03:44 AM)
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the same as todays dollar - and all other money I know of. Not an argument against Bitcoin, unless you also use it as an argument against money as we know it today.
-tomos (January 24, 2014, 06:40 AM)
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Well, I'd also raise the same argument against the dollar, or peso, or lira, or euro, whatever, if it did needlessly contribute to global warming. Sure they do (dead trees), but not at the scale applicable to bitcoin mining I reckon.
Does someone have solid statistics on this? i.e. you get x dollars worth of bitcoins after burning y dollars worth of electricity on a rig that cost z dollars to build.
That would really bring our discussion to some solid footing here.
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