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Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Last post by Renegade on October 08, 2012, 07:24 AM »Precious metals only have an intrinsic value within a system too. They're not directly consumable. They need to be refined, assayed, and agreed upon by whomever. They need both a market and an exchange before they become valued. So I'd like suggest they don't have much 'intrinsic' value outside of the society that assigns such value to them. And once you get outside a technological society, the far more common metals and alloys (iron and steel) are much more valuable (i.e. useful and usable) than the more precious variety which are used in less advanced societies primarily for decoration - if they are used at all.
Look at the early days of the Russian Revolution. Nobles were fleeing and bartering gold, jewels, and other precious objects for basic commodities such as food - and half the time having their offers refused. "You can't eat gold" as the saying goes.-40hz (October 08, 2012, 06:24 AM)
Not so sure about that. You hit a few points - precious, system, and technological society.
Outside of a technological society, silver still cannot be replaced by other metals as an antibiotic/disinfectant. But, you'd have to know that, which kind of makes the use anachronistic.
Iron and copper certainly are far more useful than gold or other precious metals for practical, everyday life.
But no matter what system or level of technology, any metal is still more useful than an arrangement of a few electrons (a charge or whatever - more than one way to skin the cat here) that can store a single number, like for Bitcoin (or bank accounts). Those few electrons in themselves really have no value that can compare with a nice sledge hammer.
Metals simply are fantastic for tools, even if you're on a deserted island. And there, they still have value, entirely outside of any system or society.
I think that the "deserted island" is a good measure for the intrinsic value of something. i.e. Is it useful in and of itself. Metals fill that quite well, though precious metals, not so much as iron, copper, etc. The "deserted island" nicely measures the utility of something, and not what people believe about it, e.g. fiat currencies.
But --- getting back into a technological society --- precious metals absolutely have intrinsic value still. The average car has a few hundred dollars of platinum in it, used for functional purposes because platinum is good at doing some things.
Similarly, silver has countless uses from clothing to semiconductors and solar panels. Silver is used extensively in manufacturing.
So, if you're on a deserted island, and you have solar panels to power your, well, whatever - doesn't matter - blenders and fridges maybe - and then magically all the silver disappeared, you'd be left without power. (Same goes for gold in electronics, etc. etc.)
Maybe not that simple, but I'm trying to get at the idea that irrespective of any kind of societal value placed on a precious metal, they still have practical uses that "belief" can't replace. I say "belief", because that's what "powers" fiat currencies like the US dollar or bitcoin or whatever.
Now, perhaps gold (or others) are overvalued now, but none of that diminishes its suitability to perform certain tasks/functions, and those tasks/functions are entirely independent of any society as they are merely capacities to do something - a potential if you will.
Have we hit a red herring, or are we talking about the same thing when we say "intrinsic value"?
(1:45) 
Tomorrow? Cuba maybe? I bet they have a darn good baseball pitcher delivery system too. 
