• teft@startrek.website
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    7 months ago

    What value does gold have other than it doesn’t rust and it looks pretty?

    It’s the same thing essentially. Latinum looks pretty and can’t be replicated therefore it’s a good currency.

    • Bonehead@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      Gold is used in a variety of applications. You’re likely holding a device filled with gold right now. Even before the computer revolution, is was still used in medical applications. There are tons of uses for gold that don’t involve currency.

      • teft@startrek.website
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        7 months ago

        Yes it does have applications nowadays but when gold was used as a monetary store we didn’t have electronics. Gold was mainly used because it is shiny, easily workable, rare, and never corroded.

        • Bonehead@kbin.social
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          7 months ago

          It was shiny, easily workable, and didn’t turn your skin green. As a jewelry metal, it was much more valuable than as a currency. It had uses other than just money…

      • Troy@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        The microgram of gold in my phone pales in comparison to the gold used in jewellery or hoarded.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      7 months ago

      You missed a big advantage of gold: for most of human history, gold was the densest material known to man by a wide margin, making it very easy to verify that a piece of purported gold is real.