And some others saw the warning signs a long while ago. I’m glad that some more of the people are finally catching up.
Welcome to the party, pals!
You know, everyone acts like an economic collapse would create an apocalypse world and just be over. Technology doesn’t just go away. Infrastructure doesn’t just go away. We’re looking at a potential world conflict that sees the death and birth of multiple global powers. Think Rome but with nukes and shit. Yeah it’s bad in the post nuclear world. We can’t predict how bad it will actually be especially with climate shit creeping up but the idea that new governments won’t pop up is silly. Really it’s kind of hopeful in a way.
Welcome to the shifting of hegemony
The thing is most of my gold (i.e. ~20% of my portfolio) is as ETFs. Good luck to me using that when civilisation collapses, if it does (I don’t think that’s happening in the shape and form as it sounds from this article). But then it was not likely at all I would be able to safeguard that in the physical gold form either in that perceived atmosphere of tyranny and mayhem, so that’s there.
One could, however, look to reduce or balance (whatever you wanna call it) USD exposure.
This is why I started hoarding bottle caps.
Also learning how to grow rootcrops.
Rooftop rootcrops, that’s where it’s at.
*American civilisational collapse
America has been the most dominant world-wide force in 6 decades. If it collapses, it’s doing a lot of damage, taking other civilizations with it.
I don’t disagree with you, that’s why it’s important for many countries to decouple to minimise the potential aftershock. The question is if politicians in respective countries have the will to do so.
Which will also hasten it’s fall.
Worst case scenario is a World War III. But the lesser worst case scenario is that the rest of the world will tie themselves to China for economic security that the US has dropped. Maybe the more ideal situation is a multipolar world but with more cooperation and getting used to without US as the major economy.
Mainland Chinese industry coupled with Russian mineral resources.
US-American.
Unfortunately most the so-called west is toast when the US fails. From Military to Cloud all US-dominated.
Europe is slowly decoupling from US tech, fortunately.
Gold is worth more for the same reason stocks are worth more.
The GOP is destroying the dollar.
I work in the mining industry and all of my coworkers are so excited about the price of gold and other precious metals hitting record highs. They say that this will result in all of us becoming wealthy. Bless their hearts…
Their bosses, you’d think the know the difference.
the pollutants from mining gold got into thier heads.
You would think that but no, most of the management is the same. All are happily excited about all the things they are doing to buy. There are a handful of people who are going to be retiring within a year and they are all excited too. One of the older employees has medical issues and requires medication and within the last couple of months he has been unable to get his medication and has had a few moments where he has been hospitalized as a result. And he blames “woke” and “trans liberals” for the problems. The next 4-6 months are going to be interesting to see.
India’s families all run off physical gold.
My maga mom has been trying to get me to buy silver for the last few months and I keep telling her if society ended silver isn’t gonna be worth anything. She got mad and changed the subject 😅
it would be things like CLEAN WATER, crops, and non-perishable foods. just think about the “200” episode of american dad, roger ended civilization when he was bombarded by particles in an acclerators. everyone either became a cannibal or fled/roam around to gather resources for food/security(while trying to avoid getting eaten by cannibals.
If you’d bought silver (or silver ETFs) a few months ago you would have made a whole bunch of money, and society hasn’t ended yet.
if society ended silver isn’t gonna be worth anything
i doubt that.
You cant eat metal.
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Really outing yourself as not understanding the argument.
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They are also aware that you can’t eat dollars.
Also, look into how quoting stuff works.
The alternatives are obvious, because it’s items of actual value, like tools, ammo, seeds. Things that can be traded with/for.
Out of all dysopian currencies, I see Metro’s bullet currencies as being the most accurate. I had a tough time planning ahead on whether to sell or hoard cause down that tunnel be death.
You can take gold with you when you flee to another country. Most of them get a bit pissy when you show up with ammo.
A very useful currency for a collapse at least in the early days is gonna be cigarettes
cigarettes, whiskey, and 9mm.
I am figuring K-Cups might be a currency as well, for those who have a caffeine addiction like myself.
Yup 100%
stupid fuckers, buy bottlecaps
My girlfriend often laughs at my bottle cap collection. But I tell her that when the apocalypse comes I’ll be the one laughing!
This is great news, my Beanie Baby collection is about to bounce back.
The imaginary money you invested in gold is worthless if civilization collapsed, so it’s in the rich person’s interests to keep things going so they can pull that investment back.
It’s more likely we are heading to another US recession, hopefully not as bad as the 1930s
If only there was a digital version of gold, that had a permanent record of everyone’s ownership right back to the first nugget of gold, that would be untouchable/secure in a collapse/near collapse scenario. Something that you could bring with you wherever you go in the world, yet no need to physically bring anything with you.
Man I would be investing in that so hard right now.
Yes, the thing that doesn’t work in case of an internet or power outage. Yeah, that’s a good idea to use in societal collapse.
You mean Bitcoin, the imaginary thing that literally could be destroyed at any moment in time and the rich people use to manipulate their prices and game more money all the time? You mean that type of thing? Honestly gold is way better than investing in that.
Destroying Bitcoin would mean destroying the internet. Money will be the least of your problems when that happens. The price of Bitcoin being manipulated is not something that is inherent to Bitcoin. Anything that gets big enough will attract the big boys and they will try to manipulate anything for a little gain. Bitcoin being transparent, unmanipulatable and portable actually makes it better than gold though.
Major internet outages and blackouts, including across entire countries and continents, happen all the time. Your crypto is worthless numbers on a ledger when that happens.
🤣 every once in a while I read an extra special comment that makes me want to go buy more. This is definitely one of them.
Reads like a bot comment.
Sorry to disappoint!
What? we could easily keep the internet and have no crypto
the only thing that cryptocurrency lacks IMO is inherent value. there needs to be real use-cases for something to have value, at least in my imagination. i fail to see the use-case in cryptocurrency.
edit: Actually, there are some nice use-cases. like, iirc, “doge” uses an algorithm for mining that produces protein-folding-predictions as a side-result, which is useful in biochemistry and molecular biology, which could be used for new drugs for medicine.
Yes lol. But I’m way past the point that people’s opinions of it have any bearing on my decisions.
I’ve had this conversation a million times. You don’t understand Bitcoin, and that’s ok, I don’t mean it as an insult… it’s complicated. I can say that with 100% certainty based on your comments. This just means that there is more for me, at a cheaper price.
Yes there is manipulation going on, you’re not wrong. But where you are veering off track is where you throw out the concept because of it.
Money is manupulated. Constantly. That’s what happens with money. Bitcoin is no different.
Do you understand that Bitcoin has been around for 16 years, has never had an error or security breach (all cases of losing money are due to malicious actors or careless users), can send billions of dollars across the world for literal pennies, has over a TRILLUON dollars of market cap.
Please don’t get stuck in the early days mindset. If Bitcoin was “destroyable” it would have happened long ago, as the threat it poses to fiat based sovereign currencies is huge.
I know I’m not changing any minds, but you can’t say you didn’t have the opportunity. You’re standing in your own way.
Gold is good to invest in too now though! No shade on anyone who does that, just missing a better opportunity.
Bitcoin has been around for 16 years, has never had an error or security breach (all cases of losing money are due to malicious actors or careless users)
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposures
Give me one, single example, just one, of anyone who lost Bitcoin due to an error or issue with the blockchain. Just one please, thank you.
Moving the goal posts.
If this is really your perspective then tone down the condescension. BTC is only viable due to the poor policies of the Trump administration.
Gold has utility. BTC has no usability beyond being a cryptocurrency. I can make things with gold.
Not only that but Bitcoin is very limited as far as where you can spend it not a lot of places take it in order to actually utilize it for the most part you have to trade that in for whatever current value it may be whether it’s $100 or $50,000 depending on how much the price has been manipulated at this point. And just like gold it’s volatile it’s going to all depend on what an arbitrary amount set is worth. And with more regulation Bitcoin becomes more and more useless as far as currency goes. I love Bitcoin I love crypto in general however I also realize how limited it is once you actually try to utilize it any sort of way. If somebody says hey I’m using it for my savings account and then next week that point is worthless because you can’t catch then and nobody’s willing to give you the actual money for it Cool you got a bunch of zeros and ones that are in your name and marked on a ledger someplace.
Gold has utility
not really. IMHO gold is about as useful as aluminum or any other metal, i.e. $10/kg would be justified, but not $70k/kg, which it currently is.
like, $10/kg is real usefulness, the remaining $69990/kg are people’s irrational belief that gold is valuable somehow.
Is there any value in being the hardest form of money in existence, objectively 🧐🧐🧐
Edit: the condescension is helpful in the long run. People hate Bitcoin/hate people who invest in Bitcoin are very unlikely to invest in Bitcoin. Therefore more for me, again!
Lol ok. Enjoy bud.
Yes, it is durable, portable and compact. We can all agree on the fact you can make things with it.
Is there any value in something that holds no real utility or real value?
There is tons of utility! Intrinsic value, not like gold no…but utility, absolutely.
Do you understand that Bitcoin has been around for 16 years, has never had an error or security breach (all cases of losing money are due to malicious actors or careless users), can send billions of dollars across the world for literal pennies, has over a TRILLUON dollars of market cap.
and you’re the one saying others don’t understand Bitcoin. smh.
Please, elaborate
Nah, you’ve refused to elaborate for anyone else in this thread, why would I explain myself for you? You’re literally lying about being a core Bitcoin dev, it’s pointless to even try to have a rational discussion with you. Goodbye!
Lol that’s my point. All of you are bullshitting about understanding Bitcoin, so I’ll bullshit too.
0% chance any of you grumpy yokels could explain how it works. 0% The only people I’ve ever met in my life who could actually explain how it works were investors and enthusiasts.
Every. Single. Person. I’ve ever met online or off who shit talks Bitcoin has never once been able to explain how it works. Because you can’t! If you could, you’d be singing a totally different tune.
Yeah yeah you actually know and you’ve studied it for 35 years and only you have figured out it’s a big scam and yada yada. I’ve seen this for almost a decade now.
Today’s not the day I meet the first person to understand Bitcoin and argue against it.
Comments like this must go so hard if you’re stupid.
Dunning-Kruger strikes again.
That thing sounds like it needs a functioning internet and communications system. If society collapses I wouldn’t bet on the blockchain being usable.
And gold? A huge percentage of which people hold non-physically?
It’s almost like you can come up with arguments that NOTHING is safe without a functioning internet and communications system.
So…what’s the difference here?
Gold can exist physically, cryptocurrency cannot.
So it’s made of fairy dust, got it
Do most people have bars of gold sitting around? No. Do most people have gold jewelry like wedding rings and earrings and necklaces? Yes. Can those bars of gold sitting in banks be easily melted down into coins in the event of a society collapse? Yes. Can Bitcoin be usable at all without internet and power? No.
Hmmmm, so in this collapse scenario, there’s no internet or electricity, but somehow the infrastructure for melting gold, and the manufacture of things that require gold, just…keeps on ticking?
Umm… fire?
You think if we go back to unga bunga times we’re just going to melt down gold and start trading with each other?
That level of apocalypae and we will have way bigger and more urgent problems than trying to reimplement the gold standard in a world without electricity or internet.
Like yes, fire, yeah that’s correct it melts gold. But you really think that’s a strong argument for investing in gold over bitcoin?
My sweet summer child. These things worked before the internet and will work without the internet.
Priceless 🤣
I have gold and can transport it. We traded gold before we had an international banking structure. We don’t need electricity or the internet for the trade in gold.
Crypto has no utility. It cannot be transported as it isn’t a physical asset. It cannot be used for any other purpose eg you can’t make a hat out of BTC or ETH. Gold and crypto are not the same when it comes to their usability as a currency.
No they’re not the same, you’re correct. You’re totally incorrect that it has no utility. You honestly just don’t understand how it actually works. I really, strongly suggest understanding
I have spent 15 years following crypto. I promise you that I know how it works. The fact is the fanboys are the ones who are mistaken as so much of that scene is built by people who either know fuckall about currency policy or are scammers.
Just to hold you accountable, kindly give me a brief explanation of how bitcoin works. If you know how it works, you should be able to explain it, and if you use Google to explain it for you, you’ll defeat your own argument. So please, try if you don’t mind?
Objectively false
I’m sorry, what? Gold has value regardless of if there’s a government backing it or not. That’s the entire point of investing in it, as a buffer for when fiat loses its value.
That’s the general idea, yeah. But gold investments are just a kind of construct where you legally own a certain amount of gold. Wether anyone respects your right of ownership when civilization collapses… we’ll see about that.
Brb buying bulits and grain
Now this guy has a much better idea of what’s going on.
The rest of you are kinda stupid and that also explains why you just try to fit in with the crowd.
There’s truth to both sides, sir. It’s true that there’s no 100% safe investment and it’s also true that investing in gold can shield you from losses in companies and inflation.
The value of gold lies in the fact that other men may be disposed to work their ass off in order to have some shiny things to gift to women in order to have sex. As you can imagine, the power of gold amongst married couples drastically decreases.
Besides this… History shows humans always gave value to gold. For some reason we got very used into associating gold with value. As such, it is probably something good to have if economy collapses. But it doesn’t really matter if society collapsed.
Gold is supposed to represent something finite that’s hard to dig out of the ground. It’s like the antithesis of fiat currency that way. i think of it like a hedge against the dollar like with some cryptos. That said I only think US civilization would collapse while the rest of the world moves on or divvies up its corpse.
That is valid for many other resources: iron, silicon, carbon, carrots whatever. Gold has always been attributed some special value, throughout history. That is ok. I don’t think US civilization is going to collapse, why would you think that?
Gold has always been valued because it has some important attributes that few, if any, other substances have.
It won’t tarnish or oxidize, so it will look just as shiny and beautiful a thousand years from now.
It is extremely malleable, easily crafted into any shape. It can be hammered thin enough to be a foil, or drawn into a wire as thin as a human hair.
It has a relatively low melting point, making it easy to cast.
It is extremely conductive, and is the conductive material of choice when price is no object.
There are other unique properties, but the point is that much of Gold’s value derives from being significantly, even uniquely, different from most other substances, giving it an intrinsic value beyond its monetary value.
How many things relevant in your life are made out of gold? I guess jewellery, computer and phone. Real things that matter to people the most are completely unrelated to gold.
The fact that it is a material that does not degrade makes it a good choice as a vector for value. It is good to be used as money for that reason. If you use iron as money it will eventually rust out and leave you broke.
The other properties of gold are quite irrelevant to the fact that it has been selected (over and over again through history) as a value vector.
seeing as how it’s used in corrosion-resistant connectors in things like planes’ jet engines and transit systems, probably also in many of the electrical systems keeping every city on the planet running, I’d say that gold is quite important to society continuing to function.
My computer and my phone are preeeeeeeeeetty important to my life, though.
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… Which is why historically it is used as currency… kinda burying the lede there.
Bottle caps (fallout franchise), cigarettes, ramen packets (prison), sea shells (aka wampun in some Native American Cultures), salt (early scarcity) and gold are “valuable” because they are used as currency, where they are given value in excess of their actual ability to be used.
These attributes are not specific to gold alone, many other metals, jewels also share the same attributes of being able to used as currency due to their ease of division, relative scarcity and not rot aka “ability to store value” as the egg heads say.
Suffice to say, gold isn’t valuable because it is gold (I can eat a ramen packets, smoke a cigarette) it isn’t valuable because it is backed by. the government (we explicitly use it because it isn’t fiat) but rather it is valuable because IT WAS MONEY, because carrying 500 cheese wheels isn’t a thing irl.
I can point you to further reading, but just about all MacroEcon text books will cover this in the first chapter.
I was understand ALL of that, but the point is that Gold carries a significant value over and above its monetary value, and that’s part of the reason that it has remained among the most desirable, and most popular, precious metals throughout history.
The very article linked to this post talks about civilizational collapse of the US similar to the Roman republic.
Turchin doesn’t track gold but he does track political and societal instability. He believes America has entered what he calls a “revolutionary situation,” where long-running systemic stress can no longer be contained. “It’s not a prophecy,” he said. “It’s modeling feedback loops that repeat with alarming regularity.”
Gold as a unit of currency is only about 2500 years old. Prior to that it was used heavily in jewelry and adornments. Probably because it’s not good for much else and it happens to be fantastic as a jewelry material. It’s shiney, doesn’t tarnish, and is easy to work with hand tools.
The association with wealth probably came about as a result of being associated with expensive jewelry.
To be clear, modern historians do not look for piles of gold to determine relatively how wealthy a society was. They look at their ability to produce grain and other things that facilitated trade. Because gold is only valuable as a mechanism to facilitate trade. To a civilization more worried about feeding itself than foreign luxuries, it’s quite worthless.
I wonder if Kraft Macaroni would become the currency of the Greater Depression?
2500 years ago we didn’t have computers and cell phones. We do now, and they all use gold.
They also use silicon, platinum, copper, iron, cobalt, and glass, what’s your point?
I run a CNC mill every day that has aluminum wiring.
The value of gold lies in the fact that other men may be disposed to work their ass off in order to have some shiny things to gift to women in order to have sex. As you can imagine, the power of gold amongst married couples drastically decreases.
Gold is actually useful for things other than jewelry.
What other relevant uses does gold have? Which ones of those are relevant to sustaining life needs?
Edible gold to make life sustaining food into a luxury!
Oh yes, I heard of food with gold in it. Stuff like that really should be illegal in my opinion. That, or if you really want to do it, at least donade double the price to charity.
It’s such a miniscule amount it’s not really a big deal.
Talking in just modern times most any technology uses it. It’s used in medicine as nanoparticles for biosensors and cancer treatment (photothermal therapy) as well as targeted medicine delivery. Pretty much all computers have gold wires in them due to it’s conductive properties which sure isn’t necessary for sustaining life technically but modern life, yes. It’s been used in dentistry since like 1000 BC because of how inert it is, it’s used in chemistry all over the place and material science which we rely on to use on all the previous fields. I could go on but I think the point is clear, gold has many many uses beyond just jewelry.
Sure, I’m a chemist. I know lots of these uses. I tell you, gold could completely disappear tomorrow and we’d barely feel the effects. Sure, some things would have to be reworked, but we’d be fine in a year.
Jup, many drugs have a market price similar to gold, so better invest into that, they can always be sold…
(Di$claimer: The information provided is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or advising on drug trafficking. No guarantee is given regarding the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the content. Any investment decisions are made at your own risk. The author assumes no liability for financial losses or other damages resulting from the use of this information.)
What value? Can’t eat it, makes shitty tools. It’s shiny, but I’m not going to trade ny potatoes for shiny in a survival situation.
You can starve sitting on a pile of gold.
For gold to be valuable you still need social stability.
Bottle caps are where it’s at.
It’s more for when things have settled down a bit. Imagine you’re leading a group of people who secured a good territory and you’re growing more potatoes than you need. You may want jewelry made of gold to show how powerful and prosperous you are, both to your followers and to those outside. And you can give gold to particularily important followers, and to other leaders, in a very public ceremony, to show everyone that those leaders are beneath you.
Totally. I was more commenting on the theory of gold having this magical inherent objective value. Which it doesn’t, it’s a commodity like any other.
Honestly as a value store, land is probably better.
Land isn’t portable. Gold is durable, portable and compact.
I don’t think you understand what value means, and that’s okay.
Value is what you can get for something. If you can’t trade it for something, with anyone, it has zero value.
A dollar has value because you can trade it for a potato. In an apocalypse, you cannot trade gold for a potato if nobody wants it.
Value is a subjective thing.
And people value gold because it’s rare and inert.
Lots of things are rare. Doesn’t mean I’ll give you my potatoes for em.
At best gold becomes something desirable once there’s enough security for me to value having pretty things.
Instructions heard: Invest in seed potoatos for the spring planting.
Like I said, you don’t understand value and that’s okay.
I’m going to ignore you now because you’re annoying me with your below-average intelligence.
If that were true people would value me
You have value. Thank you for existing.
What uses gold when you’re buying/selling potatoes, nobody will think gold is worth anything if society has collapsed it’s just a useless hunk of metal
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At least I can communicate with people without resorting to petty insults
But I like petty insults.
Well now I’m not giving you my potatoes for your gold just out of spite.
Lots of easy blocks tonight.
Good idea
Yep! You can join them.
Why don’t you explain it then instead of just calling people stupid?
Arguing with you people is a waste of time and energy.
“Everyone is an idiot! The only real helicopter is me.”
lol do you?
More than the average lemmyer, yeah.
X to doubt meme
Seems like maybe you don’t
I don’t think you understand the concept of civilization collapsing. Hoard all the gold you want. I’d value non-perishable food and ammo much more than gold. If I’ve enough of both and you don’t… Your gold won’t be yours, given enough time, on account of you not being around to own it.
Keep being stupid 👍
The fact that you are being downvoted for this is pretty shocking.
Yeah although its actual value is basically maluablness and prettiness and non corrosion which is why its nice in jewelry and its conductive properties to some degree. Its larger value is essentially the same as fiat. Percieved value.
Yes, but that perceived value has existed for thousands of years across many forms of civilization. Gold is a pretty safe bet. Humans like shiny.
Humans like shiny.
guess what’s also shiny? all the advertisement that companies put out for stupid products. doesn’t that make a lot of other things just as shiny?
No it doesn’t. Not anymore.
Not beyond its industrial uses, at least.
That’s incorrect. Gold still has value because it has utility.
Do you think most of gold’s current trading value comes from it’s utility, or it’s rarity?
Both, if it was more common it would hold less value. If it served fewer purposes it wouldn’t remain valued.
But clearly one more than the other, aluminum is extremely useful but not very rare and is worth about $1.25 per pound, it’s price is a fraction of gold at $63,000 per pound
you’re proving their point there… Gold has use and is rare which is why it is so highly valued. Aluminum has use and isn’t rare thus it’s worth less. You can even look at articles about how platinum is extremely undervalued due to this exact scenario. But lots of times, things are dictated by market conditions other than rarity as well, like tariffs and industry necessity.
Yes the rarity is a bigger factor.
He means regular money would be worthless as well as stocks and such. And as rich people own gold, but own much more of the other, he argues they would like to avoid collapse.
However, I don’t think they really can. Also, if it comes to recession very rich people tend to profit.
