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by 74B5 1637 days ago
Neither gold nor crypto will bring you to what ever "the other side" is (so much wistles).

Crypto currencies are bound to a functioning infrastructure and can be unpredictably volatile. Gold is no currency at all in the sense of a common trade value and this is the essence of it all. No, actually its labor. Labor is the only kind of value and any "worth" (eg money) has to be translatable to that. Crypto and gold is not.

4 comments

> Labor is the only kind of value and any "worth" (eg money) has to be translatable to that. Crypto and gold is not.

crypto and gold can be exchanged for labor products in much the same way that other wealth can be (a house, stocks, bonds) — by first being exchanged for money. what do you mean when you say these things aren’t “translatable” into labor?

> "the other side" is (so much wistles)

What I mean here concretely is failure/bankruptcy of the current system after people get fed up, and re-emergence/prioritization of institutions of justice and rule of law.

This may be just a dream however. Don't hold your breath.

> Gold is no currency at all in the sense of a common trade value

I don't mind it not being a commonly transacted medium if I can buy and sell it without a lot of fees. For my purposes, even cheap good cars or real estate constitute a store of value, albeit less liquid ones.

> Labor is the only kind of value and any "worth"

Value is in the eye of the beholder. If I value my productivity less than you do yours, I might not accept payment in work.

>Value is in the eye of the beholder.

This is a common true-ish sentence but too vague and in fact inadequate in this topic. The problem lies in how value is measured and this is imo the root of nowadays turmoil.

Ultimately valuable is, what satisfies essential needs (food, shelter, clothing, meds, etc), this is the bottom line. Gold is worthless on its own. Every society revolves around these needs and if not, that society may not last any longer. Only labor provides those values and thus sustains a society but not all members profit from it, "measured", the same way. Income from capital extracts out from labor value. The poor get poorer, while the rich get lazier.

I assume your plan with crypto/gold is to dodge a financial crisis but why should a future society respect the profiteers of the exploitative former? Maybe invest in something that enables labor, eg. land.

> The problem lies in how value is measured and this is imo the root of nowadays turmoil.

People have always had differing values, this is nothing new. When people believe that only x is ultimately valuable, and y is not, It allows for people who understand that people have always valued things differently to exploit that for their own gain.

The people who understand that not all food, all shelter, all clothing, all meds, all land, all x is valued by everyone the same will forever have the upper hand against those who are ultimately convinced of the absoluteness of their values.

> Neither gold nor crypto will bring you to what ever "the other side"

If only there was some kind of marketplace where you could make incredible amounts of money with your 100% certain understanding of the future, this would be incredibly useful knowledge!

Alas, it doesn't exist and all there is to do is impotently yell at other people on the internet that they are wrong.

>Labor is the only kind of value

I wonder if we took a survey of professional economists how many would agree with this statement. I'm going to say less then 1%.

Has labor ever been used as the basis of a national currency?