this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Yeah. If anything, a gold coin is too much value in one piece. Like, who are you going to find with enough spare stuff to trade that would actually be worth the equivalent value of an ounce of gold?

I figure that someone with nothing but gold coin would end up with very very expensive food, and with some luck a very expensive gun of some kind.

I would expect that if I had a pile of gold, the first armed person to realize that I have that much gold would immediately shoot me to get the gold. Then the next half-crazed, highly stressed, armed individuals would take them out and the cycle continues.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (2 children)

But the value of gold still relies on a majority of apocalypse survivor's collectively deciding that gold has value. We could just, not.

Or why not bottle caps, shells, cool looking rocks, dry salt, sugar, nutmeg, pickles, ...

Cooper would hold more value than gold, as a metal that can be worked and given practical application with even primitive metallurgy skills. Or silver, with it's antimicrobial properties would still be more valuable than gold.

Unless we're all surviving the apocalypse and still trying to make chips for iPhones, what good is gold?

Gold is a middle man within a trade economy.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

Gold is workable, conductive, and non oxidizing. It’s also used for jewelry. So yeah not great for survival but if you’re using copper, gold is similar or better except for its rarity or iron is available and much better

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

It does rely on people deciding it has value. It's not the people who are still mostly logical who would value gold the highest. That's why I would expect a highly stressed, armed person hopped up on memories of apocalyptic ads to go "ooh, shiny" and instinctively shoot to get at the stockpile of gold.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Modern gold coins range from 1/10 of an oz to an oz. Your point still stands. Even 1/10 of an oz of gold is over $200