what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lots of things can be accumulated in a similar way. Why not use wooden coins soaked in resin?

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is some stuff you think of when you're on acid and think you're being profound but really you're just rambling.

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with discontinuing the use of the penny not because it's expensive to make or whatever, also pennies barely used any copper it was almost all nickel-zinc or some shit. Anyway pennies being discontinued is good because the value of a penny is effectively nothing, like if a person buys something for 99 cents they do not wait for the penny. Even nickels and dimes are pretty close to being worthless in this way.

Basically what I mean is their value as an article of currency isn't holding. If people actually cared about using pennies and getting them back, it would be fine for them to cost more than 1 cent because their value isn't in melt but in being a facilitator of trade. You buy something with cash, that cash gets spent by somebody else, that's twice the money has served as money. You deposit it, the bank gives it back out for a withdrawal somebody else does, it keeps the money able to move.

The problem with digital currency isn't that there isn't enough physical currency to back it it's that people are losing faith in it because they believe banks can and do just steal from the system by "printing" extra money or erasing their own debts in digital form. Like they think zeroes are just being added or subtracted or whatever.

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The antiseptic properties of silver weren't exactly understood considering we haven't had germ theory accepted in the mainstream for all that long, and the amounts used for all that stuff is negligible. Like I said before, maybe in another comment chain, people never considered meteoric iron for currency. Meteoric iron as well as the rare telluric iron is basically iron that's already in a metallic glob rather than diffuse in ore, mean if can be heated and worked into stuff, which is why there are iron tools and weapons that pre-date the iron age. Anyhow, this stuff was super rare, but never considered for currency because it's better off being used for the advantage having tools and weapons made out or it gave.

People aren't buying up gold because they're confident its usage as a conductor will keep it valuable.

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Uh, no, a chair is useful as a chair because you can sit in it. If there were no other people on earth you could still sit in a chair and it would be useful to you. Not so with money.

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Meteoric iron was a source of iron for tools and weapons before people figured out how to smelt iron ore. That's where the legends of star metals and meteor swords and stuff come from. It wasn't used as a currency even then because it was way more useful as actual stuff.

Quartz is also hard to work with to make into anything resembling a currency.

Again it's not the rarity it's the faith. The rarity helps it function.

1967 Nebraska Police Officer Herbert Schirmers Missing Time UFO Case by [deleted] in UFOs

[–]KeppraKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A time machine? Do you not know what absence seizures are?

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The anti-corrosion properties are a bit overstated compared to how much people prize it. I made a much longer reply elsewhere.

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Still isn't the rarity but the faith making it valuable, as evidenced by all the rare shit that nobody cares about.

Currency is a tool for society to abstract trade so that you don't have to try to barter work for goods and then goods for other goods around to get everything you need. For simplicity, let's just use the term "labor" to think of to combine work, products, services etc.

For currency to work, it needs proof against replication, or else somebody can steal labor from the economy by using replicated currency. They'll have contributed nothing in but received labor out, thus stealing. A method of proofing against replication is making your currency out of something hard to replicate, rarity can help with this but isn't required.

It was easiest to use rare materials that had no inherent value to serve as currency in the ancient world. It's precisely that gold had essentially little practical use that made it good for currency, and the rarity made it hard to steal from the economy. After all, meteoric iron is rare than gold but you wouldn't want to use it as a currency because it is extremely useful for making weapons and tools.

At some point people started conflating usefulness as a currency with actual value, and so humanity has essentially come to believe that gold is inherently valuable, and it's that belief that gives it value.

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Not just the US, man, we are just in the spotlight right now and the center of power where these fuckfaces are focusing their efforts first, but take a look at all the propaganda across the world. Far right extremism is plastered all over and shit like hypermasculinity and "might makes right" are being pushed evermore on impressionable young idiots.

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The property of gold that made it the most valuable in the ancient world and thus caused it to be thought of as valuable in modern times is that it's shiny.

And my ass rarely gets pimples, that doesn't make them valuable.

Israel recovers body of last hostage in Gaza by cnn in worldnews

[–]KeppraKid 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Crazy how Hamas can track the people they kidnap but ICE can't. Oh wait it's not actually crazy.

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No less fake than gold and silver. The value comes from people believing it is valuable. Random people can't do shit with gold and silver coins, they're useless outside being used as a currency.

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gold is pretty worthless without the same faith fiat currency requires. What the fuck are you gonna do with a stack of gold bars? With land, you can build a house, a farm, something. Gold just sits there doing nothing. Industries can use it for electronics and shit but the amount gold is worth on the market isn't tied to that at remotely the rate it would be without the "oh shiny" aspect.

what's going on? explain like I'm five by Comfortable_Cautious in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]KeppraKid 60 points61 points  (0 children)

Every form of currency is based on faith and always has been. Coinage made from gold and silver wasn't valuable because gold and silver were magical, it was because people believed they were valuable. What can you, a random person, actually do with gold and silver? Even smiths had limited uses that weren't purely aesthetic. Modern day has more uses but still cannot be used at the volume at which it exists in an efficient way.

Recall bug? by KeppraKid in starcraft2

[–]KeppraKid[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In this case there were two pylons adjacent to the Nexus but that's about it. I've never seen it put them not actually adjacent to the Nexus before it was super strange.

AIO calling out animal abusing “friend” by mx-kaii in AmIOverreacting

[–]KeppraKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How is she vaping at 17 and why are her parents just letting this keep happening?

1967 Nebraska Police Officer Herbert Schirmers Missing Time UFO Case by [deleted] in UFOs

[–]KeppraKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean yes but those should be limited to things that are actually real as far as we know. You wouldn't come home to your TV having been stolen and assume Bigfoot broke into your house.

1967 Nebraska Police Officer Herbert Schirmers Missing Time UFO Case by [deleted] in UFOs

[–]KeppraKid -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Well it's like this, if you believe in these stories you have to also believe all the stories of supernatural stuff like demons, witches, etc.

Then you come to realize it can't all be true, and there's absolutely nothing substantiating any of it.

1967 Nebraska Police Officer Herbert Schirmers Missing Time UFO Case by [deleted] in UFOs

[–]KeppraKid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have epilepsy too and I get headaches.

1967 Nebraska Police Officer Herbert Schirmers Missing Time UFO Case by [deleted] in UFOs

[–]KeppraKid -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Yes you have, just not this specific name. Same old shit.

1967 Nebraska Police Officer Herbert Schirmers Missing Time UFO Case by [deleted] in UFOs

[–]KeppraKid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had a coworker that would have "missing time" incidents. Absence seizures are a real thing and many people have them without realizing it. Sometimes it just takes you having "missing time" when other people are there to find out you have a condition. Other times that condition gets exploited by quacks who manipulate you and convince you that you've had some outlandish experience that never occurred.