• Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
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    7 hours ago

    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.

    • Danquebec@sh.itjust.works
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      2 hours ago

      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.

      • Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
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        1 hour ago

        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.