The price of gold is imaginary and purely based on faith that it's worth that much. Its real value is next to nothing. For usefulness in the real world almost any other metal is in greater demand and would command a higher price. So why is gold over $1000 an ounce while stainless steel is 50 cents a pound?
Dude you just eviscerated his world view. He may never recover.The value of gold is as imaginary as the value of anything else on Earth. The same faith that says a dollar is worth X and a Euro is worth Y and the Yen is worth Z says gold is worth Q. Gold has very little value in the real world, it's only worth what the market says its worth because other people believe it's worth that. Just like every other currency or commodity. Once the trust goes away so does the value.
Yep. It wouldn't necessarily take even a decent EMP to knock the legs out from under most countries' currencies, but we'd have to devolve past a a Neo-Stone Age before especially gold lost significance. It's one of very few metals that can (or could) be found in a nearly pure form in nature, and it's easily "worked" with hand tools. Plus the notion that it's "valuable", one way or another, has been with us so long, we as a species are probably genetically predisposed to value it by nowsimply in the abstract ...😵 Like whichever bird it is that likes to snag every shiny object it happens upon, just because they apparently trigger some sort of "reflex", not because they actually do anything with them, let alone anything useful...😉When the world ends, we'll all use shiny metals to use as currency.