wood for sheep?

    • Tak@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Gold isn’t terribly useful as a metal. Sure it’s valuable but mostly because people see it as valuable and perceptions can change.

      Everyone needs a place to live and on top of that land can be used for making money even if land itself isn’t as lucrative.

      • gimsy@feddit.it
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        1 year ago

        The same can be said for banknotes, they are quite useless as paper, they are mostly valuable because people see them as valuable and perceptions can change

      • Tremble@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I’m pretty sure you are wrong about that. Gold is one of the best conductors, it is extremely malleable, used in dentistry and medicine, electronics, it even protects against radiation.

        Gold is extremely useful, just an fyi you are incorrect

        • Tak@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Gold is a worse conductor than copper, a much more common metal. There are many metals that are more malleable. Dentistry has moved away from gold and is typically only used for aesthetics. In electronics gold is mostly used to resist corrosion and it’s typically electroplated to do so, because of this the amount of gold use is incredibly small. Finally, almost every metal protects against radiation, hell even skin does that to most radiation and where that differs is in ionizing radiation where most of the time lead is easier to use than gold.

      • droans@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes and no.

        Gold has been used as a currency historically for many reasons. It’s inert. It has a low melting point. It’s malleable and easily divisible. It doesn’t tarnish. A piece of gold from 2,000 years ago will be the same weight today as it was then. It also is attractive, which gives it value for jewelry. And, importantly, it’s predictably rare and can be mined.

        Today, it’s also valuable for electronics. Its inability to tarnish makes it fantastic if you need a connection to be corrosion resistant.

        There’s a reason gold still holds its value even though it’s not used for currency anymore.

      • Johanno@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        If they produce mass H2 burning cells gold and platinum will rise in price drastically

        • Tak@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I doubt fuel cells will take off in mass because of many reasons but mostly because H2 is so damn hard to store. Ultimately fuel cells are a tech for electrical storage and at one point they felt logical but as technology improves they begin to have more troubles. Storing hydrogen is just so damn difficult and it needs to be compressed to reach density for mobile applications.