h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry I worded that incorrectly I meant: is value proportional to rarity

Rather than a simp!e arithmetical, I think in would more probably be geometric in the Napieran or natural logarithmic system.

The word software I'm using is still in beta release phase.

Apologies for the word 'in' between the words 'think' and 'would'.

That should have been 'it'.

Amendment to post 19, '25 kilocalories' is supposed to be '2.5 kilocalories'.

"It's human nature that we find something supremely useful so we hide it away in vaults" [Gnomon]

Or attics. I sometimes go on eBay and search for sets of wedding china,* which often seem to be in good supply. A visitor form outer space might see this and conclude that wedding china is designed to be stored in an attic for fifty years so that it can then be taken by the heirs and sold on eBay.



*Out of pure curiosity.

I don't think the response of markets is predictable enough to say how much the value would increase in response. Certainly it would increase though. Remember, the plot of the movie Goldfinger (although not the book) depends on this exact phenomenon.

>> "It's human nature that we find something supremely useful so we hide it away in vaults" [Gnomon] <<

Is taking something out of "use" consistent with usefulness?

No it's not. But the human failing of wanting to own things guarantees that things go from useful to not useful.

So where do bitcoins figure in this?How can something that doesn't physically exist have monetary or financial viability..

Lots of the "money" we use all the time doesn't physically exist, but it still has a monetary value. If I make a payment by transfer or debit card, nothing actually changes hands. I receive my pay every month without any coins, notes, gold or silver changing hands - the only thing that changes is the numbers on some computer systems.

All of the major currencies have the value that the Reserve Banks want them to have - they are "fiat" currencies. The existence of gold makes no difference to their value.

Most of the world's gold is held by institutional investors who expect it to have a steady, predictable value. If the amount of gold in the world halved, after a brief round of panic, a major turn to faith and an interminable round of Brian Cox documentaries, gold's value would double so that nobody lost any money.

After a while people would go back to agnosticism and Hairy Bikers would resume their dominance of the television ratings.

"How can something that doesn't physically exist have monetary or financial viability.." [Still Incognitas]

Young people are often urged to invest in themselves, i.e. get solid educations and develop expertise in various trades or professions. You pay a lawyer for legal advice, a doctor for medical advice, etc. Advice is not tangible, but when it's good it can have a great value.

paulh as an educator I have to point out that while education has worth it's not possible to put monetary value on it.You cannot spend it..You can use it to raise income but you cannot exchange it.It's integral to you and you may possibly educate others but you cannot just pass it on to others.You cannot store it up or use it up.You can be well educated and financially be poor..but with education you are definitely increased beyond what you were.

Now with bitcoins I believe you can exchange them,store them, use them up just as you can with money however they don't physically exist.Basically they are just a form of non existent credit.Money has a physical form either as coins,paper,cheque,bankers draft etc.

"while education has worth it's not possible to put monetary value on it" [Still Incognitas]

The colleges and universities that sell it to you seem to expect money in return . And hundreds of millions of students stand in line to send them that money.

Court cases often result in monetary awards for things that are intangible, such as pain and suffering, or foregone future earnings for people who have lost their ability to work.

When one company buys another, there is something called "Good will," which represents the positive associations in the minds of the customers of the acquired company. People will presumably be willing to keep buying the companies products or services.

Western society tends to assess the value of anything and everything. Michael Jackson bought the rights to the Beatles' songs some years ago. Publishers engage in bidding wars for the right to publish hot new books.

Money can also earn more money by being loaned to someone else for a fixed period of time. The higher the risk of not having the money paid back, the greater the returns demanded.

Another thing to mention about gold is that it's the only element found in its pure, solid form in nature. Every other metal we have to get by smelting or refining somehow, and usually with great difficulty. Gold miners just have to pull it out of the rock and dirt it's sitting in.
Of course, that's easier said than done, as generation after generation of gold prospectors have discovered to their cost.

Reminds me of that sketch from the Goodies:

"I've found gold ore!"

"Gold ore?"

"Gold or... something else"

Actually platinum, silver, copper, mercury, tin and iron are also found in pure metallic form sometimes, either naturally smelted by geological heat, or concentrated by bacterial action.

Also, there are nickel iron meteorites, considered a precious metal in classical time.

As mentioned above gold isn't the only one found in metallic form, but also
"Gold miners just have to pull it out of the rock and dirt it's sitting in"
Not true either - while gravity techniques (panning on an individual artisanal scale up to large scale shaker tables and sluices) can be used on some gold deposits, others need chemistry to liberate the gold - thiosulphate, froth floatation, the cyanide process (particularly nasty, that one, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Baia_Mare_cyanide_spill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1146979.stm ) all get used

I was going to suggest diamonds, which are solid carbon. However, people who probably know more than I did not mention it. Do diamonds contain anything besides carbon? Or does "in Nature" imply that the intense heat and pressure needed to form diamonds are unnatural?