It's a human valuation and human use that determine the usefulness of an object. That's subjective theory of value.
Perhaps say, humanity don't value or use gold at all. That automatically make gold worthless.
Intrinsic theory of value say that each object have an objective value that can be determined without the need of human judgement.
Then opposite to "subjective" is "objective", not "intrinsic". I've been defending subjective theory of value for a long time now, and yet I consider that "intrinsic" value keeps a meaning even in subjective theory of value. Exeamples have been given. In subjective theory of value, I can value an object because I desire it. But if I desire it for itself, i.e. I don't intend to trade it for something else, then I say this value is intrinsic. It's an intrinsic subjective value. There is no paradox here. |
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I don't believe each objects have an inherent value of its own.
And yet, they do. I mean : the value of an ice cream is obviously more "intrinsic" that the value of a 1$ bank note. Don't you get it ? I can eat and enjoy the former, while I need to trade the latter against something if I want to get any benefit from it. |
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i'd still like to see some proof for the tokyo-story though, i thought Satoshi is a superhero (alien maybe?) living in his supersecret-offshore-cryptocave.  "cryptocave" is a funny word once you consider the ethymologic meaning of "crypt". |
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That's not value. Utility if you will. But not value... The fallacy of intrinsic value is what allowed stupid theories like marxist labor-value to remain alive until present days. It is important to understand it, value is not intrinsic.
Ah maybe intrinsic is not a correct word, but still, it has some meaning. To me, value is a mesure of desire. And I think desire is a bit different when it is only motivated by the belief in someone else's desire. Maybe I should have talked about "real" value as opposed to "speculative" value. |
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Then I'm really confused, because money requires an intrinsic value by definition.
I'm not sure about that. Which definition? I thought money's main necessary properties were - Mostly conserved. Sure you might lose some if careless, but you can't duplicate it (double spend, shaving the edge off gold coins, counterfeits).
- Like currency, needs to be transferred around in useful-size easy-to-validate denominations without too much inconvenience (= cost).
- Scarce. Hence, in part, the Hitchhiker's Guide joke about using leaves off trees as money? I put it last, but I suspect it is of primary importance.
Agreed. It has to be indestrucible, divisable and scarce. |
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Mass, temperature, color are some properties of objects that exist with or without humans. Value only exists contingent on the existence of humans who have certain preferences. Nothing has value to you once you die and nothing has value to "us" once we're all gone. Value is completely dependent on us. Nothing has value in and of itself.
By "intrisic", I didn't mean beyond human judgment or anything. It was rather as opposed to "conventionnal" or "arbitrary". Value is the faculty for something to be desired by a human being. Now, someone can desire something because he thinks someone else will desire it and thus it will be possible to trade it. Therefore, I think we can say that something has intrisic value when there is at least one human being who can desire to possess it without ever giving it away to someone else. |
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Gold is very useful. If it were more plentiful, people would use gold.
Gold have medicine, electronic, and decorative use.
Sure, but it's quite marginal. I think we can, for the sake of the argumentation, consider it has no value. Anyway I'm just realizing how futile is this debate, considering that fiat currencies ARE money with no intrisic value. Somehow it's amazing people accuse gold of not having any value when they don't do the same to fiat money. |
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I know that I'm being anal here, but money and currency are not the same thing.
Well, unless I'm wrong about the difference between those concepts, I'm currently talking about money. |
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Another advantage is that it is hard to produce, you cannot simply print it or update some database record. This limits inflation.
Well, this is not characteristic to physical commodities. It's the whole point of bitcoin. It is hard to produce, though it has no intrisic value. |
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Thanks for that. It's actually the first time I visit such a link.
Some websites have difficulties with governments (wikileaks, piratebay...). Do they know about this stuff ?
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The thread about "money as debt" from P. Grignon makes me think about this old debate concerning the intrisic value of money.
It's a debate I had many times with people having contempt for gold, describing it as a "useless soft metal" or a "barbarous relic". I also think that gold is mainly useless, or more precisely, that its use is only based on the fact that it is ideal as a money, due to its remarquable properties.
However, I confess I'd have some difficulties explaining why money doesn't need intrisic value. I have ideas about this but it's still quite confuse.
What do you think about that and can you elaborate ?
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A producer issueing papers redeemable for his future production, isn't that just the definition of a future contract ?
Basically it seems to me that modern finance has already created Grignon's ideas and much beyond...
He just wants to make them available for everyone, which is a good intent. But I don't get exactly what is his proposal from a technical point of view.
Anyway, I have the feeling that Grignon just can't accept the idea that money can have no intrisic value. He seems not to like gold for this reason. And I guess he will not like bitcoin for the same reason.
Some people think that money should be backed by something real, whatever it is. I totally disagree. I beleive money is a pure abstract medium of exchange. If money had intrisic value, we would not use it as money.
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I was thinking of selling bitcoin t-shirt and mugs to help fund the various bitcoin bounty and other projects here.
What do you guys think?
I once suggested this idea too. But it appeared it might be a bad idea. It would be a bit as if you were claiming publicly that you fraud tax. |
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I've just received my Vim and Debian T-shirts that I bought thanks to this service. This is very cool  |
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brocktice won the auction with 230 BTC.
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OMG
How close are we to provide a way to survive in this world without a bank account ?
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What exactly are [comment] and |comment-to] ?? I thought it was not possible to attach a comment to a transaction.
And what are the size limits ?
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brocktice leads on IRC at 210 BTC.
I lock this thread now. Make your bid on IRC please.
#1gGold-auction on freenode
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