Is there such a thing as absolute value?

[TiagoTiago]

Is there somthing that never changes value, like somthing you could use to evaluate how much a currency is worth at any point in history without being relative to other currencies nor the price of a BigMac nor anything, somthing that has the same (non-zero) value for anyone at any point in history? Or you can't give somthing value without considering how it's value compares to the value of somthing else?

[1715144656]

1715144656

[Vandroiy]

Determining inflation. This is a very complicated problem, with many opinions on it.

Some people like to gather a large set of different goods which were similarly easy to produce in past and present, and then compare e.g. a median price. This is a method I would use.

But I am not an expert on this. Apparently, many institutions, especially governments, have an incentive to construct flawed methods of determining real value and thereby inflation -- to be able to hide it.

[wareen]

The concept of value you are probably referring to is purely subjective and therefore I think no absolute value can be defined. Things like gold for example have a reputation of being considered as valuable throughout the history but there were times and societies which did not value gold very much either.

If you are really looking for "absolute value" then you would have to resort to something based on physical laws because they at least seem to be the only thing absolute in this universe. Take for example energy for a non-inflating value system or entropy for an inflating one (good luck with creating a currency based on entropy )

[hugolp]

Is there somthing that never changes value, like somthing you could use to evaluate how much a currency is worth at any point in history without being relative to other currencies nor the price of a BigMac nor anything, somthing that has the same (non-zero) value for anyone at any point in history? Or you can't give somthing value without considering how it's value compares to the value of somthing else?

No.

Long answer: Value and price are different things. Price is the reflection of value. But things can have value and no price, for example something with emotional value that you refuse to sell (although some would say that the problem is that nobody has offered you a high enough price). Anyhow, the price is maybe the best reflection of value.

As someone has stated before, value is subjective. Value is a human decision, and its different for everyone. Without a human valuing it an object has no value.

And now answering your question: there is no absolute price. Everything floats in respect to other objects. You are always pricing things in another object. F.e.: I will change you one caw for three sheeps, I will change you this car for a sex night with your girlfriend (interesting valuation here), I will change you a computer for a $600, I will change you 10 euros for 1 bitcoin, etc... Because this can be a mess, people end up using one object as means of exchange and exchanging everything against this object. This has been many things, like tobaco, sea shells, salt, spices, etc... but universaly and cultures without contact have end up selecting precious metals, specially gold and silver, because of its qualities. This object its what we call money. The benefits of having a few objects acting as means of exchange is that it allows for economic calculation and a pricing system that is what allows economic coordination in the division of labour and allows human progress.

[TiagoTiago]

Entropy-coin? Nice!


Hm, converting dollars, gold, carrots etc into a Planck based unit in such a way that their exchange rates are respected without the assistance of arbitrary constants? That does sound like an interesting challenge...

[neptop]

No, there are two reasons for this. Neither determinism, nor truth does seem to exist. I know, it's a short answer, but you could write books on that and I don't intend to do so.

And then there are two other reasons, but I am not sure whether they apply to everything and I guess that's not what you meant when you wrote your question.
Values are also a lot (even more than one might think at the beginning) about psychology.
Values are not always about numbers, even when it comes to very basic goods.

[Bazil]

I made a post about this on my blog.  I think there can be, or at least a highly stable value:

http://www.thefashionablephilosopher.com/politics/a-monetary-unit/

[BombaUcigasa]

No, there are two reasons for this. Neither determinism, nor truth does seem to exist. I know, it's a short answer, but you could write books on that and I don't intend to do so.

I vote Yes. I know it's a short answer but this is not philosophical theory, it's reality. Even at the lower levels of an entropic Universe such as ours, you can measure everything as energy potential. Old books, old paper bills, aluminum coins, car fuel, uranium, plastic bottles, sugar, wood and the binding and unbinding of these items has a positive or negative energy cost.

If you want a grow, evolve and reproduce, you need to consume more energy than needed, such that everything on your immediate surroundings has an energy value associated with it, and you try to find the lower path of cost. There are localized reversals, or mitigated costs or even cost prevention reversals but in the end we have the topic at hand:
- to get a bitcoin, you must either go in line with everyone else that wants it NOW and pay the market price, or
- expend energy in the form of binded (coal, nuclear, oil) or continuous flow energy (solar, wind, hydro) and time (computation complexity) to obtain one

It is impossible to get bitcoins at no value, there is an absolute low level of energy that needs to go into the creation of a bitcoin, even abstracting time and everything else except radiated heat in the most efficient mining processor. Oh, and this base value grows with each difficulty step.

[Jack of Diamonds]

Necessities do have absolute value.

These include food, clean water and in some cases housing (though many people in the world live on the streets). People are always willing to invest a certain amount of their income in those things, because they are required for sustaining life (unless they are self-sufficient farmers). People that refuse to, will die, or will have to resort to the charity of others, or stealing.

Bitcoins, gold, home theatre systems, computers, jet ski's and desktop fans have only arbitrary value.
Anything beyond the initial cost of labor+materials is just a percieved value due to their utility, rarity, etc., but everyone in the world can survive without them and has survived for thousands of years.

Nobody can survive without nutrition or drink though.
Clothing and shelter are very critical needs as well, depending on the climate they might have absolute value as well (especially in colder countries).

[TiagoTiago]

Some people would pay to have bugs moved as far as possible form them, while others consider bugs a nutritious meal, some people pay lots for fancy dishes, others vomit just thinking of eating such things; some people refuse to eat most types of food, including going hungry if that's the only choice; some people will eat anything that is at hand, but not lift a finger to go after food that is not avaiable. And besides personal taste and culture, value of things like food is severely influenced by supply and demand; a grape in the middle of the desert is worth way more than one in the middle of a banquet.

[Jack of Diamonds]

That's true. Everyone needs to eat something though, even the camel riding merchant with the single grape, or a baron at a banquet.
While food has relative value in these scenarios, food is worth *something* to everyone.

Bitcoins or gold bullion are only worth something to people who choose to buy them either as an investment, curiosity or shininess (gold).
Most people have no utility for either of them even if the market price is thousands of dollars.

However, every single person in the world has utility for food.

[Fakeman]

While necessities of life are never valueless, even in the case of something like air which we usually don't pay for, that's not quite the same as having a constant value in a monetary sense. How much water can you get for a pound of salt? Nobody can live without either, but their relative values are certainly not fixed in a monetary sense. No single commodity can serve as a reference value for everything else.

[kjj]

I guess it might be possible to create a unit of absolute value.  But the price of everything in relation to it would always be shifting.

[hugolp]

Necessities do have absolute value.

These include food, clean water and in some cases housing (though many people in the world live on the streets). People are always willing to invest a certain amount of their income in those things, because they are required for sustaining life (unless they are self-sufficient farmers). People that refuse to, will die, or will have to resort to the charity of others, or stealing.

Bitcoins, gold, home theatre systems, computers, jet ski's and desktop fans have only arbitrary value.
Anything beyond the initial cost of labor+materials is just a percieved value due to their utility, rarity, etc., but everyone in the world can survive without them and has survived for thousands of years.

Nobody can survive without nutrition or drink though.
Clothing and shelter are very critical needs as well, depending on the climate they might have absolute value as well (especially in colder countries).

This is aparently a very intuitive though, but only aparently, because it does not describe reality.

Lets try a very simple though experiment: Imagine a farmer with all his food necesities covered for months. Suddenly his daughter gets ill and he needs a car to take her to the doctor. But he does not have a car. Now someone comes and offers him a car and a lot of food. What do you think he will value more in that moment? Supposedly food has absolute value while the car does not, right? Still, he would choose the car. How can that be if food has absolute value?

In reality, what do you mean by food having absolute value?

[TiagoTiago]

I guess it might be possible to create a unit of absolute value.  But the price of everything in relation to it would always be shifting.

LOL, good point

[Fakeman]

Just mint coins that contain every non-radioactive metal, in the proportions that they are found in the earth's crust. That should be close enough.

[myrkul]

I donno... we might be able to create a unit of ... I won't say value, maybe worth would be a better word, defined as the chemicals required to keep one human alive for 1 day. This would be constant, at so many pounds of O₂, so many mL of Water, and various amounts of macro and micro nutrients.

As previously stated, though, once we had this constant, everything else would then shift in relation to it.

[BombaUcigasa]

Just mint coins that contain every non-radioactive metal, in the proportions that they are found in the earth's crust. That should be close enough.

What do we call them? Dirtcoins? I think if we do what you suggested, we will finally destroy this poor planet...

[Jack of Diamonds]

In reality, what do you mean by food having absolute value?

The car has only temporary value because the farmer's daughter is sick. But when she gets better, the car becomes useless if the farmer's family doesn't need to travel or they are happy with horse carts or walking.

However, they will always need their harvest or other sources of food to stay alive. The need is constant as long as someone in the family is alive. Hence it is always worth a certain portion of their income that they are willing to part with (be it 2%, 5% or like in many poor countries, over 50% of their income will go into food)

Unless material replicators or other sources of synthetic food are invented, food will always be a commodity that has infinite demand (as opposed to other commodities which only have limited, increasing or diminishing demand, such as certain consumer goods) but only a limited supply.

You could argue Bitcoin and gold are limited in supply as well, which is true, but they do not have infinite demand over time (infinite meaning as long as humans are alive), at least yet. They are not essential to the vast majority of people.

Therefore a thing of absolute value must be something that has a worth for everyone.

[Fakeman]

Just mint coins that contain every non-radioactive metal, in the proportions that they are found in the earth's crust. That should be close enough.

What do we call them? Dirtcoins? I think if we do what you suggested, we will finally destroy this poor planet...

Why would that be? There is economic demand for every element anyway. Of course, it would be very difficult technically to make such coins if you really tried.

[hugolp]

In reality, what do you mean by food having absolute value?

The car has only temporary value because the farmer's daughter is sick. But when she gets better, the car becomes useless if the farmer's family doesn't need to travel or they are happy with horse carts or walking.

Food has only temporary value as well. I just showed you that at some point food was less valued than a car. That is exactly the point, value is subjective: It depends on the needs and wants of a person, its not absolute.

However, they will always need their harvest or other sources of food to stay alive. The need is constant as long as someone in the family is alive. Hence it is always worth a certain portion of their income that they are willing to part with (be it 2%, 5% or like in many poor countries, over 50% of their income will go into food)

This does not contradict at all that value is subjective.

Unless material replicators or other sources of synthetic food are invented, food will always be a commodity that has infinite demand (as opposed to other commodities which only have limited, increasing or diminishing demand, such as certain consumer goods) but only a limited supply.

You could argue Bitcoin and gold are limited in supply as well, which is true, but they do not have infinite demand over time (infinite meaning as long as humans are alive), at least yet. They are not essential to the vast majority of people.

I agree. This does not contradict that value is subjective.

Therefore a thing of absolute value must be something that has a worth for everyone.

You are defining absolute as subjetively valuable for all humans. Absolute value means that it does not depend on the subjective valuation of anyone. Yet, you keep repeating that food is valuable because people need it. That means subjectively valued by people.

[TiagoTiago]

I donno... we might be able to create a unit of ... I won't say value, maybe worth would be a better word, defined as the chemicals required to keep one human alive for 1 day. This would be constant, at so many pounds of O₂, so many mL of Water, and various amounts of macro and micro nutrients.

As previously stated, though, once we had this constant, everything else would then shift in relation to it.

Sounds too anthropocentric for my taste.


And besides, would expect the physical requirements for keeping one alive would vary significantly from individual to individual, and external factors such as average daily temperature, amount of daily sunlight, oxygen percentage in the air etc would also shift those values around quite a bit...

[Fakeman]

Some gold nuts like to believe that the value of gold is constant. While that may subjectively be true to them, in practice its buying power is always in a state of flux. For various reasons though, those swings in buying power do tend to be much smaller than what we see with other precious metals such as silver or platinum group metals, as well as with base metals like copper, aluminum or nickel. No single material has a perfectly constant buying power, but some do exhibit more stability than others. Aluminum was once considered a precious metal, now the streets are littered with it.

[Jack of Diamonds]

Food has only temporary value as well. I just showed you that at some point food was less valued than a car.

The farmer and his entire family will always need food, for the rest of his life at steady 4 to 12 hour intervals, and if he was too hungry to drive his daughter might just as well have died.

Just because I currently value a bitcoin as worth more than 5 breads does not mean bitcoin is more valuable as a commodity. Bitcoin has no value for most people in the world.
I will always need bread, even if my internet access is cut off or there is a massive shortage of electricity, I'll manage without bitcoin.

However, you or I can't manage without bread or other food. We can manage without bitcoins. Hence bitcoin has subjective value (up to market to decide) but food is always worth *something*.

If fuel runs out globally, cars become worthless. If there is an attack on electricity networks, all gadgets become useless.
But food can't become useless as long as someone is alive.

[hugolp]

Food has only temporary value as well. I just showed you that at some point food was less valued than a car.

The farmer and his entire family will always need food, for the rest of his life at steady 4 to 12 hour intervals, and if he was too hungry to drive his daughter might just as well have died.

Just because I currently value a bitcoin as worth more than 5 breads does not mean bitcoin is more valuable as a commodity. Bitcoin has no value for most people in the world.
I will always need bread, even if my internet access is cut off or there is a massive shortage of electricity, I'll manage without bitcoin.

However, you or I can't manage without bread or other food. We can manage without bitcoins. Hence bitcoin has subjective value (up to market to decide) but food is always worth *something*.

If fuel runs out globally, cars become worthless. If there is an attack on electricity networks, all gadgets become useless.
But food can't become useless as long as someone is alive.

Do you realize you are justifying that food has subjective value? You are saying that food is valuable to humans because we need it. That is the exact definition of subjective value.

[zdmas]

Food has only temporary value as well. I just showed you that at some point food was less valued than a car.

The farmer and his entire family will always need food, for the rest of his life at steady 4 to 12 hour intervals, and if he was too hungry to drive his daughter might just as well have died.

Just because I currently value a bitcoin as worth more than 5 breads does not mean bitcoin is more valuable as a commodity. Bitcoin has no value for most people in the world.
I will always need bread, even if my internet access is cut off or there is a massive shortage of electricity, I'll manage without bitcoin.

However, you or I can't manage without bread or other food. We can manage without bitcoins. Hence bitcoin has subjective value (up to market to decide) but food is always worth *something*.

If fuel runs out globally, cars become worthless. If there is an attack on electricity networks, all gadgets become useless.
But food can't become useless as long as someone is alive.

Do you realize you are justifying that food has subjective value? You are saying that food is valuable to humans because we need it. That is the exact definition of subjective value.

Hugo, I agree with you that food has objective value. It is a necessary component of human life, but depending on the supply and demand of certain foods, the prices might change, but there will always be demand, unless we kill ourselves off. It's more objective than subjective, imo.

[hugolp]

Food has only temporary value as well. I just showed you that at some point food was less valued than a car.

The farmer and his entire family will always need food, for the rest of his life at steady 4 to 12 hour intervals, and if he was too hungry to drive his daughter might just as well have died.

Just because I currently value a bitcoin as worth more than 5 breads does not mean bitcoin is more valuable as a commodity. Bitcoin has no value for most people in the world.
I will always need bread, even if my internet access is cut off or there is a massive shortage of electricity, I'll manage without bitcoin.

However, you or I can't manage without bread or other food. We can manage without bitcoins. Hence bitcoin has subjective value (up to market to decide) but food is always worth *something*.

If fuel runs out globally, cars become worthless. If there is an attack on electricity networks, all gadgets become useless.
But food can't become useless as long as someone is alive.

Do you realize you are justifying that food has subjective value? You are saying that food is valuable to humans because we need it. That is the exact definition of subjective value.

Hugo, I agree with you that food has objective value. It is a necessary component of human life, but depending on the supply and demand of certain foods, the prices might change, but there will always be demand, unless we kill ourselves off. It's more objective than subjective, imo.

Im saying that all value is subjective, including the food value.

Objective value means that its value is independent of the needs and wants of humans. That its value is inherent, not dependent on any human.

For me its obvious that is imposible. Value will always come from the needs and wants of humans, therefore is subjective.

[Dobrodav]

I am believe that theme discussed in this thread -

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=11614.msg168372#msg168372

Was close enough to current thread, to mention about it.

[zdmas]

Food has only temporary value as well. I just showed you that at some point food was less valued than a car.

The farmer and his entire family will always need food, for the rest of his life at steady 4 to 12 hour intervals, and if he was too hungry to drive his daughter might just as well have died.

Just because I currently value a bitcoin as worth more than 5 breads does not mean bitcoin is more valuable as a commodity. Bitcoin has no value for most people in the world.
I will always need bread, even if my internet access is cut off or there is a massive shortage of electricity, I'll manage without bitcoin.

However, you or I can't manage without bread or other food. We can manage without bitcoins. Hence bitcoin has subjective value (up to market to decide) but food is always worth *something*.

If fuel runs out globally, cars become worthless. If there is an attack on electricity networks, all gadgets become useless.
But food can't become useless as long as someone is alive.

Do you realize you are justifying that food has subjective value? You are saying that food is valuable to humans because we need it. That is the exact definition of subjective value.

Hugo, I agree with you that food has objective value. It is a necessary component of human life, but depending on the supply and demand of certain foods, the prices might change, but there will always be demand, unless we kill ourselves off. It's more objective than subjective, imo.

Im saying that all value is subjective, including the food value.

Objective value means that its value is independent of the needs and wants of humans. That its value is inherent, not dependent on any human.

For me its obvious that is imposible. Value will always come from the needs and wants of humans, therefore is subjective.

Sorry I had just woken up when I wrote that post, what I said made no sense.

Sure it has some subjective value, but food or water will always be needed until science alters our metabolism, so there will always be some value to it.

[hugolp]

Sorry I had just woken up when I wrote that post, what I said made no sense.

Sure it has some subjective value, but food or water will always be needed until science alters our metabolism, so there will always be some value to it.

Yes, it will always have some subjective value as long as humans exists. Its imposible for anything to have objective value. For something to have objective value it needs to have value independently from humans. Its imposible, because by definition value is what we value, its subjective.

[myrkul]

I donno... we might be able to create a unit of ... I won't say value, maybe worth would be a better word, defined as the chemicals required to keep one human alive for 1 day. This would be constant, at so many pounds of O₂, so many mL of Water, and various amounts of macro and micro nutrients.

As previously stated, though, once we had this constant, everything else would then shift in relation to it.

Sounds too anthropocentric for my taste.

Seeing as how humanity is the only thing (on this planet, at least) that worries about value, I don't see that as being an issue. Unless you know something I don't?

As for variance, Yes, and age will be a major (possibly the largest) factor. It should still be possible to make an average for the adult human.

If we're looking for a 'Planck constant' of value, it's not happening. There is no one thing upon which we can base our calculations of relative value on, because nobody values anything equally at all times. Especially if you expand beyond anthropocentric definitions.

[kylesaisgone]

Value is inherently objective.

[myrkul]

Value is inherently subjective.

Fixed that for ya.

[kylesaisgone]

Value is inherently subjective.

Fixed that for ya.

That's what I meant; brain fart.

[frutza]

What a wonderfully complex question! Tomes have been written, with no clear answer... The only absolute truth is that everything is relative 

[kjj]

No clear answer?  Seriously?

Yes, it will always have some subjective value as long as humans exists. Its imposible for anything to have objective value. For something to have objective value it needs to have value independently from humans. Its imposible, because by definition value is what we value, its subjective.

How about these answers?

[Timo Y]

The concept of value you are probably referring to is purely subjective and therefore I think no absolute value can be defined.

Philosophically no.

Practically, some things behave like they have absolute value because there is such broad consensus regarding their usefulness.

[Dobrodav]

We all need some, less or more equal, amount of oxygen.

[tsvekric]

you mean humans need oxygen, that's why its subjectively valuable for humans

 

[hugolp]

The concept of value you are probably referring to is purely subjective and therefore I think no absolute value can be defined.

Philosophically no.

Practically, some things behave like they have absolute value because there is such broad consensus regarding their usefulness.

Why do I get the impression that some people think that saying something has subjective value means its less important and saying it has objective or absolute value makes it more important? For me it would be the other way around if objective/absolute value even existed. Subjective value is not a less important value, its the only one, but if something else existed, subjective value would be the most important because its what we humans need and want. What can be more important than that? What kind of value could be more important than subjective value if some other type of value existed?

[chiropteran]

isn't that what the big mac index is for?

http://www.economist.com/node/17257797?story_id=17257797

sadly mcdonalds won't sell food directly for bitcoins, so the only way to measure the BTC value in burgers is through conversion to another currency first.

[frutza]

How many apples for a cow? What about oranges? How many bitcoins for another day to live?
Jeez, I'm getting poetic, philosophical and... subjective?

[asdf]

All concepts are referenced in terms of other concepts. Kind of like the way that all words in the dictionary are defined using other words in the dictionary. There is no absolute anything! Value, morality, meaning, truth, identity.

[myrkul]

All concepts are referenced in terms of other concepts. Kind of like the way that all words in the dictionary are defined using other words in the dictionary. There is no absolute anything! Value, morality, meaning, truth, identity.

There are absolutes. Science. Mathematics.

[frutza]

Science is NOT absolute. Mathematics... yes, within itself :-)

[myrkul]

Science is NOT absolute. Mathematics... yes, within itself :-)

Given that Science has given us the definitions of concepts such as 'Absolute Zero' (0 Kelvin), and has been our go-to source for the definition of 'The smallest thing ever' for a few centuries, I'm confident in saying Science has absolutes. Science itself isn't absolute, because We don't yet know everything there is to know about the universe, and we may never know.

[billyjoeallen]

Is there somthing that never changes value, like somthing you could use to evaluate how much a currency is worth at any point in history without being relative to other currencies nor the price of a BigMac nor anything, somthing that has the same (non-zero) value for anyone at any point in history? Or you can't give somthing value without considering how it's value compares to the value of somthing else?

Um, Marginal Utility has been the understood approach to value for over a century. Short answer: no. No such thing as absolute or "intrinsic" value.

[asdf]

Science is NOT absolute. Mathematics... yes, within itself :-)

Given that Science has given us the definitions of concepts such as 'Absolute Zero' (0 Kelvin), and has been our go-to source for the definition of 'The smallest thing ever' for a few centuries, I'm confident in saying Science has absolutes. Science itself isn't absolute, because We don't yet know everything there is to know about the universe, and we may never know.

What is zero? how do you measure it without comparing it to something?

[myrkul]

Don't know much high school science, do we? 0 Kelvin is when all molecular motion stops. Absolute Zero.

[hugolp]

Don't know much high school science, do we? 0 Kelvin is when all molecular motion stops. Absolute Zero.

Just a suggestion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper You will like it.

[myrkul]

Don't know much high school science, do we? 0 Kelvin is when all molecular motion stops. Absolute Zero.

Just a suggestion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper You will like it.

That is a monster of a wiki entry. I will read it later. But thank you, it does look interesting.

[kjj]

That's because Popper was a monster of an intellectual.  He is right up there with Newton in terms of contribution to our theory and practice of science.

At any rate, since the notion of "absolute zero" started this tangent, I think I should point out that absolute zero is a bit like the speed of light.  You can never reach either one, the best you can do is approach them asymptotically.  Really, both of them are just singularities; places where the math stops working.  And absolute zero has the interesting property that there is still a ton of energy and activity going on, just not the sort of thermal energy that we know how to extract.  For more, see Zero-point field and Zero-point energy.

Value has no such singularity, and does not appear in any way, shape or form, to be fundamental.  And even if it was, if we imagined some hypothetical unit of absolute value (I'm going to call it the Planck Value), it wouldn't solve any of the problems in economics (or elsewhere) that people hope to solve by inventing it.  Prices are not stable in time or space because neither supply nor demand are stable either.

[myrkul]

Value has no such singularity, and does not appear in any way, shape or form, to be fundamental.

Because 'Value' is something defined by the person valuing something, and as was pointed out ...1, 2? pages ago, thus inherently subjective.

Edit: Additionally, the value of something is always defined relative to something else, and not always relative to the same other thing.

[frutza]

If one can construct a concept for economic value that is universally-applicable and with a clear definition (expressed mathematically), one is warranted to get a Nobel prize and change the world forever  Unfortunately, many great minds have tried and failed. Primarily because (it appears) "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"  and the same holds true for economic value in general...

[fergalish]

Energy has absolute value.  With technology, the amount of energy required to do anything decreases - this includes keeping people alive: one person requires *rougly* 5MJ/day (~ 60W) food energy just to survive.  But by making food production more efficient, the energy expenditure can be reduced.  So with a constant energy supply this currency is, in a certain sense, deflating - with a given amount of energy you can do more thanks to technology.

BUT, population is growing, and energy-consumption-per-person is growing, so, really, it's inflating - there is less energy available per person, and each person is demanding more energy.  So in this sense, it's inflating, but it's an inflation originating in a supply/demand mismatch.

Somebody (maybe famous) once said "energy is the one true currency", maybe you can find out and tell us all who it was.

If you look at the price of oil (the world's biggest energy supply, excluding perhaps food supply via photosynthesis) in terms of gold, you'll see that the ratio is reasonably constant, fluctuating between 10 to 30 barrels/oz since the early 1970's.  If only for this reason, gold is a reasonable measure of value.

That's my 2 kJ worth, corrisponding to maybe 30sec of survival, less than it took me to write this 

[The Script]

I think part of the confusion here is because we are confusing classes of things with definite amounts. Humans never desire iron or bread in their entirety, and are never faced with a choice of all iron or all bread, but rather as Mises says, definite amounts at definite times. You desire a certain amount of bread at a certain time and are willing to pay a definite amount of money for it, creating a price which reflects its value. Because the amounts of items that humans desire changes from human to human and at different times, value is indeed subjective.  Energy also has subjective value because again humans desire and pay for specific amounts at definite times.

[cunicula]

No.

[frutza]

well, let's see what happens to the energy-as-absolute-value idea when they will come up with some contraption that makes next-to-free energy 
these scientists, they can make a lot of cool things...

[TiagoTiago]

Fucking ZPMs, how do they work?

[bitcoin.monger]

what about TIME as absolute value? we never have enough of it, and please don't get einsteinian on me with speed'n'stuff

[hugolp]

what about TIME as absolute value? we never have enough of it, and please don't get einsteinian on me with speed'n'stuff

How is time valuable outside of some human deciding its valuable?

[bitcoin.monger]

hm... yeah.  so it's all relative? 

[hugolp]

hm... yeah.  so it's all relative? 

I dont know if all is relative, but certainly value is relative.

[frutza]

+1

[asdf]

austrian school on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQn6W3WwF6g