“Scarce” is a relative term. Trump Tower in Manhattan has lots of gold stuff in it, but by weight or item count it’s still the scarcest item in the building, by far. Relative to bullets or beans or rope or other commodities, it’s extremely scarce.
Post-apocalypse, it may change hands due to abandonment or theft, but it will still be as scarce as it is today. The amount of available gold won’t increase or decrease.
Actually it will probably decrease, because (A) nobody knows where all the known gold possessions are, and (B) there will be little (if any) new gold mined for a very, very long time.
So gold is ubiquitous enough that everybody can get some of it, but nobody can accumulate all the gold or even a big fraction of it. That’s why historically it’s been a useful medium for expressing prices, because prices are information about the scarcity of things in general.
Cool story about that… one of the stones was lost in the ocean while being transported from island to island, a big valuable one. Just entirely lost.
The value wasn’t lost because everybody agreed on the story of who owned the stone, and they just made a new one and documented the previous owner. (Hopefully they made it at the shipping destination instead of trying to re-make and re-ship it
The low-tech approach worked here because there were strong social traditions about agreement on history and truth. If we don’t have that, then we need higher-tech solutions like commodities (gold) or government currency documents (coins, bills), or computerized blockchain tech.
I repeat myself, but post-apocalypse the social fabric won’t support the approach of shared oral traditions, at least not on a large scale. Governments of sufficient scale will take time time to develop, and high-tech will be centuries away, but precious metals will still be around.
(I’m not a gold bug and I’m not a prepper or goldbug or anything; I am just speculating where I think society will progress with regard to money).
You were successful then because, as Lumpy says, black powder doesn’t go Bang unless it’s confined. Think of someone lighting a powder train to set off a barrel of gunpowder. I remember as a kid breaking ladyfinger firecrackers open and lighting the pile of powder that came out.
Even loose modern propellants only burn fiercely instead of exploding. I read a fire department study concerned with a fire in the home of a prepper or reloader with a lot of ammunition around, or even bulk cans of the stuff. The conclusion was that it was reasonably safe – by fireman standards. Cans of powder burn. Loose ammunition might cook off but the biggest danger would be brass shrapnel if the case failed, and ordinary turnouts were good against that. The biggest danger was a round in a gun chamber making the bullet move at high speed.
In a similar vein, I think in one of Harry Harrison’s Deathworld books, the spaceman protagonist is trying to drag a primitive society into the modern age. It was mentioned in passing that the formula for black powder escaped him, to the joy of minions tasked with raking through manure piles for saltpeter.
why would I sell it instead of, you know, just using it? And you’re still ignoring that in how ever many years you would still have an ounce of gold, but you’ve no guarantee what you’ll be able to sell it for in the future.
Inigo Montoya the 1850s Prepper: “Aluminum is where it’s at! Why I’ve spent my family’s entire fortune on this ingot of fantastic metal! When the Union breaks up following the next big national crisis, I will have enough wealth to buy Hawai’i. Whatever that is.”
Two reasons.
1)There’s no apocalypse, and that’s what you bought it for.
2) The hypothetical that kicked off this tangent is that you find yourself in need of money, not 1,000 shotgun shells, 500 cans of beans, a case of strike anywhere matches, and 55 gallons of acetone.
Gold has been valuable for literally the entirety of human history. Banking on it retaining at least some of its value for the next 20 years is a pretty safe bet.
All value is fictional, though. I mean, it is a fiction that describes real human relationships to physical objects, but all currency is fiction because value is an abstraction.
My choice for “apocalypse trade goods” was always medication. Opiates. Benzodiazepines. Anti-depressants. Easy to store, easy to carry, easy to hide, with a high barter value. And there will be a lot of people addicted to the stuff.
Agreed. And that’s one difference between an apocalypse happening now and those in the past. We have effective medicines. These will definitely have high value until civilization is back on its feet.
This is debateable though.
IMO, depression might set in, it depends on the specifics of the scenario. I think in many cases depression might decrease, since having clear, significant, short term goals (avoid the many threats, try to find food, avoid more threats) at least keeps the mind focused.
And humans evolved in smaller communities than modern cities…living in smaller groups again may well help our psychological state.
Let me be clear: I am not one to fantasize about the apocalypse. It will be hell.
But one minor upside of enduring hell, is that it might keep the D-monster at bay for a while.
Also, for trade purposes - hard to fake. At least the recreational drugs. You know when you’ve had something pure vs. a substitute. Anything valuable and hard to fake is a good candidate for a trade good if not actual currency.
Hell, even salt might make a comeback. Not everybody lives near the ocean or a salt mine.
My point is that while gold will have some value in most situations, there are very few scenarios where gold is the best trade good.
In normal times, you’re better off with currency than gold. You can’t go to the supermarket and buy groceries with gold. If you want to buy groceries, you’re going to have to first stop somewhere where they will exchange you cash for your gold.
If society has collapsed and currency is worthless, you’re still going to want things other than gold. You’ll be trading you gold for food or medicine or ammunition. And you have to hope that the people who have food or medicine or ammunition happen to want some gold.
So in every case, you’d be better off with the things you were traded your gold for - money, food, medicine, ammunition - than you would be with the gold itself.
That said, gold does have value. So in some situations, people will try to take it from you. Just like how in some situations, people will try to take your money or your food or your car or your cow.
You’re talking about two different things. There’s stuff you own because you want or need them. And there’s stuff you own because it’s an investment. The stuff you own are things you’re planning on consuming or using on an ongoing basis. The investment stuff are the things you plan on reselling for more money than you paid for them.
As an investment, the problem with gold is that it doesn’t change while you own it. If you buy stocks, you’re doing so on the assumption that the company will increase in wealth so your shares of it will become more valuable. If you buy cattle, you can expect that your animals will have little animals and your herd will get bigger. If you buy a plot of land, you figure you can build houses on it, and the property will be more valuable. In every case, you’re expecting that the thing you bought will increase in value because it’s getting better than when you bought it. But gold doesn’t do that; the gold you bought isn’t going to get bigger or shinier or golder. If you’re buying gold as an investment, you’re hoping that people in the future will want to pay more than you did for the exact same thing.
I very much agree with your take on #1 and #2, but in this thread, I’m only talking about #3.
The very thing that makes gold a pedestrian investment, makes it a superior choice for #3. The likelihood of total world apocalypse is pretty low. Of the potentially useful apocalypse goods one can stock up on, gold is one that will maintain its value in the event you are faced with a stable society, but may also have use when it all falls apart.
This conversation has been very interesting to follow, but the definition of “apocalypse” seems to vary throughout the thread. The OP said “Breakdown of social order”, which I took to mean we entirely go back to 1800s technology and somewhat Mad Maxian for a while.
I don’t think it will matter in the immediate aftermath because the things needed just to survive would be paramount. However, as time passed and societies began to rebuild, it would probably once again become the most valued form of currency. So, it would be a good idea to start hoarding it immediately in preparation for that day.
In a similar vein, I’m stockpiling sugar. Jellybeans, candy corn, dried dates. Not chocolate - I’m sticking to candies that are almost pure sugar. Small, portable, long-lasting, and desirable to every human. Hell, come the zombie apocalypse, I could probably get five rabbits and a deer haunch for a bag of Circus Peanuts, even.
See, I’m reaching the same conclusion from the diametraly opposite way : antidepressants will not be in high demand because come the post-apocalypse there will be so many reasons and such a vast number of socially acceptable ways to let the big D win once and for all. It’s a lot easier on your loved ones to learn that “oh, she got raped to death then eaten by a pack of blind radioactive Trump-ghouls” than “she hanged herself in her dorm room for no apparent reason” ; and even if you do the latter, well, it’s the apocalypse. People will understand and accept and not resent you so much for ruining their mood.
The post-apocalypse is a motivated-only environment
Opiates is a good one though. Post-apocalypse people will want to get fucked up a lot.
Whether gold would be “the best trade good” is a much stronger claim than the topic of the OP.
I’ve said twice now why I think it will have significant value for some people, and that’s all it takes.
The fisherman does not need to want to accumulate gold himself, he only needs to know that there is a market where he can exchange it. The advantage for the fisherman is he can sell all of his excess catch today, even though there are no goods in the local vicinity that he wants to barter for.
