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That's fiat money.

RussianCow 11y ago
That's all money. If you're thinking of Bitcoin, the definition still applies other than the part about government backing.
thelogos 11y ago
The part on being enforced by a central government, yes. But my last line still applies to all money. That's why when someone mentions the phrase "intrinsic value", they are not seeing the core truth of money. It's interesting that money is misunderstood by so many people while representing the fundamental fabric of human society. There is no intrinsic value to anything in this universe, not one that applies to every single organism. For humans and most life forms, the closest thing that I can think of is food/water/(oxygen for aerobic organism), force of violence, pleasure and time. Today, most money aren't even in physical circulation. Most of the gold in the world sits in some cold dark vault. It's literally a video game and the funny thing is, we have enough food and water for everyone in the world already.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Current fiat monetary systems are not based on 'what the world ow[e]s you'. Money is only a token of a debt an individual or group of individuals has with a legally sanctioned and central bank blessed commercial bank.
  - mtrimpe 11y ago
    At it's core money is merely a concept used to determine deservingness though. It lets us answer the question "does this person deserve X," where X can be providing them services/goods (or not.) At the moment money is a rather contorted and easily manipulable proxy for deservingness though which is the cause of a lot, if not the majority, of the world's troubles. There's no technical reason though why we couldn't for example determine deservingness through interpersonal distribution of value; like PageRank but for people.
- lurcio 11y ago
  Today, most money aren't even in physical circulation. Most of the gold in the world sits in some cold dark vault. 'Gold as money' is still very much in circulation. Even as it sits in CB vaults.
bandrami 11y ago
You can't eat gold and its industrial uses are quite limited. Gold is just fiat money that you have to dig out of the ground.
- HAAAAMMMM 11y ago
  Gold is deflationary, which is why people like you fear it.
  - bandrami 11y ago
    I don't fear it; I'm amused by people who tell me that fiat currency is going to collapse any day now unlike super-safe gold, but that they will nonetheless be happy to exchange some of their super-safe gold for my soon-to-be-worthless fiat currency. Out of the goodness of their hearts or something.
    - adventured 11y ago
      The dollar has lost roughly 97% of its value (per the Fed's own assessment) since the Federal Reserve was created. And that's a good outcome, we could talk about the ruble, or the real, or the bolivar. Gold has not lost any value in the last century by comparison. Gold has plenty of issues, confidence as a store of value is not one of them. By comparison, the global economy is filled constantly with stories, from one country or another, of fiat being demolished through constant inflation / aggressive devaluation. Countries can drown their citizens via all sorts of schemes involving debt (ala Japan and the Yen), that then become currency devaluation schemes (QE) to debase that debt and chop down the standard of living of its citizens as a stealth move to pay for that debt. Such a thing inherently can't happen with gold. The Euro zone for example is in the middle of seeing its citizens standards of living chopped down via QE, to debase the vast debt that has been choking off the growth potential of much of Europe since 2007 (the European economy has seen zero net GDP growth since roughly 2007). How many Euro zone citizens understand what the ECB is doing to them exactly? Do they realize that what they're about to suffer, is what Americans went through from 2002 to 2014 as the Fed debased the dollar to try to avoid multiple recessions, leading to a substantial decline in the US standard of living? If the ECB drops the value of the Euro by 1/3 via QE, that substantially reduces in real terms the standard of living of anyone living on that currency. Gold shields against that abuse.
dredmorbius 11y ago
Incorrect. There's nothing in the phrase "Money is a piece of token that represents favor or debt the world owns to you" which specifies either fiat or specie currency. There have absolutely been government-issued specie currencies through history. Virtually all have also seen tremendous devaluation. Look up the 94% devaluation (and corresponding inflation) of the silver Roman denarius.

That's fiat money.

That's all money. If you're thinking of Bitcoin, the definition still applies other than the part about government backing.

thelogos 11y ago

The part on being enforced by a central government, yes. But my last line still applies to all money. That's why when someone mentions the phrase "intrinsic value", they are not seeing the core truth of money. It's interesting that money is misunderstood by so many people while representing the fundamental fabric of human society. There is no intrinsic value to anything in this universe, not one that applies to every single organism. For humans and most life forms, the closest thing that I can think of is food/water/(oxygen for aerobic organism), force of violence, pleasure and time. Today, most money aren't even in physical circulation. Most of the gold in the world sits in some cold dark vault. It's literally a video game and the funny thing is, we have enough food and water for everyone in the world already.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
Current fiat monetary systems are not based on 'what the world ow[e]s you'. Money is only a token of a debt an individual or group of individuals has with a legally sanctioned and central bank blessed commercial bank.
- mtrimpe 11y ago
  At it's core money is merely a concept used to determine deservingness though. It lets us answer the question "does this person deserve X," where X can be providing them services/goods (or not.) At the moment money is a rather contorted and easily manipulable proxy for deservingness though which is the cause of a lot, if not the majority, of the world's troubles. There's no technical reason though why we couldn't for example determine deservingness through interpersonal distribution of value; like PageRank but for people.
lurcio 11y ago
Today, most money aren't even in physical circulation. Most of the gold in the world sits in some cold dark vault. 'Gold as money' is still very much in circulation. Even as it sits in CB vaults.

bandrami 11y ago

You can't eat gold and its industrial uses are quite limited. Gold is just fiat money that you have to dig out of the ground.

HAAAAMMMM 11y ago
Gold is deflationary, which is why people like you fear it.
- bandrami 11y ago
  I don't fear it; I'm amused by people who tell me that fiat currency is going to collapse any day now unlike super-safe gold, but that they will nonetheless be happy to exchange some of their super-safe gold for my soon-to-be-worthless fiat currency. Out of the goodness of their hearts or something.
  - adventured 11y ago
    The dollar has lost roughly 97% of its value (per the Fed's own assessment) since the Federal Reserve was created. And that's a good outcome, we could talk about the ruble, or the real, or the bolivar. Gold has not lost any value in the last century by comparison. Gold has plenty of issues, confidence as a store of value is not one of them. By comparison, the global economy is filled constantly with stories, from one country or another, of fiat being demolished through constant inflation / aggressive devaluation. Countries can drown their citizens via all sorts of schemes involving debt (ala Japan and the Yen), that then become currency devaluation schemes (QE) to debase that debt and chop down the standard of living of its citizens as a stealth move to pay for that debt. Such a thing inherently can't happen with gold. The Euro zone for example is in the middle of seeing its citizens standards of living chopped down via QE, to debase the vast debt that has been choking off the growth potential of much of Europe since 2007 (the European economy has seen zero net GDP growth since roughly 2007). How many Euro zone citizens understand what the ECB is doing to them exactly? Do they realize that what they're about to suffer, is what Americans went through from 2002 to 2014 as the Fed debased the dollar to try to avoid multiple recessions, leading to a substantial decline in the US standard of living? If the ECB drops the value of the Euro by 1/3 via QE, that substantially reduces in real terms the standard of living of anyone living on that currency. Gold shields against that abuse.

dredmorbius 11y ago

Incorrect. There's nothing in the phrase "Money is a piece of token that represents favor or debt the world owns to you" which specifies either fiat or specie currency. There have absolutely been government-issued specie currencies through history. Virtually all have also seen tremendous devaluation. Look up the 94% devaluation (and corresponding inflation) of the silver Roman denarius.