CronoDAS comments on What legal ways do people make a profit that produce the largest net loss in utility? - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Punoxysm 25 March 2014 01:53AM

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Comment author: CronoDAS 26 March 2014 02:29:31AM *  2 points [-]

Isn't the underlying problem gold hoarding, then, and not gold mining? (If gold were as cheap as copper, what would we do with it that we don't do already?)

Comment author: gwern 26 March 2014 03:51:48PM 2 points [-]

(If gold were as cheap as copper, what would we do with it that we don't do already?)

Are you asking what uses would humanity intensify and employ even more gold for than we already do now, or what entirely new uses (which are currently uneconomical or have not been discovered) we would employ gold for? Because at least for the former, there's a variety of uses for gold: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Medicine (and scroll down for further uses).

Comment author: CronoDAS 27 March 2014 04:35:36AM 0 points [-]

Both are good ways to answer.

Comment author: Lumifer 26 March 2014 03:19:14PM 2 points [-]

If gold were as cheap as copper, what would we do with it that we don't do already?

A lot, actually. Gold is very ductile and completely impervious to corrosion, just to mention the first two characteristics that came to mind.

Comment author: CronoDAS 27 March 2014 04:31:52AM 0 points [-]

And a really good electrical conductor. It's already used extensively in the integrated circuit industry, although they don't really use very much by weight...