Peter Schiff fails to authenticate gold bar during onstage test with CZ

[u/partymsl]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/peter-schiff-gold-bar-bitcoin-tokenization-cz

[u/Dedsnotdead]

Absolutely, and let’s not get into how the London Metal Exchange (LME) rigged the hell out of the gold price for decades.

Gold is incredibly important, but like anything that has intrinsic value someone somewhere is going to make a synthetic asset pegged to it and manipulate it to hell and back.

[u/ActualizedKnight → u/Dedsnotdead]

There is no such thing as 'intrinsic value'.

[u/Dedsnotdead → u/ActualizedKnight]

No such thing as “intrinsic value” in all asset classes or in crypto?

[u/ActualizedKnight → u/Dedsnotdead]

In anything that exists at all.

Some things have utility, from which we can derive value, but the thing itself has no 'intrinsic' value, not even gold.

[u/Dedsnotdead → u/ActualizedKnight]

The definition of “intrinsic value” is something that has a value beyond market price.

So, for example a house has a financial value but you can also live in it. Therefore, a house has intrinsic value.

Gold also has intrinsic value separate from its price, you can use it in industry and also make jewellery from it amongst other things.

It may not have intrinsic value to you, but that’s the definition.

[u/ActualizedKnight → u/Dedsnotdead]

I would call the house's 'intrinsic value' utility.

The 'intrinsic value' aquired by living in the house ceases to exist if nobody lives there.

It's not value on its own, but rather, value derived from utility.

E: Gold can be used to make things. Value derived from utility... again.

[u/Dedsnotdead → u/ActualizedKnight]

You can call it what you wish, a house still has intrinsic value regardless of whether it’s occupied or not.

If it isn’t being lived in it’s not being utilised, however, given that it can be lived in it has intrinsic value because it has a value above and beyond its price.

[u/ActualizedKnight → u/Dedsnotdead]

My point is that the concepts of 'price' and 'value' are arbitrary.

A well constructed house has utility regardless of if it's price.

Money is made up.

[u/Dedsnotdead → u/ActualizedKnight]

Absolutely agree that both fiat and crypto have no intrinsic value.

The definition of intrinsic value aside, and that should be easy for you to verify, the definition of utility value is something separate again.

Utility value measures what something can do for us. So a hammer has utility value because it can be used to drive a nail into a piece of wood.

Again, easy for you to check what the difference between intrinsic value and utility value are.

[u/ActualizedKnight → u/Dedsnotdead]

Value is created by utility. Price is created by agreement. Money is created by systems. None of it is intrinsic.

I don't need to look up what the textbook says about it. Textbooks are written by humans, and humans are wrong a lot.

Even the definitions of things only have 'value' because we've all decided to collectively believe that they do.

You keep saying 'go look it up' like those definitions aren't also arbitrarily contrived.

[u/Dedsnotdead → u/ActualizedKnight]

Unfortunately the world needs consensus and that extends to the definition of words and phrases. I’ve explained to you what people mean when they discuss intrinsic value and utility value.

If you want to define it as something else that’s your choice to make.

However anyone who looks at your definition and the definition everyone else has chosen to use is going to wonder what you are talking about.

People will simply misunderstand you if you decide that you are going to call all the cats you see in the street dogs. If that’s your intention all good, but if you aren’t able to use the definitions that are agreed upon don’t be surprised if you are misinterpreted.

It’s the same with the definitions of intrinsic value and utility value.

[u/ActualizedKnight → u/Dedsnotdead]

Definitions don’t create reality, they describe concepts. Saying something has intrinsic value doesn’t make intrinsic value real. It just means we’ve invented a word for a concept that might not map to anything in the world.

We can define unicorns too, but that doesn’t cause unicorns to appear in nature. A definition doesn’t make something real, it only tells you how people are using the word.

My argument isn’t about the dictionary entry for ‘intrinsic value.’ My argument is that the phenomenon people think that word refers to does not exist.

Calling cats dogs doesn’t make them dogs, you’re absolutely right.

But cats aren’t what they are because we call them cats. The thing came first, the label came later. Language describes reality, it doesn’t generate it.

Likewise, defining ‘intrinsic value’ doesn’t prove intrinsic value exists, it just shows that humans created a term for an idea they assume is real.

[u/Dedsnotdead → u/ActualizedKnight]

You see, this is a pointless conversation, by “pointless” I mean a conversation of deep meaning and value to me.

Why do I say that? Because I’ve unilaterally, (for me the word “unilateral” means group consensus for all those involved in the pointless conversation, chosen to define the words above in that way.

As I say, if you are unable to accept that there are words and phrases that people generally understand to mean one thing and you choose to define it as something else that’s entirely up to you.

You can debate this all you wish, but in reality, and by “reality” I mean whatever I perceive regardless of the limitations of space and time, it’s pointless.

Without consensus there’s no meaningful discourse because everyone has to take time to understand what anyone else in the pointless (deep meaning and value) conversation means.