NASA headed towards giant golden asteroid that could make everyone on Earth a billionaire

submitted by EthnocratArcheofuturist from self.debatealtright

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[–]literalotherkinNorm MacDonald Nationalism 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

To your point about abundance I agree it should be a good thing but not for metals that have no real intrinsic value to anyone. You can't eat gold, you can't make clothes out of gold and outside of limited industrial applications it is basically worthless to mankind outside of a store of value which has historically relied on it outside of the various gold rush periods having a relatively stable supply. Why do you and why WOULD anyone pay you more than 5 or 10 cents for an aluminum can? If gold were as abundant as aluminum why would anyone pay you more than that for a gold can?

This has nothing to do with 'neoclassical' economics either it just is a basic fact of life that having something that everyone already else has which is essentially worthless in any practical sense means no one is going to give you any money for it.

[–]neomarxist_bullshit 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

It's used in electronics etc so it definitely has an objective value. It's a rare metal and when we run out of it these sorts of asteroids will be handy

[–]literalotherkinNorm MacDonald Nationalism 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I said limited industrial uses didn't I?

[–]neomarxist_bullshit 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

well considering electronics is in everything today and everyone uses it I wouldn't try to downplay its importance

[–]Node 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If we do catch a Carrington Event strength CME in the next few years (more likely than ever before), electronics and maybe even electricity itself will be toast.

How often do Carrington events occur? Roughly every 150 years

Let's see, what's 1859 + 150?

[–]neomarxist_bullshit 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

hmm interesting observation

[–]literalotherkinNorm MacDonald Nationalism 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Many metals are used in electronics. Aluminum is used in electronics but it costs a fraction of the price gold does because it's so abundant. So too would gold be as cheap if you extracted every Kg of gold from the asteroid in question. It would not make everyone a billionaire. You've totally missed the point.