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What will happen to the PP if gold can be made in a lab?
Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:13 pm
by jason
Gold has been created in a lab by scientists, but it's apparently currently extremely expensive to make.
Here is an article about it from 2014:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... into-gold/
Has anyone else wondered what would happen to the PP if someone figures out a cost effective/cheap way to create gold in a lab. If that did happen, and the price of gold plummeted, I would assume gold would no longer be a good fit for the PP. So what would we replace it with? Silver? And what if they can make cheap silver and other precious metals in a lab? What would we replace them with in the PP? Farmland?
Re: What will happen to the PP if gold can be made in a lab?
Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:52 pm
by Dieter
Or a cost effective way to mine the asteroid belt.
Then depends on the demand.
And probably would behave differently.
At some point down the line.
Re: What will happen to the PP if gold can be made in a lab?
Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2020 12:42 pm
by pp4me
Wouldn't that make it even more like what we think of as "money" nowadays?
Re: What will happen to the PP if gold can be made in a lab?
Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2020 1:42 pm
by Libertarian666
jason wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:13 pm
Gold has been created in a lab by scientists, but it's apparently currently extremely expensive to make.
Here is an article about it from 2014:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... into-gold/
Has anyone else wondered what would happen to the PP if someone figures out a cost effective/cheap way to create gold in a lab. If that did happen, and the price of gold plummeted, I would assume gold would no longer be a good fit for the PP. So what would we replace it with? Silver? And what if they can make cheap silver and other precious metals in a lab? What would we replace them with in the PP? Farmland?
Of course you can transmute elements in the laboratory.
However, there is no likelihood that will be inexpensive any time in our lifetimes, so I wouldn't worry about it.
Even asteroid mining is a bigger threat, and it also isn't anything to worry about.
Re: What will happen to the PP if gold can be made in a lab?
Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2020 3:27 pm
by jason
pp4me wrote: ↑Thu Sep 03, 2020 12:42 pm
Wouldn't that make it even more like what we think of as "money" nowadays?
LOL. I guess we can keep the gold and dump cash since they will essentially be the same.
Re: What will happen to the PP if gold can be made in a lab?
Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2020 3:31 pm
by Smith1776
Indeed. I agree there's nothing to worry about regarding the creation of gold in a lab. It's not going to be economical anytime soon.
Even with asteroid mining the only way that would ever be economically feasible is if the price of gold was high enough to justify it. So the very act of asteroid mining might actually indicate a future favourable to gold bugs rather than one that is detrimental. It really depends on where the equilibrium point of the market happens to be during that scenario.