Would be willing to be forever young?

[AMFV]

My understanding was that we are not talking about immortality or eternity, just non-aging. People who don't age would still die from accidents etc. Their life expectancy may be three or four times that of an ordinary human (anyone keen to work it out?), but would be much briefer than the time it takes for gold to perish.

The issue isn't with gold becoming Not Gold, the issue is with somebody in vending machine that can make a pound of gold out of lead for $0.37 to the pound which is a historical thing that happens quite frequently

[factotum]

The issue isn't with gold becoming Not Gold, the issue is with somebody in vending machine that can make a pound of gold out of lead for $0.37 to the pound which is a historical thing that happens quite frequently

It is? I must have missed that part of my history classes at school.

[AMFV]

It is? I must have missed that part of my history classes at school.

Well because it hasn't happened yet, but the value of minerals is hardly consistent throughout history. Aluminum was once valued more highly than gold. Now it is not. That's the kind of thing I was talking about. If you (a theoretical immortal) put your stock into any physical commodity, then it may eventually become not scarce or easily reproducible, or the value may crash completely.

And that's not even taking into account things like seizure and loss. Which are threats that an immortal would have a much more serious issue with, because they'd have a much greater chance of being impacted than a short lived being. So basically if you want to be rich as an immortal you'd still have to work at it, and you'd still have to have timing and luck.

[factotum]

While all that's true, the main reason for the drop in price of aluminium is improvements in the methods used to extract it. Gold is pretty darned rare no matter how you extract it--I think I recall reading somewhere that every single ounce of gold ever produced, if put together in one place, wouldn't fill a regulation swimming pool--so unless you literally *do* get someone finding a cheap way to convert lead into gold, its price is never going to plummet in the same way.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It is? I must have missed that part of my history classes at school.

If you read The Truth (a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett), you will learn you can in fact turn lead into gold. There are two ways: the easy way, and the hard way. The difference is that the hard way works.

In a particular historical case, the Spanish figured out a way to turn lead into silver and gold, by building machines that accelerated lead to amazing speeds. Then used said machines to kill and slave the people living close to said silver and gold. 150-ish years later (a blink of an eye to an immortal), hyperinflation came forth, and the value of gold and silver collapsed.

Similar thing had happened in a different part of the world some 200 years prior, when Mansa ("Emperor") Musa went on a shopping/PR trip, and collapsed the value of gold in the Middle East. Lead wasn't involved then, so I can't make a silly story about it, but still, you get the point: gold is not a stable repository of value, and never has been.

Gold is pretty darned rare no matter how you extract it--I think I recall reading somewhere that every single ounce of gold ever produced, if put together in one place, wouldn't fill a regulation swimming pool

Indeed, and therefore the moment that someone finds and brings to near Earth a meteorite with high gold content, doubling (say) the gold reserves of the world will make a fortune... and halve the value of gold in the process. Which should happen at some point in an immortal's lifetime.

Grey Wolf

[thorgrim29]

Apparently while Mansa Musa was definitely real and most probably the richest person ever the tale about his pilgrimage collapsing the value of gold in the market cities he visited had been through a few generations of exaggerations before Ibn Battuta wrote about them and made his way to Mali (where he proceeded to be a very bad guest... dude had an amazingly interesting life but he was a bit of a jackass judging from his own books).

Anyway I wouldn't bet on gold long term. The high value of gold is based on gold historically being valuable and pretty much nothing else... It's always going to be pretty and a good conductor but the rise of cryptocurrency is making people realize that there is no such thing as ''real'' worth to currency, it's all a social contract. I'd probably invest in land and real estate myself if I was building a fortune to last hundreds of years.

[Chen]

Indeed, and therefore the moment that someone finds and brings to near Earth a meteorite with high gold content, doubling (say) the gold reserves of the world will make a fortune... and halve the value of gold in the process. Which should happen at some point in an immortal's lifetime.

Grey Wolf

But it's not going to happen instantly. You'd be able to react to these things, just the way people react to new technologies/discoveries now. Sure it's an issue if you invest and then go into a coma or something and come back way later, but that has all sorts of other problems associated with it too.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

But it's not going to happen instantly. You'd be able to react to these things, just the way people react to new technologies/discoveries now. Sure it's an issue if you invest and then go into a coma or something and come back way later, but that has all sorts of other problems associated with it too.

And yet that is the scenario proposed:

With full immortality on the other hand you could live with no expenses and dump all your money in the bank for a really long time to accumulate interest

My point all along has been that an immortal can't simply put their money in a bank, forget about it, and somehow become rich. To become rich, you need to work at it and get lucky - say, invest in the one of a myriad indistinguishable start-ups that will become huge. Investing in gold is like investing in any other commodity: a temporary investment that you need to know when its time to buy, and when its time to sell.

Honestly, to an immortal, it might be easier to become the leader of a successful revolution in a (soon to be) banana republic.

Grey Wolf

[Chen]

I mean you do it in short bursts to avoid bank failure and probably be pretty successful in just exploiting standard compound interest. Say every 10 years. I do agree it would still take effort but significantly less if you have an unlimited timespan to work with.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I mean you do it in short bursts to avoid bank failure and probably be pretty successful in just exploiting standard compound interest. Say every 10 years. I do agree it would still take effort but significantly less if you have an unlimited timespan to work with.

Standard compound interest does not beat standard compound inflation unless you are already rich to start with. Inflation hovers around 2-4% annual. I know no bank that'll give you anywhere near close to that interest unless you give them far more money than I make in a year.

Grey Wolf

[AMFV]

While all that's true, the main reason for the drop in price of aluminium is improvements in the methods used to extract it. Gold is pretty darned rare no matter how you extract it--I think I recall reading somewhere that every single ounce of gold ever produced, if put together in one place, wouldn't fill a regulation swimming pool--so unless you literally *do* get someone finding a cheap way to convert lead into gold, its price is never going to plummet in the same way.

It won't plummet in the same way necessarily, but people could discover new reserves that could drastically lower the value of what you have. People could decide to buy less. The point here is that it's not just putting money in the bank, you have to actually work to be rich, and it's difficult to predict what's going to work to make money on a scale that's incredibly fleeting to an immortal.

But it's not going to happen instantly. You'd be able to react to these things, just the way people react to new technologies/discoveries now. Sure it's an issue if you invest and then go into a coma or something and come back way later, but that has all sorts of other problems associated with it too.

I think the worst problem you'd have with being an immortal and trying to become very rich would be burning out. Eventually you're not going to want to check the stocks in the morning cause you've done it every morning for 300 years. And you'll burn out, like most people who are doing stressful things do. Then you'll wind up losing a big chunk of your wealth. Which again means a lot of work.

Also people don't always react well to new tech/discoveries, a lot of people lose their shirt to those things.

I mean you do it in short bursts to avoid bank failure and probably be pretty successful in just exploiting standard compound interest. Say every 10 years. I do agree it would still take effort but significantly less if you have an unlimited timespan to work with.

Well then you'd still have to do with national failure, currency failures, and national bank crashes (in which you would have few banking alternatives).

[factotum]

The point here is that it's not just putting money in the bank, you have to actually work to be rich, and it's difficult to predict what's going to work to make money on a scale that's incredibly fleeting to an immortal.

Oh, I don't disagree with that. If you're after something that always appreciates in value then no such thing exists--gold is more stable over the long term than a lot of currencies, but it's not a sure thing by any means.

@thorgrim29: Gold isn't just useful because it's pretty and it's a good conductor, it's also incredibly malleable, which makes it useful for some applications you might not think of--for instance, the cockpit windows on Concorde had an incredibly thin layer of gold in them to act as an anti-glare mechanism.

[thorgrim29]

Yeah ok it was an oversimplification. Gold still is vastly overvalued compared to it's value as a metal even though we've been off the gold standard for 40 or so years.

[jayem]

Yeah ok it was an oversimplification. Gold still is vastly overvalued compared to it's value as a metal even though we've been off the gold standard for 40 or so years.

The other thing you can do is play for time.
You can be your own 'child'/'rich uncle' as it were for a generation saving education and food costs. You don't have to attract/support a partner, you don't need maternity leave. Conversely the senile you won't be running down the inheritance.
All those non-expenses can go in the bank, which gives the you of 20 years time their deposit (or equivalent). And in turn the you of 40 years time their house. Which gives you a good kick up to having the assets to start playing with the bigger boys. Which is probably at least 95% successful throughout time (on the basis people manage to have kids grow up) .

If you could take some extreme risks safely then that's an even quicker way to start your nest egg. Hold up a few stagecoaches.

Arguably that doesn't work quite so from a serf based position, but there are probably ways to game the system even there for a small advantage.

[Liquor Box]

The issue isn't with gold becoming Not Gold, the issue is with somebody in vending machine that can make a pound of gold out of lead for $0.37 to the pound which is a historical thing that happens quite frequently

What do you mean "quite frequently"? Because, again, I don't think this thread is about immortality/eternity. It's not impossible that gold will become less valuable (perhaps we will discover a planet that is rich in gold), but I think there'd be short odds on the non-aging person dyeing from an accident long before gold significantly loses its value.

Gold is seen as one the most stable investments for a reason. That reason is not because the collective judgment of investors as to gold's value and stability is less intelligent or well informed than that of people on this forum.

Standard compound interest does not beat standard compound inflation unless you are already rich to start with. Inflation hovers around 2-4% annual. I know no bank that'll give you anywhere near close to that interest unless you give them far more money than I make in a year.

Grey Wolf

Unless I am misunderstanding you, I don't you are universally correct. You may be speaking from a local perspective, but in my home country there are term deposit interest rates available that are significantly greater than local inflation. You don't need much money to receive the interest rate, but you would need a lot of money before your profit (after tax and accounting for inflation) became significant.

My point all along has been that an immortal can't simply put their money in a bank, forget about it, and somehow become rich. To become rich, you need to work at it and get lucky - say, invest in the one of a myriad indistinguishable start-ups that will become huge. Investing in gold is like investing in any other commodity: a temporary investment that you need to know when its time to buy, and when its time to sell.

If we were talking about true immortality, the safest way to safeguard (and conservatively grow) your money would be through diversity. Buy some gold, some government bonds, some in the bank, some in real property (no mortgage), some in managed funds etc etc (not all within a single country).

Of course there may be a total breakdown of civilisation, or the extinction of our species. But short of that, once you have accumulated sufficient money to diversify to the extent that you could survive a portion of your portfolio losing value, I think you are reasonably safe.

[factotum]

I think there'd be short odds on the non-aging person dyeing from an accident long before gold significantly loses its value.

If we were talking about true immortality, the safest way to safeguard (and conservatively grow) your money would be through diversity. Buy some gold, some government bonds, some in the bank, some in real property (no mortgage), some in managed funds etc etc (not all within a single country).

Are accidents so common? The only information I can find is from 2011 in the UK, but that shows that there were 484,000 deaths in that year, of which only 11,000 were accidental--the others were mostly disease. Given the population here is around 65 million, that suggests your annual chance of death from accident here is only 0.017%--which means your chance of dying in an accident if you lived a thousand years would still only be 15.7%.

The second point is kind of ignoring that banks, property ownership, funds etc. all have the problem of what you do to prove you own them if you've lived longer than an average lifetime. You'd have to withdraw the funds and legally pass them on to your "son" every few decades. Gold has the advantage that it's a physical object you can store, so if doesn't have that problem to the same degree.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Gold has the advantage that it's a physical object you can store, so if doesn't have that problem to the same degree.

The same is true of every other commodity exchangeable through the stock market. And heck, bearer bonds. Gold isn't special - you might as well invest the money in apple stock or orange juice futures (or, you know, a bit of everything). But again, none of it is stable in even the medium run (see: current bubble-like conditions of both gold and apple stock), and of course, it takes time and effort (as well as knowledge and luck) to make a fortune this way.

Grey Wolf

[thorgrim29]

To be clear, I don't think investing in gold is dumb, I think the concept of gold having value is dumb. Since I don't have the power to change that I might very well invest in gold at some point if I'm reasonably confident a market crash is coming. I'll hate myself a bit for becoming part of the problem but I'll still do it...

Anyway, if we're talking about being the only immortal and trying to keep it a secret like I said I would probably invest in real estate and every time my empire gets big enough to make waves I'd set up a trust to manage it and start over under a new name once I get bored/want more money. No matter what happens as long as there's people they'll need to live and work somewhere. In this scenario I'm able to set up new identities fairly easily, I have no idea how possible that is and how long that will remain the case what with face recognition software and digital records though.

[Liquor Box]

Are accidents so common? The only information I can find is from 2011 in the UK, but that shows that there were 484,000 deaths in that year, of which only 11,000 were accidental--the others were mostly disease. Given the population here is around 65 million, that suggests your annual chance of death from accident here is only 0.017%--which means your chance of dying in an accident if you lived a thousand years would still only be 15.7%.

There is a bit of ambiguity in the thread itself. I took it as immunity to aging only, not immunity to disease (or accidents) - although youth might mean you are at decreased risk of some diseases associated with age.

I'm surprised that the rate of accidents is as low as you say, but I was only guessing so I am happy to take your word for it.

The second point is kind of ignoring that banks, property ownership, funds etc. all have the problem of what you do to prove you own them if you've lived longer than an average lifetime. You'd have to withdraw the funds and legally pass them on to your "son" every few decades. Gold has the advantage that it's a physical object you can store, so if doesn't have that problem to the same degree.

That's true, if we assume that you are the only person who has an elongated lifetime (so banks might refuse to believe that you are the person who owns the deposit). Many countries have inheritance tax etc as well. This does open a can of worms beyond maintaining your bank account though - how would you maintain an identity in a modern society (including tax numbers, a passport etc) without breaking the law?

I must admit, that when I referred to gold, I was not actually referring to taking physical possession of it, only ownership.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

To be clear, I don't think investing in gold is dumb, I think the concept of gold having value is dumb.

That's going a bit too far. Everything has a value, even if only relative to everything else. Gold gets its value from its industrial and fashion applications, and a multiplier due to its current scarcity.

Which is, in fact, what makes it such a poor candidate as the base for a medium of exchange ("currency"). The less valuable the medium, the better. Rarity is also undesirable, now that we have better method to prevent counterfeiting.

Grey Wolf

[Bohandas]

To be clear, I don't think investing in gold is dumb, I think the concept of gold having value is dumb.

I second that (to the point that I rooted for the villains in the movie Hudson Hawk). Though I think that may be why it's so good for coinage; it's pretty useless, and taking a bunch using all of it to make coins isn;t going ti dusrupt anything

[thorgrim29]

That's going a bit too far. Everything has a value, even if only relative to everything else. Gold gets its value from its industrial and fashion applications, and a multiplier due to its current scarcity.

Value higher than an equivalent material without history as a currency would have I mean. I don't know what the numbers are exactly but I would suspect most of the gold in circulation is bullion being horded for investment purposes.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Value higher than an equivalent material without history as a currency would have I mean. I don't know what the numbers are exactly but I would suspect most of the gold in circulation is bullion being horded for investment purposes.

Nope. Jewelry. Mind you, in India* it kinda doubles as both, but it is definitely not in bullion form.

And honestly, I think you are wrong about higher value than similar materials. Ignoring for a second the bubble price, I think you will find it is about level with other materials of similar rarity and specialised used - platinum and palladium spring to mind. Yes, right now because of various unsavory reasons the price of gold is inflated (which is why I said it was a poor way to store wealth - it is not as stable as people think it is), but once the hucksters have made their fortunes or the law catches up to them, the price will go back to the equlibrium point, I suspect.

As to using it for coin, it's a terrible idea. It is too soft to hold its shape in regular use, which is why it needed to be at least partially mixed with lead, it is way too heavy and of course, due to the supply being limited, it makes for very poor currency in any growing economy. Pro-tip: don't pick as a medium of exchange anything you can't make more of as the economy requires it. It's a medium of exchange - a way to keep the score, if you will - not a ball and chain. There is a reason why most cultures preferred little seashells to gold, even when both were available.

Grey Wolf

* More so than elsewhere, I mean. Trying to find the news of it, but recently the Indian government tried to get the citizenship to stop using gold jewelry as a form of savings, because India's trade deficit is not helped by the massive continued import of gold.