Hacker News Reader

Comment by carlosjobim | Hacker News Reader

Name one thing in the universe which is better than gold? Tip: You can't.

Nothing is better than gold. A ham sandwich is better than nothing. Therefore a ham sandwich is better than gold.

the scholastics were right about everything

You’re lost in the desert, with no food or water but only a lump of gold. Everything is fine because nothing in the universe is better than gold.

The movie “The treasure of the Sierra Madras” does a good job of putting gold in it’s place.

Better than being in the desert with no food, no water and no gold.

How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver!

-- Proverbs 16:16

The fear of GOD is pure, abiding forever; the judgments of GOD are true, righteous altogether, more desirable than gold, than much fine gold; sweeter than honey, than drippings of the comb.

-- Psalms 19

Per gram you can sell printer ink for more.

You have not followed the gold price over the last couple of years... Definitely not true anymore.

A quick search says maybe the last year it was true was in 2003.

If you don't define your domain, "better" is vacuous of meaning, as nothing and everything is "better" than gold.

Diamonds? You can use them in a drill bit.

Easy, boobs

Depending on the timeframe I think palladium has traded higher per oz at times

Oxygen

Gold is a noble metal and doesn't react with anything.

Oxygen is one of the most ignoble gases, and reacts with almost everything.

Iron. For the purpose of building bridges.

Better than gold in what aspect? Good luck trying to move to a different country and bringing all your gold with you without filling out a hell of a lot of forms and risking confidcation for "money laundering". Bitcoin doesn't have this problem

The supply of gold is always inflating. One day we will have asteroid mining of gold and it will be inflated even more. Bitcoin doesn't have this problem.

Nobody will accept your gold for a cup of coffee in day to day life, but restraints and coffee shops will increasingly take your bitcoin over lightning.

Doesn't bitcoin have a big potential problem of someone breaking asymmetric cryptography.

Bitcoin is a protocol which has evolved over time to meet the needs of its users. In the next decade or so, Bitcoin will have a soft fork to deal with the problem of quantum computers.

Even if a state actor manages to break the asymmetric cryptography before then (literally impossible to get enough compute power to do this currently), the users can just fork the blockchain before that happens, fix the bug, and continue on.

Every single financial system that currently exists has a big potential problem if someone breaks asymmetric encryption. Every single government power also has a very big problem as well.

Almost every entity in the world has an incentive to find the solution to this problem, and when it is found Bitcoin will just do a soft fork and include it into itself.

Have you tried? Gold is tax free for import and export practically everywhere. At most you need to declare it, and that's it. Customs look at your declaration for one second and waves you by. Same with large amounts of fiat money.

And even if you want to "smuggle" gold, it's not hard either. Nothing is easier.

> One day we will have asteroid mining of gold

Rejoice, that will be the best day in the history of humanity!

> Name one thing in the universe which is better than gold?

Time.

Uranium? Tricky to fuel a nuclear reactor with gold.

Hydrocarbons? Everything from making life to providing energy.

Silicon? Making silicon chips.

Oxygen? I like breathing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com