Why Its Pointless To Argue With Global Warming Believers 2069

Sure, desire is what gives anything value. The desire for oil gives oil value, for instance. Nothing has an inherent value unless you attach peoples desire to it. The more people want something couple with how hard it is to get that determines its value. So air, for instance, is something that everybody desires, but it's easy to get and as such doesn't have a trading value for anyone.

Gold, being just a not-so-rare metal, is also beautiful in jewelry which means that people (women in particular :) wants to use it for their jewelry. That coupled with it being rare-hard to acquire means it has a value.

Well, I don't quite agree. Paper money is a subsbreastute for what people think are worth something, which means I can trade item X with paper money from person A and then trade paper money with item Y with person B, and avoiding only finding people that wants something I have that they desire.

This, obviously, comes from old ages trading, where carrying three hundred sheeps became pretty hard, and something had to subsbreastute those three hundred sheeps that had the same value to the reciever because *others* respected that value as well - so instead of going down to the market with what I had to trade, I could use a subsbreastute I've traded for in the past.

So, people think paper money is worth something because it is a subsbreastute for what people desire, which gives something a value. You desire a Mac, hence a Mac has value - to you. Apple may desire people to work on their iTunes team. Unfortunately, you may not be able to give Apple what is worth something to them, so you give them a subsbreastute, which they can use to trade for what they desire.

-- Sandman.net