Nick Szabo  🔑

:) That's the problem though isn't it? Don't you find it a bit perplexing that we have to rely on theoretical postulates ie: "Deep History" by Lord-Smail or Graeber, to believe in this "ascension" theory of commodities? You sort of have to believe in the whole "Standard Model"...

1/2 Would it not be equally logical to postulate that: Gold has always been the premier commodity money since the at least the dawn of written history? And that the ratios between geology and free markets have reconciled since? Gold/Silver Gold/Copper etc. Bitcoin is something..

There was already over a millennium of experience with gold before it appeared in written records, so what those records say about it say is irrelevant to the uncertainty surrounding its use during its first few decades, which common sense tells us would have been quite high.

Uncertainty was so high, indeed, that shell-using cultures almost always ignored gold dust & nuggets in their environment (e.g. indigenous cultures of California). Was highly improbable event when Danubians started supplementing shell beads with gold beads, and then kept at it.

I think evidence of some cultures ignoring gold doesn't detract from the mystery of why it appears MOST cultures through varying epochs/geographies overwhelmingly VALUED it, based on its natural characteristics. The key here is overwhelming majority.

No, that's about 99.9% of cultures with gold in their environment, but no exposure to cultures turning gold into artifacts, ignored gold. The first and early uses of gold were extremely non-obvious, entailing extremely high uncertainty.

Final Twt (as usual enjoyed this). You don't have any evidence for the claim above Nick which is a relatively new, falsifiable anthropological theory. And even if I believe it, doesn't change last 4,500 years where a MAJORITY overwhelmingly embraced the natural properties of AU.