Treasure Of the Sierra Madre proof of work quote \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Treasure Of the Sierra Madre proof of work quote

336 sats \ 18 comments \ @siggy47 15 Dec bitcoin

I'm watching the old Humphrey Bogart Movie "The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre." About 10 minutes in one of the characters quizzes other prospectors:

Why is gold worth 20 dollars an ounce? I'll tell you why. It's not for the jewelry you can make. It is because of the human labor that went into the findin of it and the gettin of it.

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36 sats \ 13 replies \ @Scoresby 15 Dec

Is that proof of work...or is it Marx?

102 sats \ 12 replies \ @siggy47 OP 15 Dec

I didn't look at it that way. Explain? Are you referring to the propaganda overtones of the film re wealth, or the individuals looking to change their lives? No doubt greed and wealth are message targets, but the virtues of individualism and trustlessness are displayed regardless, and maybe inadvertently.

36 sats \ 11 replies \ @Scoresby 15 Dec

It is because of the human labor that went into the findin of it and the gettin of it.

In my mind, gold has value because people want it, not because of how much labor people put in to "the findin' of it and the gettin' of it." If some gold is particularly difficult to acquire, does it make it worth more?

Gold may be proof of work, but I don't think that's what gives it value (would it be worth any less if you happened to find a gold necklace someone accidentally dropped on the sidewalk?). The value is just people wanting it. In the same way, Bitcoin's proof of work doesn't give it value, it's an attribute that people find useful about Bitcoin. The bitcoin mined in 2009 with low difficulty is worth the same as bitcoin mined today with much higher difficulty.

102 sats \ 6 replies \ @optimism 15 Dec

I think both are wrong. The price is where supply meets demand. Demand doesn't set the price, and neither does supply. If your ask is too high, there is no trade and similarly, when your bid is too low.

169 sats \ 4 replies \ @Scoresby 15 Dec

Ah, my woes with supply and demand are deep and abiding -- just ask @Undisciplined.

I think where I'm at now is that supply and demand are both terms that describe how much people value something.

What is supply but an expression of someone's demand for a thing?

202 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 15 Dec

That can work. What people have are inventories and marginal valuations.

If your inventory is positive, then your valuations are your contribution to market supply.

Your valuations beyond your inventory are your contribution to market demand.

102 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 15 Dec

Do you mean as in: we could be matching your demand for my gold with my demand for your sats. And of course your demand for gold needs to be higher than your demand for sats, and my demand for sats needs to be higher than my demand for gold. I could see that logic, and we could state that the XAU/BTC market reflects the demands for gold and bitcoin. Perhaps "supply" is an oversimplification.

so replacing "supply":

If your demand for gold is lower than my demand for sats, we have no trade, and vice versa. But if both our demands match, we have a trade. It just means that instead of taking the demand for sats as an MoE, we treat everything like barter.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 15 Dec

we treat everything like barter.

This may be a good way of putting it.

We never left the "age of barter" -- we just started bartering different things (mostly monies).

Maybe the problem of prices is that they pretend that one half of the trade is exempt from the effects of the trade. But the reality is that both the thing being priced and what it is being priced in are dynamic.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 15 Dec

I think that this is the reality of my personal "bitcoin standard" at this time in history (as I'd guess it is for most among us that have one.) I'm not seeing a path where everyone has this standard, so I expect this to be the status quo for the rest of my life. I don't mind living with it, despite that this view mostly has helped grifters/shitcoiners. Heck, there are days that I feel like more than half of the Bitcoin space is made up of NgU-only fiat maxis.

However, the problem with this approach is that it makes contracts hard. The final milestone payment of a BTC-denominated contract I delivered my end for is still not honored, now coming up on a year (#1014572).

This leads me to think that, if we want Bitcoin as MoE (and be able to have contracts denominated in it) then we should not treat trade against sats as barter?

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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 15 Dec

It took me awhile, but I think I see @Scoresby's point now. The price of gold had been fixed by the US at the time the movie was made. That was a Marxist act. In the movie, the idea of $20 that the character was expressing just went to explaining why gold is so expensive.

102 sats \ 3 replies \ @siggy47 OP 15 Dec

Sure, and its historic scarcity goes towards its value, along with the difficulty of increasing the amount. (That may change when they mine meteors) I'm wondering about the idea of the comment being Marxist. Is it because of the use of the word labor? The film depicts a very individualistic approach to acquiring gold. Collectivism isn't an issue.

103 sats \ 2 replies \ @Scoresby 15 Dec

I think labor theory of value is generally associated with Marxism. It's been so long since I've seen the movie, I don't remember much of it, so my comment was responding to the quote rather than the plot.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 15 Dec

This.

Scoresby's comment is coming from the fact that there's a long held (incorrect) belief that the value of a thing is derived from the amount of effort put into building/obtaining it (labor theory of value).

Many people hold this belief instinctively, but it's incorrect and leads to distortions. Best modern example is when I asked a doctor, "If there's a shortage of primary care physicians, why don't we just pay them more and attract more of them?" Answer: "They don't get as much training so they shouldn't get paid more than specialists." The answering doctor implicitly held to the labor theory of value and did not have a concept of supply and demand.

To add onto this, "proof of work" is not what gives bitcoin its value. "Proof of work" is the security model which prevents double spending and sybil attacks, and Bitcoin's security is one of the things people like about it, but in the end, it's the fact that people desire bitcoin and its relative scarcity that gives Bitcoin its value.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 15 Dec

Gotcha.

36 sats \ 2 replies \ @carlosfandango 15 Dec

Top movie. I think it was filmed on location in South America… no small feat at the time.

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 OP 15 Dec

It took me a long time, but I watched it on your recommendation. Once again, a winner. I was wondering whether it could possibly have been shot on location.

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @carlosfandango 15 Dec

Glad you enjoyed it. ‘Secret of the Incas’ filmed only a few years later (and not as good to my mind but it did influence the creation of Indiana Jones) actually filmed at Machu Picchu! These days the paperwork would kill you, back then the jungle and the altitude would!

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @eduardopro 15 Dec

A+ movie.