Bars of Gold and Useless

There is an Australian legend that has existed for 100 years about a massive above ground gold deposit, named Lasseter's Reef, though it is likely just that,a legend. While the story is attractive, there are a lot of inconsistencies and holes, likely due to Lasseter being a bit of a scammer. But who knows, perhaps somewhere in the Australian outback there is a rich vein of easily accessible gold, just waiting to be rediscovered.

This story came to mind when I was reading about a mining takeover bid of Newcrest mining, by Newmont Mining, for 19 billion dollars. That is a lot of gold -

or 693 430 Bitcoin.

This got me thinking a bit, because while they are comparable in some ways, it seems obvious that gold mining makes a far greater negative impact on the environment, given the processes required. There seems to be conflicting reports on energy consumption, but it seems to be in Bitcoin's favor, 1:2-5, where gold mining is very energy intensive, given that the yield is about 5g of gold per ton of ore. This is then separated using chemicals, acids and mercury. Then there is the transport of gold once mined, which is a continual cost, as it is shipped from point to point, whereas Bitcoin (crypto) is close to zero.

This doesn't factor in the human cost of production, or the environmental costs of deforestation and similar.

Even though only a fraction of it is needed for practical use. The amount of already above ground gold, would satisfy global needs for many decades already - so why keep mining?

Because the incentive is there.

We are incentive driven and the biggest driver is the bottom line - money. If there is money (value) to be made, someone will monetize it. And for money to be made, there has to be demand, which will drive supply. It doesn't matter what is demanded, it will be supplied - whether legal or not.

The entire world is "for profit" in one way or another, and really, there is no one that is completely out of the loop on this, but there are differences in what is done to create profit. Unfortunately perhaps, there is more incentive for entertainment than there is for solving actual problems in the world - for example, people seem to think it is okay to spend hundreds of millions for a single football player per season, yet would still love a solution to energy challenges.

An economy works on incentive however, so if we want something supplied, we have to demand it, but in general "good" activities that we want to see, don't have financial incentive behind them. Anyone who has been in hospital wants to be well-cared for, yet nurses are underpaid. We can demand good care and better teachers for our children, but if we aren't willing to put our money where our demands lay, we aren't actually demanding.

There is a big difference between supporting verbally and supporting economically and businesses, banks and governments only work on economic incentive. We work on economic incentive also, which is why most of us don't like what we do for work, but we do want the paycheck that comes from the work. If we could do something we liked for money, we would - as long as it paid us enough.

We are part of the problem too, right?

But, we are also part of the solution, if we demand differently than we do, because if we did, everything in business will change, because the fact is, most of what we do for work, is useless. It isn't useless in the sense that it doesn't satisfy a need, as there is demand for our skills and services in the market, because there is demand for something that requires what we do.

What I mean by this is that like gold mining, even though there might not be the need for more gold at this time, there is a massive supply chain for the gold and precious metal industry, that generates a massive amount of wealth across the board. Each activity needed takes a little bit of the value generated, whether it be selling land, building mining machinery, shipping gold bars, crafting jewelry or recovering gold from computer parts. Massive amounts of money being generated to stack something we don't actually need.

This is business.

We are changing the world, but are we making it better?

There have been many expeditions over the years trying to find Lasseter's Reef, but if it was always an illusion, it is busy work, uncovering little of use. The incentive of a potentially massive payoff however is enough for the search to continue, even though that same time and energy could be used on something else.

I feel that most of what we do in society these days is busy work related, where we do it because it is a means to an end, but that end is bottom line, not anything greater for ourselves or anyone else. We can justify our existence and even build our identity around these activities, as long as we don't dip under the surface and realize, we are largely useless.

Motivating.

Now, while this sounds like something that should depress or force us into changing, it could instead be a signal that we realize that things aren't quite as serious as we make them out to be. Yes, we are likely doing nothing valuable and speeding our end as a species, but as long as we focus on the illusion of finding gold, we can feel we have purpose.

But, if we don't need anymore gold for now, what would be a better use of our resources in the meantime?