I totally get where you're coming from—on the surface, it does seem absurd that so much effort, money, and even space tech is being directed toward chasing a shiny yellow metal that, in practical terms, doesn’t do much for human survival. It can’t feed us, shelter us, or cure disease. And yet, we’ve built entire economies and mythologies around it. But the strange part is, this isn’t unique to gold. It’s part of a much deeper pattern in human economic systems, especially in capitalism, where markets need some way to store and measure value—and that almost always leads societies to latch onto something rare, durable, and symbolic, whether it’s objectively useful or not.
In early societies, people used cowrie shells in the Pacific Islands, huge stone disks in Yap, salt in ancient Africa, and even tulip bulbs in the Dutch Republic. These weren’t chosen because they had immense utility, but because they were scarce, hard to replicate, and symbolically powerful. They allowed people to trade across time and space. Capitalism, being based on decentralized exchange, competition, and accumulation, basically demands a store of value that everyone can agree on—even if the object itself is more symbolic than practical. Gold just happens to check all the boxes: it’s rare, doesn’t tarnish, can be melted and divided, and most importantly, it's extremely hard to counterfeit or mass-produce without massive energy investment.
If gold didn’t exist, we’d be doing the same thing with something else. In fact, that’s basically what happened with Bitcoin. People wanted a store of value outside the control of central banks, and they turned to something even more intangible—just math and energy. It’s the same pattern: we create artificial scarcity and give it value, because we need a common reference point to coordinate vast, impersonal economies.
Now, the asteroid mining thing? Yeah, it sounds wild. But from a capitalist perspective, it actually makes sense. If gold remains valuable, then any untapped supply—even in space—is a business opportunity. The fact that this seems grotesque when we think about all the hunger and suffering here on Earth is a painful contradiction, but it’s also part of the logic of capitalism. Capital doesn't naturally flow toward moral priorities like feeding people; it flows toward returns. And unless there are incentives or systemic shifts to redirect that flow, people will keep pursuing things like asteroid gold, because that’s where the value signal points.
So yeah, it’s kind of maddening. But it's not really about gold being useful—it's about human systems needing anchors of value. And gold, for all its impracticality, happens to be an anchor that capitalism can rally around.
It's universally obtainable but not in ridiculous volumes and not without effort and once obtained it's incredibly durable. It's essentially perfect for the job.