Egregoros

@Soy_Magnus @Hoss @hakui

Worth it to also invest in elements other than Ag, Au, Pt, & Pd. You don't even have to invest in the metals themselves. Just get jars of the oxides for most of them. Even with Ag, Au, Pt, & Pd you can get simple compounds or solutions of them so that they aren't readily identifiable and less likely to be stolen or even searched for.

Beyond bullion, don't forget the other two of the "3 B's": Bullets and Booze. Stock up on ammo and quality alcohol, both of which will be far more useful than gold or silver after the collapse of civilization.

@LoliHat @Hoss @hakui next place I go I'm gonna set up a distillery so I can have the Independence of making my own and use that as possible currency if needed. I collect plat and palladium and I actual have a lot of aluminum cans as well as copper scrap and I've started collecting copper pennies en masse as I'm betting they're gonna be a great short to medium term investment since people are melting them down causing a market rarity. Once people can't get pennies they're gonna blow through the roof and only get better with time. I've gone hard on pennies for years niggas bout to feel me lol

@Hoss @hakui @LoliHat another cool fact, aluminum used to be extremely rare and hard to process so it was worth more per gram than gold until they found (I 🤔) berrillium has it in abundance and they figured out how to extract it flooding the market and killing the price. Purple has another similar story that's why I accept gold with a grain of salt many things before it have had the markets destabilized through in for seen events so u should never only invest in one thing. (Tho I'm stocked on what I needed to feel safe so I'm gonna start dumping money into scrap gold and gold watches for quick liquid savings that's untraceable)

@cjd @Hoss @hakui @LoliHat I'm surprised you've heard of that musk said he's wanting to try from a comment that comes by earth that was one possible factor. I'm a currency kinda guy so gold is the best medium of exchange, but somethings have smaller time horizons like cured marijuana the longer it lasts the more the plant degrades and loses potency. On the other hand investment grade wines only gain value in time but also have to be contained in perfect condition throughout the life to preserve it. Most people would accept either as payment but time effects them both very differently

Asteroid mining makes sense because there's a shitload of surface area out there, so you can pick and choose what you're interested in. On earth there's comparatively little exposed surface so for anything interesting, you have to dig. But working in space sucks...

Another thing to watch is deep hole drilling. Limitation of drilling is:
1. You need to transmit power down to the bit, so you need some kind of shaft/rod/hose/wire (in practice they currently use rotating shafts).
2. Mechanical bits dull, and then you need to pull them all the way up to change them out

So drilling costs rise with the square of the depth. But there's some research on using laser / magnetron to burn away rock because you can power them with a wire, and they don't dull.

What is invented for geothermal and oil might be repurposed for prospecting...