Explain to a 7 year old how bottle caps work as a currency inside the post-post apocalyptic Fallout universe...

Explain to a 7 year old how bottle caps work as a currency inside the post-post apocalyptic Fallout universe, where nobody trusts anybody? As a trader, why would I barter for caps instead of gold or something else of real value?

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I'd say "it's just a videogame kid, it doesn't have to make sense"

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODS

As a store why would I barter for paper instead of gold or something else of real value?

>any piece of paper will do

Scarce object that can't be replicated with current technology?

why does gold have value?
There are far more useful things you could trade for

not interested in discussing how realistic things are in an alternate universe post-apoc game w/ talking mutants and ghouls.

To build on this:
As a store why would I trade an actual item for a non-physical transaction of a binary number instead of gold or something else of real value?

because it's 50's murricana man, bottle coke ect. pp.

This. The lack of scarcity is why the Dollar is failing and has been failing since they just print more willy-nilly.

In the post apocalyptic world you can't replicate bottle caps reliably, there are a limited amount in existence, a lot of paper cash has burned up and people are more used to a money based transaction system then a barter economy (though bartering certainly exists). Plus bottle caps by themselves don't really hold any value where as paper does have some uses for it, where items are scarce any item that has any practical application will most likely be used for survival or for the group. The hell are you gonna do with a bottle cap? Also you can easily carry a shit ton of bottle caps due to their size.

>gold
>real value

Gold has no inherent value either.

Okok, but why does it have value for anybody?

Just like with paper currency, enough people as a collective agreed to use it as currency.

Real answer.

Jews like gold.

Because you will get sent to jail if you don’t send a portion of that paper to the local thugs every year.

Because there's an armed military who says that piece of paper is equivalent to gold

>Gold has no value
Why don't you give me all your gold then?

But there is no collective. People literally shoot and stab each other to death all the time and Goodneighbour hates Diamond City. There is no central government, no authority, it's wild west. Why would the Brotherhood even want bottlecaps?

Gold is a mostly non reactive metal that is also a good conductor. If it were abundant you'd see it used not just for jewelry, but in other corrosive environments. You'd also see it used instead of copper in wires and in PCs.

they don't really work because they can simply be found, real currency can't be "looted" unless you're extremely lucky. useful machines, fresh produce, and purified water would probably be used as currency in a post-apocalypse.

If a huge city declares the currency shall be bottle caps, and everyone in the area makes major trades with said city and it's the hub, then naturally people adapt to continue trade. Those traders use caps and try to use it as currency in other places unfamiliar with it and eventually those places, too, adapt

Because I don't have any gold, because it's not worth how much people charge for it, so I refuse to buy any.

It was a currency choose by the traders of the Hub, with their value backed by volumes of water or something. Since they were scarce in that area and there wasn't people capable of producing more, it was a reliable stand in currency for those traders. Eventually it was abandoned, only making a comeback many decades after when the NCR dollar value plummet after the the NCR-Brotherhood war.
Their use in Fallout 3 and 4? LOL MAN IT'S POST APOKOLIPTICS. IT IS FALLOUT CAN'T BE FALLLOUT WITH BOTTLECAPS, RADIATION, PIPBOY ,BOMBS AND 50'S!!!

Wow you're stupid on a whole new level.
Gold and money has value because humans say they do. Not other reason. Just like bottcecaps in fallout.
Water and food for example have inherent value. Arbitrary currencies don't. Get it?

Why would the huge city declare caps as the currency instead of something else which supply they have control of? As i understood the water merchants in FO1 issued caps because they were sitting on a huge amount of caps themselves and would be able to manipulate the economy by issuing their own currency.

Gold, you mean that insanely heavy and virtually useless thing no one in their right minds would load a brahmin down with? They use caps because it's absurdist. The entire Fallout franchise is supposed to be an absurdist reflection on civilization, showing how we keep making the same mistakes of chasing the past, using up all our resources, and pretending the small problems are big. But it's fine because nothing matters anyway. Not that Bethesda understood that too well, so you'd be forgiven for not noticing if they're the only games you played of Fallout.

Actually I was wrong and shouldn't have just parroted a meme. Copper is a better conductor than gold:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity#Resistivity_and_conductivity_of_various_materials
That said, gold is still useful for it's resistance to corrosion.

>Gold and money has value because humans say they do
>X has value because humans say they do
>I am a human
>I say my dick has value
>Your logic is deeply flawed

>not using ring pulls

>There are far more useful things you could trade for
It is almost impossible to be more wrong. The only things gold can’t buy are intangibles and we’re not about to start a love based economy.

>why does gold have value?
Gold (and all money) has value today because it had value yesterday and people believe it will have value tomorrow. This isn’t circular logic, but the result of an ancient feedback loop that began back when gold really did have intrinsic value as jewelery and a status symbol.

In FO1 it is said that some traders from caravanas started using caps, which made their buissnes easier. I supose others catched that idea
I don't know about FO4 since it's shit

>found pre-war cap press in Sarsaparilla factory
>cannot use it to become millionaire

Because there is a limited amount of them in the world due to nobody making anymore. This, each of them can be specifically valued.

They used caps as currency and backed the value with water. Because the merchants agreed it was the currency of choice, everyone adapted. There is no central government so in wasteland Canada it could be maple syrup or something. Currency has value because people says it does, and if people in an area agree, then it becomes a standard currency in an area.

Like with literally every single currency, it has value because we say it has value, that's it.

Are you saying your dick is worthless?

give me all your money or would that be "arbitrary" you $5 word spouting wine drinker

So why aren't cowry shells still valuable today? They were used as something that had intrinsic value and a status symbol. Also they were called "nigger money" and were used to buy slaves. It was the perfect currency. What went to it's demise?

Think of bitcoin: no real value, idiots just believe it has value when it doesn't.

Except demand for your micropenis is very low. If you value your penis that’s fine but you’re just 1 guy and you won’t be able to drive up the price on your own

This comment is half-legit from a realism standpoint. I say half because the problem isn't value, it's decentralization. At the same point in American history, there weren't zero currencies, there were DOZENS. Every bank issued its own unique currency. Some counties and states had their own. Anyone could print money, some hilariously insecure and replicable. If you've heard of "Dixie" before, it comes from the south's unique note prior to the civil war. And that was roughly after they got their shit together to some degree.

the caps are made of depleted uranium.
they are impossible to bend and nearly impossible to counterfeit

I give up

Well it is certainly not a medium of exchange

My biggest complaint with the bottle caps is that storing/carrying bottle caps is incredibly inconvenient. They stack like crap compared to coins and they have tons of potentially sharp edges to cut and scratch whatever they're being held in. Also they're often made of metals that are prone to rusting.

Just like gold and fiat

>humans
>human
Found your problem, retard.

Did you fucking RETARDS actually not have most basic economy education what so ever? Is this a joke? How can you people be this fucking retarded?

ANYTHING that is reasonably portable and exists in relatively limited supply and thus cannot be easily counterfeited, but there is still a way to slowly replace or introduce into the circulation can serve as a transaction medium, you idiots. Gold and Silver were pretty much chosen arbitrarily: they look kinda pretty, they don't react well which makes them stable, and they were in limited supplies.
Then again, humans also used sea fucking shells and necklaces made out of fucking dog teeth as currency not that long time ago. How did you people not know that value of precious metals is actually just as fucking arbitrary as anything else?
Did you people not actually go to elementary school?

>arbitrary is now too large a word for Sup Forums

ITT: OP is 15 years old and just read the Wikipedia articles for economics and currency.

that's why i always flatten my caps

This. It’s funny watching people to argue that precious metals are “worthless” as if they can somehow contradict tens of thousands of years of humanity. Try hard know it all syndrome

Because it's very difficult to counterfeit bottlecaps, they are plentiful, their supply is limited and they're easy to identify

Meanwhile most people can't tell gold from pyrite, there is no more suppy of gold and it's difficult to determine on a wide scale what amount of gold should be the smallest denomination

why do you try?

Gold has application in electronics, which is certainly a thing in Fallout.

Because they lost the competition with gold and other metals, which had far more people willing to accept it and material properties (divisibility and rarity) more suited for currency. It’s feedback loop lost out to a stronger one.

I was also about to reply to myself to add that there is nothing wrong with caps as currency as it is perfectly possible for something without intrinsic value (value gained by owning it with no plans of trading it away) can become money. Intrinsic value is just a useful kickstart — anything that is widely accepted in trade can become money.

This is Sup Forums we're talking here

What do you mean? Gold and fiat are only valued because people assume they have value and accept their value. It’s no different for cryptocurrencies

The real question is why did Fallout 1 have bottle caps, Fallout 2 ''regular'' money and Fallout 3/NV bottle caps again?

>it's very difficult to counterfeit bottlecaps
ah yes but let me repair my laser gun and manufacture bullets for my machine gun

It's not that hard to counterfeit bottlecaps frens.

>If something is difficult to counterfeit, plentiful but limited in supply, easily identifiable then it is money
Well real iPhones aren't money for sure. Canadian dollars aren't money here for sure.

maybe do a little research and realize that the value in precious metals is not arbitrary.... they are called precious for a reason you know nothing fuck. Or do you think a conductive metal that literally never degrades has a solely arbitrary value.

Except electronics are a relatively new invention and even before humans developed circuitry gold was still a common means of trading and gold jewelry was a means of storing wealth

...

I'm saying why are you explaining this to people who are either willfully ignorant, baiting, or legit stupid.

2 was waaay after nukes
the rest were more recent post apocalypses

but to some homo's your dick would indeed have value just as a vagoo has much value to sad lonely men

If anything you proved the other user right

>iPhones aren't money for sure

Tell that to the hooker I payed with an old iPhone

Aluminum used to be a precious metal, used in crown jewels. Now we use it for disposable drink containers because we developed new ways to obtain it.
Elemental currency works as long as the supply remains constant, but there were tons of boom/bust cycles in the 19th century as supplies of gold became available or dried up.
Fiat currencies have been a lot more stable relatively because they're backed by the whole economy instead of a single aspect of it.

Asteroid mining is going to seriously disrupt the precious metals market once it starts up.

> gold
> real value
uhh?

>7 year old
MODS MODS MODS

Fallout had traders backing the bottle caps since they couldnt be duplicated
Fallout 2 had NCR dollars backed by gold
Fallout Tactics had the area of Chicago using the pull tabs from soda cans
Suddenly fallout 3 and 4 decided that they'll use a Western Trade currency instead of the pull tabs that their neighbors in Chicago are using

Literally what the shit Todd

>tfw fo2 used dollars and it was perfectly fine

That is the problem. Bethesda put in their Fallout games just because, with no real or convincing explanation. By Fallout 2 bottlecaps became useless.
>ahh but traders could had brought with them to the East Coast
It was established by Bethesda own lore that crossing the US from one side to another was a really dangerous trek, needing military grade expeditions to make it so.
They where just lazy. They used bottlecaps because they considered iconic, without making any sense. The same way they named 2 headed cows Brahmin, even if it was a name to mutated cows used in California, without any real reason to people from the other side of country adopt it.

I don't give a fuck: this place is supposed to be populated by people with average or slightly above average education and IQ. This is not a fucking ghetto for illiterate niggers: EVERYONE IN THIS FUCKING THREAD IS ABOVE 18 AND WENT THROUGH MANDATORY BASIC EDUCATION, THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING EXCUSE FOR THIS SHIT WHAT SO EVER!

Seriously: This is basic knowledge absolutely necessary to be even semi-competent fucking citizen. This is shit you have to know, it does not matter how fucking sheltered and useless you are: this is the shit you cannot leave your school without actually understanding. Fuck me this is actually legitimately terrifying.

Because you have people enforcing monetary policy in Fallout 2, the NCR. New Vegas also has NCR Dollars, but the fact that the game doesn't take place within NCR borders means that Caps are still the go-to.

>amerimutt logic

1 had bottlecaps because they were backed by Hub water merchants. 2 had NCR dollars because they had actual gold which was later contaminated by the BoS, drastically reducing its value, which may also be the reason they're common in the Mojave. 3 had them because Toddthesda is fucking stupid.

>go to bank
>"I'd like to deposit 100 dix"
Kek

>Fallout 1
>taking place in 2241
>Fallout 4
>taking place in 2287
>the rest were more recent post apocalypses

> There are far more useful things you could trade for
That's exacly why gold has value. It has a scarce but a stable supply, its dense, has no real applications in premodern society. It works as an abstraction to cover the exchange of value.

Because the only true Fallouts were the 1 and 2

Can you least read?

I'm explaining that Gold has intrinsic value of some kind. I'm not talking about historic application as currency.

>Gold
>only valued because people assume they have value
Gold is and excellent electrical conductor, heat conductor, maleable, ductile, heavy, it has several uses in chemistry (Not as as much as silver though).

Laser guns in Fallout are what 50s thought they would look like, a tangled mess of big parts that you can fix with proper know-how probably. Reloading bullets is trivial IRL so I don't see your point.

Meanwhile caps have to be made from a specific metal, have specific amount of teeth and use specific paint. NV outright points out that new-looking caps are risky because of that.

he mad

ITT: Underages unaware that F2 had gold coins as its currency and Bethesda brought back caps as a gimmick

Caps are already plentiful in New Vegas and there's a quest that explains that mass production if caps would cause hyperinflation and make then worthless.

Legal tender has value because the government decided it represents a certain value in a system where goods and services measure their worth by the value you can recieve for them.

If you were stranded on an island would you rather have a month's supply of food and water or 400 bucks.

The only reason fiat is worth anything is because the government thought a standardised system of currency would be easier than bartering for everything and mandated you have to accept it.

never learned this shit in K-12
picked up a bit of it from like TV, movies, and the internet, but the first time I had this shit formally explained to me was in an economics class at uni

Fallout Tactics had the Brotherhood use their own currency

Fucking tactics, the shittiest game at least explained economics better than nufallout

>Reloading bullets is trivial IRL
I completely agree. so is clamping a circular piece of metal.

I see...Carry on.

Because It was explained in New Vegas. Also in Fallout 2 there was functional gold mines again, meaning that people would use it as a currency again.

Only if they flood the market with those metals and the costs were acceptable. If they mine those asteroids and hoard all what they mine or consciously limits what they extract just to not plummet the prices, guess they will remain high.

Fuck off china, gib oil

So, you all are telling me that the old games got currencies actually right and it's Bethesda that fucked it up by making caps something like Rupees in Zelda?