I read a small article in the media about scientific knowledge: "There is a "golden house" in the air." It is said that in the space 175 light-years away from the earth, a planet composed of gold was found, and its gold reserves were a million times that of the earth, "but unfortunately it is too far away from the earth, so human beings can only sigh"; another metal asteroid was found near the orbit of the earth, and it also contained tens of thousands of tons of gold and 100,000 tons of platinum, with a total value of trillions of dollars, "What is particularly exciting is that it is only ten million kilometers away from the earth, which can be said to be within reach."
After reading this short article, I only found it interesting to talk about, but I didn't feel so "sorry" or "exhilarating", and as for "looking forward to sighing", it was even less emotional. There is gold in space, which is like mud on Earth, just an objective existence. I think that the planet made of gold may not be more suitable for human existence than our earth.
According to reports, gold, as one of the most valuable metals in the world, is nothing more than "having extremely high financial value and craft decoration value", which is very disappointing to me, because these two values are not irreplaceable. Perhaps there are more valuable uses for gold, but in terms of the two known uses, there is nothing remarkable, not even compared to air and water. It is no wonder that in the utopian ideal, the toilets should be built with gold. And Lenin made a similar proposal, of course, after the demise of money. At that time, a toilet was built with gold, which could be used as a tour project, but there was no longer a fee.
There was a time when the value of gold was not as good as copper and iron. At that time copper and iron were monetary commodities, as can be known from collectors of ancient coins. Moreover, copper and iron also have an advantage that gold cannot compare, that is, because of their emergence, they have caused changes in the means of production, which has greatly increased productivity. Later, gold became a precious metal, but only because it was easy to divide, preserve and carry, not easy to deteriorate, etc. Marx said: Gold and silver are naturally not money, but money is naturally gold and silver. This can also be understood as gold is not born rich, but that money chooses it and uses it only for convenience. Gold is favored by humans by virtue of its natural attributes, just like a person wins the jackpot just because he is good-looking.
Then again, even if gold has these advantages, if the earth is full of gold, does it still have extremely high financial value and craft decoration value? This reminds me of the "El Dorado" in Voltaire's novel, where the village children wore gold and silver embroidered clothes, and the stones they threw around turned out to be gold, jasper, and rubies, and the smallest of them was enough to decorate the emperor's throne with the most brilliant decoration. They built gardens out of gold, just as we built walls with stone. The intruders tried to pay for their meals with gold, but were ridiculed as stones on the main road. What the locals don't understand the most is that foreigners love their mud and stones. Love is crazy, even at the cost of killing them all. Such a "El Dorado" is certainly a fantasy, but if there is really a place full of gold, the scene must be the same.
So I thought, if the golden planet that has been discovered is close to us, or even simply moved to the earth, will it really be so "exciting"? Wouldn't it be more exciting if the Earth had become a golden sphere? Maybe. Without water and air, people can also spend money, eat golden vegetables, drink golden wine... Moreover, it is said that the "Compendium of Materia Medica" has a record: "Gold is edible and can inhibit bacteria". It is also said that after expert identification, golden wine "has health care effects such as relieving muscles, beauty, and delaying aging"... I'm afraid that if I hold the golden feast again at that time, I won't be able to eat the feeling of today, but I will taste the same as chewing mud. Because the gold at that time has become authentic mud.
People are accustomed to judging things with their own likes and dislikes, even if they are a scientific one; they are accustomed to adding their values to the world, even when observing distant celestial bodies. Looking at the gold on a distant planet and sighing, excited by the gold reserves on a celestial body, and being able to calculate its value in dollars at once reflects the deep love of gold in human beings, and if other things are known, they will be jealous.
People who love gold, in the distant space, have a beautiful golden dream. There is no need to regret it, nor to sigh, just drink a few glasses of golden wine, drunk into the yellow sorghum, you can enjoy the golden world.
(About the author: Jiao Jia, former senior editor and senior commentator of a newspaper. He has been an editor for 34 years and a commentator for 26 years. The columns he edited won the first Central Major News Unit Name Column Award, the first China News Famous Column Award, and the second Taofen Journalism Award nomination award. His reviews have won dozens of awards at national awards. He edited and published nearly 20 kinds of essay series of the newspaper, and wrote and published 4 kinds of essay collections such as "Personal Reading", of which the article "Personally Read" was selected by Peking University Press and the sixth volume of "Language" textbook edited by Princess Zhang Zhi. In recent years, he has devoted himself to a series of literary and historical essays, and published "The Landscape in My Eyes - Life and Death". ）