Comment by mplanchard

The GGP said “10,000x more processed aluminum in the world than gold,” which the “processed” part, which is I think what GP was responding to: of course the scarcity of available gold relative to aluminum drives its value, but that relative scarcity only exists due to modern electrochemistry: previously, “processed” aluminum and gold were similarly scarce.

People talk about stuff like extracting gold from seawater, so it also isn’t a given that the scarcity difference will always remain what it is.