Funny enough, this sort of thing is _usually_ true. Civilians doing things in some sort of vaguely coordinated mass movement is typically a very weak force vs any industrial process. See, for example, WWII scrap drives, which were far more invasive and not terribly effective, even for easily recycled materials like aluminum. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/41736/were-worl...

Modern industrial forces are generally far, far more powerful than we realize. The great Falun mine, jewel of Sweden, producer of 2/3rds of all Europe's copper, builder of empires, produced 3,000 tons/year at its absolute peak; today, current copper production is quite mechanized and produces 18.3M tons/year. There is approximately nothing we can do by hand, or with our household items, that matches the power of industry.

But silver, with its small production, is a bit of an outlier. Worldwide silver production is only 25k metric tons/year, so if each of 131 million US households has a 52-piece set of .925 sterling silver at 1 troy oz sterling silver/piece, that is 0.925 * 52 piece * 1 troy oz/piece * 31.1g/troy oz * 131 million or 196k metric tons. Obviously nowhere near every household will have a full 52-pc set, some will have none and some will have larger sets, but if even 1/4 of households sell just one set, that is two entire years of worldwide silver production; the effects would be massive.

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wakawaka28 3 days ago | parent [-]

I doubt most households even have a 52 piece set of stainless steel flatware, much less silverware. I doubt that even 1 in 10 has any real silverware enough to set a table of 4.

You are right about silver production but the cost of silver is negligible in any product except for actual silver jewelry and tableware. It is not worth badgering people to part with precious personal items to save $0.50 per solar panel or some shit. The price of silver is $41 per troy oz, or a little over a dollar per gram. Getting rid of silver for this reason is like getting rid of diamond jewelry because someone could use those diamonds to make high-precision cutting equipment for manufacture of EVs and solar panels. Everything you touch on a daily basis can be used for something else. You don't need to feel guilty because someone else might want it more. The market system we have ensures that if someone else wants it more than you, for a sufficiently good reason, they can prove it by simply buying it at the asking price.

	▲	owenversteeg 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not making any sort of judgments about recycling your family heirlooms to feed industrial demand. None of these schemes would have a terribly substantial effect in the long term. Just pointing out that while typically this sort of thing is hilariously ineffective and rounds to zero, this specific case is very unique and people do own a market-distorting amount of silver - yes, even if it's only one in ten households with a set. >someone could use those diamonds to make high-precision cutting equipment Funny enough, I actually do use monocrystalline diamond tooling (not for EVs or solar panels.) I would never tell someone to sell their family jewels, and they would almost certainly get pennies on the dollar if they tried.
	▲	pfdietz 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> I doubt most households even have a 52 piece set of stainless steel flatware, much less silverware. I just went and counted our stainless steel set: 79 pieces. Actual silverware became obsolete in 1913 with the invention of stainless steel. That people keep it around is almost pathological.
	▲	pfdietz 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> but the cost of silver is negligible in any product except for actual silver jewelry and tableware. I understand it's somewhere in the neighborhood 10% of the production cost of a PV module.