system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why was the gold standard eliminated in 1971?

Isnt it better to have our money backed by something valuable such as gold? What adverse affects has this caused?
gpt
In the 1700's the Spanish had almost unlimited amounts of gold from their mines in Peru. They minted to much gold that it became almost worthless. This was a key part of the implosion of the Spanish Empire. The value of a currency is in it's rarity or lack thereof. It's not related to the material it's made of. Think about this, if $1 USD = 1 gram of gold, and a major new gold mine is found, or an asteroid gets mined and now there's massive amounts of gold, what will happen to the USD? Alternatively, if gold becomes more and more scarce while the population continues to increase, how will new people be able to buy anything if you can't print more money?

It is not optimal to peg the dollar to an arbitrary substance you have no control over. Governments need flexibility to print and / or halt printing of money in order to control it's value. It's important to note as well that a high value dollar is not always a good thing. Island nations that net import maintain a high dollar to buy from elsewhere while larger manufacturing countries print more money to devalue it so other countries can buy more of their goods on the international markets. If America has no more gold / not enough gold, then the dollar value will skyrocket and other countries won't be able to afford US manufactured goods.

The long and short of it is this - as with anything in life, no matter how good it might work a lot of the time, there will always come a time or situation where it doesn't work, and in those times, you need to have your hand on the wheel. The gold standard is letting Jesus take the wheel.