Gamestop made me think of this. The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. Something to be cautious about in the current situation.
> The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. They didn’t change the rules. The rules are clear that they’re allowed to change the rules anytime they want. That’s one of the rules.
A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
31–40 of 66 posts
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
This holds true, even when the system assures you that it is immutable. I recall when a hacker noticed a vulnerability in some Ethereum smart contracts and used it to "steal" ETHs, the transactions were swiftly reversed and the whole concept of "the code is the contract" was thrown out of the window in the process. https://www.wired.com/2016/06/50-million-hack-just-showed-da...
Wasn't the blockchain forked? So technically there is still a version of Ethereum out there that makes it easy for hackers to steal your stuff, but for some reason nobody wants to use that version.
The bug was not in Ethereum, it was in the contracts. And before this incident, the philosophy of Ethereum was that "the code is the contract". The hacker did not breach the contract. They noticed a bug, or as one could say, a loophole, and used it to their benefit.
I don't know what the mechanism of enforcement was. Whether it was a fork or something else, the net effect was that a) the history was rewritten, the contract terms changed retroactively, and the monies were returned to their source; and b) the concept of code is contract was effectively showed to be an empty gesture and the philosophy was effectively abandoned.
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#33There's a really good story on the stock corner of Piggly Wiggly in "Business Adventures", a book that Bill Gates said is his favorite business book. https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Business-Adventures
This is that article: Business Adventures is a collection of Brook's New Yorker articles
Oh yeah, you're right—thanks for pointing that out!
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#34Gamestop made me think of this. The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. Something to be cautious about in the current situation.
Just like Las Vegas.
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#35Gamestop made me think of this. The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. Something to be cautious about in the current situation.
> The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. They didn’t change the rules. The rules are clear that they’re allowed to change the rules anytime they want. That’s one of the rules.
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
This holds true, even when the system assures you that it is immutable. I recall when a hacker noticed a vulnerability in some Ethereum smart contracts and used it to "steal" ETHs, the transactions were swiftly reversed and the whole concept of "the code is the contract" was thrown out of the window in the process. https://www.wired.com/2016/06/50-million-hack-just-showed-da...
Wasn't the blockchain forked? So technically there is still a version of Ethereum out there that makes it easy for hackers to steal your stuff, but for some reason nobody wants to use that version.
Plenty of people still use ETC lol. That's crypto for ya, though.
This is such a great example, because it's an obvious case of "trustless for you but none for me thanks" -- if Vitalik believed that "code is law" was better than having the ability to amend the transaction, he'd just be on ETC dealing with the mess.
If grandma's life savings gets stolen, well sucks for grandma. When it's Vitalik, well, it's time to fork the blockchain.
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#37What's the chance they suspend further trading of GME stock?
In this case the retail brokerages have suspended or greatly curtailed opening new positions on GME, which has a similar result: stabilizing prices.
Just as the buying might be coordinated effort by readers of reddit, the suspension of buying new positions in GME is the coordinated effort by multiple large retail brokerages.
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#38A lot of people here are focused on the finance, but I had no idea that Piggly Wiggly was the first self-service grocery store. Its also interesting that it had a single maze-like path through the store.
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#39Gamestop made me think of this. The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. Something to be cautious about in the current situation.
The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#40There's a really good story on the stock corner of Piggly Wiggly in "Business Adventures", a book that Bill Gates said is his favorite business book. https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Business-Adventures
I loved every story in that book, it is also one of my top 10 favorite books.