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There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

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Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#201

Post by groone »

m3ta4a wrote: post #114
isoskeles wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without capitalism, you have a duty to create value for the people around you, and you might expect the same of them. There are exceptions for the young, old, and infirm.

In no world where there is a "duty" to provide value am I going to be found happily providing value. In this world, in my experience, your statement is simply false. If I happen to provide some form of value it is from my choosing to, not to satisfy the demands of some formless "duty".

If you are not creating value that means you are consuming value created by others. The total value created for everyone to enjoy shrinks. Society just cannot sustain itself without people who create more value than they consume.

Who is going to create all the value consumed by rent seekers, financial engineers, thieves, scammers, corrupt or bloated government? People who create and provide more value than they consume.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#202

Post by DylanDmitri »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #197
jpdus wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call "corrosive" (appreciation of non-value-creating assets) is 1:1 applicable to Real Estate. Compared to the appreciation of worldwide real estate, the market value of crypto is only a drop in the ocean. And countless people got unbelievable rich due to rising prices and "crowding-out" in cities without creating any value for society at all (in the opposite, making life harder for everybody struggling to k…

> And nobody so far managed to explain convincingly, in which ways investments in (existing, residential, not for self-use) real estate creates any value. Shelter is literally third on the list of human needs after water and food. Make something desirable and people will leave their previous (possibly decent) place behind to move in. I'm not sure how anyone can say real estate doesn't create value just because they a…

People who build housing create value. People who manage properties create value. People who speculate on properties do not create value.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#203

Post by danenania »

ameister14 wrote: post #194
danenania wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the case in poker. If someone thinks a novice player is messing them up somehow with poor play, it means they're not a good player either. A good poker player wants their opponents to play as poorly as possible.

I never liked having true novices, especially in tournaments or when I was running multiple tables at once - it was easier to make notes of play style and predict when people knew how to play at a basic level. Sure, I'm more likely to beat the person that is going all in with a 2 5 off suit but bad beats are incredibly annoying. Over time, in a sit and go situation I'd beat that player, but online and in tournament p…

Sure, playing correctly against a maniac, novice, or otherwise unpredictable player can be more difficult and have higher variance, but it's also as lucrative as it gets if you know what you're doing. All the strong players I've known would be elated to play against people like that.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#204

Post by groone »

m3ta4a wrote: post #177
isoskeles wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "duty" is to satisfy the demands of existing within a community of people, where able-bodied freeloaders are never welcome. But I can understand nitpicking over semantics. Replace the word "duty" with whatever you want.

Nonsense, a different word doesn't suddenly make it universally true. It could be a guiding philosophy, something like "to live a good life provide value to your community". But it is in no practical way a rule.

It is a universal rule as if you don't do that, you are part of the problem and are creating a drag on the society, reducing the value for everyone to use and enjoy. Your argument sounds like You want to see the society to fail and collapse.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#205

Post by angus-prune »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #151
bondarchuk wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't understand this sentiment, as if a professional gambler would not gladly gamble with novices... The existence of a financial elite hinges on the existence of a non-elite that actually does the work. If workers are putting 25% of their paychecks in an index fund and retire a few years earlier, instead of paying off their too-expensive car loan or something, it will be bad for the current financial eli…

> In the end money is just an abstraction to determine who has to do back-breaking work all day, and who doesn't. Maybe, but are you insinuating that no back breaking work would need to be done if money weren’t to exist? Pretty sure the introduction of money reduces the total amount of backbreaking work to be done. Instead of hauling grain to trade for axe heads and carrying those back to your farm, you carry coins,…

The grain still needs to be hauled to somewhere else though.

If the grain only ever exists on your farm, it has no value to anyone else whether for coins or axe heads.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#206

Post by shusson »

LargeWu wrote: post #164
wallacoloo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I create value when I loan another person some asset? What about when I act as a currency exchange, and offer at any moment in time to take either side of any trade along with a 0.3% fee? These are two things I do on Ethereum right now which have analogs in the traditional finance system. Seems to me it matters little whether the activity is done in a traditional space or in cryptoland: they either both create val…

Loans would be one of the classic value creating activities, because they allow others to use otherwise idle capital to produce something new. Currency exchange is fuzzier. If the exchange is happening to facilitate commerce, then sure, I would consider that value creation. If it's happening simply in order to support speculation in a different currency, then no, it's not value creating. And it's pretty clear from th…

> Loans would be one of the classic value creating activities, because they allow others to use otherwise idle capital to produce something new.

Only if people use loans to produce something valuable. Most people I know take loans for houses, which afaik does not produce any direct value to society.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#207

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #78

Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it. When brokers did it it was OK, when algorithms did it in milliseconds (when common people can only operate with delays of hours and days, and with deterrent fees) it was OK, but now that there are platforms that allow more or less anyone to speculate, we start publishing moralistic pieces in the media and…

This could be hypocrisy, but it doesn't have to be. It may be "kids, don't try this at home". The pros should have a lot better knowledge of the risks involved, and the resources to take the consequences when they're wrong. (Yeah, I know, they don't always either have the knowledge or the ability to take their lumps. They still are far ahead of the amateurs in both departments.)

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#208

Post by unholiness »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #197
jpdus wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call "corrosive" (appreciation of non-value-creating assets) is 1:1 applicable to Real Estate. Compared to the appreciation of worldwide real estate, the market value of crypto is only a drop in the ocean. And countless people got unbelievable rich due to rising prices and "crowding-out" in cities without creating any value for society at all (in the opposite, making life harder for everybody struggling to k…

> And nobody so far managed to explain convincingly, in which ways investments in (existing, residential, not for self-use) real estate creates any value. Shelter is literally third on the list of human needs after water and food. Make something desirable and people will leave their previous (possibly decent) place behind to move in. I'm not sure how anyone can say real estate doesn't create value just because they a…

In densely populated areas, the value of real estate has very little to do with what's built on the property, and everything to do with the land it is build on.

GPs point is that owning land is not creating value. It is, however, very profitable.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#209

Post by rubicon33 »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #171
rubicon33 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so hard to do in an industry that also heavily rewards specialists. I've been regularly asked by my employer to change role to help some other part of the business. Whether it was switching from mobile to server, server to front end web, or switching frameworks / tools within those domains, I always made the switch. The problem is that now I'm a jack of all trades, and a master of none.

Redine yourself as a problem solver vs. just a tool box. “I’m a master generlized problem solving machine, how can I be of service?”

Yes, well, I can't help but look around at people who have chosen to specialize and see how much quicker they climb into leadership roles, and getting to work on mission critical features.

If you're the jack of all trades guy, you'll always be asked to cleanup, or take care of small feature requests. When the company needs the big guns for a mission critical feature, you will never be called.

This is an important point for people to realize. There's risks at specializing for sure, but there's also a lot of risk to being a jack of all trade.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#210

Post by ryan93 »

DylanDmitri wrote: post #202
CyberDildonics wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And nobody so far managed to explain convincingly, in which ways investments in (existing, residential, not for self-use) real estate creates any value. Shelter is literally third on the list of human needs after water and food. Make something desirable and people will leave their previous (possibly decent) place behind to move in. I'm not sure how anyone can say real estate doesn't create value just because they a…

People who build housing create value. People who manage properties create value. People who speculate on properties do not create value.

Why are people selling real estate assets to speculators for less than they are worth?
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