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There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

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Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#271

Post by polypodiopsi »

w0de0 wrote: post #195
diamondhandle wrote: post #26

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary…

> Our job in life is to engage in value creation. That's grim! It's not my job in life.

The cycnicism in me insists that the the ones saying this also make money in finance; and feel that the purpose of life for everybody should be to create value - of course with an implicit exclusion of themselves; because their purpose in life is obviously to ENJOY. (The latter of course is a silent narcisitic thought that can only dwell in the privacy of the ego, and is not allowed to enter public discourse)

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#272

Post by Tenoke »

LargeWu wrote: post #167
dehrmann wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HFT is usually arbitrage, almost the opposite of speculation.

Fair enough, although one can make a reasonable argument that arbitrage is not a value creating activity either, if the market is already reasonably efficient.

If the market is reasonably efficient there'd be no room for arbitrage in the first place.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#273

Post by betaby »

imtringued wrote: post #213
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…

California has statewide politics that prevent the housing problem from being solved, so people move to the next state, which they don't like because California has nice weather.

California is not much different in that regard from Ontario or Quebec, or most of the western world really.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#274

Post by cblconfederate »

diamondhandle wrote: post #26

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary…

Tbf, the same holds for stocks. It's a game where everyone wins, currently. This obviously never ends well.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#275

Post by throwaway98797 »

rubicon33 wrote: post #209
throwaway98797 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poi…

Despite the semi trolly comment history on this profile, i was able to climb the ladder by knowing ONE thing extremely well and then being a generlist in everything else.

Granted i climbed the ladder in mid size non-hot companies so may not be applicable.

Im currently a consultant in my trade and I appear to sell this ONE thing but in every case i end up solving problems as a generilist.

Is there a chance that you can claim that you are already an expert in one the things you do? sometimes other people’s bar for expertise is lower than yours.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#276

Post by psychlops »

tcbawo wrote: post #8

Money is stored wealth, the ability to buy goods and services in the future. The problem seems to be that we live in a time of societal upheaval. The future of stored wealth becomes cloudier and more uncertain the further you go out in time. So, what is the best place to store wealth? Will my wealth be eroded by inflation? Will the companies I invest in become obsolete by technology or market-manipulating nation stat…

Money is a representation of stored wealth. An important distinction. Live in a country that has an unstable currency for a while and money is a liability and may show what it's truly worth. Nothing.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#277

Post by polypodiopsi »

qznc wrote: post #128
diamondhandle wrote: post #26

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary…

Value creation is only one part. The next question is how much of the value you create, you can capture for yourself. Nurses create a lot of value, especially during a pandemic, but they receive only a tiny part of it. Competition can force you to give most of the value you create to your customers.

I'd argue that this is also an systemic issue, that can not exhaustively be thought about on the level of just an economic model (of supply and demand), but has to be scrutinized on a broader scope. (Epistemic, historical, sociological, psychologically etc.) Reproductive labor (actual birthgiving as well as carework, sustaining the potential to work in the bodies), has for the most time been thought to be just given by the "nature" of women. Even early Marxsim excluded reproductive work, as the precondition of all productive labor from its aspirations.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#278

Post by golemiprague »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #153
sixstringtheory wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 market would need to find ways to perform the back-breaking work, either by wages increasing or the development of automation. Supply and demand. The more people who can accumulate wealth and capital, and intelligently manage that wealth, the greater the reduction in the labor supply (as they will fund their expenses using investment returns versus engaging in labor activities to do so). Money is an abstraction,…

No need to increase wage, there are enough people around the world willing to do it for cheap, either in their own place or comming in as immigrants, legal or illegal.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#279

Post by a1369209993 »

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…

> but now that there are platforms that allow more or less anyone to speculate, we start publishing moralistic pieces in the media and calling it "gambling"?

FWIW, I've been calling it gambling since I found out what the stock market is, because that is what it is. Can't speak for anyone else, though.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#280

Post by polypodiopsi »

c22 wrote: post #192
Ekaros wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welding is probably bit multi-modal. Traditional stuff isn't likely going away, but already there is already advanced robots for the job. Though it's unlikely they will be entirely AI controlled.

No doubt a lot of "assembly line" welding operations have already become highly automated. This is, however, already the area requiring lesser skilled and more easily replaced workpeople. I was thinking more about on-site and craft-associated welding which I imagine will continue to be highly valued until extremely portable and versatile high-DOF robotic manipulators become commonplace.

Its also getting payed for grinding through your body (like a lot of trades but welding especially.)
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