Experts from a world that no longer exists • Hacker News Board

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#131

Post by djbebs » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 8:40 PM UTC

kristjansson wrote: post #129

nly wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we're all now dependent on stock market performance to make retirement feasible. Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead. My uncles pension scheme was structured to pay out 1.5% of his final salary, inflation adjusted for the rest of his life, for each year he'd worked. He worked at one company his whole career, from age 18 to age 55, when he retired. Factoring in his mortgage, whi…

One wonders about the actuarial assumptions made by your uncle’s former employer and how, or if, they expected to meet that obligation.

If history is any indication the answer to both of those were "they were wrong" and "caused severe financial issues to the company, if it didn't bankrupt them entirely"

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#132

Post by lettergram » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 8:40 PM UTC

One thing I also find interesting are when people think the rules change when they really don’t.

For instance, Green energy is the future yes, but it’ll take generations. So people assume the rules change faster than reality.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#133

Post by spaetzleesser » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 8:40 PM UTC

pezzana wrote: post #116

> “Don’t buy stocks when the P/E ratio is over 20” was a good lesson to learn from the 1970s when interest rates were 7%, the Fed hadn’t yet learned what it’s capable of, and most businesses were cyclical manufacturing companies vs. asset-light digital services. Is it relevant today? At a broad, philosophical level, yes. In practical terms, probably not. In the same sense, buying stocks at all seemed like nothing but…

The 2000 and 2008 blowups were pretty bad but back then there were still things that could be done like running deficits or lowering interest rates. We now have huge deficits and almost zero interest already during the boom. What can the Fed or government do during the next downturn? I don’t see them having any tools left to reinflate the bubble.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#134

Post by spaetzleesser » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #122

> Webvan failed, but Instacart and UberEats are now thriving. Instacart has been in business since 2013 and had its first profitable month last year during the height of the quarantine. It’s probably closer to Webvan than anywhere near Amazon.

These companies still have no clue how to make profits. I wouldn’t call that “thriving”. They are still riding a huge investment bubble.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#135

Post by renlo » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

This reminds me of the linotype machine's [0] invention. Many had tried to invent a similar machine and failed, the inventor went into it without knowing about the other failed attempts and used a completely different and novel technique than other attempts and managed to make it work.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#136

Post by the_cat_kittles » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

this author is revealing something embarassing about themselves, namely that they think of expertise in almost exclusively financial terms. knowing how to get rich is not really the same thing as expertise to me.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#137

Post by b3morales » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

abetusk wrote: post #102

This line is what I think of whenever the cryptocurrency vitriol comes out here: """ Pets.com was mocked, but Chewy is now a $30 billion business. Webvan failed, but Instacart and UberEats are now thriving. eToys was a joke, but now look at Amazon. Some of the biggest businesses of the last 10 years are all in industries that were the starkest examples of stupidity 20 years ago. """

Taking this as a lesson is just survivorship bias, unless all the failed 90s companies have had their business plans replicated.

Some ideas are ahead of their time; some are just bad.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#138

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #128

ericjang wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't believe in the "wisdom of the crowds" ?

Here is a set of people. On a given subject, the median position is likely to be at least reasonable. That's the "wisdom of the crowds". Here is a set of experts. Within the area of their expertise, the median position is probably pretty close to right. The intersection of their views are almost certainly right (though it may be the empty set). But what you can't do is take the union of the views of a set of people,…

[deleted]

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#139

Post by the_cat_kittles » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 8:57 PM UTC

abetusk wrote: post #102

This line is what I think of whenever the cryptocurrency vitriol comes out here: """ Pets.com was mocked, but Chewy is now a $30 billion business. Webvan failed, but Instacart and UberEats are now thriving. eToys was a joke, but now look at Amazon. Some of the biggest businesses of the last 10 years are all in industries that were the starkest examples of stupidity 20 years ago. """

just because something is profitable doesnt make it not stupid.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#140

Post by cblconfederate » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 8:58 PM UTC

Not just experts, visionaries too. One that strikes me as odd is Electric cars. Why just make a 'faster horse'? We can have battery transport options in all kinds of shapes and forms, why sell sedans and SUVs and underutilize the road networks?