Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

read.lukeburgis.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 165 posts

Re: The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

#51

Post by xyzelement »

The funny/sad thing about this nihilism is that it's self fulfilling. You don't try and you don't get good outcomes.

Meanwhile - life is working very well for people who don't think this way. Like, every house that comes up on the market is immediately snatched up by some 30/40 year old who is buying a home for his growing family.

Somehow these guys figured out how to get consistently paid. Meanwhile you can be crying that it's impossible because what you do doesn't matter - and of course you'll end up proving it to yourself.

We have a choice of what operating systems run in our heads. Nihilism OS is popular but it's guaranteed to make you poor and miserable. Why would you run it?

Re: The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

#52

Post by WJW »

mordae wrote: post #32
newsclues wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people our age feel like the world is bad and unjust and destroying current civilization through revolution will result in a just and good society. These people are idiots who aren’t aware of the death and destruction this will cause and things will likely be much worse after.

As are the people who assume revolution means killing or taking. I can easily imagine a revolution where people merely stop selling their time and instead start demanding to be included in the decision making processes and have an equal share of outcomes.

The answer to that could be as simple as "no", after which those people would either need to re-start selling their time, starve, or resort to the killing and taking that is usually associated with revolutions.

Re: The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

#53

Post by WJW »

badpun wrote: post #36
Xcelerate wrote: post #12

The fact that money and wealth (and apparently housing) are a “game” is rather depressing, but to some extent it’s always been that way. At least it seems like we are (maybe?) moving in the direction of addressing the problem via political efforts to reduce financial volatility and wealth inequality. As the article mentions, money nihilism quickly gives way to other forms of nihilism when that other thing is less abs…

As a billionaire, you could inject billions into research on your specific condition and have reasonable expectation that something will come out of it within your lifetime.

Can you though? It's not as if (say) cancer or Alzheimer don't already receive billions in funding but a definitive cure seems as far away as ever. Not all problems can be solved with money, and even those that can be solved with money sometimes need a lot more than billions.

Re: The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

#54

Post by Quindecillion »

TheFattestNinja wrote: post #16

The post is kind of all over the place, more like an internal reflection than a normal message to others, but it does resonate with me on one point specifically: I am an "official" millennial, born 1989. One thing I have noticed (in an anectodical, personal and subjective way) is that my age bracket, especially those I would consider higher on an intelligence/success curve, appear to be so much more closet-nihilist t…

> What I mean by that is that, while of course we don't really want to see the world burn, we are secretly hoping, in the dark, when no one is watching, for things to always go tits up a bit. Like there is a subconscious fascination to the aesthetics of Nero playing the lire while Rome burns. And upon deep self-reflection that's always a bit unsettling.

I'm officially on the cusp of Gen X and Millennial and feel the same thing, even with two young kids that will have to grow up and, as young adults, navigate the ashes of this imagined world.

The charitable view I take of this (for myself) is the idea of creative destruction. Yes there will be great pain for very many people, perhaps including myself and those close to me, but there's little I can do to stop the runaway freight train, so I can only hope that out of all the pain and destruction something new and better can emerge from the void it leaves.

Re: The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

#55

Post by glogla »

newsclues wrote: post #27
TheFattestNinja wrote: post #16

The post is kind of all over the place, more like an internal reflection than a normal message to others, but it does resonate with me on one point specifically: I am an "official" millennial, born 1989. One thing I have noticed (in an anectodical, personal and subjective way) is that my age bracket, especially those I would consider higher on an intelligence/success curve, appear to be so much more closet-nihilist t…

Lots of people our age feel like the world is bad and unjust and destroying current civilization through revolution will result in a just and good society. These people are idiots who aren’t aware of the death and destruction this will cause and things will likely be much worse after.

Yes. Destroying the world will kill me. But it will kill Elon Musk as well. Perhaps even in a gruesome and funny way. If I was considering existence not worth it, it might look like a good trade.

Re: The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

#56

Post by brutusborn »

Devasta wrote: post #42

Not discussing climate change seems to me to be a big omission. I sometimes wonder if I will have enough to retire on; a teenager today won't have those concerns, as the best they can hope for is that they don't become climate refugees. Why plan long term in such a scenario?

It’s because people have wide beliefs of how climate change will affect them. I doubt rich countries will notice much difference until the end of the century. Like most issues, the poor of the world are the ones who will suffer the soonest and the greatest.

Re: The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

#57

Post by glogla »

xyzelement wrote: post #51

The funny/sad thing about this nihilism is that it's self fulfilling. You don't try and you don't get good outcomes. Meanwhile - life is working very well for people who don't think this way. Like, every house that comes up on the market is immediately snatched up by some 30/40 year old who is buying a home for his growing family. Somehow these guys figured out how to get consistently paid. Meanwhile you can be cryin…

This is such an evil thing to say.

You got lucky. Telling people who were not that its their own fault for not trying is just such horrible thing to say. How can people have so little empathy, I will never understand.

Re: The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

#58

Post by WJW »

meowfly wrote: post #14
andrewclunn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's confusing cause and effect. Monetary policy that leads to cheap debt for the connected and inflation for the masses is driving this.

I think you are right. The WSB crowd mocks r/investing because a 50 year timeline optimally turns 10k into 220k (not enough to be rich). With options you can do half that overnight. However, options lose in most cases. With options pretty much everyone who uses them will have the experience of a loss even though their theory is confirmed. For example Tesla misses sales and the stock price goes up. The fact that the m…

With a lottery ticket you can also do that overnight, and more. Most people are savvy enough to know that playing the lottery has unfavorable odds though, while not as many understand market structure.

Short term trading (as opposed to long term investing) is an activity that has extremely smart, experienced and well-funded people going up against each other. They are studying the markets at least full time and many work for employers (HFTs, investment banks, etc) that regularly invest hundreds of millions in infrastructure in order to gain an edge. Going up against all that as an amateur individual is like signing up for a serious poker tournament as a casual player. You could still win, but it's by luck alone and the odds are heavily against you. Long term investing has much less of this, because in the long run markets are weighing machines instead of voting machines and they measure the long term trends of economic development.

Index funds are a brilliant invention for retail investors, because they maximize the exposure to the long term economic trends while minimizing the chances of getting into a trade that does not favor you. Of course, the excitement of getting into bets and even winning every now and then is very addictive and this is what most of WSB seems to be chasing.

Re: The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

#59

Post by achenet »

glogla wrote: post #47
jesuscript wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can’t be proven, but common sense would say GenZ are the most nihilistic because they have to work the hardest to even get to the middle, let alone the end. I’d say the people in the beginning and end have a tangible resentment, and not necessarily an existential crisis. In other words, GenZ would be resentful of having to start fresh against the barbarian Millenial/Boomer horde, and Boomers would be resentful of…

I think GenZ is less nihilistic, because they are younger - they are not as burned and scarred as millennials yet, and they still believe that things can be changed, that world can be saved. Millennials already tried, found it didn't work, found it was for nothing, found it will never work because the systems of humanity don't allow for it.

> Millennials already tried, found it didn't work, found it was for nothing, found it will never work because the systems of humanity don't allow for it.

speak for yourself. I'm changing the world, one kind gesture at a time ^_^

Re: The Scandal of Financial Nihilism

#60

Post by xyzelement »

glogla wrote: post #57
xyzelement wrote: post #51

The funny/sad thing about this nihilism is that it's self fulfilling. You don't try and you don't get good outcomes. Meanwhile - life is working very well for people who don't think this way. Like, every house that comes up on the market is immediately snatched up by some 30/40 year old who is buying a home for his growing family. Somehow these guys figured out how to get consistently paid. Meanwhile you can be cryin…

This is such an evil thing to say. You got lucky. Telling people who were not that its their own fault for not trying is just such horrible thing to say. How can people have so little empathy, I will never understand.

If you tried and failed, I have respect. If you didn't bother "because it's impossible" (nihilism) then I have zero sympathy.
Post reply on HN