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How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

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Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#191

Post by killtimeatwork »

sebmellen wrote: post #109
jariel wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but all of those things are considerably better now than at every point in history, the fact you'd write this even ... Do you realize that up until about 2 generations ago that nobody had fulfilling work? That work was just labour? 3 Generations ago you worked on the farm, or in the factory, or keeping the shop for meagre wages. In 1960 only about 8% went to university. In 1900 it was probably only 1%. Literall…

If you live in a city with a large homeless population, I think it would be interesting for you to go and talk with them. I live in San Diego, and I've talked to hundreds of homeless people while doing volunteer work and photography. You would not believe how many people, though they may be mentally ill, are smart, honest, good people, who just got fucked by the system. They're out here scrounging for food and gettin…

> You would not believe how many people, though they may be mentally ill, are smart, honest, good people, who just got fucked by the system.

It seems that they got fucked by mental illness, not by "a system". Not being helped is not the same as "getting fucked".

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#192

Post by paul_f »

dvt wrote: post #123
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we can no longer work at a stable company, marry a pretty wife, have a couple of kids, retire 40 years later, and live off of a plump 401k. This is what nearly everyone in tech who isn't spending their free time shitposting about their side projects and the nuances of programming languages is doing. Sure you can't work your whole career at one company anymore but that's just a reflection of macroeconomic conditions,…

> the stability is still there for the people who's skills are in demand Saying this after 2008 is just empirically false. You do realize that people lost their entire 401(k)s, right? My dad worked at IBM for over a decade and was laid off. More recently, my buddy (late 20s) was laid off by IBM after working there for the past 7 years; I know people in their 40s and 50s (at big companies and startups alike) that were…

Unless it was 100% invested in Enron or Lehman Brothers, nobody using a competent financial firm "lost their entire 401K". The markets only took 4 years to completely recover to the 2008 top levels.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#193

Post by refurb »

ajmadesc wrote: post #178
refurb wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of your points seem based on an accurate understanding of the financial markets.

Neither of his points seem based on Economic dogma shoved down your throat during undergrad.

No it doesn't. It seems based on populist memes and from watching popular movies.

People with invested capital aren't "hoarding" it. It actively invested.

No, the point of liquidity is to encourage an active market, which is exactly what it's doing. Not sure what "trading over our heads" even means.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#194

Post by sebmellen »

killtimeatwork wrote: post #191
sebmellen wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in a city with a large homeless population, I think it would be interesting for you to go and talk with them. I live in San Diego, and I've talked to hundreds of homeless people while doing volunteer work and photography. You would not believe how many people, though they may be mentally ill, are smart, honest, good people, who just got fucked by the system. They're out here scrounging for food and gettin…

> You would not believe how many people, though they may be mentally ill, are smart, honest, good people, who just got fucked by the system. It seems that they got fucked by mental illness, not by "a system". Not being helped is not the same as "getting fucked".

No. First of all, most of them aren't mentally ill. But most who are would probably have been fine doing a normal job if they hadn't gotten hooked on drugs or become homeless, which exacerbated their condition.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#195

Post by CraigJPerry »

coldtea wrote: post #164
coryrc wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I remember when NASA was launching reusable rockets as regular supply missions and weren't using 5% GDP, and did such a great job they didn't end up giving $400MM/year to Russia to hitch rides on the Soyuz for the last decade.

That would be the "slightly improved" part, "50 years later". And NASA hasn't used "5% GDP" for 40 years. It has been less than 1% since 1973. Actually scratch that, it has been less than 1% the federal budget, which is much much less than the GDP. Of course all that 50-years of IP got handed to the "private visionaries" of SpaceX for free, or rather, along with money paid to them...

If it was that low risk and easy for Musk, why didn't NASA just do it themselves? Or why not some other person? There seems to be quite a lot of space x competitors not doing as well as space x.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#196

Post by yakireev »

saiya-jin wrote: post #170
smabie wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, some people don't want to do well and merely be part of the upper middle class. Some people want to get rich . And the strategies you must employ to be comfortable are much different than those required to make serious money. Different strokes, different folks.

That's naive and unexperienced view on life values and true achievements. These days, money isn't impressive. What you actually do in your life is. For some of it, some amount of money is important, and if you have plenty its easier to achieve. But that's about it. I live in place swarming with rich folks, both old rich and new rich, while being neither. Most of them live such boring lives it would be sad if I cared…

> I live in place swarming with rich folks, both old rich and new rich, while being neither. Most of them live such boring lives it would be sad if I cared for them.

I was half-expecting the next sentence to be "Sign up for my webinar and I'll teach you how to make your life as fun as mine!"

Seriously though, what do you mean by "adventurous life"?

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#197

Post by vmception »

cbozeman wrote: post #35
dvt wrote: post #6

This article is fantastic. I think "get rich quick" schemes are so much worse when it comes to my generation and beyond (millennials/gen-z). People have been endlessly screwed over: graduated college during the 2008 economic bust, lived with parents until their 30s, fired/laid off during the 2020 pandemic -- so I fundamentally understand the mirage of Instagram fame and endless sacks of money for doing basically noth…

/r/wallstreetbets exists for a different reason, but it got exacerbated by everything you mentioned above. WSB members have come to realize that so-called "financial professionals" by and large have no scrying crystal into the market. WSB got there because of the democratization of knowledge that the Internet has caused. And before you cite some unicorn like Renaissance, that's generating 40% YOY for 20+ years, keep…

> /r/wallstreetbets exists for a different reason

If anyone wants to know that other reason, I used to be a mod there (low bar, but keep reading)

WSB existed in a void surrounded by personal finance forums full of the dumbest financially illiterate crowd being spoonfed Robert Kiyosaki and Suzi Orman all obviously sponsored by Vanguard. In fact, it still exists in that void. If you wanted to talk about trading volatility derivatives without being in some 1990s-layout investment banking forum, there was no place to go. WSB was the light, its forum rules specifically saying its the place where trading the VIX is normal.

That is its utility. A place for people with a risk tolerance slightly above an undocumented wage slave. Okay, that was hyperbole, I don't like personal finance forums and Wall Street Bets is the opposite of them. Not everyone is born sucking at basic money topics and not everyone is too risk averse to consider financial products outside of the mold. Actually, let's take it one step further, not everyone was raised around a stigma of money and maybe isn't completely ignorant as a product? Obviously that isn't the prevailing culture, and there aren't many communities that catered to it.

Anyway, outside of WSB the only other communities at the time were in trading guru chatrooms, the ones you subscribe to get into. Now everyone might be joking around but they are worshiping the guru. Its pathetic.

WSB was made for options traders to make jokes and wild trades that had a week to pay off. It then got co-opted by penny stock traders pretending like it was the new Yahoo finance board, and now it got co-opted again by the most denegerate options traders in history and it is marvelous! Its even better than what it originally was and the financial meme niche is new and hysterical.

Hopeless 20 year olds fueling the flame? Sure, that is pretty much what happened. I'm glad they made the venue, it is wildly popular now, and the options market is wildly liquid in ways I could have only dreamed of.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#198

Post by andrepd »

rorykoehler wrote: post #160
closeparen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty easy for a technology business to get capital these days.

I don't want that capital though. All it's doing is ossifying the power structures that are the cause of the major problems we are facing. It's a trap.

Indeed. Who are these people, why do they get to decide what gets built and what do people labour on? I want democratisation of capital.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#200

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

nmfisher wrote: post #136
herval wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that a Ponzi Scheme? Self-promoting and narrative-building to make it sound easy, but if you’re building something that someone will pay you money for, you’re literally just building a business...?

Slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it's a ponzi scheme when they start selling courses on "how to become an entrepreneur".

I know a kid who ended up doing that for his comp sci "internship." I feel so bad for the guy but he really didn't even learn how to code so it's frankly all on him.
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