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More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

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31–40 of 640 posts

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#31

If you have the math chops, you should really try to get into it just so you can realize you are not going to make a money making algorithm. I got knee deep into it out of boredom during Covid and was able to have the "aha" moment where you realize the best you can do is buy index funds or just long hold companies you believe in that are in your area of expertise.

Isn't that how RenTech got started? From what I understand, that fund still does huge gains, and can't get too big.

There's a lot of firms like that.

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#32

I remember a controversial scamming figure in Italy that made millions by selling lucky numbers for lotteries or exploiting people's stupidity to part them with their life savings. Her motto was "idiots _have_ to be scammed". While this figure was morally and ethically deplorable, it always made me think how her motto essentially implied that there was an element of pure natural selection happening and she saw hersel…

Humans are slow, weak, eminently munchable.

Lions, tigers, bears, etc., can really chow down on humans.

The issue with humans, though, is they gang up, real good. Eat one (that others care about), and twenty come after you with belt-fed machine guns.

Psycopaths may consider themselves to be predators, and "suckers," prey, but they tend to suffer the same fate as maneater lions, if they eat the wrong prey.

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#33
post #25
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a position commonly referred to as "Social Darwinism." The same logic can get you to "drunk women out by themselves _have_ to be sexually assaulted" and so on. No, it's not OK to victimize people just because they're vulnerable. It's an absolutely odious caricature of moral reasoning.

Not at all. Money represents resources, and it’s objectively better for society for resources to be in the hands of people who are not fools, instead of those who are.

You sound foolish, I’m gonna need to take all your money. Don’t worry, I’m being objective.

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#34
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of sneering about "idiots" and inventing pseudoscientific gibberish about natural selection is to wash one's hands of moral responsibility for scamming naive young people, the elderly, or adults with psychiatric or cognitive disabilities. "It wasn't me robbing your college-age son out of a new car, that was just natural selection doing its thing! So long, losers!" My mom was a very crappy person who stron…

I would prefer clever people have resources instead of any of those groups you listed. I have this preference even if I am not the one being clever (so, via the veil of ignorance).

I would prefer kind, honorable, useful, people have them.

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#35

I remember a controversial scamming figure in Italy that made millions by selling lucky numbers for lotteries or exploiting people's stupidity to part them with their life savings. Her motto was "idiots _have_ to be scammed". While this figure was morally and ethically deplorable, it always made me think how her motto essentially implied that there was an element of pure natural selection happening and she saw hersel…

> And there's no third party scamming them.

Sure there is. Retail investors are prey for more sophisticated investors. Getting people on WSB to make bad financial decisions is cheap and easy. I would be astonished if it isn't thoroughly astroturfed by hedge funds and other financial professionals.

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#36

I remember a controversial scamming figure in Italy that made millions by selling lucky numbers for lotteries or exploiting people's stupidity to part them with their life savings. Her motto was "idiots _have_ to be scammed". While this figure was morally and ethically deplorable, it always made me think how her motto essentially implied that there was an element of pure natural selection happening and she saw hersel…

Humans are slow, weak, eminently munchable. Lions, tigers, bears, etc., can really chow down on humans. The issue with humans, though, is they gang up, real good. Eat one (that others care about), and twenty come after you with belt-fed machine guns. Psycopaths may consider themselves to be predators, and "suckers," prey, but they tend to suffer the same fate as maneater lions, if they eat the wrong prey.

[dead]

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#37
post #5

Lot of people are becoming more knowledgable and skillful. But purpose is the missing ingredient. Without purpose or a motivator in life people end up getting trapped in mindless rituals. It keeps the reward circuitry in the brain from decaying.

Child rearing is a possible solution—it is our evolutionary “purpose” to reproduce, after all, and most people in the developed world today aren’t doing it.

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#40
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Money represents resources, and it’s objectively better for society for resources to be in the hands of people who are not fools, instead of those who are.

You sound foolish, I’m gonna need to take all your money. Don’t worry, I’m being objective.

The argument is that the objective test is whether you can actually convince anyone to hand over money.
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