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…
> how can it be anything but natural selection doing it's thing? Does it affect their reproductive chances? If not, then natural selection has nothing to do with it.
More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
71–80 of 640 posts
Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
#72At one point I knew I could beat the market with l33t software skills. I was wrong and only realized it after donating about 3k to Wall Street.
I too don’t understand why technical analysis isn’t classified as a genre of fiction…
Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
#73Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s peanuts! Congrats for realizing it early
I don't know OP but 3k can be a significant amount of money for some people esp when younger. I realise people often lose more, but that can also be because they have more money padding to lose.
Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
#75Earlier 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.
I disagree with the comparison. A "drunk woman out by themselves" is, at the end of the day, just a person exercising their right to exist. A stock-market gambler, on the other hand, is literally betting on the bad decisions of whoever is on the other side of their trades. It's a predatory position to be in, and deserves a whole lot less sympathy.
Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> how can it be anything but natural selection doing it's thing? Does it affect their reproductive chances? If not, then natural selection has nothing to do with it.
Take a wider view - the people with economic power are generally the people who use it for economically sensible things. Someone who spends irrationally is going to end up with no money. This is a similar process to natural selection - because the unviable strategies are removed, everything that is around is using a viable strategy. This woman was forcing people with unviable financial beliefs (that led to them being…
Diverting people's resources to unproductive, antisocial scammers based on arbitrary educational criteria is the only "ruinous" thing in this picture. They are the economic inefficiency.
Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
#77The most difficult part about the stock market is that stocks don't move for the reasons people think. People think fundamentals, news, financial performance, or chart patterns matter. But none of it does. Markets are driven purely by supply and demand. And in this case, supply and demand for the stock itself. Fundamentals are already priced in. Financial performance is already priced in. Expectations are priced in,…
Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
#78If 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.
Note: There's a great podcast on RenTech by Acquired: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/renaissance-technologies
Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
#79Earlier 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…
There's a difference between a grandma losing money to a phone scam and this kind of "hustle economy" gambling. I've talked to a lot of people who participate in this stuff, they always know the odds exactly . They're fully aware. It's a combination of greed, thrill and attention seeking that doesn't deserve sympathy. Everybody who participates in hawk tuah coin crypto rug pulls knows how stupid it is, they just thin…
Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
#80Earlier 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.