6 votes

There's nothing to do except gamble - NFTs, SPACs, and the future of money

6 comments

  1. acdw
    Link
    I found this article on HN (yes, I'm continuing that trend, though I honestly am more interested in yall's take on this) and found it really interesting and, at the same time, depressing. (Welcome...

    I found this article on HN (yes, I'm continuing that trend, though I honestly am more interested in yall's take on this) and found it really interesting and, at the same time, depressing. (Welcome to the future! It sucks in different ways than you'd think!) Pull quote:

    In an era defined by slow growth and flatlined productivity (if not outright economic stagnation) and marked by widening inequality and underemployment, “money” feels at once deadly serious and stupidly silly.

    It's basically what I've been feeling for a while now -- that all anybody does with the stock market is gamble, they've just figured a way to rig the game so they win. The rich are the house, I suppose.

    5 votes
  2. [5]
    Greg
    Link
    This pretty much sums it up for me. The rest of the article seemed almost too moderate - I've mentioned on here already that the entire financial system has gone far past absurdity for me. The...

    If you’re supposed to buy stocks as a bet on the future condition of a business, why would you buy stock in a brick-and-mortar retail video-game chain unless you didn’t really believe in any future at all? How different is the stock market from betting on soccer? What’s the point of investing safely when Elon Musk can create and destroy millions of dollars of value with a couple of tweets?

    This pretty much sums it up for me. The rest of the article seemed almost too moderate - I've mentioned on here already that the entire financial system has gone far past absurdity for me. The emperor is doing naked cartwheels and the only rational response is to join in.

    I did find this article fascinating. It's linked from the words "get rich quick", just before the section I quoted above.

    I've cherry-picked more than I intended below, and I really would recommend just reading it in full, but I wanted to highlight the mismatch between the author's infuriating, blasé privilege (who cares about $200k), her human moments (hey, I can pay for $10 shipping), and her genuine flashes of insight (why do I get rewarded for being in the right place at the right time).

    Where's the value in hard work when the rewards and punishments are dished out almost at random? If most people grind for decades with nothing to show for it, why not gamble?

    I thought that I’d make a little bit from an IPO, maybe $200,000. You don’t think much about $200,000; it’s not life-changing.

    ...

    I’m not a generous person; I’m incredibly frugal. Now, my floodgates of generosity can finally open. My sister’s love language is gift-receiving, so I got her a candle from a local boutique. The shipping cost $10. Normally, I wouldn’t pay to ship, but now I’m like, No matter. I’ll pay the $10. It’s been a lot of minor expenses. Like, I bought a boutique cheese from the farmers’ market for $15. Before, I’d be like, That’s a ridiculous amount to spend on cheese. I don’t even like cheese that much.

    ...

    For me, the whole thing about the money is that I just want to afford the lifestyle I grew up with.

    ...

    My job, it’s all narrative. I don’t build anything. I don’t do any math equations. I’m corralling a bunch of pieces together, so in reality I’m doing everything and I’m doing nothing. It’s all about the perception of how you’re doing. It’s very intangible. So I constantly ask myself, Do I deserve this money? Why would I deserve this? It’s not necessarily an accomplishment to become rich from your company doing an IPO. It’s luck — I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It’s not like I’m any smarter than the tens of thousands of people who have my job at other companies.

    ...

    Being a tech worker is not like banking, where you know you’re not doing good for society. A lot of tech workers delude themselves into thinking they’re being “mission oriented.” I was never quite delusional enough to believe that. I was just hoping I didn’t do net harm, which in itself is hard to avoid in this industry.

    ...

    My mom has gotten bitter. She said, “You’re going to have more money than your dad and I combined, and we’ve worked all our lives.”

    4 votes
    1. Cycloneblaze
      Link Parent
      It's been said for a long time that wealth does not correlate with and is not a measure of goodness, even if on some fundamental level in capitalism, that's an assumption. I guess it becomes even...

      and her genuine flashes of insight (why do I get rewarded for being in the right place at the right time).

      Where's the value in hard work when the rewards and punishments are dished out almost at random? If most people grind for decades with nothing to show for it, why not gamble?

      It's been said for a long time that wealth does not correlate with and is not a measure of goodness, even if on some fundamental level in capitalism, that's an assumption. I guess it becomes even harder to believe that if you have a lot of money, you worked hard for it and/or are a good person who deserves it, when a lot more people are just winning the lottery.

      7 votes
    2. [3]
      skybrian
      Link Parent
      [...] While it captures the surreality of it, this is very silly. Some people getting lucky doesn't justify making stupid bets, or at least not with large sums. The point of investing...

      What’s the point of investing safely when Elon Musk can create and destroy millions of dollars of value with a couple of tweets?

      [...]

      The emperor is doing naked cartwheels and the only rational response is to join in.

      While it captures the surreality of it, this is very silly. Some people getting lucky doesn't justify making stupid bets, or at least not with large sums. The point of investing conservatively is to avoid losing too much money; isn't that obvious? An Elon Musk tweet isn't going to move an S&P 500 index fund all that much.

      Losing small amounts of money on gambling can easily be justified as entertainment, as long as you're not deluding yourself and know your limits. In the aggregate, those small amounts can add up, and then it gets weird, but it doesn't mean the world is coming to an end, any more than the existence of Disney World or Los Vegas does.

      When people are throwing money at scale, I don't know, try to catch some, if you can?

      Be prepared for it to come to a stop. The dot com bubble ended, and this likely will too. It might go on longer than you think, though. It's okay to have a little fun while it lasts.

      2 votes
      1. [2]
        Greg
        Link Parent
        I don't disagree with you on any of the facts, but I think there's an important part of the picture missing there. It's not just that gambling is rewarded right now, it's that hard work and...

        I don't disagree with you on any of the facts, but I think there's an important part of the picture missing there. It's not just that gambling is rewarded right now, it's that hard work and patient investing often isn't.

        You've worked hard every day, followed the same path that gave your parents a home with two kids and space for them to play, and you find yourself in your 30s with two roommates, another decade at least of student loan payments, a housing market that far outpaces your earnings even if you could save anything significant for a deposit, and $6,000 to your name in what you optimistically call a pension pot.

        Is it rational to put that $6,000 in an index fund, knowing that it won't ever amount to more than a few months worth of expenses? Perhaps. It's better than losing it entirely. But it's hard to see that as a win when you've been doing everything "right" and you've got a negative net worth, no prospect of retirement, and little meaningful belief that'll change.

        If you're in that boat and then you see the gamblers making millions, why wouldn't you join them? What do you really have to lose?

        3 votes
        1. skybrian
          Link Parent
          On second thought, I’m not sure what you mean by “join in.” I think small-stakes risky investments might be more fun than buying lottery tickets and it seems less likely to result in having...

          On second thought, I’m not sure what you mean by “join in.” I think small-stakes risky investments might be more fun than buying lottery tickets and it seems less likely to result in having nothing to show for it. But I think it might make more sense to consider most of that $6000 to be an emergency fund and maybe it shouldn’t be invested at all?

          My response to “what do you have to lose” is: okay, what would happen if you moved somewhere with a lower cost of living? Could you find a better job? What would you miss? That’s what you have to lose.

          But I have no real insight here so all I can offer is questions.