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I motion to make this sort of empty ideological criticism against the HN guidelines. It should be a formal logical fallacy to critique the economic activity of

I motion to make this sort of empty ideological criticism against the HN guidelines. It should be a formal logical fallacy to critique the economic activity of other people just because they're choosing not to engage in whatever your favorite flavor of saving the world entails. There's no effort expended nor insight contributed. It always follows a simple formula: woe to the world that all these {brilliant scientists, talented engineers} decide to work in {high frequency trading, advertising, data mining} when they could be working on {curing cancer, solving climate change, helping the poor}. If you're not well enough acquainted with economic theory to appreciate why financial markets are at least somewhat useful then that's your problem, not anyone else's. Don't try to insinuate that society has lost something because some very capable people have decided to engage in work you won't even take the time to understand. It's simply disrespectful. You have no idea what precise benefits their work contributes to society. You also have no idea what kind of charitable work they like to do in their free time or what kind if philanthropy their salaries allow them to contribute to the world. And this is all beside the fact that there are many secondary benefits of a company flush with money releasing excellent open source software and stewarding programming language development.

drngdds 8y ago
>You have no idea what precise benefits their work contributes to society. Can you inform us?
askafriend 8y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with you. It never leads to any meaningful discussion or interesting ideas. It's one of the cheapest arguments one can make and it's a type of argument that doesn't deserve engagement with. I would welcome a rule against empty arguments like this on HN. CC: dang, is there any version of this that we can perhaps institute?
throwawayecon 8y ago
> It should be a formal logical fallacy... I’m not sure you understand what logical fallacies are (but I understand HN loves to trot them out, so I’m not surprised). Anyway, nobody seconded your silly motion, so it died.
genericid 8y ago
> It should be a formal logical fallacy to critique the economic activity of other people just because they're choosing not to engage in whatever your favorite flavor of saving the world entails. It should be a formal logical fallacy to pretend there is no difference between "not saving the world in someone's favorite flavor" and "doing something useless". > It always follows a simple formula: woe to the world that all these {brilliant scientists, talented engineers} decide to work in {high frequency trading, advertising, data mining} when they could be working on {curing cancer, solving climate change, helping the poor}. In order to be intellectually honest, you should replace the strawman "{curing cancer, solving climate change, helping the poor}" by "anything useful". > If you're not well enough acquainted with economic theory to appreciate why financial markets are at least somewhat useful then that's your problem, not anyone else's. Don't try to insinuate that society has lost something because some very capable people have decided to engage in work you won't even take the time to understand. There's no effort expended nor insight contributed here either. You not just refused to make an argument, you baselessly claimed that OP considers the work of Jane Street useless because they are stupid and not for reasons you don't even take the time to understand. That is simply disrespectful. Also, the statements "developing software to gather more money from the financial markets is useless" and "financial markets are useless" are not equivalent. No one claimed the latter. > It's simply disrespectful. There is no reason to respect useless work. > You also have no idea what kind of charitable work they like to do in their free time or what kind if philanthropy their salaries allow them to contribute to the world. They didn't say anything about what the workers at Jane Street do with their free time. > And this is all beside the fact that there are many secondary effects of company flush with money releasing excellent open source software and stewarding programming language development. That is merely a by-product. Also, it may very well be compensated by the fact that if Jane Street didn't have that money, someone else would.
elago 8y ago
This reasoning leads to praising blackhat SEO, spammers, ICO scammers, etc. I'm sure they do plenty of technically clever things. And they also make plenty of money, therefore via economic theory they're a valuable asset to our community, unlike those marginally useless teachers and social workers.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  My reasoning doesn't lead to anything you've mentioned. Your characterization of what I said is so uncharitable it's difficult for me to believe you're engaging with my point honestly and in good faith. However...assuming you've honestly trying to discuss this: you're mistaking my real point for support of maximal capitalism. I'm not saying the intrinsic "worth" of an individual or a company to society is determined by how much profit they generate. That may or may not be the case, but it's a sideshow to what I'm really talking about. I'm saying that it's disrespectful and intellectually lazy to dismiss someone else's work (and implicitly, any fulfillment they may derive from it) because it's technically challenging but not saving the world. It's also implicitly narcissistic, because it makes the critic an ideological arbiter of the worth of other people's professions. The critic should spend more time focusing on being the change they want to see in the world rather than griefing the work of other people. The examples you provided - blackhat SEO, ICO scammers, spam - are criminal behaviors that undermine society. The examples I used in my template are not. They can cause harm, like most activities, but they are not designed specifically to do so. That makes your examples incomparable as a rebuttal. At this point it's likely that someone will be incensed by this last point and jump in with a lovely deconstruction of advertising or financial trading that asserts, "No, it actually is a net negative for society!" I'm not going to engage in debating that point because it's not going to go anywhere and it's not directly relevant to my point. Armchair economists have been reinventing "better" financial theory from first principles for years on Hacker News, and focusing on that particular example is a red herring.
  - a1369209993 8y ago
    > advertising, data mining} Advertising and Facebook-style spyware deployment[0] are behaviors that undermine society, and are only not criminal due to blatant goverment corruption and, if you want to be overly charitable, being too novel for law to have caught up with. They may not be designed for the express purpose of causing harm, but neither are blackhat SEO, or, for example, shoplifting. Ironically, your original point was a good one; high frequency trading is fairly clearly positive and certainly not inherently negative. (I don't think anyone believes they're making optimal use of their talents for the betterment of humanity or whatever similar goal, but that's a unreasonably high standard when we're also discussing advertisers and SEO.) 0: Which is what people I've talked to use "data mining" to refer to, although I'm not sure if that's what you meant.
dang 8y ago
It's already against the site guidelines, as I pointed out at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17740980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17740980.

drngdds 8y ago

>You have no idea what precise benefits their work contributes to society. Can you inform us?

askafriend 8y ago

I wholeheartedly agree with you. It never leads to any meaningful discussion or interesting ideas. It's one of the cheapest arguments one can make and it's a type of argument that doesn't deserve engagement with. I would welcome a rule against empty arguments like this on HN. CC: dang, is there any version of this that we can perhaps institute?

throwawayecon 8y ago

> It should be a formal logical fallacy... I’m not sure you understand what logical fallacies are (but I understand HN loves to trot them out, so I’m not surprised). Anyway, nobody seconded your silly motion, so it died.

genericid 8y ago

> It should be a formal logical fallacy to critique the economic activity of other people just because they're choosing not to engage in whatever your favorite flavor of saving the world entails. It should be a formal logical fallacy to pretend there is no difference between "not saving the world in someone's favorite flavor" and "doing something useless". > It always follows a simple formula: woe to the world that all these {brilliant scientists, talented engineers} decide to work in {high frequency trading, advertising, data mining} when they could be working on {curing cancer, solving climate change, helping the poor}. In order to be intellectually honest, you should replace the strawman "{curing cancer, solving climate change, helping the poor}" by "anything useful". > If you're not well enough acquainted with economic theory to appreciate why financial markets are at least somewhat useful then that's your problem, not anyone else's. Don't try to insinuate that society has lost something because some very capable people have decided to engage in work you won't even take the time to understand. There's no effort expended nor insight contributed here either. You not just refused to make an argument, you baselessly claimed that OP considers the work of Jane Street useless because they are stupid and not for reasons you don't even take the time to understand. That is simply disrespectful. Also, the statements "developing software to gather more money from the financial markets is useless" and "financial markets are useless" are not equivalent. No one claimed the latter. > It's simply disrespectful. There is no reason to respect useless work. > You also have no idea what kind of charitable work they like to do in their free time or what kind if philanthropy their salaries allow them to contribute to the world. They didn't say anything about what the workers at Jane Street do with their free time. > And this is all beside the fact that there are many secondary effects of company flush with money releasing excellent open source software and stewarding programming language development. That is merely a by-product. Also, it may very well be compensated by the fact that if Jane Street didn't have that money, someone else would.

elago 8y ago

This reasoning leads to praising blackhat SEO, spammers, ICO scammers, etc. I'm sure they do plenty of technically clever things. And they also make plenty of money, therefore via economic theory they're a valuable asset to our community, unlike those marginally useless teachers and social workers.

throwawaymath 8y ago
My reasoning doesn't lead to anything you've mentioned. Your characterization of what I said is so uncharitable it's difficult for me to believe you're engaging with my point honestly and in good faith. However...assuming you've honestly trying to discuss this: you're mistaking my real point for support of maximal capitalism. I'm not saying the intrinsic "worth" of an individual or a company to society is determined by how much profit they generate. That may or may not be the case, but it's a sideshow to what I'm really talking about. I'm saying that it's disrespectful and intellectually lazy to dismiss someone else's work (and implicitly, any fulfillment they may derive from it) because it's technically challenging but not saving the world. It's also implicitly narcissistic, because it makes the critic an ideological arbiter of the worth of other people's professions. The critic should spend more time focusing on being the change they want to see in the world rather than griefing the work of other people. The examples you provided - blackhat SEO, ICO scammers, spam - are criminal behaviors that undermine society. The examples I used in my template are not. They can cause harm, like most activities, but they are not designed specifically to do so. That makes your examples incomparable as a rebuttal. At this point it's likely that someone will be incensed by this last point and jump in with a lovely deconstruction of advertising or financial trading that asserts, "No, it actually is a net negative for society!" I'm not going to engage in debating that point because it's not going to go anywhere and it's not directly relevant to my point. Armchair economists have been reinventing "better" financial theory from first principles for years on Hacker News, and focusing on that particular example is a red herring.
- a1369209993 8y ago
  > advertising, data mining} Advertising and Facebook-style spyware deployment[0] are behaviors that undermine society, and are only not criminal due to blatant goverment corruption and, if you want to be overly charitable, being too novel for law to have caught up with. They may not be designed for the express purpose of causing harm, but neither are blackhat SEO, or, for example, shoplifting. Ironically, your original point was a good one; high frequency trading is fairly clearly positive and certainly not inherently negative. (I don't think anyone believes they're making optimal use of their talents for the betterment of humanity or whatever similar goal, but that's a unreasonably high standard when we're also discussing advertisers and SEO.) 0: Which is what people I've talked to use "data mining" to refer to, although I'm not sure if that's what you meant.

dang 8y ago

It's already against the site guidelines, as I pointed out at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17740980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17740980.