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Being the "smartest" is neither necessary nor sufficient for being "the best". To be the best, you have to focus on the most important problems. Decreasing hig

Being the "smartest" is neither necessary nor sufficient for being "the best". To be the best, you have to focus on the most important problems. Decreasing high frequency trading latency or building better stock prediction algorithms are interesting problems, but they aren't in the same league as landing rovers on fucking Mars or sending probes outside the solar system. Five hundred years from now, assuming humans are still around, we'll still be teaching about Voyager in history classes. Will we be teaching about high-frequency trading?

sigstoat 8y ago
> Will we be teaching about high-frequency trading? markets will still want liquidity, so if there's a functioning economy, there will be HFT. JPL can be great without taking digs at other activities.
- badpun 8y ago
  The entire concept of HFT can be wiped out by a few changes in the rules of a stock exchange...
  - gvhst 8y ago
    JPL can be wiped out by a few changes to congressional budgeting
    - arya169 8y ago
      Mars can't, nor can the engineering techniques used by JPL.
- GlenTheMachine 8y ago
  I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do. I'm saying that it isn't as important to humanity. It's like the pitch Steve Jobs gave to John Scully: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” There was nothing wrong with selling Pepsi. Scully could have become very, very wealthy that way. He could have mentored younger executives, he could have done a lot of good with his life. But five hundred years from now, beating Coke wasn't going to leave much of a legacy. And that's the point. Maybe the brightest really are going into high frequency trading. Maybe they're creating a lot of shareholder wealth there. That's all great. But to be considered "the greatest" it isn't enough to be really smart, or even to work on really hard problems. You have to work on really hard, important problems. IMO.
  - jdsully 8y ago
    Getting what you need, when you need it is extremely important to humanity. Middle men aren't glamorous but there's a reason they've existed since the beginning of organized human society. They are offloading the task of planning for the future for you by predicting your needs. This allows you to think about more important problems - Like landing a robot a Mars.
  - sigstoat 8y ago
    > I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do. I'm saying that it isn't as important to humanity. and i'm saying you can extol the virtues of JPL without taking a shit on anything else. i don't even particularly disagree with you, just your rhetorical need to keep talking about why other things don't matter quite as much, instead of talking about why JPL does matter.

sigstoat 8y ago

> Will we be teaching about high-frequency trading? markets will still want liquidity, so if there's a functioning economy, there will be HFT. JPL can be great without taking digs at other activities.

badpun 8y ago
The entire concept of HFT can be wiped out by a few changes in the rules of a stock exchange...
- gvhst 8y ago
  JPL can be wiped out by a few changes to congressional budgeting
  - arya169 8y ago
    Mars can't, nor can the engineering techniques used by JPL.
GlenTheMachine 8y ago
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do. I'm saying that it isn't as important to humanity. It's like the pitch Steve Jobs gave to John Scully: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” There was nothing wrong with selling Pepsi. Scully could have become very, very wealthy that way. He could have mentored younger executives, he could have done a lot of good with his life. But five hundred years from now, beating Coke wasn't going to leave much of a legacy. And that's the point. Maybe the brightest really are going into high frequency trading. Maybe they're creating a lot of shareholder wealth there. That's all great. But to be considered "the greatest" it isn't enough to be really smart, or even to work on really hard problems. You have to work on really hard, important problems. IMO.
- jdsully 8y ago
  Getting what you need, when you need it is extremely important to humanity. Middle men aren't glamorous but there's a reason they've existed since the beginning of organized human society. They are offloading the task of planning for the future for you by predicting your needs. This allows you to think about more important problems - Like landing a robot a Mars.
- sigstoat 8y ago
  > I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do. I'm saying that it isn't as important to humanity. and i'm saying you can extol the virtues of JPL without taking a shit on anything else. i don't even particularly disagree with you, just your rhetorical need to keep talking about why other things don't matter quite as much, instead of talking about why JPL does matter.