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I appreciate that the Times calls this what it is: an arms race, and it got me wondering, has there ever been an arms race that has benefited humanity? Competi
by pak 16y ago
I appreciate that the Times calls this what it is: an arms race, and it got me wondering, has there ever been an arms race that has benefited humanity?
Competition over tangible consumer technology, I understand. An arms race (what this is, because most would call finance markets a zero-sum game) I do not understand.
This sort of algorithmic black-box HFT with uncontrolled news feed input is like mutual assured destruction, all over again. What is it going to take to give the financial industry a sense of responsibility?
- aristus 16y agoWell, there are nuances here. HFT may not be a net win for humanity, but it's a long leap from there to "no arms race benefits humanity". The last large "arms race" was a decades-long contest between the US and the USSR. It resulted in millions of deaths (via proxy wars and famine), the near-bankrupting of several contestants, and several cases where we almost turned our civilization into glowing dust. It also got us, as a species, to the Moon. It encouraged hundreds of thousands more people to study engineering and hard sciences, created the interstate highway system, modern communications, telemetry, trauma medicine, epidemiology, etc. I won't get into a discussion of whether all that was worth the cost, but it's no coincidence that technology advances quickly during times of war and near-war.
- srean 16y agoIt probably makes the market efficient even at a resolution of sub-second intervals. But what societal benefits accrue from that is not clear to me.
- mhb 16y agobecause most would call finance markets a zero-sum game Most what would call what finance markets zero-sum games? Futures are, the stock market isn't, regardless of what most call them.