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If a group was proposing that residential areas have a speed limit, and you came back with "ah, and only horse-drawn-buggies should be allowed", that would seem

If a group was proposing that residential areas have a speed limit, and you came back with "ah, and only horse-drawn-buggies should be allowed", that would seem rather irrelevant remark, yes? It would be rather beside the point and couldn't really defeat the proposal due to not actually talking about it. Said another way, the first comment appears to be an attempt at a reductio ad absurdum on banning HFT, however, it does not establish that the absurd conclusion is a clear, logical extension of the position advanced by the other side. Said more in line with how I interpret the previous criticism, you wanted it to be obvious that the other side is on a slippery slope. However no such slope exists; common sense allows for at least one clear stopping point between the actual proposal and your "we've slipped down into absurdity" zone.

grandalf 16y ago
Suppose someone claimed that residential broadband speeds should be capped at 14.4 kilobits per second b/c some teenagers download songs songs with inappropriate lyrics. The reader is supposed to believe that lowering the speed is a good thing just because the reader is assumed to believe that inappropriate lyrics are a bad thing. Prices are not "good" or "bad". Most of the people who oppose HFT are very much in the habit of attributing aesthetic descriptions to prices and to trading patterns. In my opinion, this is a naive view of markets and complex systems that leads to the false expectation of stability, etc.
- nooneelse 16y ago
  I interpret this comment to be an entirely new line of criticism of the HFT ban. This one is based on an assessment of the applicability of the motivations behind the ban, the previous one was an attempted reductio. The polite thing for you to do would be to admit that your first criticism failed, or mark in some other way that you are starting a new line, not for you to speak as if you are simply backing that first criticism up with new information. As for the new point, your example of absurdity includes a solution that is obviously decoupled from the problem it is stated to be addressing (download speed and lyrical content), that is why it is absurd. However you have not shown that the HFT ban is similarly unrelated to the problem(s) that it is intended to be addressing. The length of delays on feedback loops in control systems is very related to the performance of those control systems. Thus, the absurdness is not conveyed over of the HFT ban idea.
  - grandalf 16y ago
    I think there is an analogy in my second comment that you have missed. Download speed and lyrical content are just as connected as the speed of subsequent trade execution and psychological market meta-phenomena. I chose the example of lyrics b/c they are purely subjective, just as most of the phenomena that HFT opponents cite as bad. It's ultimately an aesthetic argument that you're making.
    - nooneelse 16y ago
      I didn't miss the analogy, I simply didn't find it a valid one. Nor did you present a reason for so considering it. You just gave the analogy, and assumed I should go along with the presuppositions that led to your thinking it is valid. If you want me to think the HFT ban is disconnected from the problems it is intended to address, you need to argue that position, not just make fun of how disconnected you think they are. > "It's ultimately an aesthetic argument that you're making." I don't think so. If you want to call something like 'signal chains should carry the information they are used to carry with an ignorably low noise floor' an aesthetic judgment, I guess you can. But it is more commonly thought of as a far more practical judgement than that. Turning up the speed up feedback signals is not radically decoupled from system performance, ergo your analogy to a situation that has such radical decoupling isn't valid.
      - grandalf 16y ago
        Fair enough. I apologize. I acknowledge that there were a lot of gaps in my argument, etc. I will see if I can think of a concise way to articulate the argument and do so. Thanks for being willing to engage in some dialog.

grandalf 16y ago

Suppose someone claimed that residential broadband speeds should be capped at 14.4 kilobits per second b/c some teenagers download songs songs with inappropriate lyrics. The reader is supposed to believe that lowering the speed is a good thing just because the reader is assumed to believe that inappropriate lyrics are a bad thing. Prices are not "good" or "bad". Most of the people who oppose HFT are very much in the habit of attributing aesthetic descriptions to prices and to trading patterns. In my opinion, this is a naive view of markets and complex systems that leads to the false expectation of stability, etc.

nooneelse 16y ago
I interpret this comment to be an entirely new line of criticism of the HFT ban. This one is based on an assessment of the applicability of the motivations behind the ban, the previous one was an attempted reductio. The polite thing for you to do would be to admit that your first criticism failed, or mark in some other way that you are starting a new line, not for you to speak as if you are simply backing that first criticism up with new information. As for the new point, your example of absurdity includes a solution that is obviously decoupled from the problem it is stated to be addressing (download speed and lyrical content), that is why it is absurd. However you have not shown that the HFT ban is similarly unrelated to the problem(s) that it is intended to be addressing. The length of delays on feedback loops in control systems is very related to the performance of those control systems. Thus, the absurdness is not conveyed over of the HFT ban idea.
- grandalf 16y ago
  I think there is an analogy in my second comment that you have missed. Download speed and lyrical content are just as connected as the speed of subsequent trade execution and psychological market meta-phenomena. I chose the example of lyrics b/c they are purely subjective, just as most of the phenomena that HFT opponents cite as bad. It's ultimately an aesthetic argument that you're making.
  - nooneelse 16y ago
    I didn't miss the analogy, I simply didn't find it a valid one. Nor did you present a reason for so considering it. You just gave the analogy, and assumed I should go along with the presuppositions that led to your thinking it is valid. If you want me to think the HFT ban is disconnected from the problems it is intended to address, you need to argue that position, not just make fun of how disconnected you think they are. > "It's ultimately an aesthetic argument that you're making." I don't think so. If you want to call something like 'signal chains should carry the information they are used to carry with an ignorably low noise floor' an aesthetic judgment, I guess you can. But it is more commonly thought of as a far more practical judgement than that. Turning up the speed up feedback signals is not radically decoupled from system performance, ergo your analogy to a situation that has such radical decoupling isn't valid.
    - grandalf 16y ago
      Fair enough. I apologize. I acknowledge that there were a lot of gaps in my argument, etc. I will see if I can think of a concise way to articulate the argument and do so. Thanks for being willing to engage in some dialog.