He's saying that this isn't WallStreetBets coordinating to do a pump-and-dump. That's just a Ponzi scheme in which they'd be taking from each other rather than

He's saying that this isn't WallStreetBets coordinating to do a pump-and-dump. That's just a Ponzi scheme in which they'd be taking from each other rather than big hedge funds. It's not that dumb. It's WallStreetBets coordinating to do a short squeeze. They're trying to corner the stocks that the short sellers will have to buy at some point, whatever the price. They're trying to transfer money not from each other, but from big hedge funds to themselves, a very different proposition. Big finance is terrified of this because it indicates that the coordination problem for small independent investors to pull off a short squeeze has been solved. That can greatly increase their future risk. You no longer have to be a Porsche to put a short squeeze on VW stock, you can be a posse of internet randos that are much harder to predict or influence. It also explains that the short sellers make themselves more vulnerable to this attack by shorting greater than 100% of the stock. They have to compete all the more to buy those stocks, raising the price even further. The idea that these small investors are doing this for revenge or ideological reasons rather than profit never rang true to me, so this does. I know many of you will find this obvious but for me it's a useful explanation. Yudkowsky characterizes this as "a literally historically unprecedented attempt at group coordination among human beings." The success of such an attempt is surely a warning bell to any large institution, because any institution can be overturned by effective group coordination. If governments and big finance fear this, it may be because they understand it. Along with anyone who values stability over change.