4 ms·

I spend my free time enjoying my life, not trying to figure out who to exploit. It’s not clear to me why building a derivatives trading bot leads to exploitati

I spend my free time enjoying my life, not trying to figure out who to exploit. It’s not clear to me why building a derivatives trading bot leads to exploitation but whatever floats your ideological boat I suppose.

girvo 5y ago
I don't neccesarily agree with what I'm about to comment, I'm just adding some clarity: ...rent-seeking in a system based on massive electrical waste. With that as the core assumption, the exploitation would be anyone who relies on the environment (everyone, then), I'd think.
- gruez 5y ago
  How is operating a trading bot "rent seeking"?
  - Igelau 5y ago
    "Rent-seeking is the effort to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth." The accusation here, right or wrong, is that this is what crypto and the bot are ultimately doing. Note, this may have you reaching for questions that start with "How is this any different from..."
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      The claim of pure rent-seeking is easily disproven by comparing bid-offer spreads before and after the advent of computerized market making and seeing how much bid-offer transaction costs have shrunk for the average investor.
  - girvo 5y ago
    I don't know that it is, IMO.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  You're being too charitable. By their definition of "exploit", anyone holding crypto and benefiting from capital gains is "exploiting", since these people are also benefiting off a system based on "massive electrical waste". Is there a term for someone who stretches language in such a way for rhetorical purposes? I can see why it's an effective rhetorical trick, since it forces people to debate whether the behavior is bad enough to fit the definition of exploitation, or whether it's not sufficiently bad. By having this debate we've already implicitly accepted their premise that something bad is going on.
  - lmm 5y ago
    > By their definition of "exploit", anyone holding crypto and benefiting from capital gains is "exploiting", since these people are also benefiting off a system based on "massive electrical waste". Yes. Isn't it?
  - bostonsre 5y ago
    > By having this debate we've already implicitly accepted their premise that something bad is going on. Isn't the electrical waste something bad?
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      This is begging the question. They've presupposed that it's bad by using the word "waste", without actually having made the case. I happen to think that flying overseas for a holiday wastes a lot of energy. I could label this a "massive energy waste". Then as a corollary I could label people taking those trips and people facilitating those trips as "exploitative" actors. But these are mere debating tricks even though it's all vaguely accurate given the words I've chosen and the framing I've picked. The root problem to all of this is an untaxed externality.
      - bostonsre 5y ago
        I'm not sure it's that complicated. A lot of crypto currencies use a lot of electricity that wouldn't have been used otherwise. A portion of that electricity that was used will be non-renewable energy. > I happen to think that flying overseas for a holiday wastes a lot of energy. I could label this a "massive energy waste". Yes, people taking over seas vacations instead of staying home also wastes energy.

girvo 5y ago

I don't neccesarily agree with what I'm about to comment, I'm just adding some clarity: ...rent-seeking in a system based on massive electrical waste. With that as the core assumption, the exploitation would be anyone who relies on the environment (everyone, then), I'd think.

gruez 5y ago
How is operating a trading bot "rent seeking"?
- Igelau 5y ago
  "Rent-seeking is the effort to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth." The accusation here, right or wrong, is that this is what crypto and the bot are ultimately doing. Note, this may have you reaching for questions that start with "How is this any different from..."
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    The claim of pure rent-seeking is easily disproven by comparing bid-offer spreads before and after the advent of computerized market making and seeing how much bid-offer transaction costs have shrunk for the average investor.
- girvo 5y ago
  I don't know that it is, IMO.
fighterpilot 5y ago
You're being too charitable. By their definition of "exploit", anyone holding crypto and benefiting from capital gains is "exploiting", since these people are also benefiting off a system based on "massive electrical waste". Is there a term for someone who stretches language in such a way for rhetorical purposes? I can see why it's an effective rhetorical trick, since it forces people to debate whether the behavior is bad enough to fit the definition of exploitation, or whether it's not sufficiently bad. By having this debate we've already implicitly accepted their premise that something bad is going on.
- lmm 5y ago
  > By their definition of "exploit", anyone holding crypto and benefiting from capital gains is "exploiting", since these people are also benefiting off a system based on "massive electrical waste". Yes. Isn't it?
- bostonsre 5y ago
  > By having this debate we've already implicitly accepted their premise that something bad is going on. Isn't the electrical waste something bad?
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    This is begging the question. They've presupposed that it's bad by using the word "waste", without actually having made the case. I happen to think that flying overseas for a holiday wastes a lot of energy. I could label this a "massive energy waste". Then as a corollary I could label people taking those trips and people facilitating those trips as "exploitative" actors. But these are mere debating tricks even though it's all vaguely accurate given the words I've chosen and the framing I've picked. The root problem to all of this is an untaxed externality.
    - bostonsre 5y ago
      I'm not sure it's that complicated. A lot of crypto currencies use a lot of electricity that wouldn't have been used otherwise. A portion of that electricity that was used will be non-renewable energy. > I happen to think that flying overseas for a holiday wastes a lot of energy. I could label this a "massive energy waste". Yes, people taking over seas vacations instead of staying home also wastes energy.