4 ms·

I don't know... in my mind, cheating at sports is fundamentally different from (and less serious than) defrauding people in the stock market; The sock market i

by lsc 14y ago

I don't know... in my mind, cheating at sports is fundamentally different from (and less serious than) defrauding people in the stock market; The sock market is how we allocate most capital. Even making it slightly less efficient has huge negative consequences that touch almost everyone, not just people that choose to play in the stock market.

afhof 14y ago
The Stock Market is bigger and more impactful than sports, but I wouldn't say cheating in sports is less serious. There is a LOT of money moving around in sports (Superbowl, BCS, etc.) and having the best (doping or non doping players) turns into dollars. The total impact is less, but I don't think you can wave it away.
- lsc 14y ago
  Total impact is dramatically less. I mean, stealing a candy bar is wrong, and it has a real, measurable impact; stealing a car is also wrong, and has a real, measurable impact. but most people (and the law, at least in my jurisdiction) would make a distinction between the two crimes; one results in a 'slap on the wrist' while the other usually involves jail time and a felony record that makes it quite difficult for the perpetrator to get a legitimate job. For that matter, there's another difference. In both sports and finance, most of the money is in the surrounding ecosystem, not in the traders or athletes themselves. The difference here is that if one athlete wins instead of another because of doping, this doesn't really effect the ecosystem all that much. Okay, so reebok gets the extra shoe sales rather than nike, but you are going to probably move about the same number of units at about the same price with about the same labour input. One athlete winning over another has nothing to do with the actual efficacy of the reebok or nike design or manufacturing operations. The wronged party is mostly the athlete that doesn't dope. But the stock market is different. The stock market is how nearly all the corporations we work for and buy stuff from are owned. Stock prices directly effect things like how much labour is put towards food production vs. car production. There are real consequences to miss-allocated capital that are much larger than what brand of overpriced shoes is popular this week. Potentially, for instance, miss-pricing food commodities could cause starvation.
- vijayr 14y ago
  There are other factors than money. For example, I was a mad cricket fan as a child - spent endless hours watching, analyzing, playing etc. until a couple of my heroes were caught throwing away matches, for money. What I couldn't understand then, and now, is this - they were good in their game, and were already maKing boatload of money. What difference could some more money possibly make in their lives? I stopped watching the sport altogether, it was disgusting. When a sporting hero cheats and gets caught, it makes a huge impression on their fans, especially the younger ones. I agree cheating in stock market has more impact than cheating in sports, but cheating in sports is not something to be swept under the rug.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - lsc 14y ago
    I think the guy did you a favour. A child that takes a sports hero as a role model has... larger problems.
yason 14y ago
Note that you don't have to cheat or scam the stock market in order to cause negative externalities. The same driving force of everyone trying to be the best instead of just good enough emphasizes short-term quick wins over long-term steady gains. It causes unconstructive volatility and noise in the stock prices, ultimately delivered by HFT in the recent years, which can't be ignored even by those who still wish to go by the more moderate strategy. It's my perception that if everyone tried to merely be good enough to some respectable standards instead of trying to exclusively win, it would benefit the overall picture of the economy/society/activity/whatever more.
- lsc 14y ago
  I think most people trading in the stock market would be pretty happy with 'second best' I mean, I completely agree that the short term focus of the stock market destroys a great deal of the value it could be providing in it's intended role (efficiently allocate capital) - but then, I don't have good ideas how to fix that. I think that problem is way deeper and more prevalent than people being dissatisfied with being 'second best' (though, I think, in the short term, the stock market looks awfully zero-sum, while in the long term, that doesn't seem to be the case nearly as much. Second place looks a lot better in a game that is not zero sum than in a game that is.)

by lsc 14y ago

afhof 14y ago

The Stock Market is bigger and more impactful than sports, but I wouldn't say cheating in sports is less serious. There is a LOT of money moving around in sports (Superbowl, BCS, etc.) and having the best (doping or non doping players) turns into dollars. The total impact is less, but I don't think you can wave it away.

lsc 14y ago
Total impact is dramatically less. I mean, stealing a candy bar is wrong, and it has a real, measurable impact; stealing a car is also wrong, and has a real, measurable impact. but most people (and the law, at least in my jurisdiction) would make a distinction between the two crimes; one results in a 'slap on the wrist' while the other usually involves jail time and a felony record that makes it quite difficult for the perpetrator to get a legitimate job. For that matter, there's another difference. In both sports and finance, most of the money is in the surrounding ecosystem, not in the traders or athletes themselves. The difference here is that if one athlete wins instead of another because of doping, this doesn't really effect the ecosystem all that much. Okay, so reebok gets the extra shoe sales rather than nike, but you are going to probably move about the same number of units at about the same price with about the same labour input. One athlete winning over another has nothing to do with the actual efficacy of the reebok or nike design or manufacturing operations. The wronged party is mostly the athlete that doesn't dope. But the stock market is different. The stock market is how nearly all the corporations we work for and buy stuff from are owned. Stock prices directly effect things like how much labour is put towards food production vs. car production. There are real consequences to miss-allocated capital that are much larger than what brand of overpriced shoes is popular this week. Potentially, for instance, miss-pricing food commodities could cause starvation.
vijayr 14y ago
There are other factors than money. For example, I was a mad cricket fan as a child - spent endless hours watching, analyzing, playing etc. until a couple of my heroes were caught throwing away matches, for money. What I couldn't understand then, and now, is this - they were good in their game, and were already maKing boatload of money. What difference could some more money possibly make in their lives? I stopped watching the sport altogether, it was disgusting. When a sporting hero cheats and gets caught, it makes a huge impression on their fans, especially the younger ones. I agree cheating in stock market has more impact than cheating in sports, but cheating in sports is not something to be swept under the rug.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- lsc 14y ago
  I think the guy did you a favour. A child that takes a sports hero as a role model has... larger problems.

yason 14y ago

Note that you don't have to cheat or scam the stock market in order to cause negative externalities. The same driving force of everyone trying to be the best instead of just good enough emphasizes short-term quick wins over long-term steady gains. It causes unconstructive volatility and noise in the stock prices, ultimately delivered by HFT in the recent years, which can't be ignored even by those who still wish to go by the more moderate strategy. It's my perception that if everyone tried to merely be good enough to some respectable standards instead of trying to exclusively win, it would benefit the overall picture of the economy/society/activity/whatever more.

lsc 14y ago
I think most people trading in the stock market would be pretty happy with 'second best' I mean, I completely agree that the short term focus of the stock market destroys a great deal of the value it could be providing in it's intended role (efficiently allocate capital) - but then, I don't have good ideas how to fix that. I think that problem is way deeper and more prevalent than people being dissatisfied with being 'second best' (though, I think, in the short term, the stock market looks awfully zero-sum, while in the long term, that doesn't seem to be the case nearly as much. Second place looks a lot better in a game that is not zero sum than in a game that is.)