4 ms·

You make some good points but I think you missed a point of the section containing the middle quote. Jason Trigg is, like all of us, subject to the biases and i

You make some good points but I think you missed a point of the section containing the middle quote. Jason Trigg is, like all of us, subject to the biases and irrational behaviour that occurs in our brains. The best way to erode the drive to help other people in the way that Jason Trigg has set out to do is to spend all your time around people who feel differently and in a system that rewards the opposite. We are social animals, you can't insulate yourself from the social norms you immerse yourself in. Nevermind the fact that this whole pseudo-utilitarian premise is just a nice way to ignore the harm your day to day activities may have on those you are donating your money to because any harm is spread out among the entire industry and has so many levels of abstraction that a utilitarian analysis is impossible. The whole premise rests on the assumption that the benefit of his donations outweigh his share of any (likely indirect) harm done by his firm or the industry as a whole to those same areas. I find the general premise of "work like a sociopath to make so much money you can do good with the money", whatever their forms, to be a textbook example of feeling good rather than doing good. You couldn't design a better system if you tried, all harm is abstracted away and very diffuse while the good feelings are attributable directly to yourself.

abraininavat 13y ago
Nevermind the fact that this whole pseudo-utilitarian premise is just a nice way to ignore the harm I'm curious why you claim that. It seems to me the goal is to redress the harm, not ignore it. You can't claim to know Jason Trigg's true internal motives, can you? The whole premise rests on the assumption that the benefit of his donations outweigh his share of any (likely indirect) harm done by his firm or the industry as a whole to those same areas. Nor can you claim that this assumption is false, given that you suggest a utilitarian analysis is impossible. I find the general premise of "work like a sociopath to make so much money you can do good with the money", whatever their forms, to be a textbook example of feeling good rather than doing good. By what logic? Do you claim that good isn't being done? You're of course right that harm is being indirectly done, but you have stated that there's no way to show whether more good or more harm is being done. So what exactly is the source of your cynicism?
- md224 13y ago
  >> The whole premise rests on the assumption that the benefit of his donations outweigh his share of any (likely indirect) harm done by his firm or the industry as a whole to those same areas. > Nor can you claim that this assumption is false, given that you suggest a utilitarian analysis is impossible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle If the net harm of participating in a certain system for the sake of philanthropy is unknown but potentially significant, I think we ought to be a little careful about it. Beyond that, even if one cannot prove that working at a hedge fund helps to propagate a system that may be resulting in the very same poverty that one's charitable contributions are meant to mitigate (and I'm not saying this is necessarily the case), we should try to be aware of the potential indirect outcomes of our actions, rather than assuming there is no downside whatsoever.
  - andylei 13y ago
    there is a known (great) benefit of donations towards preventing malaria. a ~$2,500 donation prevents about one death. there is a unknown (probably small, maybe great) harm in being a small part of the high frequency industry. seems like a no brainer to me
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - Chris2048 13y ago
      If 'great' in the first case isn't equal to 'great' in the second, then isn't this an appeal to ignorance?
  - Symmetry 13y ago
    Doesn't using the Precautionary Principle obviously fail the Precautionary Principle? I mean, if we had followed the Precautionary Principle in the past I can think of a number of important medical advances that would never have occurred, so clearly the Precautionary Principle has great potential to cause harm and I certainly don't think anyone has proven it won't cause harm in this case. Which is to say, the only way to actually use the Precautionary Principle is to selectively apply it against thing you otherwise don't like. Or you could say that there are certain classes of things like scientific or medical advances that are the only places it should be applied, but this situation clearly isn't one of them.
andylei 13y ago
> this whole pseudo-utilitarian premise is just a nice way to ignore the harm your day to day activities may have on those you are donating your money to because any harm is spread out among the entire industry and has so many levels of abstraction that a utilitarian analysis is impossible i'll give it a shot. jason is 1 guy works on a high frequency strategy. the net effect of this is probably something like: 10 low frequency market makers lose their jobs. meanwhile, dozens if not hundreds of malaria deaths are prevented. i don't know, it seems net beneficial to me.
Symmetry 13y ago
What harm are you seeing here? When I look HFT I see a zero sum dog eat dog competition between market makers for the money accruing to the sector. That's sort of a sad waste of human talent, but that's different from actual harm. It's not like someone at his level would be involved in the over-leveraging or regulatory arbitrage that contributed to the global financial crisis - though if he does get into a position of that much power I think I'd trust him more than most.
youngerdryas 13y ago
Help people if you are in a position to help them and they ask. Pretending that going "off the grid" and not being successful empowers anyone is foolishness, you can only affect change if you have power and consequently the powerless suffer. If you cede power to men with lesser ethics on principal your principals are wrong.

abraininavat 13y ago

Nevermind the fact that this whole pseudo-utilitarian premise is just a nice way to ignore the harm I'm curious why you claim that. It seems to me the goal is to redress the harm, not ignore it. You can't claim to know Jason Trigg's true internal motives, can you? The whole premise rests on the assumption that the benefit of his donations outweigh his share of any (likely indirect) harm done by his firm or the industry as a whole to those same areas. Nor can you claim that this assumption is false, given that you suggest a utilitarian analysis is impossible. I find the general premise of "work like a sociopath to make so much money you can do good with the money", whatever their forms, to be a textbook example of feeling good rather than doing good. By what logic? Do you claim that good isn't being done? You're of course right that harm is being indirectly done, but you have stated that there's no way to show whether more good or more harm is being done. So what exactly is the source of your cynicism?

md224 13y ago
>> The whole premise rests on the assumption that the benefit of his donations outweigh his share of any (likely indirect) harm done by his firm or the industry as a whole to those same areas. > Nor can you claim that this assumption is false, given that you suggest a utilitarian analysis is impossible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle If the net harm of participating in a certain system for the sake of philanthropy is unknown but potentially significant, I think we ought to be a little careful about it. Beyond that, even if one cannot prove that working at a hedge fund helps to propagate a system that may be resulting in the very same poverty that one's charitable contributions are meant to mitigate (and I'm not saying this is necessarily the case), we should try to be aware of the potential indirect outcomes of our actions, rather than assuming there is no downside whatsoever.
- andylei 13y ago
  there is a known (great) benefit of donations towards preventing malaria. a ~$2,500 donation prevents about one death. there is a unknown (probably small, maybe great) harm in being a small part of the high frequency industry. seems like a no brainer to me
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - Chris2048 13y ago
    If 'great' in the first case isn't equal to 'great' in the second, then isn't this an appeal to ignorance?
- Symmetry 13y ago
  Doesn't using the Precautionary Principle obviously fail the Precautionary Principle? I mean, if we had followed the Precautionary Principle in the past I can think of a number of important medical advances that would never have occurred, so clearly the Precautionary Principle has great potential to cause harm and I certainly don't think anyone has proven it won't cause harm in this case. Which is to say, the only way to actually use the Precautionary Principle is to selectively apply it against thing you otherwise don't like. Or you could say that there are certain classes of things like scientific or medical advances that are the only places it should be applied, but this situation clearly isn't one of them.

andylei 13y ago

> this whole pseudo-utilitarian premise is just a nice way to ignore the harm your day to day activities may have on those you are donating your money to because any harm is spread out among the entire industry and has so many levels of abstraction that a utilitarian analysis is impossible i'll give it a shot. jason is 1 guy works on a high frequency strategy. the net effect of this is probably something like: 10 low frequency market makers lose their jobs. meanwhile, dozens if not hundreds of malaria deaths are prevented. i don't know, it seems net beneficial to me.

Symmetry 13y ago

What harm are you seeing here? When I look HFT I see a zero sum dog eat dog competition between market makers for the money accruing to the sector. That's sort of a sad waste of human talent, but that's different from actual harm. It's not like someone at his level would be involved in the over-leveraging or regulatory arbitrage that contributed to the global financial crisis - though if he does get into a position of that much power I think I'd trust him more than most.

youngerdryas 13y ago

Help people if you are in a position to help them and they ask. Pretending that going "off the grid" and not being successful empowers anyone is foolishness, you can only affect change if you have power and consequently the powerless suffer. If you cede power to men with lesser ethics on principal your principals are wrong.