I mean I get it, but also it's funny that you commented this 5 minutes after you edited the readme[1] to add in the exact type of plausible deniability I remarked was absent.
Something like the time value of money. But on the other hand, a bad answer can have negative value. Although "wrong and early" is better than "wrong and late".
Yeah, we live finite lives. Time is the one thing the vast majority of us aren’t getting more of. Of course speed is a priority. This isn’t a “capital” thing, it’s a fundamental part of the human experience.
The flip side of that is, why spend your finite life in a way that's not enjoyable? If the experience of constantly being under pressure to deliver, to go faster, to work more, to produce more, isn't enjoyable - then it's a waste of a life.
Speed itself isn't the priority. You've got to ask what the direction is. If you're working on a project that is meaningful to you personally (maybe because it is very meaningful to others you care about!) then you'll want it to be done.
There is pleasure in completing things. In actually producing something, and moving on to the next thing. It isn't enjoyable to have paralysis by analysis... too afraid to take the next step, because you have less than perfect information. In the pathological case (since we never really have perfect information), there are people who never get anything done.
No, but I do think modern medicine occasionally grants a few people more time than they would have had otherwise. New cancer therapies, evolving treatments for cystic fibrosis, etc.
Very hit or miss if you’re in a group whose life expectancy sees substantial improvement in your lifetime though.
We aren't improving the world by releasing a firehose of slop. It's possible to use your limited time to destroy or extract value instead of creating it.
If you're designing powerpoints or entertainment software; perhaps that's true. In the worst case you'll be embarrassed for producing AI slop or lose some revenue.
If your tool has the power to seriously harm or inconvenience people if built wrong, then it's just investor-fuelled myopia.
Yes, but a grand prize result being awarded to an AI slop submission is not it. It deteriorates the legitimacy of the whole contest if all that matters is convincing an AI rather than critical reviewers.
Every single shorted stock, was purchased by someone else who is taking the long side of the trade. So there's as many people betting the stock will go up. This says more about volatility and volume of trading, than anything else.
> Every single shorted stock, was purchased by someone else who is taking the long side of the trade.
> So there's as many people betting the stock will go up.
The first sentence is a useful reminder, but second has a error: A single person can have multiple bets, and not all bets are the same volume.
For example, Alice has a budget of $10 and believes the coin-flip will land Heads. Alice makes a $5 wager with Bob and a $3 wager with Carol and a $2 wager with Dan. The equilibrium is in money, rather than opinion-havers.
You're absolutely correct, and I should have been more precise. The value is always identical, but the number of participants, need not be the same for each position. Mea culpa.
That is true for the stocks but not options. Anyone with a brokerage account can write some calls and if they get exercised it’s up to them to find the stock to buy. Most pricing models assume the liquidity is always available but that’s not necessarily the case.
true, but the other side of that trade is almost always an options market maker who will hedge their delta by trading the underlying stock. so, yes, buying a call doesn't directly represent share ownership, but it almost always results in a commensurate share purchase. not 1:1, but reflecting the delta of the option.
That's exactly the point. The clickbait title wants you to forget that fact and draw an incorrect conclusion. It could have also been, "SPCX is the most purchased new stock", but that wouldn't have fed the desired narrative.
But the act of selling (and shorting) puts downward pressure on the stock. Those buyers are buyers at a lower price, not a higher one (like you would find in a stock with lots of buyers).
That's why saying "most shorted stock" is saying something and "every seller has a buyer" is not.
Yes, stocks go up and down; hardly revelatory. The point, regardless of the imprecise wording of my alternate title, remains. There are people who think they are getting a valuable investment, at the price short-sellers are willing to sell at. There's just as much optimism as pessimism about the stock, at that price. And that's my complaint about the title, it wants to only highlight one side of the trade -- for narrative reasons.
>There's just as much optimism as pessimism about the stock, at that price.
No, there isn't, because the price breaks in the direction that there is more optimism or pessimism. When the pessimists run out of optimists at $135/share, they start digging for them at $134/share. The price ran out of optimists and had to move down to find more. Otherwise the price would lock at a single point.
And abundance of pessimists indicates that a lot of "downward digging" is taking place, it's very relevant.
You're hyper focusing on the tree here and missing the forest.
People respond to market forces. When they see that there are other people making irrational valuations, they may wait to buy even lower. It's not a judgment about the intrinsic value of the stock at the current price, but of opportunities in the market.
It's still a hard fact that for every single trade, there is someone as fully optimistic, to perfectly match the pessimistic side. And people have to be pretty committed to a narrative to deny that fact.
Your hard fact is correct, but it's your extrapolation that it tells you something meaningful that isn't. The fact provides zero information. Its on par with "every gallon of milk is sold to a person" or "every leaf comes from a tree".
No, you're just working very hard to miss the point. Nobody can place the pessimistic bet, unless there is someone equally optimistic in the other direction. The fact that you're fixated on the price varying as each side attempts to do the best it can is just a commitment to a narrative, not a useful insight.
Here's the simple way to know you're wrong. The stock price isn't zero. That means there people willing (at some price) to put their money where their mouth is, that the people betting against the stock at that price are wrong.
But at that point they're both just making bets.. all it says is that there are an equal number of dollars willing to gamble at that price point. It says nothing about which side of the gamble will win.
Shorts don't exist in a vacuum. They literally can't be made, unless there was someone in the market who thinks that at the short price, the stock is a good investment opportunity. Every trade is proof that the market thinks the stock is a good investment at that price. I don't know why you have such a hard time facing up to that fact, even after you admit it is one.
> Every trade is proof that the market thinks the stock is a good investment at that price.
And every (short) sale is proof that the market thinks it's a bad investment at that price, which logically nullifies your point.
So to climb out of this nullification, we have to consider how many actors didn't get filled at the price they want. There isn't infinite liquidity at every price point.
> And every (short) sale is proof that the market thinks it's a bad investment at that price, which logically nullifies your point.
No it doesn't. It's the flip side of the one you want to focus on, and all i've been saying is that it's not the ONLY side. If it nullifies my point, it also nullifies yours. They cancel EACH OTHER out.
> There isn't infinite liquidity at every price point.
Sure, but so what? That is true of literally every product sold. The price isn't zero, so there is enough liquidity to cover every short that was actually sold. You've already admitted to that. The fact that the price goes down, (and can sometimes move back up) is immaterial.
>So to climb out of this [cancel each other out], we have to consider how many actors didn't get filled at the price they want. There isn't infinite liquidity at every price point.
And no, there is not enough liquidity, so the price has to move to provide it. That's why you cannot hand wave away price movement, it's intrinsically part of transactions being formed. And why a headline like "Heavily shorted" captures sentiment around a stock, especially one that is tanking.
> [Shorts] literally can't be made, unless there was someone in the market who thinks that at the short price, the stock is a good investment opportunity. Every trade is proof that the market thinks the stock is a good investment at that price.
Again, this isn't true. The spot price has to decrease from the point where short-selling is happening for there to be a willing buyer, unless there is a new bid. Yes, transactions happen at one singular price, but if you're only saying that every seller has a buyer and every buyer has a seller, then the guy that you replied to is correct. What you're essentially saying is that "every gallon of milk is sold to a person". This is not useful information.
> What you're essentially saying is that "every gallon of milk is sold to a person". This is not useful information.
Only because you're ignoring the other option, that the gallon of milk DIDN'T sell. It tells you that there was demand for the milk you had to sell. If there was no customer, the milk would have spoiled. There are still people who want to drink milk. There are still people who believe you're not selling poison, that milk is a worthy thing to buy from you. That is useful information.
Yes, but they don’t want to drink milk the at the same price. Price drives demand equally as much as demand drives price. That’s the point you’re missing.
I'm not missing it at all. Whatever the damn price is (of course it fluctuates) the only way you can make a bet that the price will go down further, is if someone else thinks it's going to go up. Therefore for every single short, WHATEVER THE PRICE, there's an exact same amount of optimism and pessimism. It's the only way a sale is made.
So you can focus on the pessimism if you want. But the point you're missing, is it's exactly offset by an equal amount of optimism (based on that price). One side is betting it will go down further, the other side is betting it will go up.
It turns out there's soon going to be a 20% to 30% increase in the number of stocks available to be traded, and people are betting that those holders will cash out now that they're vesting. So this is all more about market factors than intrinsic company fundamentals anyway.
But people want to always focus on the negative, and get too hung up on the fluctuations of a stock price like it's a message from God or something.
Anyway, it's been enjoyable talking with you and others, it seems we're not going to have a meeting of the minds on this one.
You're conflating two things though. Shares are being borrowed to sell in this instance, referred to as short-selling. These shares can theoretically be borrowed multiple times over to sell (ex. Gamestop fiasco). This is not current owners of the shares selling to new buyers, they are selling already-owned shares of SPCX.
It has nothing to do with the shares being borrowed. That's a separate transaction that comes with a fee. The point is that the share is then sold. It's sold to someone who is taking the long position. The original owner of the share, from whom it was borrowed, makes their money in fees, and by investing any security deposit given by the borrower. They are not taking a long or short position.
Yes, that is how short-selling works, but you're claiming that the only reason the headline isn't "SPCX is the most purchased new stock" is for narrative reasons, which is patently false. Shorting necessitates that someone decides to sell a stock they do not own, which creates downward pressure on the price. Saying "there's always someone on the other end of the transaction" is true, but not at the same price. If what you were implying were true, the price of shares would never change. You probably understand this, but share prices decrease and increase due to the number of buyers and sellers. Hence, the more people that short-sell a stock, the lower the share price goes until it can find buyers.
I never intended to imply that the law of supply and demand was nullified.
And I didn't say that the price was unaffected, just that there is as much money
thinking they're getting a valuable long term investment, as there is as money
shorting the stock. (By definition, since every sale is consensual, and of the opposite position)
Given the continued downward trend, it may be the buyers may just be disagreeing on how fast it drops, not necessarily taking a long term buy and hold position. I don't know much about option pricing, but aren't put options basically betting on the spread?
There’s always a buyer on the other side of a short, naked or located. The question is whether the originating broker actually borrowed the shares.
They are supposed to verify that before they place the trade and generally do follow the rules. Because if they don’t, they will be not allowed to allow any short sales for that security.
> They are supposed to verify that before they place the trade and generally do follow the rules. Because if they don’t, they will be not allowed to allow any short sales for that security.
SEC is clearly ignoring FTD’s and as a result allowing MM’s to reloan unlocated synthetic shares.
Which is exactly what happened in 2008 with mortgage backed securities and CDO’s.
They're illegal, and you can look at them just as the broker making a long bet themselves. Since they'll have to pay off the short seller, if the stock goes down.
The exact same arguments were made against electronic computing in general, in the early days. Pearl clutching is a very human thing to do as new technologies are integrated and become common place. A whole generation or two of developers are going to have to pass away before we stop hearing incessant diatribes about LLMs.
> The parallels you can draw between LLMs and calculators.. just don't make sense.
The technology doesn't matter, you can compare to say the power loom from the 1700's. I'm comparing the reaction of humans; human's haven't changed that much. They always react the same when they feel threatened and emotionally challenged by a technology.
And someone else always cries luddite if anyone says, “Hey guys, this isn’t what the salesman said.”
What matters is the reality of the thing… which is exactly what everyone is discussing.
As they should. We need more conversations like this, early. It could have saved us decades of bad practices with impossible expectations (see: agile).
But people can't separate their emotions from the "reality". The reality is, this technology has strengths and limitations. It has benefits and it has negative consequences. We can and will discuss all of that. But many people aren't operating from a detached analytical viewpoint. They're operating from an emotional, self-interested, defensive stance. And granted, there are just as many people operating from a utopian, rose tinted, self-serving, evangelical position.
In the end, the technology will get used where appropriate. And more importantly many of its weaknesses will be overcome and replaced by new challenges.
It's just a bit tiring to hear the same denouncements repeated over and over. Everyone knows them all by heart now. They're not wrong, they're just not helpful or accomplishing anything. The technology marches forward and will develop naturally. If you personally don't want to use it, then don't.
> They're not wrong, they're just not helpful or accomplishing anything.
I think what it accomplishes is developing a shared understanding of the pros/cons of the tech, the risks associated, how we should mitigate those risks, where the tech is appropriate vs. not appropriate, etc.
It feels very dismissive to say that these conversations aren't worth having. Or that we're thinking about these things too much.
I get that it's tiring, especially in the HN echo chamber. But the conversations are still worth having IMO.
There are conversations worth having. But it feels very dismissive of the obvious power of the technology to constantly focus, in an unbalanced way, on the challenges. People are biased heavily by irrational emotion, on both sides of the debate. It's all just getting a little tedious. I'm all for rational discourse and debate, but it's hard to find through all the vitriol and contempt.
Exactly, looks like I should have written that down for myself instead of relying on LLM or even better, train my memory instead of depending on crutches ;)
In 2024, "search royalties" brought in approximately $585 million for Mozilla, largely from Google. It's not hard to see why they tread very lightly around ad blocking. It's actually impressive that ublock remains easy and painless to install as an extension.
Wouldn't the whole point of Google propping up competition browsers to avoid antitrust be completely undermined if Google was influencing the development of said browsers?
I did until October 2022, when PayPal published an update to its Acceptable Use Policy that threatened to fine users $2,500 for promoting "misinformation".
Like they were the arbiters of what is misinformation and worthy of economic penalty. While it was later rescinded, it was beyond the pale. It's proof that something is corrupt and completely out to lunch in their management, and I won't sign up again after deleting my account in protest.
Edit: So apparently they only removed the misinformation clause, and they may still seize $2,500 of your money if they alone decide you are guilty of "...the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory or the financial exploitation of a crime...". People are worried about authoritarianism, yet meekly cede such powers to a corporation? It boggles the mind.
For sure, on both counts. I'm just a bit astonished at how many people continue to do business with them, especially anyone who strongly denounces authoritarianism.
I think the point was that there are people who don't need all this extra work, it just comes naturally. And they are more suited to engineering than people who need to spend a lot of energy on emotional and mental regulation as well.
No, the point is that not everyone is cut out to be an engineer. If you find yourself being depressed as an engineer, one possibility is that it's really not the job for you. Not everyone is capable of being an engineer, and being prone to emotional disregulation is probably a good indicator. Not to say you can't muddle through, but the original post was saying that you should at least ask yourself if you'd be happier elsewhere.
Yeah, you articulated it better than me. Especially in the case where the OP is indicating that a lot of their stress comes from inability to perform or get better in an engineering context. If after a few years you aren't feeling more confident in your skills or aren't more comfortable with your tech stack it's time to re-evaluate. OP mentions they prioritize stability and I think a lot of people get into engineering for the wrong reasons.
In my opinion the prerequisites are a natural aptitude and a genuine curiosity.
You're all correct. I'm just not convinced that the person wouldn't have those if they were relieved of the burdens holding them down.
It can be simultaneously true that they are struggling and unlikely to succeed now, and that their natural aptitude is not being realized due to non-work factors.
Hell, one time my friend died suddenly, and I failed out of every project I was on and developed a ton of health problems. Since then, I've gone back to my natural state, but it was hard. Anyone looking at me during that time would have seen a distracted fuckup. I probably would have been given an ADHD diagnosis and drugged heavily, were it not for the acute signal from the proximity of a good friends sudden murder.
There is no cure for depression. Like there is no cure for diabetes. There is a big difference between having the disease, and feeling sadness brought on by circumstances. There is no such thing as simply "removing the depression".
I can't advise for genuine medical cases, but for the average case of anxiety/depression you can over come it. For men I would recommend the following channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ElishaLong
You know it's interesting, because with the right treatment and support, people with diabetes can live long, fulfilling lives. It's the same for depression. It does not matter if it's chronic or acute. There is no cure, it will never go away entirely. It can only be managed.
Elisha Long's content is not for me. I also don't think it's relevant to the topic of mental health.
Speaking from experience, I can say that when I prioritized adequate time to do activities I find challenging and enjoyable, that were deliberately unrelated to my work-life in any way, that my mental health improved.
The depression didn't disappear. But it became manageable.
I think there are methods and patterns to be learned. Engineering is mostly a succession of problems, with a somewhat illusory prize at the end. But a lot of people currently in software development are not trained well to withstand the journey. And for some, it’s just that they have been doing it since high school or something.
One of the thing that is important is to segment the work and have checkpoints and mini bosses. You don’t climb a mountain in one go. That’s one of the reason I dislike LLM in coding is because coding is my down time after a deep thinking session.
Another thing is to have an end goal in mind, and plan the journey according to those. You do this by having enough information about the business domain. I’ve seen people rush blindly into solving problem and get a burnout in the process. This also help with pacing yourself to a sustainable rate of effort.
Forming the prompt is still a skill, tokens aren't free, and it all takes some time and attention, which also has a price. So someone else doing that for you isn't exactly worthless, if they do a good job of it.
> It doesn't matter because nobody cares. Businesses truly do not care. You are a cog, a means to an end. It's only about "winning".
A cynical person would tell you that nothing has changed; this was always the way it was. AI didn't change anything in this regard. Maybe it just made it more apparent to you?
The graph represents 44 years of statistics, and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. But you can not determine how these stats relate to longer term time frames such as a 100 years or more. Obviously the article wants you to believe the absolute worst about how these modern indicators compare back even further than the data shows, but how much of that is confirmation bias, and how much is actual science?
Not ignoring anything, just commenting on what the graph says as a singular piece of evidence. And it's "the hundreds of other signals that tell a similar story" that can lead to confirmation bias (ie. following a narrative arc) and potentially interpreting this piece of evidence more strongly than it actually deserves.
See, you're part of the problem. This perfectly demonstrates the point of confirmation bias. You've already decided what the evidence shows, so you don't need to analyze it independently and objectively. "We already know what it means! Stop thinking!"
they gradually swapped in biased thermometers, or the thermometers were always biased to start showing temperature rise around 2026? what motivates thermometers to commit confirmation bias?
By choosing what data to show. There is a lot of data to choose from in climate science. How do you think we end up with such strong arguments on the issue? Cherry picking is as big a problem in climate science as anything else.
a lot of those thermometers have been operating for years or decades, in order to cherry pick each year again, you'd have to censor traces that were still used the year before, so at least such cherry picking should leave measurable traces
can you identify cherry-picked "retired thermometers" from this dataset and earlier ones by the same source(s)?
I believe they were responding to your "confirmation bias, how?" question, rather than the narrative around thermometers. So from that lens, the confirmation bias is choosing to show temperature (objectively measured with assumed-reliable instruments / thermometers), but arguably choosing to hide other kinds/categories of data.
Fwiw, I am not backing them up, since I do not know what other data they might be referring to (and I am not very knowledgeable in topics within climate science).
You're surprised in the context of global warming that the physical quantity of temperature was selected? The temperature quantity itself was cherry-picked?
Does anyone besides you expect them to demonstrate global warming but please without mentioning temperature - that's obviously cherry-picked of course... /s
1 - the area was cherry picked.
2 - only this year's data is highlighted in red - the data from last year wasn't highlighted. It's hard to know if this is a trend or it's just a weird year.
3 - the time horizon is cherry picked. Why mean on a given day rather than the mean for a week?
Imagine someone else cherry picks the line that is really low and highlights it. Or they pick a different area which shows cooling. Now you have some idiot claiming global cooling.
The thing about cherry picking is that it works so well. When someone pointed out the cherry picked data, you couldn't even come to the conclusion it was cherry picked. And you are on hacker news. Imagine the really really silly people.
