I have been lurking (mostly) for close to 10 years. I’ve enjoyed the discussions on the SDMB and feel like I have been educated in many subjects simply through reading the site.
As all of you probably have no idea, I work in finance for a hedge fund. My job is try to make sense of whatever the hell is going on in the world nowadays. I can say that the worldview I come to is starkly depressing.
Coincident with my darkening worldview, I feel like the discourse of the SDMB has really started to move downhill. Personal attacks seem more frequent, debates seem to be losing to insults, and the atmosphere of “I may disagree with you, but I respect your ability to think” seems to be evaporating.
Is the userbase of the SDMB changing, or is the board starting to reflect the anxiety and stress of the current global economy, making us all cranky, inflexible, and vitriolic? Or is there another explanation I’m not aware of? Or, lastly, is my impression false?
Well, I was tempted to throw off an insult in response (though skating the edge of GD rules, of course) but I’d rather ask for an example of, for example, a 2005 civil debate the likes of which the OP expects us not to see again.
Possibly there used to be more personal praise for certain highly-vocal political posters, i.e. Liberal and Diogenes the Cynic and a few others, and that might give the impression that this place used to be more civil. I never understood it, myself, nor missed it when it faded.
I frankly don’t think this is a debate, but a matter of opinion. Here are mine:
I am optimistic about the future. Things go in cycles, and for all the moronitude currently active in the world, there are also lots of positive developments. Although it’s far from certain, I think intelligence will win out in the long run. In what way that will play out is, of course, a complete crap shoot, which doesn’t help you in your career much.
I haven’t been around this board as long as you have, but to me the general level of the board has evened out quite a bit. Maybe some of the best posters are gone, but definitely some of the worst are gone as well. Especially some of the worst debaters, who would routinely devolve into “I’m right and you’re an idiot” posts. Maybe this is only because I stop reading threads where nothing interesting or new is being offered.
I feel I should have a third item, but I do not wish to make people groan, so I will only offer: confirmation bias. You are gloomy, and you are transferring that view to what you see here.
Roddy
Well I’ve been here longer than you have, and despite a number of posters lamenting changes to the board, I haven’t noticed much of a change in tone. In fact, the creation of the Elections forum seems to have moved some of the harshest disagreements out of the limelight. The Pit still seems to be the same mix of political invective and personal life rants, with only the occasional pitting of a poster. I agree with Roddy – the world looks gloomy to you, so you’re noticing the gloomier posts.
Well, I have been suffering in thgis depression-which is really what it is-I belive the unemployment rate is likely >20%.
A qestion for you: hedging is traditionally a way of providing some insurance against unforseen events.
But I see that all the financial instruments that have been developed to (allegedly) protect against market fluctuations (like credit default swaps, mortgage backed securities, covered calls, funds of funds) seem to be INCREASING market volatility. Comment?
To me, the sheer amount of bone-crushing stupidity in the world results gives me an incurable sense of optimism. It means, we’re hitting ourselves on the head with a hammer, think how good it will feel when we stop!
The vast majority of human potential today is totally wasted, flushed down the toilet. What if we only wasted 90% of our human potential, instead of 95%? Can you imagine the utopia that would result?
Were you around during the Iraq War and the immediate aftermath? It seemed like almost every thread, no matter how distant the OP was from anything to do with anything related to Iraq, was doomed to degenerate into the same couple people rehasing the same repetitive debate regarding Iraq, WMDs and Bush. The '04 election wasn’t exactly a high point of good-feelings and honest debate either.
If anything, I’d say the board is far less contentious then it was, say '02-'06. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a lot of nastiness, but its generally improved since I started reading.
Yeah, my first response to the idea that the board is going downhill was, "Go read the debates on Iraq between Collounsbury and december. Granted, december was always “polite” in that he didn’t cuss, but he’d flat-out call people terrorist sympathizers and worse for thinking that the aftermath of an invasion of Iraq might not be a bed of roses.
I’ve always avoided the Pit, but I admit to browsing the Election forum - which can be brutal. Part of my perception could stem from the time spent there.
I also admit I could have confirmation bias, as Roderick mentions.
I find this quote amusing.
I’ll address my understanding of this phenomenon, with the caveat that I’m a single human, and I don’t believe any single human understands everything about the markets. That said, I think the increasing volatility can be explained by three factors:
Increasing computerization and resultant correlation - this speaks to the structural issue of the marketplace itself. In 2005, computerized trading (HFT, Algo are common terms) comprised ~20% of the volume in US Stocks. Current estimates put the number at ~80% of volume. The marketplace has changed from human-to-human interaction to computer-to-computer (flash crash?).
One of the consequences is the market is increasingly correlated (meaning everything moves either the same way or exactly opposite). In effect, EVERYTHING is now the ‘same trade’ - in market jargon it is either a ‘risk on’ day or a ‘risk off’ day. It makes it difficult to hedge.
Range of economic outcomes is very high - Remember back to ‘normal’ times. People might feel the economy might grow 3% a year, give or take 0.5%. Interest rates, as set by the Fed, might be 2.5% to 4%. Most of the economic debate were about changes ‘at the margin’. The overall trajectory of the economy was never in real doubt, and the markets, for the most, reflected that stability.
Fast forward to today. There is no question we are in the most serious financial and economic crisis since the 1930s. Given our situation, we really have one of two outcomes - a prolonged deflationary depression (ala the US in the 1930s) or a massive inflationary blowout (somewhere between Weimar Germany in the 1920s and the US in the 1970s). Given that investment decisions for those two outcomes are diametrically opposed, as the markets go from pricing in one probability to the other, the market swings are very large.
We are in the hands of the government - Globally, there is an amazing amount of government intervention in markets. When governments intervene in a market, they obscure real price discovery and can, in effect, ‘break’ markets. Markets stop trying to focus on the underlying fundamentals (which company has the best business? Is this stock cheap? etc) and instead focus on trying to game the future actions of government.
And, relating to #2 above, the decision about whether we face a deflationary episode or a highly inflationary episode is completely a policy decision. Neither outcome in pleasant, but Bernanke has the power to decide. So, how do you handicap what a single man will do? Difficult, creates uncertainty, and therefore volatility.
Didn’t mean to derail my own thread so completely, but that was a question I struggle with on a daily basis.
Good analysis. The terrible truth is that the managers of the big financial hoses have everything to gain and NOTHING to lose from the market instability-they know that the taxpayers will bail them ot when they screw up, and that there will be NO pnishment when their hoses of cards collapses. So what do they care? It is nothing to them that the middle calss gets shafted-they still get their 7 figure bonuses.