I could respond by explaining that HFT facilitates liquidity and price discovery, making trading cheaper overall. I could also counter that adtech isn't any better than fintech, or that it's a fallacy to suppose every intelligent person needs to maximize their ethical production in a capitalist society.
But I'm not going to engage in any of those rebuttals. Instead, why don't you take a look at the massive charitable work bankrolled and empowered by James Simons and David Shaw? Take a moment to read through the organizational mandates and scope of research for the Simons Foundation and DE Shaw Research (DESRES). These two men have poured billions of dollars from their personal wealth into making the world a better place in a variety of ways. Both of them explicitly cite cancer research as a core focus - what do you consider more ethical than that?
While we're at it, let's circle back to your specific example. You're talking about sending rockets into space - that's great! I bet you're a fan of Elon Musk and SpaceX then? Are you aware that Elon Musk made his first fortune through PayPal? Do you consider payment processing to be a virtuous industry? Was Musk maximizing his ethical potential by working on PayPal?
People (both on HN and at large) seem to believe that HFT is somehow unfair, probably because of Flash Boys or some uninformed NYT article.
But back to the point, unless you believe in communism, then the best way to help the world and add value is to make money. Simply put, if you are making money, you are doing good (there are exceptions, of course and they usually involve the government). It is folly to measure social contribution in any other way (charity isn't doing good, it means whoever you are giving it to is doing good).
People, especially with HFT, think the world and the markets are a zero-sum game. I think the problem people have with HFT is that it doesn't seem "fair." Mom and Pop don't have a co-located server with ASICs churning out latency arb trades so they shouldn't be able to do that either! But why would you expect Mom and Pop to be able to compete in the first place? They probably wouldn't be able to compete with dentists, race car drivers, or scientists, so why should they be able to compete with professional investors?
I could respond by explaining that HFT facilitates liquidity and price discovery, making trading cheaper overall. I could also counter that adtech isn't any better than fintech, or that it's a fallacy to suppose every intelligent person needs to maximize their ethical production in a capitalist society.
But I'm not going to engage in any of those rebuttals. Instead, why don't you take a look at the massive charitable work bankrolled and empowered by James Simons and David Shaw? Take a moment to read through the organizational mandates and scope of research for the Simons Foundation and DE Shaw Research (DESRES). These two men have poured billions of dollars from their personal wealth into making the world a better place in a variety of ways. Both of them explicitly cite cancer research as a core focus - what do you consider more ethical than that?
While we're at it, let's circle back to your specific example. You're talking about sending rockets into space - that's great! I bet you're a fan of Elon Musk and SpaceX then? Are you aware that Elon Musk made his first fortune through PayPal? Do you consider payment processing to be a virtuous industry? Was Musk maximizing his ethical potential by working on PayPal?