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When people say, that’s just speculation, like it’s a vice, what specific vice are they thinking of? Gambling? Greed? Superstition? Statistical irrationality?
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I kinda don’t get it intuitively since I’m pretty firmly on the vice side here. The feel of the behavior to me is like reading science fiction… a kind of imaginative play. Actual gambling bores me to tears, whether unskilled slots, or skilled poker.
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Greed is certainly in play sometimes, but not all behaviors that subjectively fall under speculation for me have high risk-reward dynamics. For eg, playing wordle is a speculation type activity for me.
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Superstition, yes, but ironically Statistical irrationality — no. At least not for me. Weird outlier bets are not the same as irrational. Imo, betting on normalcy 100% of the time is the rally wildly irrational thing to do.
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“Wishful thinking” is easily conflated with “what if” thinking or “nothing to lose” asymmetric upside low-cost bets, but yeah there’s often an element of that present when speculation willfully blinds itself to downside risks. But is not unique to speculative behavior.
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Replying to @vgr
Wishful thinking
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Hmm. Yeah, I’d restate as uncritical self-certainty in their own ability to value things. I’d say the best speculators treat the nature of value as something *revealed* by the effects of speculative behavior.
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Replying to @vgr
indifference to underlying value creation?
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