HFT: provides liquidity and increases market efficiency (suppresses pricing inconsistencies)
Domain squatting: allows market to set the value of a domain.
Not sure what's wrong with either of these, or why they are any worse than any other business that seeks to take advantage of market inefficiencies or speculate on asset prices (after all, most businesses are some combination of the two)
Yes. That way the person who would use the domain more efficiently is more likely to get it. Remember that domains are not people, they're property, and it's okay to hold your own property hostage.
Hence virtually? It's easy to pick out a few examples of people making money (often lots) that do have a detrimental affect on society, but it really is a very small number of people. Compare how many people you know who are making money through 'bad' jobs such as HFT and domain squatting, and compare it to the number of people you know who aren't.
Actually, the HFT people are more likely to sock their winnings away. Anyway, "I take money from people so that I can increase the national GDP by spending it" is not much of an argument for a socially valuable way of life.
Sock money away where, in their mattress? No, in the bank, money market, investments, etc. thereby increases the available funds for others to start businesses, take out loans, provide liquidity to the market. "Take money from people", you mean engage in a mutually beneficial and agreed upon transaction where you take money and give a product or service... yea not the same as theft.
I don't agree with "mutually beneficial" in either case, and "agreed upon" is murky in the case of HFT and at least somewhat misleading in the case of domain squatting.
And "I take money from people to increase available funds for others' business purposes" is not much of an ethical argument, either.
No, that's not. You have no idea what you're talking about. Keynesian economics, for instance, uses a similar example to justify government spending. You seriously should stop resorting to trite talking points and buzzwords you really don't understand because you're just corroding the conversation.
This is why I said "Virtually". Seriously, think about what you've just said. Do you realize that you didn't even make a claim, you simply imply that these are somehow not beneficial to society as if it were a fact? Don't you realize that you should have made an argument here, if you're going to make that claim? Making a counter argument is simple: HFT adds liquidity giving better prices to traders, and domain squatting effectively provides a set of links to relevant sites when someone goes to a non-existent site. Shouldn't you have made an argument for your position, if it was worth making a comment?
Are you really trying to derail the discussion into a debate about HFT and domain squatting?
Do we really need to think of all the possible legal ways to make money that don't help society?
How about recognizing that the point of my comment is correct, even if you manage to find some legal way to make money that "doesn't benefit society"?
While it is true that most of this discussion is a false dichotomy much of your claim is based upon the statement "Virtually every legal way I know of making money helps society" which is coming from ignorance. I doubt you have a firm grasp of how many jobs there are, what kind of value they produce, or how to quantify that value (I don't think anyone has even a basic grasp of one of these factors let alone all three).
However, one thing I don't understand is why everyone keeps talking about industries that fall largely outside of the scope of Silicon Valley. This post seems to be directed at entrepreneurs (I would guess that most employees of SV tech startups are paid more than the rest of the tech sector anyway) and it seems counterproductive to steer the discussion in the direction of the finance, law, medical, or any other industry which are (I would think) drastically different situations.
Not sure what's wrong with either of these, or why they are any worse than any other business that seeks to take advantage of market inefficiencies or speculate on asset prices (after all, most businesses are some combination of the two)