[sshine]

How inspiring.

As someone who only delivered newspapers and worked in a video store as a kid, before landing my first developer job, I’ve always had this impression.

And I could never convince myself to go work on a farm, or in a nursery, or at a gas station, because working on my computer, often from home, always paid better.

I feel like most computer problems are made up, and so many real-world problems draw in your emotions and senses.

[justonceokay]

> I feel like most computer problems are made up, and so many real-world problems draw in your emotions and senses.

It’s funny, I feel the same but come to the opposite conclusion. I don’t want to look back on my life thinking that I spent all my time chasing fake problems. The calculus is different for everyone though.

[sshine]

> I don’t want to look back on my life thinking that I spent all my time chasing fake problems.

If I understand you correctly, it is an argument to not pursue software development?

I agree, I am mostly in it for the money and my own curiosity.

And I do see that it sometimes solves real problems, like removing landmines. But it's rare.

[no_wizard]

>I don’t want to look back on my life thinking that I spent all my time chasing fake problems

Neo-liberal capitalist economies are full of fake problems.

Take flash trading for example. I know why it exists, and I know why it works. I don't fault people for getting involved in it, because they (and we) exist in the system we have.

Yet, think of all the money that has gotten both pumped into that industry and the industry has made in profits, and all for...being able to algorithmically trade penny differences in value at a profit due to volume.

Is that a problem that is worth solving? Well, in our current economic system, it is, but should it be?

I don't know whats better per se (I'm not arguing for communism or some other clearly failed economic political system) but I sure feel like I can identify problems that could quite easily fall into the made up category.

[pfannkuchen]

Doesn’t flash trading basically contribute compute to force prices to settle at equilibrium faster thereby improving pricing efficiency?

I’m not sure it’s worth the required effort input at a system level vs other places the effort could be applied, but there is at least some abstract benefit to it, I think.

[sshine]

A study by the SEC in 2014 stated that very high trading frequency is "unnecessary" (below 0.2s), but failed to identify clear downsides or damages to the markets.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2363114