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Comment by duckfang | Hacker News Reader

Notice: When Wall street decides to horrible things with money in its various ways, nobody bats an eye. When fraud happens, nobody goes to jail. It's business as usual.

When the People decides to do horrible things with money in its various ways, we see hardware manufacturers attempt to lock down hardware to prevent it (nVidia), we see the SEC collectively lose their shit, we see completely inconsistent rules from the IRS how to even handle it, and we see calls for its ban.

Rules for thee, but not for me.

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> Rules for thee, but not for me.

There are all kinds of rules that apply to Wall Street that cryptocurrency seeks (and for the most part, has managed) to avoid. I don’t disagree there is an entirely different system of “justice” for wealthy, white collar, Wall Street criminals but to say Wall Street is without regulation while cryptocurrency is somehow beholden to rules is patently and laughably untrue.

You can't justify your own 'bad behaviour' by pointing at someone else's bad behaviour.

That is whataboutism, to distract from - I believe - valid and substantiated criticism.

I agree that so much is wrong with Wall Street, but that is another discussion. That is a separate issue to me.

Whataboutism - why do I see this word so much these days?

Whenever I see it, I notice people are often basically trying shut down an honest comparative analysis by another party.

Then you are missing my point of criticism.

The elites put together the artifact that we call the Stock Market. And when the elites play there, they have pretty much a free reign to do as they wish. Sure, there are rules... But as how they're enforced is a whole other matter. And for even the rules that are enforced - if they only have a fine component, they are only meant for the lower classes. Fines for the elites are only a cost of doing business.

And my comments weren't exclusively of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. I remember what happened around late February 2021 regarding shorting GME and /r/wallstreetbets . It was yet another case of a hedge fund trying to bankrupt a company in the same way that Toys-R-Us, Sears, and others have had happen to them (by the elite class, no less). And when r/WSB fought against them, corporate elite sycophants like Robinhood and others forbid the very transactions. . When the masses comes together, the elites effectively unionize into a huge bloc, but that didn't save Melvin Capital.

What you call whataboutism is what I call "inherent rigging of the market by the elites against the middle class". It just so happens that the elites didn't get into cryptocurrency until much later, so we see these kinds of one-sided articles.

Okay, but you're overly exaggerating "the elites" to some mythic pedestal. They're human. And here's the fun part, you would do the exact same thing they're doing if it was you sitting in their throne. I mean, if whataboutism is alright to play, the honest truth is, you're not angry at the elites. You're angry that you're not apart of their club. You don't win a 100m dash because you lack value in fast twitch muscle fibers and stamina, you don't win economics because you lack value in opportunity capitalization. The smell of these arguments is just a pile of, "because I'm not standing on the podium, we need to end all races". You, just like everyone else, wants to call the shots. 99% of political discussions amount to, "Everyone else has it wrong. If I were supreme ruler, I would make everything correct instantly." Maybe, just maybe, if you stop for a second... maybe economics, government and the infrastructure systems that run our lives are really complicated. Not only can a handful of people really not control it well, maybe a handful of people actually don't. But that line of thinking makes it harder to point fingers at the mythical, "them". Instead, you have to turn to the mirror and go, "Where did I fuck up?" No one wants that. They want to blame Satan, not themselves. Opps, I meant elites, not Satan... well...

I'm a huge fan of WSB. Especially because they amount to, "Oh, did the wrong people manipulate the market?" What I don't understand is how anyone confused this as socialism or communism at work. This was straight up capitalism at play. The hand of the market made a move. No rules changed for this to happen. People decided to actually play the game instead of cry. What do you know, the uncontested champions aren't that good at playing the game. Maybe there's room for a good ol' fashion capitalistic shake up. It just took a bunch of apes to go, "Hey, maybe we should stop watching our wife's boyfriend do the dirty and read up on how the markets work. Then we should work together to play the game as the rules are instead of whine like babies." Paraphrasing obviously.

I just don't understand this desperate need to burn a system when you don't even bother to learn how it works properly. And I'm not talking about youtube cartoons. I swear, if you ask someone, "Oh, how did you learn C?" "I watched a few 10 min youtube videos about it. I'm an expert now." You rightfully would be smacked in the face with a flounder... or salmon... or some other big fish. But for some reason, 30 min of youtube makes you an expert in economics, finance and politics. Oh, and I know that's the case because you throw around "elite" like it means anything. Falls under the "them" term like lizard men conspiracy whacks spout on about. Those of us actually trying to break into those ranks through legit business means call them "old money"... or "rich cunts". You probably can figure out which I prefer.

That was a good rant, thank you.

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