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Comment by navs | Hacker News Reader

I lost my life savings chasing the dopamine hit and can relate to this. I'm in my mid 30s and suffering from career burnout. I know I can't afford a home when I can barely work full-time so I figured I'd trade. I was up, and up and up!

Then I was down, then up, then down.

One morning I woke up and I was so down, I sold out of fear.

Now I'm left with so little I might as well be starting from scratch.

This feels like gambling and here I thought I was smarter than those people that lost in casinos.

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My experience, with a wide variety of generally older friends & associates & such -

If they're talking about an occasional visit to the casino, people will be up front about the fact that they walked into the place with $X in their pocket, and walked out with $Y. Almost always, $X > $Y.

If they're talking about stocks they've bought, people will be incredibly selective, and describe only some of their greatest successes. They could lose money in a rising market, and you'd have to carefully question them to even realize that fact.

Which is ridiculous because while casinos are engineered to ensure $x > $y over time, economies are existentially dependent on the reverse being true over time and across a broad enough portfolio.

Folks you can just buy the S&P 500 and wait. It really is that simple. Money will go down sometimes, up sometimes, down some more, but in the long run it will almost certainly go up. And if it doesn't, the world is crumbling anyway so who cares?

Yep this is the craziest part. The answer has been known for a long time. S&P500. Literally that simple

100% I did that at first and got greedy and impatient. Serves me right.

From both the folks I know, and years of comments here on HN - you have LOTS of company.

In the fictional world of Economics, humans are all homo rationalens, and never make such mistakes.*

Vs. in the real world...

*Yes, I sometimes wonder if there's a brutally predatory subtext here - with Economics quietly endorsing "do unto them as you will" maltreatment of anyone who the 0.01% can maneuver into behaving "irrationally".

Heh, I'm kind of the opposite. I like talking about the time I gambled with a couple thousand on options and after a rollercoaster experience, lost it.

But my index funds are not an interesting topic, imo.

Because the way you did it, it is gambling.

It’s easy to convince ourselves we’re “investing” and not gambling

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