Hacker News Reader

Comment by kasey_junk | Hacker News Reader

The problem I had with it, is it was the first time he's written about an industry that I knew about and it shook my confidence in all of his other writing.

If he got HFT so very wrong in Flashboys, what does that mean for Moneyball or The Big Short?

View on HN

This thought generalizes (terror-inducingly) to the whole media. "A pity they're totally nincompoops when it comes to tech but at least they've got politics, crime, and the economy sor... oh dear."

(Think pg had an observation like this once.)

I think there is a name for this effect (and a wikipedia page). I've forgotten what it is called though.

Murray Gell-Mann Effect maybe? Been a few years, can't remember if I have the order right.

That's it (usually written Gell-Mann effect I believe), but it actually describes the cognitive dissonance of ignoring that feeling when reading other non-domain stories, so it's the opposite.

The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect, coined by Michael Crichton.

I seem to recall there's a term for this, but I can't remember the actual name.

"When the press writes about a topic you know well, you realize every news article you've read could have been equally mistaken." -pg

I think what made it particular bothersome in this case is how easy the HFT narrative fits with his standard template, but in the opposite way than he wrote it.

He could of easily written the "smart guys take on the rich insiders" using the HTF folks as the heroes. Plus, I felt the narrative suffered because of all the convolutions he had to do to make the millionaire trader bros at IEX meet that template.

Further, I doubt you'd find a more Moneyball loving population sample than at HFT shops.

Well, just because he got A wrong, doesn't mean he also got B and C wrong. HFT is very complicated AND secretive. In all seriousness, it's unlikely someone can understand it well without working in the industry

Reply on news.ycombinator.com