…there is a beautiful harmony in the way they fulfilled their role in the market ecosystem.
— Victor Niederhoffer, The Education of a Speculator
Just a few days back, I listen in awe of how prices of our commodities are determined by the futures market and that gamblers, traders, speculators or investors in the market are playing an important role in the ecosystem.
That’s the free market. Behind every transaction that occurs, there are two parties, who hold conflicting point of view based on their perspective or interpretation of their surroundings. Still, the financial market is not a zero-sum game. It doesn’t mean that one in the two opposing sides have to always lose.
For example, if I buy a stock, I have the belief that it will go up. Let’s say if the price of the stock goes up, and it doesn’t necessary signifies that the seller of the stock is in an overall losing position. It could be the seller have deployed the capital on some other stocks or positions that are more profitable, that is not within my peripheral.
So nett, both of us are in a win-win situation. Though, of course, it is not always rosy like that, in which sometimes, it is indeed a zero-sum game.
Recently, I have been talking quite a bit about my dating life, or rather the lack thereof. Now, I want to bring you into the dating ecosystem through my trading lenses.
The union of two or more parties signifies an agreement among the parties that they deem to be fair or necessary at that point in time.
Just like the free market, we have many choices to choose from, based on the assumptions and preconceived notions that we have. That is true, even if we are under the impression otherwise.
The options available are as such, in which there could be a combination of the various options:
- Remain single
- Become a player
- Get married
- Form a long term companionship
- Have kids
In each option, we will affectionately term it as a position. Of course, we could walk down the various positions to break it down even further, or the progression of time might have made available or reduce the options available to us. But let’s just stop at the first level of decision making first.
In any position that we initiate, we will have undergone a decision making process through our rational, or emotional, or both rational and emotional state.
We could potentially anchor this decision-making process via:
- Historical data points
- Current state of affairs
- Future perceived value
In order to formally enter into a position, a match has to be established, except for the choice of a position of remaining single only. You can still have kids or be a player or even form a long term companionship if you choose a position to remain single. In those scenarios, similarly, you will have to establish a match.
This brings us to a point in which each participant in the dating ecosystem forms a beautiful harmony in the ecosystem. It does not mean that everyone will experience a happy ending, or that every position initiated by two parties will evolve into a win-win situation.
It merely represents that each participant, because of their willingness to partake in the ecosystem, plays a role and co-creates the symphony of life. Even if the parties involved have perceived conflicting interests, they might still form a match because it fulfils a certain need of the parties involved.
Is this a stand to underplay the potential hurt that could potentially be inflicted should someone intentionally mislead another individual?
In fact, I will argue that there is really no stand at all. In which there is perhaps neither right nor wrong in the various scenarios that could play out. We could make what we deem as a wrong decision due to asymmetric information, in which our limited access to information will skew our judgement of a potential option.
Then, with everything else, there lies uncertainty that we have to weigh out the risk/reward ratio to distinguish and evaluate our course of actions.
I remember this conversation in which the topic of sugar baby pops up.
If we apply the above mental model, in which the sugar baby enters into a special arrangement with his/her sugar mommy/daddy, are they not too fulfilling a role in the beautiful harmony of the ecosystem?
Then if we are to take the sugar baby and applies a progression of time to her life (we will refer to a female sugar baby for a more succinct read) in which she decides to initiate a position with the intention of getting married. Her pool of potential partners will then evaluate the probability and risk/reward ratio based on the historical data points, current state and future perceived value. Just as the sugar baby will have done.
Suppose she decides that this is a historical data that she seeks to hide from her potential, we will be encountering asymmetric information. At the same time, the sugar baby will be taking on certain risks of being discovered.
Then if we further project the time. There could be a few scenarios that could play out. What if the pair emerges into a win-win loving relationship? Will the asymmetric knowledge hurt anybody? What if the sugar baby decides that her old life is better, and decides to reveal her true desire to her potential? Will her action inflicts considerable hurt to the other party? What if the potential mate is actually a player and has similarly hidden information from the sugar baby?
My point is, there is a multitude of factors to consider when we establish our next position. We are constantly growing, discovering our preferences, bearing grudges, adding to our emotional baggage, clearing our emotional baggage, experimenting with various options, and/or getting tempted to initiate other options.
There are things that will work tremendously well for one individual but crushes the soul of the other. There could be things that could be deemed morally wrong to certain individuals but projected as a way of living to another. There could be verbose moral supporters when deep down they might be secretly yearning for that kind of lifestyle. The thing is human nature is complex, monogamy is just one of many permutations of it.
Just as the market requires various parties with opposing views and perceptions to establish transactions, the dating ecosystem is made up of parties with different objectives and beliefs.
Ultimately, at the end of the day, on the grand scheme of things, we are each playing to our own, as a part of the beautiful harmony.
