Medallion fund and Rat philosophy of Philanthropists

Some definitions

Medallion fund - considered one of the best performing funds in the world with 66% returns over a period of 30 years. The fund is capped at 10-15billion dollars and run by algorithms made by mathematicians to gain small advantages from predictability of the stock market. It is a closed fund only allowed for the employees to invest.

Gold

Philanthropist- is generally a successful person who turned a well-wisher for the society. A great example is a rich person who at the end of his life starts to donate whatever he has accumulated in life. Maybe not everything, except for the private Yacht. So, depending on what they chose to give either they can be a full Philanthropist or a partial Philanthropist.

Rat Philosophy - is a term given by the great investor Warren Buffet, who believed in fair game rather than cheat codes. Who says algorithm based trading bots are kind of rats, who try to eat some cash from other people's pockets. And as this feels unethical that people behind those trading bots must be Philanthropists themselves at the end otherwise, it's not a fair game by any means.

Being a Philanthropist, Is it good?

If you are kind of a person with a good IQ, I am sure I do not have to write the rest of the article. You might do a google search on all of the above three topics and get the full picture. It's just how the mind can connect some random dots to build up a story. As an example someone might say I am accusing the medallion fund owners to be rats in the game of market, and they have turned themselves into philanthropists to make up for it. But even in front of a court nobody can prove it, I just gave three unrelated facts and a hypothesis that consciousness can develop naturally. But is it true? Is using your intellectual ability to gain an advantage over the other person a crime, where you can be compared to rats? Then what about copyright laws, patents and intellectual property?

On capitalism

Capitalism

I can agree and disagree on the above. But as the world functions best on the pillars of capitalism, the above statement is incorrect. If the rewards are disproportionate to the effort someone put in, or willing to put in, either by intellectual ability, or by pure sweat, nobody would do extra work. Nobody would do creative work. Nobody would work hard to build up a science and put new theories, if there is no clear benefit for doing this kind of work. Yet we can see that is not the case, for any developed and progressing society. If you do the hard work, you might get paid better. If you do the smart work, or creative work, you might even be paid more. Essentially there is no boundary to how much you will be paid if you are doing the smart work. And that is exactly what is shown by the growth of the medallion fund. But consider what it means.

In any game, there are winners only as there are losers. So there is nothing called a fair game. If you play you risk losing and winning. In fact this is clearly shown from our stock market example. There are as many losers as there are winners. So maybe it is unfair for Warren to say that he did play by the rules. And winning long term is more ethical than short term rat philosophy of medallion fund. Instead, a good question to ask is not how much to win in a game, but to assess and acknowledge how much value others have lost during our own winning. 

Take Home Message

Understanding these boundaries will not make us anything except a little more humble. Even losing a little bit of money or value might make you happy when you realize when someone around the world is going to get benefitted from the exact amount you lost. It doesn't matter, we all contributed a dollar to make billionaires rich a little bit more each year. But if you understand the values, the remarkable thing about that is its really subjective and relative, and it only depends on what you are thinking currently. So I can show you the best investment you can ever make in your life is to give your mind enough information for it to understand itself. And not to play the game of life might be a correct choice at least if given as a single best answer question. With a 50% chance of being correct shared with the answer "I do not know".