ok, that was a bit of my original question (not well asked).

i understand any civilisation needs funding to grow (do we need growth is another core question), and possibly market to do so.

yet any meaningful decision won't be made at the millisecond scale, sure you can train a model to learn short term rules and generate long term profit. but does that profit society as a whole, i doubt it.

Trading facilitates more efficient allocation of resources at both a geographical and temporal scale. HFT market makers facilitate more efficient trading. If anyone tried pitching automated trading to you as some form of altruistic endeavor then obviously that’s bullshit. These people are out here to make a buck. Those milliseconds to nanoseconds moves are just competition between MMs happening in realtime. Is it done for the sake of a better world? No. But it just so happens to benefit society as a byproduct (on average) in the form of tighter spreads and liquidity. It’s up to you to decide if that’s good enough for you.

If we’re going to paint anyone as “real” villains in the world of trading then I’d argue it’s the informed big block traders. ie hedge funds, banks trading exotics with a high barrier of entry, etc. At least MMs are largely market neutral.

a millisecond is a long time in computer terms. many meaningful decisions can be made in a millisecond.