His only big mistake was to not use the obvious loophole that traders have been using for decades - put some kind of slightly black-box automated system between you and the market. Train that system to do what you want, but now it's being done in a way that takes some of the fine-grained control and responsibility away from the human.

Exact same end-results, but it eliminates the human "intent" that this law hinges on.

Is this whole controversy really that dumb? Yes.

Why are hackers and engineers so horrible at understanding trading, when they first get into it? If I had to name one reason - it's because they've been trained for their whole lives to assume that there is such a thing as a "real price". There is no "real price" for anything in the world. There is no one in the world that has some inside access to the mythical "real price".

At the surface level, both fields have many similarities, but unlike the engineering problems you've always dealt with, there is no clear undeniable truth that will be eventually uncovered with enough work. Assume that's true, now carefully consider the implications. If you can do that, you've crossed the most difficult mental gap when transitioning from engineering to trading.