Lets all quit trading and have a Taleb coffeehouse nite at the local Starbucks every Tuesday nite. That ought to render all things invariant.
Not really. You have to keep in mind... That in virtually ALL Zero Sum Games... Roughly 90% losers and 10% winners. This applies to the Quant World... It applies to the Black Box Algo World... etc, etc. The Top 10% traders usually welcome more players in their game... In poker they are called "fish"... Because volume and liquidity goes up... And then volume/profits for the Top 10% rises... often dramatically. For example... I trade obscure, complex niches. In the last 6 months... Due to the regulatory changes and greater volatility... The volume of the stocks I trade has more than doubled. e.g. of a the 300 stocks I trade... Many have gone from trading 15,000 shares/day to 40,000 shares/day. So I have MORE NEW PLAYERS in my game... But my profits have roughly TRIPLED... Because the Zero Sum Game laws hold... And the Top 10% just takes more money away from the marginal players. The more people try to play poker... The better it is for the Top Poker Pros. The more people try to be quants... The better it is for the Top Quants.