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If the state used that argument, it wouldnt be able to run lotteries. It is, as many other measures, used by some to profit at the expense of others. Investors

If the state used that argument, it wouldnt be able to run lotteries. It is, as many other measures, used by some to profit at the expense of others. Investors have their competition blocked, and ignorant. If a company had the opportunity to go public a lot earlier, they would gain massive leverage over the traditional investors, which means better terms and cheaper money. Cryptocurrency showed precisely the opposite: it showed the tremendous pent-up demand for investments that regulations forbid. And the best way to reduce fraud is to increase competition. Who wants to invest in cryptokitties when the other startup has actuall revenue and sales and asks for less money than the latest ICO? Figure 100% of YC companies ICO'ing in comparison to what ICO's are today. It would be massive amounts of cash with al ot less strings attached.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> If the state used that argument, it wouldnt be able to run lotteries Lotteries are transparently run by the state as negative-sum games.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  I fail to see how that makes it any better.
  - notahacker 9y ago
    A lottery is marketed as a game in which one spends a small sum of money in the hope of winning a large sum, not as a place to park ones savings in the expectation of increasing their value over time. And still likely offers a less negative ROI than unregulated securities offerings to retail investors.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      You are welcome to restrain yourself from your own ignorance, but I don't see why you should have the right to do so on others that don't enjoy that bondage. Punish those you disagree with by letting them hang by their own rope, or realize later on that it is you today who is being hang by your own.
      - Trundle 9y ago
        You can't "punish people by letting them hang their own rope" when they don't actually get hung, because they're still around afterwards but now a burden. They now have to rely (more) on the social safety net, or turn to crime, or just sit around all poor and broken being unpleasant to look at. A society that has decided to take on, at least partially, the burden of individual failure is incentivised to try to prevent it. If you were to propose some sort of "unaccredited investors get to invest in risky markets if they agree to be put on a boat and cast out to sea if they fail" then I could see myself accepting that.
        conanbatt 9y ago
        We plunge deeper into the rabbit hole. If only a citizen could decide to renounce taxes for services the government provides but that he doesn't use! We are now all forced to contribute in name of helping the needy, but then we ask in return that they stay needy, and that attempts to rise above their station will be met with the reminder that it is the best for them and for everyone to remain ignorant of such matters. How caritative, how empathic and how benevolent are those that get their nobility validated with their bank account statement.
      - s73v3r_ 9y ago
        So what happens when irresponsible investors plunge the country back into another great depression? How are you going to prevent the mistakes of others from causing a financial collapse which causes me to get laid off, through no fault of my own?
        conanbatt 9y ago
        You overestimate the cost of speculative gambles, but let me ask a the opposite: if the regulation costs you your job and an economic recession who is going to compensate you for it? Because as far as i know the government has never given a check to compensate for its mistakes.
        patentatt 9y ago
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > I fail to see how that makes it any better Lotteries are not run, nor marketed, as investments. Some people mistakenly think of them as such. They predictably lose money. Because of private lotteries' histories with fraud, almost every modern nation has the state run (or heavily regulate) lotteries.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      So a company has to claim it loses money to be absolved of any moral burden? IF only the SEC accepted that.
      - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
        > So a company has to claim it loses money to be absolved of any moral burden? State and federal governments aren't private companies.
        lr4444lr 9y ago
        I think you're missing his point. Those very entities have agencies which are both "protecting" the public by imposing regulations that prevent them from expenditures with negative expected value, and at the same time peddle them. Imagine if there were a state-run cigarette producing public benefit corporations alongside public health departments. You'd have two agencies, one cultivating and the other discouraging the same toxic habit at great public expense. We already have this with various OTB/gaming commissions and gambling addiction services. It's an insane conflict of interest to waste tax dollars on.
        nostrademons 9y ago
        Also corn subsidies vs. obesity-related healthcare; free roads & parking vs. smog controls; loose monetary policy vs. financial bailouts; having everyone prepare their own tax returns (as opposed to the IRS just sending out a bill along with their calculations) vs. spending money prosecuting tax evaders; and CIA-financed terrorists using our own weapons against our military. When you think about it, most of humanity's problems come from "fixes" put forth by some other branch of humanity. Humans are not particularly logical or inclined to see the big picture; they are very good at feeling a pain point acutely and slapping a band aid over it. Over time, this becomes rather absurd, but in the meantime the complexity lets societies that act like this grow bigger populations and amass bigger armies, and so that's all you see today. Most historical peoples were quite happy to live as hunter gatherers, except that larger & more miserable societies had a knack for enslaving & eradicating them.
pcwalton 9y ago
State lotteries are unethical for many of the same reasons why accredited investor requirements exist.
- kspaans 9y ago
  It's a lot easier to fix though: make minimum ticket prices higher. At $20 or $100 each, there is more sticker-shock friction to prevent overspending on lottery tickets.
  - troupe 9y ago
    From what I see of gambling behavior, I'm not convinced that at $20 ticket price would help the people who are most likely to lose money they can't afford in the lottery.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    It would make a fine business out of black market lottery ticket selling.
  - saalweachter 9y ago
    You should also cap the max jackpots. The multi-hundred-million jackpots generate a bit of a mania. Also, if you wanted to disincentivize lotteries, but not ban them outright, you could start taxing them - up front, not the behind-the-scenes cut states get now. Add a 50% tax on lotto tickets and a 50% surtax on winnings and most people will be too disgusted to play.
pjc50 9y ago
> Who wants to invest in cryptokitties when the other startup has actuall revenue and sales If you look at historical investment patterns, it's often the big startups with no revenue and no sales that raise the most money. It's almost a disadvantage to have revenue, unless it's growing meteorically.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> If the state used that argument, it wouldnt be able to run lotteries Lotteries are transparently run by the state as negative-sum games.

conanbatt 9y ago
I fail to see how that makes it any better.
- notahacker 9y ago
  A lottery is marketed as a game in which one spends a small sum of money in the hope of winning a large sum, not as a place to park ones savings in the expectation of increasing their value over time. And still likely offers a less negative ROI than unregulated securities offerings to retail investors.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    You are welcome to restrain yourself from your own ignorance, but I don't see why you should have the right to do so on others that don't enjoy that bondage. Punish those you disagree with by letting them hang by their own rope, or realize later on that it is you today who is being hang by your own.
    - Trundle 9y ago
      You can't "punish people by letting them hang their own rope" when they don't actually get hung, because they're still around afterwards but now a burden. They now have to rely (more) on the social safety net, or turn to crime, or just sit around all poor and broken being unpleasant to look at. A society that has decided to take on, at least partially, the burden of individual failure is incentivised to try to prevent it. If you were to propose some sort of "unaccredited investors get to invest in risky markets if they agree to be put on a boat and cast out to sea if they fail" then I could see myself accepting that.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        We plunge deeper into the rabbit hole. If only a citizen could decide to renounce taxes for services the government provides but that he doesn't use! We are now all forced to contribute in name of helping the needy, but then we ask in return that they stay needy, and that attempts to rise above their station will be met with the reminder that it is the best for them and for everyone to remain ignorant of such matters. How caritative, how empathic and how benevolent are those that get their nobility validated with their bank account statement.
    - s73v3r_ 9y ago
      So what happens when irresponsible investors plunge the country back into another great depression? How are you going to prevent the mistakes of others from causing a financial collapse which causes me to get laid off, through no fault of my own?
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        You overestimate the cost of speculative gambles, but let me ask a the opposite: if the regulation costs you your job and an economic recession who is going to compensate you for it? Because as far as i know the government has never given a check to compensate for its mistakes.
        patentatt 9y ago
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > I fail to see how that makes it any better Lotteries are not run, nor marketed, as investments. Some people mistakenly think of them as such. They predictably lose money. Because of private lotteries' histories with fraud, almost every modern nation has the state run (or heavily regulate) lotteries.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    So a company has to claim it loses money to be absolved of any moral burden? IF only the SEC accepted that.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > So a company has to claim it loses money to be absolved of any moral burden? State and federal governments aren't private companies.
      - lr4444lr 9y ago
        I think you're missing his point. Those very entities have agencies which are both "protecting" the public by imposing regulations that prevent them from expenditures with negative expected value, and at the same time peddle them. Imagine if there were a state-run cigarette producing public benefit corporations alongside public health departments. You'd have two agencies, one cultivating and the other discouraging the same toxic habit at great public expense. We already have this with various OTB/gaming commissions and gambling addiction services. It's an insane conflict of interest to waste tax dollars on.
        nostrademons 9y ago
        Also corn subsidies vs. obesity-related healthcare; free roads & parking vs. smog controls; loose monetary policy vs. financial bailouts; having everyone prepare their own tax returns (as opposed to the IRS just sending out a bill along with their calculations) vs. spending money prosecuting tax evaders; and CIA-financed terrorists using our own weapons against our military. When you think about it, most of humanity's problems come from "fixes" put forth by some other branch of humanity. Humans are not particularly logical or inclined to see the big picture; they are very good at feeling a pain point acutely and slapping a band aid over it. Over time, this becomes rather absurd, but in the meantime the complexity lets societies that act like this grow bigger populations and amass bigger armies, and so that's all you see today. Most historical peoples were quite happy to live as hunter gatherers, except that larger & more miserable societies had a knack for enslaving & eradicating them.

pcwalton 9y ago

State lotteries are unethical for many of the same reasons why accredited investor requirements exist.

kspaans 9y ago
It's a lot easier to fix though: make minimum ticket prices higher. At $20 or $100 each, there is more sticker-shock friction to prevent overspending on lottery tickets.
- troupe 9y ago
  From what I see of gambling behavior, I'm not convinced that at $20 ticket price would help the people who are most likely to lose money they can't afford in the lottery.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  It would make a fine business out of black market lottery ticket selling.
- saalweachter 9y ago
  You should also cap the max jackpots. The multi-hundred-million jackpots generate a bit of a mania. Also, if you wanted to disincentivize lotteries, but not ban them outright, you could start taxing them - up front, not the behind-the-scenes cut states get now. Add a 50% tax on lotto tickets and a 50% surtax on winnings and most people will be too disgusted to play.

pjc50 9y ago

> Who wants to invest in cryptokitties when the other startup has actuall revenue and sales If you look at historical investment patterns, it's often the big startups with no revenue and no sales that raise the most money. It's almost a disadvantage to have revenue, unless it's growing meteorically.