I generally have to agree with you, except for your denigration of betting. If it sharpens your analytical skills it isn't useless. And besides that, there is e

I generally have to agree with you, except for your denigration of betting. If it sharpens your analytical skills it isn't useless. And besides that, there is entertainment value. The "expense" comes against other willing bettors (addicted ones excepted perhaps -- but then lets also exclude negative value businesses like juicero, or basic supply hoarders during covid). Your characterization seems a bit extreme. Anyway, to be clear, this isn't the point I was arguing. Whether zero sum vs positive sum, where any benefit might lie (value to society, or to anyone at all) is not my point. It's that skill is clearly involved in both activities, as well as a large luck factor. Not only did I not like the race track analogy, I found the critical reading of the tweet to be too narrow to be useful. For the record and again, I generally agree with your comment. But as a reply to my own, I think you went off base from my argument.