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The old saying "money is the root of all evil" often does generally apply and lotteries are an excellent example of state-sponsored financial ruin. I especially

The old saying "money is the root of all evil" often does generally apply and lotteries are an excellent example of state-sponsored financial ruin. I especially like the John Oliver pieces[0][1] on that one. I see it everyday - video poker "cafes" and here in Wisconsin the cultural acceptance and actual embrace of weird things like "pull tabs" and "dice games". Las Vegas is an entire city that has been built on financial ruin. But we can simultaneously criticize, express concern, and work towards fixing multiple issues at the same time. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PK-netuhHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PK-netuhHA [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKMNKS-9ugY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKMNKS-9ugY

anonym29 4y ago
The old saying is not that "money is the root of all evil", but that "the love of money is the root of all evil". I personally take a very different view, which is that voluntary transactions are inherently ethical. The questions of ethics rests not in the outcomes for me, but in the question of whether any force was initiated. I can voluntarily donate so much money to charity that I make myself insolvent - if that's my choice, it's fine. Conversely, if a mugger puts a gun to my head and demands I give all of my money to charity, that is not fine, the mugger is infringing upon my life, liberty, and property. Outcomes are the exact same - one situation is ethical and voluntary, the other is unethical because it is involuntary. Swindlers and charlatans are kinda a grey area, since that reaches into the realm of transactions that appear voluntary but are rooted in false premises or concealed information, and might therefore be considered unethical if not outright theft. At the same time, if the state is responsible for providing individuals with mathematical literacy and it fails so horribly at that such that individuals voluntarily play games with a mathmatical expexted value (EV) of <$1 for every $1 they put in, which they do with the sole hope of reaping an EV of >$1, the same argument can be made about the state, who, worse than the charlatans and scammers, had the responsibility of educating their own victim well enough for the victim to not fall for such schemes. That abdication of the responsibility paired with the exploitation of those same individuals the state has failed to responsibly educate makes the state activity feel much more reprehensible, in my opinion. My subjective views aside, your point about being willing and able to tackle two problems at once is a perfectly valid one, and I concede even that it can be more efficient to target the lesser of two evils if the rate of evil reduction is greater due to the smaller evil being a quicker/easier fix.
- kkielhofner 4y ago
  Thanks for the correction on the expression (I always forget the "love" part)! As for the rest... Pretty sure I'm following but it's a bit more philosophical than what I'm capable of. With that said, if you follow the crypto space it's a symptom rather than problem. Just like the lottery many people will outright (essentially) say "crypto is my only chance to get out of my disadvantaged economic position". It's really quite sad and as much as I bash crypto I have a tremendous amount of empathy for people who feel trapped in their economic situation and desperately play crypto/lottery. I cringe when I see people in the crypto hate/skeptic community cheer when average crypto "users" end up in financial ruin. It's disgusting. I've told multiple people in the space something to the effect of "If you spent as much time, energy, and resources as you do pumping crypto bullshit on education - learning to code, trades, professional certifications, etc you'd be much better off". Hell - many of the shills pumping crypto could walk into any organization and get a great sales/marketing position. Crypto is truly "MLM for men" and the stats back that up. The statistics are horrendous and people desperately hoping for another "moon coin" to get that lambo (or whatever) is remarkably similar to playing the lottery or thinking your six year child getting to the NBA/NFL/etc is your ticket out.
  - anonym29 4y ago
    I share much of your sentiment, I really do feel for the people who don't deeply understand crypto being fleeced via crypto by people who may or may not understand it but are absolutely misusing it. I don't want to put readers asleep, but I see cryptocurrency as a very complex technology that requires a bordering-on-academic understanding of privacy, autonomy, sovereignty, macroeconomics, the shortcomings of FIAT currency, centralized banking, the federal reserve, fractional reserve banking, asymmetric cryptography, computer security, and a litany of other topics to fully appreciate and realize the benefits offered by Bitcoin, Monero, etc. I think it's an utterly fascinating real-world study into the crossroads of monetary economics, market economics, politics, computer science & cybersecurity, human psychology that has some very real utilities, but... I suspect (many? most? majority? plurality?) of the people involved in crypto really don't even care about any of that, let alone understand it, they're just speculating purely on the basis of greater fool theory, and many of them do get hurt. I tend to be against government regulation, but as a pro-crypto person for the right reasons, even I don't think it would be a bad idea to kill the FIAT<->USD exchanges that let people who are dangerously uninformed participate (and get burned) in this wild west ecosystem. The sad reality that these exchanges have widespread KYC but no accredited investor requirements shows that the regulators are really only concerned about Uncle Sam's bottom line, not about protecting people. The whole thing really ought to go back to where it was circa ~2012, even it comes at the cost of BTC going back to 2012 market cap and prices. Cryptocurrency is rightfully many things: a cutting edge payment network, an enormous boon to financial privacy, a way to enable entirely new types of organizations and funding models in the business world, a source of rapid developments to and applications of fascinating and obscure cryptographic concepts (e.g. zero-knowledge proofs), a hedge against systemic FIAT and some geopolitical risks, a driver of needed improvements in FIAT financial infrastructure (just like Google Fi was a driver of needed improvements in consumer internet infrastructure), I could go on and on... But one thing it should absolutely NOT be treated as is an "investment". It generates no cashflow and investing based on greater fool theory only ever causes speculative bubbles where the nominal price spectacularly diverges from the true economic value, just like in the tulip mania. Any decent financial advisor will tell you to avoid that like the plague!
jononomo 4y ago
The saying is "the LOVE of money is the root of ALL KINDS of evil."

anonym29 4y ago

The old saying is not that "money is the root of all evil", but that "the love of money is the root of all evil". I personally take a very different view, which is that voluntary transactions are inherently ethical. The questions of ethics rests not in the outcomes for me, but in the question of whether any force was initiated. I can voluntarily donate so much money to charity that I make myself insolvent - if that's my choice, it's fine. Conversely, if a mugger puts a gun to my head and demands I give all of my money to charity, that is not fine, the mugger is infringing upon my life, liberty, and property. Outcomes are the exact same - one situation is ethical and voluntary, the other is unethical because it is involuntary. Swindlers and charlatans are kinda a grey area, since that reaches into the realm of transactions that appear voluntary but are rooted in false premises or concealed information, and might therefore be considered unethical if not outright theft. At the same time, if the state is responsible for providing individuals with mathematical literacy and it fails so horribly at that such that individuals voluntarily play games with a mathmatical expexted value (EV) of <$1 for every $1 they put in, which they do with the sole hope of reaping an EV of >$1, the same argument can be made about the state, who, worse than the charlatans and scammers, had the responsibility of educating their own victim well enough for the victim to not fall for such schemes. That abdication of the responsibility paired with the exploitation of those same individuals the state has failed to responsibly educate makes the state activity feel much more reprehensible, in my opinion. My subjective views aside, your point about being willing and able to tackle two problems at once is a perfectly valid one, and I concede even that it can be more efficient to target the lesser of two evils if the rate of evil reduction is greater due to the smaller evil being a quicker/easier fix.

kkielhofner 4y ago
Thanks for the correction on the expression (I always forget the "love" part)! As for the rest... Pretty sure I'm following but it's a bit more philosophical than what I'm capable of. With that said, if you follow the crypto space it's a symptom rather than problem. Just like the lottery many people will outright (essentially) say "crypto is my only chance to get out of my disadvantaged economic position". It's really quite sad and as much as I bash crypto I have a tremendous amount of empathy for people who feel trapped in their economic situation and desperately play crypto/lottery. I cringe when I see people in the crypto hate/skeptic community cheer when average crypto "users" end up in financial ruin. It's disgusting. I've told multiple people in the space something to the effect of "If you spent as much time, energy, and resources as you do pumping crypto bullshit on education - learning to code, trades, professional certifications, etc you'd be much better off". Hell - many of the shills pumping crypto could walk into any organization and get a great sales/marketing position. Crypto is truly "MLM for men" and the stats back that up. The statistics are horrendous and people desperately hoping for another "moon coin" to get that lambo (or whatever) is remarkably similar to playing the lottery or thinking your six year child getting to the NBA/NFL/etc is your ticket out.
- anonym29 4y ago
  I share much of your sentiment, I really do feel for the people who don't deeply understand crypto being fleeced via crypto by people who may or may not understand it but are absolutely misusing it. I don't want to put readers asleep, but I see cryptocurrency as a very complex technology that requires a bordering-on-academic understanding of privacy, autonomy, sovereignty, macroeconomics, the shortcomings of FIAT currency, centralized banking, the federal reserve, fractional reserve banking, asymmetric cryptography, computer security, and a litany of other topics to fully appreciate and realize the benefits offered by Bitcoin, Monero, etc. I think it's an utterly fascinating real-world study into the crossroads of monetary economics, market economics, politics, computer science & cybersecurity, human psychology that has some very real utilities, but... I suspect (many? most? majority? plurality?) of the people involved in crypto really don't even care about any of that, let alone understand it, they're just speculating purely on the basis of greater fool theory, and many of them do get hurt. I tend to be against government regulation, but as a pro-crypto person for the right reasons, even I don't think it would be a bad idea to kill the FIAT<->USD exchanges that let people who are dangerously uninformed participate (and get burned) in this wild west ecosystem. The sad reality that these exchanges have widespread KYC but no accredited investor requirements shows that the regulators are really only concerned about Uncle Sam's bottom line, not about protecting people. The whole thing really ought to go back to where it was circa ~2012, even it comes at the cost of BTC going back to 2012 market cap and prices. Cryptocurrency is rightfully many things: a cutting edge payment network, an enormous boon to financial privacy, a way to enable entirely new types of organizations and funding models in the business world, a source of rapid developments to and applications of fascinating and obscure cryptographic concepts (e.g. zero-knowledge proofs), a hedge against systemic FIAT and some geopolitical risks, a driver of needed improvements in FIAT financial infrastructure (just like Google Fi was a driver of needed improvements in consumer internet infrastructure), I could go on and on... But one thing it should absolutely NOT be treated as is an "investment". It generates no cashflow and investing based on greater fool theory only ever causes speculative bubbles where the nominal price spectacularly diverges from the true economic value, just like in the tulip mania. Any decent financial advisor will tell you to avoid that like the plague!

jononomo 4y ago

The saying is "the LOVE of money is the root of ALL KINDS of evil."