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Guilt by association: If, e.g., violence is a problem, then one needs to deal with the violence. In general, law-abiding citizens are—and should—be free to cong
by kriops 1y ago
Guilt by association: If, e.g., violence is a problem, then one needs to deal with the violence. In general, law-abiding citizens are—and should—be free to congregate and partake in their bad habits wherever they please. And even though gambling is generally immoral, it does not infringe on anyone else's God-given rights and has no business being made illegal.
Gambling is emphasized above to emphasize we are talking about individuals who are not sufficiently skilled to argue they are not essentially partaking in pure games of chance.
- Retric 1y agoIt’s not about the Gambling, it’s the fact these businesses are collecting a large number of easy victims in once place. Imagine you’re a loan shark. Which of the following seems like a good place to look for customers: upscale restaurant, movie theater, random bar, theme park, baseball stadium, city park, or a sports betting venue.
- dist-epoch 1y agoImagine you're a luxury watch thief. Which of the following seems like a good place to look for customers: upscale restaurant, ... or a sports betting venue. https://robbreport.com/style/watch-collector/luxury-watch-theft-on-the-rise-1236960557/ https://robbreport.com/style/watch-collector/luxury-watch-th...
- watwut 1y agoBy customers you mean "people to sell stolen watches to"? Cause if that is the question, neither of these is a good place. Affluent people wont buy obviously stolen watches directly in the restaurant, they will go through middleman that makes them look legit. And people being there to bet wont be buying watches that much either.
- Retric 1y agoHanging out at the same restaurant is a terrible idea for a watch thief, you will be caught over time. That’s not an issue for the loan shark.
- kriops 1y agoRight. In other words, no one's God-given, negative rights are being infringed upon.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Retric 1y agoRights are merely a simplification of complex interactions. Societies are more focused on what benefits themselves than such simplification. The minimal effectiveness of enhanced interrogation plus the desire of the population not to risk being so interrogated means people are generally apposed to such. Tracking down a nuclear threat is considered something of an exception to this stance by the average person.
- kriops 1y agoThis is a simple fallacy. Either you accept the definition of God-given rights, which is certainly not consistent with your opening statement. Or you don’t, at which point any following argument regarding its proper usage is moot. You seem to have gone with the latter, which makes your comment irrelevant. And that is regardless of its truthfulness. To be clear I disagree with it, but getting into that would contribute to derailing the conversation.
- Retric 1y agoIt’s not a rejection of the existence of God-given rights. It’s a rejection of the idea that people’s list of them would be consistent through time. In 1,000 years people may come up with a list of God-given rights, but it won’t be the same list you use. As such trying to come up with a list of God-given rights from a human perspective is inherently a flawed undertaking. God is beyond human comprehension.
- kriops 1y agoRights are not something you enumerate, i.e., they are not a “list.” The underlying idea of God-given rights is, simply put, that your freedom ends where mine begins and vice versa. The idea, moreover, is the generalization of ethics to an environment with multiple actors, such as Earth. And it is, of course, inconsistent with many ethical systems: A competing idea in equally simple terms is “might makes right.” And the idea, furthermore, does not change over time. So if you substitute it into my previous comment, you will see that the argument within holds. Finally, and as a side note, I strongly agree that the state of possible actions, and as the “list” of possible infringements changes with, e.g., technology. An 1800s philosopher would, for example, never have considered the applicability of any theory of rights to the operation of a nuclear power plant.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- daymanstep 1y agoSports betting is not a game of pure chance, but bookmaking is arguably ethically quite problematic. Most individuals are going up against these very sophisticated statistical models created by teams of quants working with huge datasets that you have to pay substantial amounts to access. I think most bettors don't know what they're up against. And the bookie business model is intrinsically anti-consumer: if you win too much then the bookies will ban you. Whereas bookies are quite happy to keep taking money from addicts even when said addicts have already lost their life savings.
- RataNova 1y agoThe whole "sports betting is a skill game" angle is technically true in theory, but in practice it's like showing up to a Formula 1 race on a tricycle
- SXX 1y agoAnd any active investment platforms are not different at all. A lot of matketing budget is spent to make people believe they can earn money by trading.
- watwut 1y agoThere are some differences: investment platforms wont kick you out if you manage to earn money. Gambling sites do that. If you are loosing a lot, gaming sites make your limits go up. If you are winning a lot, your limits go down. Investment sites dont do that. They also assign "consigliere" to you if you loose a lot. He is supposed to create a personal relationship with you. If you try to stop playing, that person will try to get you back into gaming. You are not betting against investment platform itself, you are betring against other people on it. That is major difference.
- daymanstep 1y agoYeah, the incentives are completely different between exchanges and bookmakers. Exchanges make money regardless of who wins or loses. Bookmakers make money from their users losing.
- bawolff 1y ago> And even though gambling is generally immoral, it does not infringe on anyone else's God-given rights and has no business being made illegal. Neither does smoking, but we still limit the types of advertisements cigarette companies can make. Gambling is ultimately a predatory business that serves to separate people susceptible to addiction from their money.
- happymellon 1y ago> Neither does smoking It absolutely does, and the number of people that died from second hand smoke is awful. It doesn't make sport gambling adverts right, but it wasn't a great example.
- 331c8c71 1y agoIn a similar vein, many people close to gamblers suffer serious consequences from the addiction.
- happymellon 1y agoIndeed. Gambling impacts the family when they spend other people's money. We have every right to ban things that are abusive to society.
- kriops 1y agoTwo word refutation: Passive smoking. I’m sure there is an argument there somewhere, and I’d love to address that if you would care to give it another go.
- watwut 1y agoBeing somewhat skilled does not make it not hazard. And practices of books are purely predatory.
- darth_avocado 1y agoBooks most definitely won’t let you win long term. They only want you as long as you’re losing and can ban you once you win too much. This sounds illegal and isn’t. Discussion 4 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45432627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45432627
- rkomorn 1y agoDo you mean hazard as danger or hazard as luck/random?
- kriops 1y agoIrrelevant. I only bring up the stochastic element because of the implicit argument that people are being victimized by gambling against their will. Since you would be extremely off-topic if you tried to extend this argument to, e.g., Daniel Negreanu engaging in a game of poker, I wanted to explicitly preclude individuals competently engaging in whatever activity is being deemed 'problematic.' It was mostly to help the 'other side' stay on topic; otherwise, I could trivially refute their arguments by counterexamples, e.g., Daniel Negreanu.
- Kudos 1y ago> it does not infringe on anyone else's God-given rights Gamblers have lost their homes as a result of their addiction, I think that impact on their families counts for something.
- keanb 1y ago[flagged]
- nosianu 1y agoYes, they chose their genes and the structure of their brain after all, how irresponsible of them! /s In general, something that happens at scale and consistently is not an individual problem. You have whole armies of very well funded designers of things like processed food, or games, working to deliberate find the faults in human brains, and to make politicians make the laws that lets them do it legally, and you say it's the fault of the individual that falls for it?
- keanb 1y ago[flagged]
- frereubu 1y agoDo you think people with a gambling addiction are enjoying it and making an informed choice to continue, and could therefore just choose not to do it instead?
- psychoslave 1y agoSure. Also blaming individual for consequences for societal constructe they fall into is typical of those who lake any sense of social responsibility. I hope you can see how this kind of argument on themselves don't make anyone extend their perspective if no one challenge its own preconceptions.
- 1y ago
- soulofmischief 1y agoThis argument doesn't account for the inherent, drastic power imbalance between the average participant of gambling and the average owner of a gambling center. Gambling between people, a basement poker game, that's fine, that's no one's business. Handing your money over to rich people operating black boxes that are designed from ground up to mesmerize and mind control you into emptying your wallet is a totally other story. On the individual level, it ruins the lives of anyone who is unable to resist or understand the psychological tricks employed on them. Zooming out, it destroys families, communities and in effect, societies. If we are going to base the legality of gambling on consent and human rights, we have to recognize the limit where consent is no longer valid, due to sickening engagement tactics. Someone's freedom to make money off of my ignorance or weakness does not supersede my right to self-determination and well-being, neither of which are possible when being hoodwinked by exploitative capitalists. If we are to continue allowing corporate gambling operations and 24/7 mobile sports betting, we need to place serious restrictions on how these companies are allowed to operate.
- dist-epoch 1y agoI'm curious how do you feel about drug legalization.
- XorNot 1y agoI'm fairly okay with legalizing everything but absolutely banning advertising it. Which is what we should be doing with gambling: no advertising, as opposed to now where everybody ad break has a celebrity endorsing the intelligence you clearly have when you choose (betting platform).
- soulofmischief 1y agoThe emotional manipulation of paid celebrity endorsement of harmful, engagement-hacking products and services is downright sickening, just the thought of how normalized it's become makes me sick to the stomach. I'm very pro gun, pro freedom of consumption, pro crypto, etc. but once emotional manipulation comes into play, self-determinism goes out the window and people are no longer making free choices.