361–370 of 479 posts
By the 2040 US presidential election, anti-gambling legislation will be a bigger party platform issue than abortion is for one of the two major US political parties.
We are ruining a generation of men with this, just as we did with alcohol in the era before prohibition. A wiser and more sensible approach is desperately needed today, but will not come for another 15 years until the damage is inescapable to see.
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Norway does a great job of this with the government-owned alcohol monopoly. The stores are always just a little bit out of the way, with slightly inconvenient hours. You can still get a beer if you want, but it takes a little bit of doing.
Interesting, didn't know they do that. USA (mostly) doesn't do any to of that and alcohol consumption and its related social costs are declining.
It can be a real pain to get alcohol without planning in these places.
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> Addictions are a symptom of having an excessive amount of free time, floating money and lack of fear of reprisal from family and society and lack of basic wisdom. Sure, or any of the other million reasons people get addicted, like despair, or other healthier activities being too expensive. Super weird take.
Explain why there were hardly any addicts among peasant communities in rural third world countries back in the 70's or 80's.
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Explain why there were hardly any addicts among peasant communities in rural third world countries back in the 70's or 80's.
What are you talking about, alcoholism is a classic rampant poverty addiction?
>there were hardly any addicts among peasant communities in rural third world countries back in the 70's or 80's.
Are you sure the assertion is wrong?
How do you know?
"I grew up in a rural setting in the third world," would be a great answer.
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I'm fairly pro-market, but I agree with this. I think people should do what they want if they don't harm themselves or others. Advertising these things are different... I don't have a problem with people smoking or drinking, but I agree we shouldn't allow advertising. However, they should be able to advertise in adult only outlets. ex: Does Playboy still have Cigarette and Liqour advertisements?
> I'm fairly pro-market, but I agree with this. I think people should do what they want if they don't harm themselves or others. Is this still pro-market though? I have the same opinion and I often labeled as "anti-market" when I call regulations for gambling, social media, AI, etc.
"You're pro-market? Why do you support letting children buy cocaine!?!"
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I'm fairly pro-market, but I agree with this. I think people should do what they want if they don't harm themselves or others. Advertising these things are different... I don't have a problem with people smoking or drinking, but I agree we shouldn't allow advertising. However, they should be able to advertise in adult only outlets. ex: Does Playboy still have Cigarette and Liqour advertisements?
> I'm fairly pro-market, but I agree with this. I think people should do what they want if they don't harm themselves or others. Is this still pro-market though? I have the same opinion and I often labeled as "anti-market" when I call regulations for gambling, social media, AI, etc.
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>> addictive products being engineered to be as addictive as possible and deliberately punch people's brains in such a way to make them stay The exact same argument could be used to make social media illegal.
Hopefully, the responses to this have highlighted the kind of people you are dealing with. No-one can use social media because some people in our society can't control themselves. Socialise the losses.
You know I'm right here, if you have an actual rebuttal and not just dismissive hand-waving.
> No-one can use social media because some people in our society can't control themselves.
I think a lot of people would be measurably better off if not for social media that algorithmically fucks with their brains.
> Socialise the losses.
I mean that's kind of the point of a society yeah? We pool our efforts to enable greater labor specialization and to achieve things no individual can. Like an electrical grid or a highway system. And when parts of those systems break down, we all contribute a little to sorting them out.
But if you want to outlaw this harmful activity [licensed gambling], you have to find a way to replace 6.4% of Maryland’s budget, which is slightly less than the entire amount the state brings in from corporate taxes. A fraction of the proceeds of losing bets from a fraction of Maryland's citizens contributes almost the same to state services -- EMS, education, road maintenance, etc -- than the total corporate taxes…
A state is funding essential public services not through productive economic activity, but by extracting money from people losing bets
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I do not catch your meaning. Experts sometimes spell it "off-premise": https://www.nabca.org/covid-19-dashboards-premise-retailers has "While there are several different retail channels permitted to sell alcoholic beverages for offsite (off-premise) consumption". https://www.parkstreet.com/states/california/ has "Retailers [c]an sell product directly to consumers for on or off-premise consumption". "Off-premises" is…
Check on that in a dictionary of repute. My own folk etymology of this infelicity is that it started with the mispronunciation, which is actually hard to avoid in rapid speech, and bled over to people simply writing the wrong word. Edit: [in reply to your edit] It is indeed a rather common malapropism.
It feels like banning advertising for gambling would be a sweet spot between harm reduction and maintaining individual liberty. Sports gambling ads have ruined sports media. State lottery ads are even worse. The government should not spend money to encourage its own citizens to partake in harmful activities.
"Make it legal but very annoying" is an underrated policy option. And banning advertisement is the first resort in this line of regulation. If there are no ads to tell you, you have to, first, be informed that sports gambling is a thing people do, then decide that it's a thing you want participate in, and then obtain information on how it's done. This adds friction. Friction reduces participation. But if you really w…
Is it advertising when the announcer for a game talks about gambling? There's statements that obviously would be advertising, so the interesting thing is where and how to draw the line.