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Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

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Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#501

Post by kriops »

soulofmischief wrote: post #497
kriops wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God-given rights refers to a certain theory of rights that does not require theism. It is a well and widely understood term whose usage should not invite “correction”. Referring to God-given rights invokes their definition, which should make the inconsistency I was referring to clear.

Can you give a less vague answer?

No. Normally I would, but you are either being lazy or just plain acting in bad faith.

1. My answer is not vague. You are refusing to look up the critical definition. 2. Everything you have brought up (except for the theism bit, which is just completely off-topic) was preemptively addressed in my initial comment.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#502

Post by kriops »

Retric wrote: post #498
kriops wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 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 contribut…

It’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.

Rights 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.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#503

Post by 1659447091 »

wredcoll wrote: post #293
1659447091 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the root problem is greed how is making that distinction not useful in real life? What does the type of gambling matter? If we focus on the core issues: greed and money problems -- over trying to "protect" [my emphasis] others from the bad gambling -- we end up helping them with adjacent greed/money problems. Labeling outside things as the problem is the problem. Help the people learn to master the inner compulsio…

In the same way distinguishing between heroin and codeine is useful. You can get addicted to either, but one sure makes it a lot easier.

Not sure I understand your analogy; Neither heroin nor codeine is a root cause of problems arising from the other.

Greed (in a generous def of the word, as in the wanting/desire of as much of the thing as possible [money in this case] quickly and/or easily despite the cost) is a root cause of many of the issues people create for themselves with gambling.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#504

Post by 1659447091 »

sigwinch wrote: post #341
singlepaynews wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so what is to be done when access to labor is gatekept? If you can't have a job, or can't benefit from a job beyond "give a man a fish, he eats for a day", are you not meant to look for an opportunity to generate income outside of working?

If you’re a bookie, and an adherent of these Iron Age religions, then you might be instructed to Render upon Caesar. If being a bookie means feeding your family, you can relax so long as you realize that your responsibility is to slightly nudge the right players to win.

> If being a bookie means feeding your family, you can relax

Am I reading correct that you are saying that in (at least) the Christian religion it is okay to provide gambling services?

Further supporting that the religion does not claim it immoral?

*note: it's stated as such, yet seems to have been ignored, in the linked wiki source above -- maybe your wording, if I understand it correctly, would be suitable for updating the wiki to make it more clear/understood that gambling is not immoral to those who adhere to the Christian bible

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#505

Post by roenxi »

shkkmo wrote: post #492
roenxi wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that is progress because now you're attributing something to me that is close to what I do believe, which is poor people who gamble probably are poor because they make terrible financial decisions. I mean, you linked an article earlier suggesting that there are people who spend more than 5% of their income on lotto tickets [0]. No mystery why they're poor, they make bad decisions with money. In percentage terms,…

> Bullshit You can disbelieve my honest report that you are not explaining your position well, but you seem to be confusing me with a differ commentor.

Oh sorry, if I'd registered the change of name I probably wouldn't have commented. But since I'm here anyway...

It is the internet, some number of people are always going to misunderstand any comment. If you don't get it then that is ultimately an exercise for you, the reader and if you have clarifying questions I'm generally happy to have a go an answering them. I write a lot of comments, I do my best to be clear, my best is not a standard of perfection.

But ol' mate is telling me what my opinion is, based on a ridiculous reading that isn't what I wrote, isn't something I ever believed and persisted in it after I'd drawn his attention to all those facts. At that point, it is more his problem than mine even if the comment is badly written. When someone says "my opinion is not X", they have never said "my opinion is X", never said anything that logically implies "my opinion is X" and it happens that believing in X is ridiculous, nobody has any business telling them that they seem to believe X. They probably do not believe X.

1 comment, sure fair enough happens to everyone. But at some point it's just being obtuse. If we're talking about real-world facts sure I get things wrong but at some point my opinion on my opinion is authoritative. I do not believe poor people are poor because they're irrational. If anyone is going to start insisting that I do they're running the risk of getting some progressively nasty language thrown at them, I do not intend to sit here quietly and be smeared by this chap.

> You can disbelieve my honest report that you are not explaining your position well

You seem to doing a decent job of it, you're doing a lot better than keiferski with just 1 attempt and no questions. I think he just did badly at reading comprehension on this one.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#506

Post by a96 »

_delirium wrote: post #51

I've found myself getting less interested in sports at all because of how pervasive sports betting has gotten. The announcers are always talking about odds and shilling gambling company sponsors, which is annoying and makes me not want to watch the games.

Adding advertising does indeed ruin most things.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#507

Post by Retric »

kriops wrote: post #502
Retric wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’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.

Rights 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…

> ends where mine begins and vice versa

That tipping point isn’t fixed.

> furthermore, does not change over time

Except it does “them’s fighting words” only died out very recently, but it provides a starkly different boundary between my rights and your rights.

Ritualized lethal combat was a thing for very long time, and took an incredibly long time to go away. Trial by combat and dueling grows out of a fundamentally different ethical framework not just a lack of technology. It seems antithetical to Christianity today, but that wasn’t always the case.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#508

Post by [deleted] »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #499
RhysU wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I gamble by joining a startup, I am trying to provide something of value to someone. Otherwise, my startup will fail. The bet is not societally zero sum in expectation. Long odds, sure, but possibly value creating. If I gamble on a sporting event, the outcome of the sporting event does not change. Someone wins. Someone loses. No value created. The outcome is societally zero sum in expectation.

> > If I gamble on a sporting event, the outcome of the sporting event does not change. Someone wins. Someone loses. No value created. The outcome is societally zero sum in expectation. If your net worth is less than 100M you have no business concerning yourself with societal value creation in the U.S. The only reason to create a startup instead of betting on a sporting event is that in the startup although your odds…

[deleted]

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#509

Post by Nasrudith »

shusaku wrote: post #152
keiferski wrote: post #67

The legalization and popularity of gambling is more than just an immoral activity that has negative societal effects. It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better. Gambling thrives in contexts where a ladder to success doesn’t exist or is perceived as not existing. If hard work or time doesn’t make your life better, then fate is just chance, and you might as well throw your…

> Gambling thrives in contexts where a ladder to success doesn’t exist or is perceived as not existing. This is a neat moral message… but is it really true? Gambling is addictive, so the reality might be that even without such deep social problems you get similar levels

The smartass but not wrong answer is to check rates of gambling of India when the caste system was at its strictest or in Soviet Russia. If the answer is no without major effort into suppression it may be a counter example.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#510

Post by Nasrudith »

lapcat wrote: post #172
keiferski wrote: post #67

The legalization and popularity of gambling is more than just an immoral activity that has negative societal effects. It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better. Gambling thrives in contexts where a ladder to success doesn’t exist or is perceived as not existing. If hard work or time doesn’t make your life better, then fate is just chance, and you might as well throw your…

> you might as well throw your money at something that has the possibility of making your rich I don't think anyone is getting rich from sports betting. It's not like the lottery, where the jackpots are massive and the odds are very long. And the jackpots get massive in the lottery because they accumulate when nobody wins, whereas in sports bettings, the gambler always either wins or loses, based on the outcome of th…

The punchline is that sports gambling companies aren't even getting rich either. Their spend on advertisement and promotions to draw people in is so high that they're losing money net. Of course given means right now sports betting is just producing suffering en masse, not even making a few people rich it is a punchline in the same sense as 'The Aristocrats'.
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