Is being pro ethically wrong? Of couse not you communist!

[nothumb]

I don't think everyone who is against playing poker for money is a Communist. Ask John Aschroft. Or Osama.

NT

[gcoutu]

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The point is more that a professional poker player, unlike someone who manufactures goods or provides a service, adds nothing to society.

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What exactly does a professional athlete or actor provide to society? They make lots o money and for what, entertainment. Poker is really entertaining. Seems fine by me. Hey, alcohol and cigs are legal and bad for us, but as grown adults we can choose to endulge or pass. I choose to indulge in poker. I think my only moral duty at the table is to play within the rules.

[tolbiny]

anyway, to the original poster: why are you rambling? what made you think this post was significant or relevant or needed? you did a horrible job of applying the concepts of your argument to the original question, which you posed. you set yourself up and still failed to deliver

I can't decide if this is to me, or the original poster- So i will assume (after rereading my post) that i very well could be to me, and answer.
I had difficulty collecting my thoughts as i had a fantastic date that ended not long before i posted, Ain't it wierd how being happy can make it impossible to concerntrate while being mildly depressed is very condusive to creativity and constructive thought.
Here's to being distracted for as long as possible

[tolbiny]

You are misinterpreting what capitalism and communism are. They are simply economic ideas, which can be applied in many different ways. Two examples:
When unions were first forming in this country corporations would hire "strike breakers" who would literally go into the pickitting crowd and BEAT them untill they broke the strike. Moral?
A dozen or so people are straned after a shipwreck on an island with limited resouces, they agree that for all of them to survive they should all pool their resouces and share the food and water they collect. Immoral?

A communist country could (thoeretically) have a democratically elected government in which people's rights were preserved as much as possible, and a capitalist society could have no laws and whoever had the most money/was willing to do anything to gain and maintain that status would end up the most powerfull.
Neither economic system cares about morals, that is why we set up governments to place limitations to protect individuals rights.

[fnurt]

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The point is more that a professional poker player, unlike someone who manufactures goods or provides a service, adds nothing to society.

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What exactly does a professional athlete or actor provide to society? They make lots o money and for what, entertainment. Poker is really entertaining. Seems fine by me. Hey, alcohol and cigs are legal and bad for us, but as grown adults we can choose to endulge or pass. I choose to indulge in poker. I think my only moral duty at the table is to play within the rules.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you failed to quote the part of my original post which addressed this. Sure, you are providing an opponent for people who want to play poker. But they'd be just as happy to play against a bad opponent. I'd pay more to watch a good athlete, or a good actor, but by being a good poker player you are not bringing anything extra to the table.

[Easy E]

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hehe, opps.

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But I'll give you clever points and say this was intentional

[baggins]

[ QUOTE ]
anyway, to the original poster: why are you rambling? what made you think this post was significant or relevant or needed? you did a horrible job of applying the concepts of your argument to the original question, which you posed. you set yourself up and still failed to deliver

I can't decide if this is to me, or the original poster- So i will assume (after rereading my post) that i very well could be to me, and answer.
I had difficulty collecting my thoughts as i had a fantastic date that ended not long before i posted, Ain't it wierd how being happy can make it impossible to concerntrate while being mildly depressed is very condusive to creativity and constructive thought.
Here's to being distracted for as long as possible

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good for you man. seriously. glad to hear it.

but what on earth about my post could make you think i could possibly have been referring to you?

[tolbiny]

"but what on earth about my post could make you think i could possibly have been referring to you?"

I am very happy, and therefore slightly paranoid right now. When i am miserable i ain't paranoind at all. Also i just wanted to tell everyone i got me a woman, its been like 3 years since the last time i was really excited to say that.

'course its only been three dates... but F it, im gonna be happy.

[Blarg]

I responded after reading only down to the place I quoted below, then saw you that as you expanded your argument, you actually incorporated my objections(which are the common objections to the bit of quoted logic below) as to your faulty premise detailed below. There was a bit of schizophrenia here!

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Taking money from someone is harming them

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Incorrect building block in your argument there, so you can't come to a correct conclusion.

First, plenty of people just play recreationally and don't care if they lose. And play at levels where it doesn't matter if they lose. People are not necessarily always harmed whether they win or not.

Second, if they are losing, nobody has greater control over their money than they do. Especially since poker is a game wherein study can make a huge difference in your ability to turn a profit, playing anything less than a good game is either to be expected while building your skills or something you accept and take full responsibility for, or both. Either way, assigning blame to someone other than the losing player is a way of diverting it from where it belongs. You can't dodge the bullet or the blame on losing poker.

Third, if people are both losing and being harmed because of it, there are two valid arguments that both lessen the moral impact of that on anyone else involved. A) someone definitely will take the money if I don't, and B) people on a downward path to personal harm or self-destruction are not helped by postponing and prolonging the shock to their system it takes to get them to wise up and change their life, but often helped by getting to that rock bottom shock point as quickly as possibly so they can make a friend of reality instead of denial as soon as possible and get on with rebuilding their lives. It's better for someone to be, say, a maniac for four months instead of four years. At the end of four months, he might still have a family, a job, and plenty of hope and future left. Enabling someone's doom to go easy on them so their decline just drags out forever could mean they've got nothing left inside to come back with or nothing left or have had time to completely ruin their lives and have nothing to come back to.

So to sum up, if there is blame to be assigned at all, which is not necessarily the case, first of all it should go squarely on the shoulders of the person who chooses to potentially harm himself; and secondly, the harm that comes to that person is inevitable, and it is probably preferable that it comes harshly and as soon as possible to shock the person perpetrating his own doom upon himself back to reality quickly, before greater harm is done.

[ohiou]

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First, let's separate communism from the nationalist (USSR, China, etc.) and despotic (Cuba) governments that call themselves communist.


Agreed, especially in a conversation that centers on "ethics". One must separate theory and practice for this type of discussion.

BTW: I can't believe I even responded to this in the first place as if the initial post was somehow groundbreaking or thought provoking