Soft play vs. gambling addicts

[Aytumious]

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Coming onto a poker site and bashing the players with your petty arguments is quite pathetic.

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Trying to make a living through non-productive work and by preying on people with mental illnesses is beyond pathetic and subhuman.

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Why don't you answer my initial question? Should I not take the drunkards money since he may be an alcoholic? Also, what percentage of the populace does "productive" work, as you call it?

[IShark]

If you can't answer your own questions you are pretty hopeless. Bye!

[Aytumious]

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If you can't answer your own questions you are pretty hopeless. Bye!

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Great response. Keep up the truly noble quest of trolling as the beacon of morality.

[IShark]

And you keep telling yourself that anyone who does not beleive that pro poker players are earning their money in an ethical sense is just a troll. No one really thinks that. Keep telling yourself that enough times that you beleive it. Hang out on this board and get other pros to tell you the same thing if you still don't beleive it yourself. Maybe if enough pros says to themselves and each other enough times it will magically make it true.

[Aytumious]

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And you keep telling yourself that anyone who does not beleive that pro poker players are earning their money in an ethical sense is just a troll. No one really thinks that. Keep telling yourself that enough times that you beleive it. Hang out on this board and get other pros to tell you the same thing if you still don't beleive it yourself. Maybe if enough pros says to themselves and each other enough times it will magically make it true.

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Quite frankly, I do not care whether other people think my mode of living is ethical. For the most part, poker is a level playing field: if you are skilled, you win, if you are not, you lose. In that regard, I think it is actually quite beautiful. I would think many others here agree.

My main point in posting something in response to you was the fact that you were equating taking money from a troubled gambler to stealing from a schizophrenic. Conning money from schizophrenics is probably considered criminal; do you think playing poker and occasionally taking money from gambling addicts is criminal?

[LuvDemNutz]

There is nothing wrong with the strong taking from the weak. It happens everywhere in life and in nature.

Besides, I don't think these people feel bad for me when they hit runner runner miracle cards to take my stack.

[IShark]

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There is nothing wrong with the strong taking from the weak. It happens everywhere in life and in nature.


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The problem is that the strong are so much stronger than the weak and that we must design society to protect the weak.

Otherwise the strong gain an advantage over the weak, and are able to exploit it more and more easily to widen the gap. Anyone who plays strategy games (like Age of Empires) knows that there are these turning points after which your slightly weaker opponent is basically hosed. The strength gap then grows at a geometric rate.

In society this manifests itself in anti-trust laws and public education and such. Without laws to protect the weak, things quickly degenerate to unacceptable concentrations of power.

Professional poker players think they are "strong" just because of the wimpy opposition they make a point of putting themselves up against.

If you extended their self-proclaimed "live and let die" philosophy to all of society they would be all be serfs in a feudal system.

Pro poker players are not the strong in our society. They are just lucky that our society is more tolerant of their weakness than they are the weaknesses of their opponents.

[IShark]

As even easier counter-example: by your reasoning there would be nothing wrong with 20 year old thug (the strong) whapping an 80 year lady (the weak) over the head taking her purse, right?

How about people think for about 30 seconds to try and thinking up counter examples to their own ridiculous statements, so I don't have to do it for them?

[revots33]

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In society this manifests itself in anti-trust laws and public education and such. Without laws to protect the weak, things quickly degenerate to unacceptable concentrations of power.


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There's no anti-trust laws in poker.

The object of poker is to take as much of your opponents' money as possible. Everyone knows this when they sit down. I feel sorry for people with a gambling problem, and I'd rather they didn't sit at my table - but I'll take their money if they choose to try and take mine.

[revots33]

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As even easier counter-example: by your reasoning there would be nothing wrong with 20 year old thug (the strong) whapping an 80 year lady (the weak) over the head taking her purse, right?

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No offense, but your analogies are ridiculous.