What good are we? As poker players, are we socially responsible?

Hi and thank you for the replies. Let me start off by saying that the last thing that my original post was intended to do was attack somebody or argue against playing, so there is no need for anybody's defense mechanisms to kick in and to get personal. I also play and I was just trying to hopefully spark a discussion...

Here is my reply to adsman and the poster before him. I don't think my definition of what is of "value" to society is simplistic. I personally understand something that is of value to society as something that adds more to the well being (spelling???) of society than it takes away. You mention a musician: a musician creates music that might be of value to somebody else who might pay money to hear it. In any case, by creating some music, the musician doesn't hurt another in any way (creating music is certainly not a zero sum or a negative sum game as poker). Or you mention guys who work in finance: They provide a service (be it financial advice or whatever) that is of value of others. By providing their financial services they facilitate many benifitial activities (be it to manage risk or to create a market for a certain transaction; I mean you wouldn't be a able to lease a car if there wasn't a bank to approve your lease or an insurace company to insure your car and so on....) Again, whatever the case is, people in finance (in general) do not hurt anybody by providing their services [Of course there are exceptions like George Soros supposedly profiting from the Asian financial crisis, but in general the benefits that financial markets provide outweigh the harm they cause by a large margin]... These are just specific cases.

This is how understand simple economics: people/agents, whatever you want to call them, have different preferences and therefore place different value on goods and services. That is why usually when a voluntary transaction takes place, both sides benefit or at least they are indifferent. An example with a person who works at a coal was given. You work at a coal mine and are a part of organization that produces a good/service that is of value to somebody else. Same with musicians, hedge managers, whatever....

Is it the same with poker? I wouldn't say so. I am not discovering hot water here by saying that in order for you to win money at poker, somebody else needs to lose. Do you provide any good or service for the money you have won? No, unless you count the "entertainment/recreation" you provide to the other guy by taking his money. During a play of a hand, is anything that is of any value created? In general, how would describe an activity (I would even call it just a transaction) during which 90+% of the people involved are left worse off so that the rest can profit benefitial to society? [The argument that there are many other situations in life that are not fair, doesn't make poker any more or less socially responsible. It sounds more like making an excuse or trying to avoid responsibility for doing something that you know is "wrong" by claiming that others are doing it too. Only people who don't have any alternatives have SOME right to make that argument]

Anyways, these are just thoughts that have been going through my head lately. As much as I like poker, I cannot deny the fact that I am doing it purely for my own entertainment and benefit with a certain disregards for other people's well being. Or am I wrong?

Bate

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If the majority of players are gaining nothing from playing poker, why do they keep coming back?

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If they didn't gain ANYTHING, EVERY time they played- they WOULDN'T come back.

But they do gain and lose on a "random" basis. So the carrot is repeatedly dangled in front of their face.

That is why they come back: "Maybe this time I'll win".

Can you think of ANY other activity that has such high rewards for such a "simple" concept? No wonder it is so appealing.

I personally have no problem with poker. I am not a winning player yet. I have no problem with people winning money off me at the micros. I am studying hard to change that around.

My bottom line on the debate:
-Poker is about selfish gain from other people
But on the flip side....
-Everyone has their own free will and option to play or not.

I am fed up with the ever growing culture of "Diminishing Personal Responsibility".

If people didn't want to partake (in gambling), Vegas wouldn't exist as it does today.

People will ALWAYS look for "get rich quick" schemes in life.

Ian

[suntsu69]

bate nasko pederas. bulgaria is not a third world country.

What obligation do we have to be socially productive or to do things that are "socially beneficial"?

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What obligation do we have to be socially productive or to do things that are "socially beneficial"?

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None.

But then, who IS going to do it?

It's not simplistic, your rebuttal is simplistic.

In all your examples, those people are providing something of value to someone else.

Musicians provide entertainment.
Someone working the Stock Market obviously does something that people use (people use the Stock Market).

In any example you are likely going to try to come up with think about this? Is someone using or depending on that person for something? YES!!! That's the value.

Musicians are the best example because they wouldnt exist if nobody wanted them. When's the last time you saw people running around wanting to lose some money from a winning poker player? What's the value in that?

Im not saying poker is evil or anything either or there is anything wrong with doing it for a living. But if you try to make it out like it's a job or that you are providing some value to society, you're not. (whether that matters to you or not is up to you of course)

The only troubling aspect is we have tons of 18-20 somethings that are spending time in college and probally have zero job experience that try to switch to playing poker full time.

If they are successful at it, of course it's going to seem hard to bother finishing school and getting any other sort of job since they can make money (at least in the short term) so much easier and faster by playing poker.

That could be bad because when people are that age that's when you really start to figure out who you are and what you really are about. A lot of them probally never even had a job (because Mommy and Daddy pay for everything) so they dont even really know if they would like a real job or not (even though they will claim that they couldnt stand a regular job).

I think it has to do with why people work and what their ambitions are. If you are the sort of person who merely would of had a job just for the sake of making money, then probally playing poker is going to be a lot more acceptable than the guy who works not just for the money but because that's part of who he is.

You are right that spending money provides value to someone, but that's true with any job. But the work that you do (and it is work, just not a real job), provides nothing to anyone.

I could rob banks for a living and spend the money as well and I could use the same arguement about the spending part adding value to society. As well as producing work for security firms, law enforcement, etc...

[b33nz]

Poker is just another gambling game that's mostly played for recreation. What's different from it is that it can be beaten and you can make alot of money doing it. So of course people are going to try to take advantage of that, myself included.

Asking this question can be applied to gambling in general... what good is gambling other than losing your money and having fun? It doesn't produce anything and it doesnt help anybody (except the casino and maybe the people that win)... But the same could be said for poker, too.

[A_C_Slater]

"There's more to "value" than just producing things you can physically touch"



Yup. In fact, all physical products of society are the things that are worthless to man. Will man take these things into the afterlife? It's better to assume there is one than to assume there isn't. If there isn't one then you lose nothing. But if there is one, and you haven't prepared for it during life than that is highly -EV.

Nothing teaches detachment and self control better than poker. Which would you have rather accumulated throughout your life when faced with the moment of your death? A big house, a Mercedes, providing society with televisons because you manufacture televisions? Or would you rather have accumulated a life time of detachment and ruthless self control?

I know that everyone that plays poker won't become detached and try to learn how to play in a +EV manner and it will destroy some lives. But that's just another victory for Darwinism. They simply failed to evolve. When faced with death they will simply resort to what they have their whole lives. They will indulge in self pity and ask "why me? why do I have to die?" Which is totally insane, because everyone has to die, just like everyone else has to take bad beats. There's no sense indulging in your self pity about it, because it is inevitable. A man that is totally removed of pity will be better prepared to die than one to whom self pity is a central focus.

My perspective is as follows. Anything that prepares one to face the unknown is "good" and anything that detracts or demphasizes the unknown in the place of immediate gratification of the here and now is "bad."





"The meaning of life is to prerpare for death." --Plato

[skunkworks]

A friend and I have discussed this matter on several occasions. The closest comparison to the poker-playing profession that he came up with is being a stock market daytrader. We decided that as a daytrader, your usefulness is basically limited to providing liquidity to the market. As a poker player, you provide entertainment.

I think the comparison is quite fair, as both games are negative sum games. Either way, whether it's liquidity to the market or entertainment value for others, we decided that they are both pretty poor ways to BS your usefulness to society.

No offense to daytraders and poker players, of course. My friend is currently trying to make it as a daytrader, and thanks to poker I can type this out on my 20" LCD.

Sometimes you need to find meaning in your full-time profession; that's why I manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination.

[I am fish]

A winning poker player is like a casino. The owners of the casino are looking to make a profit, and the people playing at the casino are looking for entertainment. Nothing wrong with that, the casino is providing a service.