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

[ QUOTE ]
the people playing at the casino are looking for entertainment.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, the army of blue-rinse OAP's pumping coins into the slots from dusk 'til dawn look like they're having a ball! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Ian

[I am fish]

People have to take personal responsibility like in anything else. You can drink alcohol for fun, but it can be abused. That doesn't make drinking alcohol wrong on the whole.

[Greg J]

Many of us give money to charity occasionally. Plus it helps with the bills. I don't fool myself by telling myself that I'm somehow making the world a better place by playing poker though. I'm not that self delusional.

[ QUOTE ]
People have to take personal responsibility like in anything else. You can drink alcohol for fun, but it can be abused. That doesn't make drinking alcohol wrong on the whole.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry to say we have moved on from that into the era of the "Blame Culture".

I don't have to be responsible for anything- it is somebody's elses fault and I'm going to sue 'em!

I know.... it's really sad. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Ian

[ QUOTE ]
People have to take personal responsibility like in anything else. You can drink alcohol for fun, but it can be abused. That doesn't make drinking alcohol wrong on the whole.

[/ QUOTE ]

I tend to agree with this for the most part. Most people who have gambling addiction, it is not so much the casino's fault, as it is human nature's. Addiction is addiction, one that is often attributed to compulsive behavior. If these people weren't pumping the slots full from morning to night, the chances are high that the little old blue-haired lady with her hand on the lever would likely be sitting home with her credit card out buying meaningless item after item on the Home Shopping Network, or sitting at the Royal Legion on her 8th draft telling tales of yesteryear, or, or...Point is, if the compulsive nature is there, the vessel for it is soon to arrive.

Unfortunately gambling is a vessel. I don't like to see it, but if Ma Kettle isn't spending her pension cheque on a stool pulling a lever, it is almost a guarantee it will be happening elsewhere.

[Nightwish]

[ QUOTE ]
Or am I wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, you are wrong. The problem is that you still don't understand "value," and the examples you cited only serve to underscore that fact. Let's zero in on the financial markets.

You talked about a bank providing car loans or a guy providing financial advice. It's easy to see "benefit" to society in those services. But the examples I wanted you to think about are fairly different. So, let's just talk about a sale of stock. One party is selling the stock, the other party is buying it. However, over some fixed time span, the stock is going to either rise or fall. So either the buyer or the seller is going to end up worse off if we just look at the price of the stock. So is stock trading an example of taking advantage of people? (It's not, but I want you to think about a more complicated example and come up with reasons why it's not evil.) More generally, hedge funds and many financial institutions make their money off arbitrage. That is, they make money -- and lots of it! -- by exploiting inefficiencies in the financial system. Are they evil? Are they taking advantage of people?

These examples in many ways are fairly close to poker. Once you realize how and why these are not "zero value" or "negative value" activities with respect to society, you should also be able to extrapolate the same for poker.

suntsu69 is right. Bulgaria is not a third world country. I guess it is more correct to label it as a developing one (which is a more broad category that includes some of the third world countries but excludes the ones with most underdeveloped economies). As much I hate to admit it, that is the truth. How else would you classify en economy in which the average monthly salary is about $200-250 (that is including the rural and not just the urban areas) and prices are converging to the EU averages? I won't go into GDP figures and other economic indicators, cause I don't know the latest numbers...

For those of you that do not know, which is understandable, Bulgaria is a small and beautiful Eastern European country with rich history and traditions. It has a booming tourist industry and its economy is definitely on the rise. The country is scheduled to join the EU in 2007... Take my word for it, I am voluntarily going back to live there after spending a few years in the States [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

PS suntsu69, pm me if you want to get in touch. By the way, did you call yourself after the author of The Art of War? Isn't his name spelled Sun Tzu with a z? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] [haha, dai da ne se obijdame i narichame pederasi; prati mi chastno suobshtenie ako iskash. upseh s pokera]

[James282]

You aren't the first person to arrive at this idea, and you won't be the last. Poker players don't contribute a lot to society while they are performing their job, but neither do most people. Most people do the job that they can make the most money that requires them to do the least amount of work while still doing something they can basically tolerate. A very small percentage of people do something that is greatly fulfilling to them - some of these people make good money but most make almost nothing(relatively speaking). To me, I am less impressed by someone who has led their life as a veritable cog in the machine but who does something seemingly worthwhile than by someone who is doing what they want and enjoying life. For example, people who fail or give up along some career path and "settle" for becoming a teacher are contributing less to the general good than someone who passionately pursues poker and succeeds. The person who passionately pursues teaching trumps both of these people as far as contribution based solely on his profession, but the poker player has a chance to contribute more greatly than the teacher outside of his job because of the things he can effect with his capital if he chooses to do so. The bottom line is, a poker player has just as much chance to "contribute to society" as anybody - if only because their is so much time left in the day once work is over.
-James

[DcifrThs]

i donate a small relative portion of my take from poker to charities. while the relative portion is small to me it makes a big difference to the charities.

latest is $500 to charity on behalf of a friend whose mother recently passed away. i also did it anonymously so as to make it a true mitzvah.

i feel these donations, which i make anywhere from 2-5 times a year are enough to cover my degenerate a.ss

seriously though, if you dont want to be "useless", give some of the money to those that need it and/or can put it to use to benefit the rest of humanity.

Barron

[CORed]

If my opponents at the poker table feel that I am providing them nothing of value for the money I win from them, all they have to do is quit losing to me (quit playing or learn to play better). Poker is not productive. Neither are movies, the NFL, the NBA, Masjor League Baseball, or television. There are people in all of those industries making a lot more money than I am playing poker.