^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What a brilliant, balanced post.

It's a tough one, REG's and other player donator's stance comes across as consequentialist and their own version of rationality.

But as you suggested one might also argue that deontological ethics are a factor in a significant number of addicted gamblers and addicted and/or losing poker players who could be playing the game without the full and proper knowledge or realisation that the odds due to a negative skill edge against the field plus rake/juice are so heavily stacked against them.

(In UK dogracing punters unknowingly back dogs within a 125% overround book. Deontological.)

First paragraph misses what I'm saying, it's not intra tournament it's afterwards the 3% of prize money leaves the poker economy.

You're right, it is great for the image of the game, you might call it the "British Royal Family Effect", a bunch of non elected freeloaders whose ancestors executed their subjects at the drop of a hat and killed their own relatives to usurp power....... but they do bring in a lot of tourism money to the economy.

And no I'm not comparing the evil days gone by British royals to poker players, I am just coining a phrase.

98% saw your "issue" as a non-issue or voted the obvious, only 2% voted that there was any real issue.

When 27% of the voters polled who voted , for you to "f*** off," I think you have to be delusional to read those votes as accepting your views/presentation/or whatever. They voted for SD to "f*** off", spin that however you believe, but it's pretty clear.

I think Alec Torelli would out poll you at this point.

I agree that likely most of the 27% are really in the, "It is a good thing camp". But you shouldn't be so dismissive of the 13% who voted "some poker donators are doing it for vanity".

The 2% who share my (likely) view is very low but I think would rise significantly if people were to witness or take part in this or other discussions on the matter and the way it's developing.

I have shifted some of my viewpoints since my first post, based on the great, valid, interesting and educational posts that people including yourself have posted.

Looked up Peter Singer, listened to McAskill, segments only (because I have to watch Doug Polk vids as a priority obv)

But seriously, their ethos regarding making a better world is utilitarianism. Hard to call utilitarianism bad but one could argue it is a "middle class (UK class) coffee shop" solution to the worlds ills, ignoring damage v repair considerations.

Also could be a slippery slope towards eugenics.

Playing Devil's Advocate again, would it not be more effective (utilitarian) for donations to fund mercenaries to overthrow corrupt dictatorships that should but are not providing water/medicine/mosquito nets in third world countries?

Fair enough .... for every post of mine you read hereafter, please donate 1 GBP to the local charity for reformed hookers or some other cause you can find which will take your filthy lucre.

I am grateful for your post because what it's done has flushed out of my brain the word that needed to come out, elitist.

Having now read a lot about utilitarianism and the group of philosophers and intellectuals behind it, I think it has some elitist traits.

A sometimes weakness of philosophy and philosophers is that they can reach theory based conclusions, assigning them near 100% certainty such that they are also certain that their application must be correct. But it isn't always.

They become policy architects believing their drawings (conclusions) guarantee a perfect or best possible building (policy).

What I learned in this thread is that some polls have a margin of error of 73%.

Also that Sage votes on his own polls twice

What if I told you I don't believe in charity?

Great to see such discussions happening here!

We do indeed largely subscribe to a consequentialist bend of morality and thus mainly look at the consequences of a given action. If a poker pro gives to charity, they have already made this money. So we'd argue that at that point it's better they donate the sum to an effective charity than spend it for themselves. However, if the donation leads to more people taking up poker - or problem gambling in particular - this would of course pose a more difficult ethical question. However, we believe this connection to be tenuous.

The answer might also be different if somebody is considering taking up poker in order to donate to charity. To the extent that they have comparable other options, that might be better.

In any case, we'd argue that the motivations of somebody who donates matter less then the difference they make in people's lives. They might matter for the assessment of their character but less for the particular action. Something can still be good if done for bad reasons / by a bad person. However, by talking to the people who do donate large amounts of money, we never got the sense they just wanted to rid themselves of a bad conscience. Most of them were driven by genuine compassion for others.

We have also previously posted on the question whether one should give publicly. If we want to encourage more donations, it clearly makes sense to talk about one's giving. If we can create a norm of altruistic behavior, we can have an even bigger impact than just with a single donation. Therefore, we'd ask people not to criticize people for talking about their giving - unless one has very good reason to do so.

For those who are interested in some longer replies to this, we have published on these questions in the past:
- https://reg-charity.org/the-effects-...ociety-part-i/
- https://reg-charity.org/the-effects-...ciety-part-ii/
- https://reg-charity.org/the-effects-...iety-part-iii/
- https://reg-charity.org/fuzzies-negreanu/
- https://reg-charity.org/giving-publi...onation-drive/

Publicising charity does not make it cease to be charity. Sometimes people publicise because they believe it will encourage others to donate and so leverage the original donations. Sometimes they publicise because it makes them feel better about themselves - is that so bad? Sometimes there are selfish motives such as advancing their business interests but even then there is still a charitable benefit from their actions.

I think you are conflating two separate issues. I don't know anyone who plays poker in order to give to charity. People play poker for various reasons and some of them also decide to donate to charity. You can argue about the ethics of playing poker, whether it should be banned, controlled etc, but that is a separate topic from whether it is good/bad that winners donate to charity. i.e. :
On the first question [People playing poker] there are certainly ethical issues and there is certainly a seedy side of poker which sits alongside the entertainment, distraction, socialisation and fun it provides to many. However, on balance you don't seem to think poker is inherently bad ... What is you're underlying beef with the second issue [people giving to charity]?


Here you introduce a third, separate, issue around effective altruism. I happen to support the principles of effective altruism and think it's ridiculous to associate it with utilitarianism extremes but whether people give based on effective altruism or other (eg deontological) principles doesn't inform the question of whether poker players should give to charity.

I don't see how this approach to moral decision-making should be considered 'elitist' or 'coffee shop', any more than any other approach.

Agreed, but I don't know anybody who has taken up poker on this basis.

Fantastic that REG have joined the thread. I do admire them a lot but clearly I am also raising some issues. Also tremendous that radialot who I know the whole poker community has huge respect for has joined the discussion.

I am restricted to 100 words per post, which is my own fault for historically being too long winded, so I will have to reply to the many separate points made by REG and radialot on some separate posts.

It's not a valid argument IMO to say that because someone didn't take up poker with a specific part of their goal being to also raise money for charity that it therefore makes any ethical considerations regarding the donations void.

It's like saying the ethics argument is equally void if an organised crime family who formed in 1968, grew very large and only started to donate to charity in 1986.

I am not drawing a comparison between the two groups' career behaviour and morals, just demonstrating the timing of when the decision is made to donate is irrelevant to ethics.

I'm currently reading through the links above and will respond to their points later or tomorrow as I have loads of regular work to do.

Where's Dan Coleman in a thread when you need him?

I was totally unaware that he had posted this in 2013 http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=2552
until 5 minutes ago when I saw it linked within one of REG's links above.

Just so I'm clear, donating money you win playing poker is bad. Taking money out of the poker economy is bad. But playing poker is ok?

The ethics of donating money from poker is irrelevant. If it is unethical to donate from a source, then the source it's self is unethical. It doesn't become more or less ethical based on if you're a winning player. Either the person or the source of income have to be immoral

Hates poker player, spends hours on poker forum

I'm waiting to learn if taking money out of the poker economy to pay rent and feed your kids is as immoral as giving the money to charity. What about spending poker money at Nobu or on Lambos, hookers and blow?

Blow so is out. Weed is in

Is it immoral to donate my winnings to single, working mothers and organic farmers?

Next though I bet he tells us there's something immoral with hookers.

Spot on. A thread debating the ethics of playing poker would make some sense, but I think it's been done a few times here before. And I suppose a thread debating the ethics of a charity accepting money from poker players might have some merit, although I'm not sure it belongs in NVG. But a thread debating the ethics of a poker player donating money to a charity seems, well, pretty silly.

Since OP has stated that he doesn't hate poker players, I have to assume that you have somehow managed to take gregorio's post seriously (or this is a joke I'm not getting). You may want to reread it, examining it carefully for signs of sarcasm.

If you truly believe this then I assume that you also think that no line exists beyond which the means by which money is obtained creates an ethical issue that might concern you.

E.g. would it matter to you if proceeds of crime are donated to charity, or are you of the view that, "well the money exists anyway, so if a people trafficker, hit man, or thief wants to donate it then the charity should happily accept it because the money being in the hands of the charity improves the world".

Before I unpick REG's conclusions contained on the links they recently posted stating that the ethics of poker winnings being donated to charity are of minimal consideration, I want to first say that regardless of one's views of the philosophy REG subscribes to that underpins their operation, that them achieving so much good requires enormous character, determination, humanity, dedication, hard work and frankly balls.

Most of us including me do not have all of these qualities to the extent that REG's founders do.

I didn't see him making any ethical judgements in the portion you quoted - he was pointing out the distinct issues.

You need to decide what it is you want to discuss; what you've mentioned in this post is quite different from what is in the OP. What you're now talking about are the ethics of a charity accepting donations from morally dubious sources. Probably a more sensible topic than the one in your OP, but not quite so suitable for NVG.

I respectfully disagree. Is it ethical that it is given?, is it ethical that it is received? are both part of the same question.

It's all related to my OP stating there is not normally a loser in the equation. I picked 3 clearly undesirable occupations to use as examples, in the case of a thief there's clearly a loser, people trafficking similarly as those trafficked are being over charged for something that's also illegal. Hitman okay it doesn't totally fit in a pure sense.

Furthermore, REG's response and links specifically relate to the concept in my reply to radialot.