"Good" in terms of profit, yes, but that's not the sort of "good" I'm talking about. I'm talking about good in terms of human well-being, and while that tends to coincide with economic profit, it can deviate quite a bit (a hugely profitable crystal meth company would be an example of this). Not all production is good in terms of human well-being. Free markets are not the end all; they're a valuable economic tool but can be used incorrectly as well.



I've taken several econ classes, thank you very much, and once again I never said to "ban entertainment," although I can see how it's convenient for you to pretend I said that so that you can give me a cookie cutter response in return.

The poker industry is a business and part of the entertainment industry, yes. Businesses create wealth and jobs, yes. That wealth can be put in savings, yes. But here is what you're not getting: Not all forms of entertainment are equally conducive to human flourishing. And to assume they all are is a form of blatant intellectual dishonesty that is all too prevalent on these forums. I'm not nitpicking between the less harmful forms (movies, sports, social gatherings, etc.) as it's tough to draw meaningful conclusions about them at this point. But are we really going to pretend that gambling, binge drinking, drug use, etc. are "just entertainment" like anything else and the societal impact from those activities is no different than from any other activities? Please.


And it's not arrogant at all to dictate what someone else should value. If suffering is bad, then any time anyone values something that objectively causes unnecessary human suffering, they are wrong to value that. Again, to show you why this can easily be the case, I'll use an extreme example. If you find entertainment value stabbing me and then raping my family in front of me while I bleed to death, is it so arrogant anymore for me to tell you what you shouldn't value? How about if you value building a nuclear bomb or spreading anthrax to as many people as you can? The freedom to value what we want is only good in so far as our values coincide to some degree. And they mostly do; we're all human. None of us want to suffer, and the things that lead to individual suffering are generally the same for everyone.

define: human flourishing

define: entertainment value stabbing?

What do you mean by "good"?

Are your really comparing the entertainment value in playing poker to the entertainment value in building a nuclear bomb? Brah, we just wanna drink and chill out... not drink, build a bomb, and blow up the entire county.

So entertainment is all the same, huh? If I have $750,000,000 to burn on entertainment, and I find it entertaining to use that money to buy oil to dump in as many bodies of water as I can and build a nuclear bomb to drop wherever I please, it's the same as spending that money just to vacation all over the world?

Logic fail.

Zimbabwe $s or American $s... Post need clarification for your point to make sense.
&
Why do you keep talking about building nuclear bombs?

Black Friday was the best thing to happen for online poker. Long term. If you dispute this you are just as shady as Howard Lederer.

Human flourishing is basically having brain states that give way to happiness, fulfillment, self-esteem, joy, love, self respect, good friendships, security/trust, contentment, peace/tranquility, self-improving behavior, sense of purpose/self worth, positive social climate, etc.




Not sure what's hard to grasp about someone being entertained by stabbing someone; this is rare but if a psychopath did in fact value this then there's no reason we should respect his values.

"Good" means generally conducive to human flourishing. We don't necessarily know what's optimal, but we can define good things by things we know are "less good" with respect to human flourishing.

and why cant one accomplish this from poker?

Winning players can and probably for the most part do. But it comes at the expense of people that will experience basically the opposite, whereas other forms of entertainment don't. Sitting at a poker table is an investment, and when a good player sits down, he gives a degenerate gambler a chance to gamble his money away. For addicts, this opens the door for the possibility of extreme suffering. Casinos and the gaming industry in general are much more guilty in this sense than poker players of course.

Poker players are smart people, at least in some sense. It takes above average analytical skills to be a winning player, and even more than that if you want to crush the games. There are jobs that players with these skills would almost certainly succeed at that don't encourage others to wreck their lives.

And profits is reflective on something - that demand is being met. As for drugs being unhealthy - no kidding. But it shouldn't be up to government to dictate how to live one's life. Coercion is not the means. In fact, giving government this role is dangerous, as politicians do not make rational decisions, rather political ones. Marijuna is illegal, yet cigarettes and alcohol are much dangerous. Playing midstakes poker online is illegal, yet futures/stocks/forex are much more dangerous. Please don't let government decide what is best for the people. When it comes to laws (unrelated to life, liberty or property), government is not a care taker! I know myself best, I am my best care taker.

And I covered the effects to society of legalizing drugs earlier in this thread (and no, I don't use illegal drugs, if it helps my tone be unbiased):

"How many people do you know would start shooting up heroin tomorrow if it were legalized?

And there are many benefits associated with legalizing drugs. First, you eliminate the monopoly gangs and cartels have on the drug market. By eliminating their market share, you eliminate their revenues and therefore power, and therefore the violence. By eliminating the local monopolies, you reduce drug prices, and therefore addicts will no longer resort to theft and violence to fulfill their addiction, rather they will be more willing to work. You also increase employment and tax revenue. You also allocate our government and police force to pursue true crimes (i.e crimes that include a victim), such as rape, theft and murder, and you decrease the size of government, which means less taxes. And lastly, when if they're legalized, there will be competition on quality and be regulated; therefore be safer.

That being said, where do you stop? Do we ban trading in our financial markets? Futures (and I'm sure stocks as well) are a zero-sum games, just like poker. People lose tens to hundreds of thousands in the markets, which is not even close to how much a typical fish loses in poker. "

I never said you said ban entertainment. Again, you said poker is a transfer of wealth, I said many people just play for entertainment. By your "transfer of wealth" logic, going to the movies is a loss of wealth. Clearly a ridiculous claim.

Lol what? As long as I'm not infringing on anyone's life, liberty or property, I shouldn't be coerced into living my life a particular way. Government is not my creator.

Then why are you worried about some distorted transfer of wealth and exploitation of the "dumb"...?

The fact that cigarettes and alcohol are legal and marijuana illegal is a great example of terrible policy; I never said I agree with the government on anything although people have twisted my posts to make it seem like I'm a communist.

Suffering is terrible. Public policy should seek to minimize it. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

As for your question, "where do you stop?" You stop when the policy is causing more suffering than it prevents. Over-regulation or total regulation, as in communism, results in shortages and starvation. Clearly that is bad. Markets are good and generally yield powerful economies, but when left unregulated they can also result in major problems. There is an optimal point (and in some sectors that point could very well be no policy at all, although it's rare).

But if gambling addiction is rampant within financial markets, total freedom there is clearly not a good thing. Zero-sum games should be avoided if at all possible. Stocks are not zero-sum, and options and derivatives markets are zero-sum but serve a valuable function in financial markets when used properly, so I wouldn't classify them in the same category as poker.

No, it's not a ridiculous claim at all; both forms of entertainment are transfers of wealth, but one runs a much greater risk of causing extreme suffering (lives ruined due to gambling addiction). So one transfer of wealth is clearly worse than the other.

This is an old idea that was great at the time, but since then we've learned a lot about psychology, biology, sociology, economics, and most importantly, human brains.

I meant "good poker players are smart people" (I don't consider losing players poker players, I consider them gamblers) and I'm not worried. I'm just saying we'd be better off in general if we didn't severely exploit people needlessly.

so should we ban ALL forms of gambling? Or are some worse then others, in your loose opinion?

Not necessarily. I don't even know that we should ban gambling at all. The possibility of black markets complicates things quite a bit. But the logic behind the decision of whether or not to put a policy in place should be based on everything we know, scientifically, about what will lead to better outcomes on the continuum of human well-being. It should take into consideration everything we know to be true about human psychology and behavioral economics.

It won't though. It will be based on someone's religious doctrine or their political or ideological dogma or some other crap that has nothing to do with reality. Hence non-violent marijuana users are put in prison.

Exactly. Forget about the libertarian philosophy, terrible policy is a likely consequence of giving government the role of being your daddy (which btw was what I was saying intitially).

So by this logic legalizing online poker/gambling is good. ~1% of the population are pathological gamblers, so stripping the rights of the 99% would be overregulation, correct?

And poker serves as a valuable function by creating jobs. Estimates state that poker can create up to 50k jobs, I know people that would kill for those extra jobs at this time. Not to mention it would give people personal liberty and a source of recreation in their lives (you do view responsible gambling as good right?)

Slightly irrelevant, but this needs to be explained.

Futures and options are zero sum because both have an expiration, but stocks too must be liquidated at some point, and profits cannot come from thin air.