Put it on red like a boss!

Lol, never played roulette before, doubt I will start today.

Have you guys ever actually looked up the definition of "evil"? It's pretty frickin' bad, whereas you see selfish behavior from nearly everyone around you everyday. Playing poker and trying to take money from other people is pretty damn selfish, but I don't consider myself evil.

e·vil
ˈēvəl/
adjective
adjective: evil

1.
profoundly immoral and malevolent.
"his evil deeds"
synonyms: wicked, bad, wrong, immoral, sinful, foul, vile, dishonorable, corrupt, iniquitous, depraved, reprobate, villainous, nefarious, vicious, malicious; malevolent, sinister, demonic, devilish, diabolical, fiendish, dark;
monstrous, shocking, despicable, atrocious, heinous, odious, contemptible, horrible, execrable;
informallowdown, dirty

That's absurd, the universe is amoral.

I just realized that it's not depression that we are facing in this world, it's stupidity. If we can cure that, then we will have cured depression. So I take back what I said about not needing to help people who are depressed.

I'm not religious, but I like the definition given here:

https://www.gotquestions.org/definition-of-evil.html

Sure, the universe is amoral, but I consider evil to be the lack of good, and there is lots of evil in this amoral universe.

If we actually cured stupidity but nothing else changed, more people would be depressed. But then maybe there would eventually be less in the world to be depressed about.

Evil is actually pretty good.

I'm a metalhead but I love Interpol's first two albums so much.

People seem pretty selfish to me. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al. Everyone saying "Look at me, look at me!". To the point where people think the Vegas shooter was weird because he wasn't on all those narcissistic sites.

People in 4/8 fold aces full of jacks for 1 big bet? Maybe I need to visit CAZ even though I can't stand Phoenix.

Every once in a while, Saturday Night Live gets something exactly right. Last night the show opened with Jason Aldean singing the late, great Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RRCbVBCRBE

+1

I mean, really. If you're a Christian and believe anything not in God's perfect plan is evil or a Buddhist and believe eating meat is evil, I guess, yeah, the world is full of evil.

Selfishness is part of humanity but so is charity. Either by evolution or by design we make really helpless babies. Bones going back thousands of years show people with serious wounds which healed for years after injury.

"Seven million people all wanting to live together. New York City must be the friendliest place on Earth!" (Crocodile Dundee)

even the cops are friendly in NYC!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1WEowGA68k

YAY Chillrob got room share!

YAY he didn't report back with exact figures though!

The ubiquity of a behavior does not serve as a moral justification. One might say that you're using bad behavior to justify bad behavior.

This is an interesting use of the word "selfish." If a bunch of people get together and jointly decide to play a game with each other, I consider that more social than selfish. I don't see this as being primarily about one's own pleasure or the neglect of others.

Nobody is claiming that there is no good anywhere, but charity is the surprise and selfishness is the standard.

Because I still haven't gotten paid and don't know how much yet!

After about 30 minutes we got back to playing, but after 90 minutes no one had yet been paid, and someone said it could be a few more hours until then, but I could come back another day to pick up the money, so I headed out.

Did you get some sort of receipt?

I put my name and ID info on a piece of paper they passed around. I double checked I could pick it up later with the floor people, and several regulars who had been there for past jackpots left as well, so it all seems legit.

I wasn't talking about everyone else, most people at the table are playing for fun, but serious players (presumably the people reading this thread) are playing to win money. Unless you're playing for social reasons?

You guys seem to equate "evil" with "selfish", which is totally ridiculous since they have different definitions. Evil is not a synonym for selfish.

self·ish
ˈselfiSH/
adjective
adjective: selfish

(of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.

These definitions are coming from google.

You can't do two things at once?

This is a fundamental misreading, and a quite poor one at that. "Selfish" is a subset of "evil." I don't think anyone is equating the two. Being selfish is but one way to be evil.

If you're going to insist that you can take a sliver of a definition and bold it in an attempt to make a point, I really can't stop you. But if the best you've got is to highlight a part of a definition without taking into consideration the whole of the definition presented, I guess there's little that we can discuss meaningfully. A partial definition is not a good definition.

Notice that Merriam-Webster has a very particular clause in its definitions (well, at least the relevant ones -- though the genetics one takes its cue from the other usages and has a similar element to it) that is also present in the definition you provided above. Ignore that at your own peril.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/selfish

I stand by my claim that selfishness is an evil characteristic of humans.

The world is not a sea of evil with few pockets of good. What you are seeing is the world is a sea of selfishness with few pockets of unselfishness. Which is what I wrote in my first post on this topic.

Because what % of people are evil? Like < 5%. 95% are selfish, but probably < 5% are actually evil. Please re-read the definition of evil again.

I highlighted the part that showed that poker players trying to win money are selfish. I don't think we are disagreeing on that point.

Anyway, if you want to say we are living in a sea of evil and that evil is the constant, that's great, and it's pointless to waste any more time on debating that. It's unfortunate, but hopefully you are just using your own definition of the term and don't actually believe it.

I’ve never equated selfish with evil, and I’m only one of those things.

Feel free to list all of the negative human characteristics you would like and avoid using the word evil. The reality still stands.

Trying to create a binary labeling for humans (selfish/unselfish, good/evil) is a different type of mistake.

I've read the definition of evil, and I still consent to my statement. Human behavior, when viewed as a whole, is profoundly immoral. Selfishness is profoundly immoral. The failure to take others into consideration is profoundly immoral.

This does not claim that any particular person is or is not good/evil or that any particular person is incapable of either type of behavior. It does not deny that there are good things that happen in the world.

Evil is constant, and it's a pleasant surprise and relief when good is found.

I pointed out the other definitions to show that you're using the dictionary incorrectly. You cannot take a sliver of a definition and try to apply it. That's not how language works. If that piece were isolated on its own, then it would represent that it's a usage that carries that very specific meaning. But when combined as part of a larger definition, the whole context of the definition matters.

Edit: To elaborate a bit -- I don't deny that there exist pokers that are selfish. But to argue that playing to win is necessarily selfish seems to deny a significant element of the game. The game is many things to many people. If you're only at the table for profit, and you simply do not care at all about the other people at the table, then I agree that the player is acting selfishly. But if you're playing to win, but you have consideration for others at the table then it's less clear that you're selfish. And the "personal profit" clause doesn't really fit.

One way to think about this is to think about the "chief concern" at the poker table. If poker were not interesting, I think most of the people in this forum would not play poker. So the "chief concern" probably isn't simply to make profit, but to have an enjoyable time playing the game. Yes, profit is part of the motive, but it's probably not the "chief concern."

Probably depends on which girl you ask.

'Good' and 'Evil' do not exist in nature as far as we know. The reason for the qualifier is that there is a radical proposal as to the nature of consciousness and if we care to really take things far 'Good' and 'Evil' may actually exist. But not for now. Humans, absent the extreme cases - which don't even include ISIS thinking it's good to behead people and we here on 2+2 thinking it's evil - don't necessarily agree to the definition of either one and conduct themselves accordingly.

One of you fellows ought to start an SMP thread. Perhaps DougL will ask Zeno if it's OK to just break out these series of posts and do it. You'll all be better off for it if you want to keep this up.