Quote:
Originally Posted by zachvac
Literally everyone in poker is hurt from good intelligent people choosing to play poker money-wise, and society loses whenever intelligent people who could pursue things that actually make the world a better place focus their talents on poker. That's nothing against her and no one has any obligation to do anything other than what helps them the most and makes them the happiest. But the human race certainly loses when intelligent people who could succeed in industries that have a demand for talent (they weren't giving her 500k for kicks, she was clearly providing a lot of value) instead choose to play a negative sum game for a living. Her playing poker hopefully helps herself, her friends, and her family. But beyond that having an intelligent person choose poker as a profession is a pretty bad result for literally everyone else.
I agree with the sentiment that it is bad for the world when people who have the abilities to make significant benefits for society choose instead to pursue poker. However, that said, many "poker players" have used their flexible schedules to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities, that presumably benefitted many people beyond themselves. And furthermore, I find this to be more a problem with society than with the person, who is simply choosing their optimal decision given the available career options. Most jobs are just not conducive for fulfillment for creative types of people who value life and schedule flexibility. For a lot of jobs you go in for 10+ hours every day and have a cubicle and boss assigning you tasks.
What would really be great is if a lot of people at "high-value" jobs all quit to go play poker. And eventually the companies would realize that they are losing out on great talent, and maybe if they can somehow make the working conditions more flexible they can retain the talent. I'd love to see society as a whole reach an "equilibrium" where people can have relatively flexible schedules -- can work from home 3 days/week, can take time off to play key poker events, etc. If we get to this point, then people won't have to choose completely between being a pro poker player or doing job X; they can live a good flexible schedule that involves making an impact with job X and also a good amount of time for poker (or whatever other activity one could want to do).
On a side node, as someone who is currently balancing poker with a "real job," I found myself extremely sad that I couldn't play the Borgata ME (Day 2 was a Monday), and that I can't play the upcoming SHR WPT finale (Day 2 is Monday).
I really hope that in the future we achieve an "equilibrium" state where it is possible for people to have jobs that benefit the world while also living the flexible lifestyles they crave.