I forget the exact stats on it, but gambling addiction is especially destructive to people’s lives even compared with other major addictions. Also, on a petty treat-fiend note, it has made sports so much fucking shittier.
Also, on a petty treat-fiend note, it has made sports so much fucking shittier.
Any restrictions on the treats whatsover is wrong and bad because Prohibition and everything can be compared to Prohibition so regulations bad in general. I am very leftist.
I’m glad I dont know a single thing about sports so I can’t be tricked into blowing all my cash on the Buccs
there’s a good (extremely bleak) trueanon on this ep 209 , also they recommended a book that sounds great addiction by design haven’t read but on my list a while
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Lmao, I just started listening to this and they immediately compare it to legalizing heroin and giving control of the heroin industry to tobacco companies, with the implication that that would obviously be incredibly bad.
Turns out half the people in this thread think that that’s a great idea actually.
It’s a lot less than half, judging by the upvotes. Still, didn’t expect this to be controversial at all.
Yeah, that was a bit of an exaggeration, I think I was just shocked a bit by how much pushback “giant particularly evil capitalist enterprise bad” got
I got a lot of shit for talking about treatbrain before, but I am going to keep talking about it because that shit stops any attempt to improve society somewhat before it can even start.
See how much mass rejection there was for covid restrictions once treats felt too inconvenient to access? That reactive effect could doom us all, nonjokingly.
I don’t really see much “treatbrain” here, I doubt many people here enjoy sports gambling, or gambling in general. I think it’s just that, somewhat understandably, the failure of the war on drugs in the US has made most western leftists hyper-libertarian on vice regulation. It’s an attitude I’ve seen a lot even with otherwise smart comrades. Decades of people getting thrown in jail for possessing a small amount of marijuana kinda does that to people.
I doubt many people here enjoy sports gambling, or gambling in general.
Why doubt it?
Is there some specific inoculation present in the people on Hexbear that makes them less likely to gamble or to become addicted to gambling, particularly from addiction-intended phone apps?
I never see people here talk about it. Unlike other “treats”. If they were defending it out of personal enjoyment I’d expect people to cite that more rather than argue more from an ideological libertarian point of view.
I’m not going to lie, I’ve been very anti treatbrain rhetoric in the past but I think this thread has broken me of that. I’m genuinely unsure how we got to this point, never expected so many Hexbear to defend DraftKings like this
I’m genuinely unsure how we got to this point, never expected so many Hexbear to defend DraftKings like this
It’s a simple but powerful motivational force: they got theirs. That’s all there is to it. The sports betting app went beepbeep, pleasure centers of the brain activated, defensive tendencies engaged if the source of pleasure is criticized.
Many such cases.
EDIT: Or, maybe, it’s just some ideological puritanism that requires no restrictions on absolutely any treats because of dae le Prohibition bad.
Oh my God then they started talking about self-identified socialists now having a libertarian streak and thinking restrictions on people’s actions by a Nanny State are bad.
citations needed don’t miss
Oh my God then they started talking about self-identified socialists now having a libertarian streak and thinking restrictions on people’s actions by a Nanny State are bad.
Many such cases, including on Hexbear. Fucks’ sake, I once had an ugly prolonged knock-down drag-out posting fight with some asshole that insisted they absolutely needed their two-stroke gas powered leaf blower and gave me the full arsenal of “no veggies for dinner, no bedtimes” selfish bullshit talking points all the while.
Yeah, just it felt like deja vu listening to it. It’s like they used a time machine to read this thread before recording their intro.
legalizing it is fine IMO, it’s probably better than black market gambling. but the ads being everywhere is terrible. advertising cigarettes on tv is illegal, should be the same for gambling
Death to America
libertarian brain claims another victim
it’s so prevalent in american leftists lol
haven’t watched the video, but right now in Brazil legalized sports gambling is such a menace that its driving a substantial portion of the poorest into debt. influencer driven online scams are one thing, but sports gambling goes to the heart of what little community we have left via sports.
Marketing should be punishable by death
For profit sports betting operations should absolutely not be legal. Gambling on your smart phone, which is already an addicting dopamine machine, should absolutely not be legal.
I don’t gamble and am actively repulsed by how it’s being pushed as hip and cool. That said, I’m surprised by the hardline abolition stances in here. Drugs (including alcohol) are surely far more corrosive to people’s wellbeing, but no one on here is arguing for prohibition, right?
The opioid epidemic has made a lot of people, myself included, skeptical of anti-prohibition. Turns out pushing something underground often does have the effect of making it more expensive and inconvenient to access. There some study I can’t find now, but it claimed legalizing prostitution actually increased human trafficking because now traffickers could mask their operations as legal sex work opening them up to new clientele they normally wouldn’t have access to. I suspect there’s a lot of men who would be going to brothels regularly if it was as easy as going to 7/11 but don’t want to go to the bad side of town to pick up a sex workers who could be a cop doing a sting.
Same with drugs, going from a system where you had to import raw opium from Afghanistan or wherever to the west via camel and make shift submarine, then process and distribute it clandestinely, made being a heroin addict and expensive pain in the ass. Now you can buy pills made semi-legally in a factory in Mexico that some guy got prescribed to him by a shady Floridian doctor for a broken ankle he had 10 years ago.
Prohibition didn’t work for weed and booze cuz both of those are things easy to make and distribute even when they’re illegal, plus they’re both easier to consume, and even abuse, while being a functional member do society. I think there are vices thought where you could reduce the consumption and abuse of just by making it a big fucking pain in the ass to get access to and gambling I think is one of them.
There some study I can’t find now, but it claimed legalizing prostitution actually increased human trafficking because now traffickers could mask their operations as legal sex work opening them up to new clientele they normally wouldn’t have access to.
That’s interesting—on the other hand, I know of one case where the shuttering of a sex work website due to human trafficking charges (which Kamala Harris lead the charge on, as it happens) actually made a lot of sex workers feel less safe. Article here.
It’s not quite the same concept, but thought it was worth mentioning.
And yeah I think making gambling less accessible and less visible is good. But then, shouldn’t we also do the same for alcohol and drugs, just up to the point where it’s still easier to get them legally than illegally?
But then, shouldn’t we also do the same for alcohol and drugs
Thing is we kind of already do. There’s a ton of regulations regarding the sale and advertisement of alcohol and tobacco, many of which are the product of activism by anti-smoking and temperance movements.
Idk how I feel about gambling personally, but you don’t really have to take a hardline prohibitionist or libertarian stance on these things. I suppose one could make the argument that adults should have the right to gamble responsibly, but like you can also think regulations against problem gambling are good.
Edit: also…
on the other hand, I know of one case where the shuttering of a sex work website due to human trafficking charges (which Kamala Harris lead the charge on, as it happens) actually made a lot of sex workers feel less safe.
So I don’t really have time right now to delve deep into that article, but I kind of suspect they were interviewing adult, independent sex workers who are in the profession mostly voluntarily. Not that their experience and concerns aren’t valid but I do feel like I see a lot of pro-legalization arguments coming from that crowd and I think it’s worth considering their experiences as sex workers is nothing like most women in the industry. They’re independent and working in a lucrative industry on their own terms, often in semi-legal niches often for wealthier clientele. I think some people in that world fail to realize legalizing full service prostitution is essentially opening the doors for it to be industrialized which like likely lead to what is essentially sex-trafficking-in-all-but-name.
I suppose one could make the argument that adults should have the right to gamble responsibly, but like you can also think regulations against problem gambling are good.
That’s largely where I’m at, I was just surprised by how hardline people are regarding it on here.
On the article there are some people like you mention (“Jenny, a sex worker who also runs a nude housework business in Seattle”) but also the first person they mention is someone who turned to sex work after getting kicked out of their parent’s house at 18. And later there’s this:
Pike Long, the deputy director of St. James Infirmary, a health and safety clinic for sex workers in the city, told me the clinic estimates the number of sex workers now doing street work in San Francisco alone has tripled since Craigslist’s personals section and BackPage went offline.
I"m not super educated on sex work but I"m assuming street work is going to be much more dangerous than the web stuff
I think dangerous drugs should be prohibited.
You think drugs should just be freely available to the public? All of them? You wouldn’t prohibit meth? Heroin? Cocaine?
Are we talking about prohibition or restriction? I fully support restrictions on dangerous drugs, but hasn’t it been consistently shown that outlawing vices entirely doesn’t stop their consumption and just makes it more dangerous (especially for poor people)?
If we’re basing this off danger, then alcohol is the much more immediate concern given how easily available and culturally accepted it is while still being quite bad for you
outlawing vices entirely doesn’t stop their consumption and just makes it more dangerous (especially for poor people)?
We’re in a thread about how legalizing sports betting is driving poor people further into poverty. The idea that legalization is inherently harm reduction is completely divorced from reality.
i agree its a total false equivalence here drugs and gambling are in fact different and one is a lot easier to stop people doing in harmful ways
You think drugs should just be freely available to the public?
I do. A lot of the danger of drugs is mitigated by quality control and education.
Fentanyl and OxyContin seem to suggest otherwise
In the United States we have an opioid epidemic fueled by quality controlled, regulated drugs given out by medical professionals in spite of generally widespread knowledge that opioids are dangerous and addictive.
I think that a lot of people say stuff like what you’re claiming, but I don’t really buy it.
it’s the same thing as prison abolition where secretly it’s not really that. I consider myself a drug liberationist but you can’t just let people kill themselves with heroin or take antibiotics whenever. there would still need to be mechanisms of control oversight and intervention. ultimately the goal is to transcend the need for these vices of course.
Why are opioids dangerous? And why do people get addictes? Its not because of their availability
Aside from causing permanent brain damage?
Because they impair your judgement and kill you if you take too much which you could easily do do if your judgement is impaired?
Also, yes it fucking is because of the availability. The reason it became a massive epidemic is that every other doctor in the country became a drug dealer for dangerous recreational drugs.
you take too much
See my previous comment
Also, yes it fucking is because of the availability. The reason it became a massive epidemic is that every other doctor in the country became a drug dealer for dangerous recreational drugs.
And why were they doing this? Because the drugs were available or because it was profitable?
They did it because people came to them and asked for it. Making them over the counter would make this vastly vastly worse in every way.
See my previous comment
I don’t follow. Are you saying that if people understand the dangers of overdosing they’ll quit doing it? Because if so I think you’re ignoring the impaired judgement.
And why were they doing this? Because the drugs were available or because it was profitable?
The drugs are available because they’re profitable. Giving them to anyone who asks for free won’t make them safer.
I respect that! At least it’s consistent
only idealists scream for consistency in everything. embrace living in contradictions and struggling with them
I’m averse to gray areas and inconsistency to a fault, so maybe that’s part of why I feel so differently here.
For me there should be no abolition, but what has happened is a few predatory companies given free rein to exploit vulnerable people. There were offshore bookies and stuff before, but the level of exploitation (through advertising on mainstream sports networks, not to mention online ads) is unreal and definitely created this problem.
And it’s crazy how it all sprang up like mushrooms too. Banning ads like they did with cigarettes would help but the cat is already somewhat out of the bag for people who have gotten hooked
And the sheer money in favor of keeping it legalized. It would be difficult to overturn
in a true utopian vision there would be little to no want for any of these things. I agree drug prohibition sucks but prohibition of drugs is different to prohibition of gambling. it’s hard to stop people making bathtub moonshine. gambling prohibition is harm reduction if done right because a small wager between friends is relatively harmless + ideally in socialism or whatever your buddy won’t be set up to take 10 grand bets off you and all your friends on the game. I’m largely a drug liberationist too but you need some control or at least oversight + intervention mechanisms. and I still believe in a utopian vision where all those vices will be more or less transcended. in end stage communism there will not be liquor stores where you can buy 2 litres of vodka at 4am, that’s harmful. I’m an alcoholic so maybe I do have contradictory views on this but I just deeply believe it’s a societal ill same as gambling. other drugs it’s more of a case by case basis. largely they are still bad, this is a lesson the left should have learned since the 1960s. but again in communism ideally people aren’t feeling the need to get strung out on heroin that shit is a palliative for living in capitalism. so when it comes to drugs it’s more of a utopian transcending the thing but gambling could be effectively tamped down under socialism. even under capitalism it’s probs better if it’s outlawed tbh. sorry it’s unstructured and probably repeated myself just typed my thoughts up very fast.
No your perspective is really helpful actually. Definitely agree on both being societal ills. I’ve just started working around a bunch of people going through really hard times w/ drugs and have my own unresolved childhood trauma related to it, so this has been slowly creeping up on me for the past couple months.
I just see the harm it causes people everyday and then people seem to just kinda dismiss it as unimportant versus gambling. That’s an uncharitable representation of that opinion but it’s the way it came across to me.
If I ever run into someone that’s an absolutist for “let people enjoy things” thought terminating cliches, I am quite likely to point toward sports gambling the way Spongebob pointed at all the dirty diapers hidden around and outside the house.
My response to that is “well I enjoy being a hater”.
I often say “let people criticize things” or remind them that the webcomic maker who first said “let people enjoy things” decided that comic was a mistake.
Rare Adam Ellis W
Of all the bad shit Temer (who came to power after Dilma’s coup) did in Brazil, legalizing sports betting without any kind of regulation is probably the worst.
Any economic gain Brazil had after COVID have been funneled out to those sites. Can only hope Lula do something about it soon.
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“Everyone person should have the right to make a bad deal for themselves” is the logic of the Lochner court decisions. They said the government shouldn’t stop anyone who chooses to work in a hazardous workplace, or sign a contract that says you won’t join a union or choose to put their 12 year old children to work in mines.
Our laws have to protect people, otherwise we’re just doing libertarianism.
Our laws should protect people from doing harm to others. I couldn’t care less if someone wants to smoke themselves to death. I care a lot if that person is near me blowing second-hand smoke at my face!
oh ok lets get rid of labor laws, since I signed a contract agreeing to the risk of harm for the money. It’s all part of the voluntary exchange and I don’t want no nanny state government telling me I can’t sell myself into contract slavery! It’s my body!
Talk about going to extremes.
I don’t want a government telling me who I can marry, what bathroom I have to use, whether I can own a gun, whether I can drink or not, etc. You people aren’t listening to what I’m saying. I was very clear that I want government to stop people from harming others.
You can keep missing the point and post about “muh voluntary contract” but that’s not at all the same thing. Of course those should be outlawed… they cause harm to people. I want to get rid of Capitalism completely, but I’m not a fucking prude who is going into a UAW meeting telling people they can’t blow $5 on DraftKings this Sunday.
it’s following your logic to its ends. If I have the right to drink myself to death then I also have the right to sell my body into slavery right?
Talk about going to extremes.
Three minutes before this post you said that since people here disagree with you, you’re going to kill yourself.
Please, first of all, if that wasn’t an empty threat, don’t do that over Hexbear.
But also please get some perspective here.
I couldn’t care less if someone wants to smoke themselves to death.
do you really truly believe this? would you say this about your parents or loved ones if they were smoking a pack a day and had emphysema and lung cancer? You wouldn’t stage any kind of intervention to try and get them to quit and get them help? If they kept smoking, you wouldn’t take their cigarettes away from them?
I extend the care that I feel towards my immediate loved ones to society at large. I am deeply saddened by deaths of despair, of millions of people killing themselves slowly with alcohol, tobacco and opiates. I don’t think it’s right to let them die without trying to help, just like I don’t think it would be right to let someone you notice struggling to swim drown right next to you. We have obligations to love and help each other, and I would never let a loved one drink themselves to death if I could help it, so why would I let my fellow humanity do it just because I don’t personally know them?
Libertarianism, individualism and voluntarism that you espouse completely ignores human interconnectivity and our obligations and duties. It pretends there is no obligation or duty to society.
Libertarianism, individualism and voluntarism that you espouse completely ignores human interconnectivity and our obligations and duties. It pretends there is no obligation or duty to society.
That user doesn’t care, because sports gambling app treats are more important than human suffering.
I couldn’t care less
Apathy is the death of political movements and what a petty reason to commit to apathy: fucking techbro-powered gambling apps.
Our laws should protect people from doing harm to others.
And that is exactly fucking why sports gambling apps pushed by massive corporations should be banned and you’re too treatbrained to accept that!
Not all harm in our society is simple one-on-one “I swing my arm and strike your face” harm. We live in a complex social order where all actions taken interact with the broader world. There are a lot of behaviors that don’t cause direct immediate harm to others but cause a degrading effect on society at large when enough people are doing it.
I think we have a fundamental disagreement with the way society should be. I want to protect people from predatory companies and won’t elevate the individual rights of people to gamble over the welfare of all.
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Who said they want to control everything you do? We’re talking about sports gambling
The sports gambling app treats have no negative effect on consumers, which is why that user is so defensive against criticism of the gambling app treats that the proposal of banning them was presented as an act of a tyrannical nanny state that wishes for that user’s demise.
I don’t want a state to tell me what I can and can’t do with my personal life as long as I’m not doing harm to anyone else.
Here’s why this take is wrong. Gambling is never a “I’m not doing harm to anyone else” situation. Gambling is always a material relationship between 2 people or more people. You may feel like gambling is a personal situation because of alienation, but it is not. If you are playing a slot machine for example, you are in a material relationship with the slot machine owner. In this situation, the slot machine owner has a power advantage over you and is exploiting you. In cases of sportsbetting or card games, you are doing material transfers between people over arbitrary terms and the casino owner is always taking a cut. Gambling is always harming someone else. If you win at gambling, it is because you harmed someone else. If you lose at gambling, then it is because someone else harmed you.
To go further into why into why gambling is an exploitative relationship. Gambling is a transfer of unearned value. Money is a representation of value. Value comes from performing labor. When you are a proletarian and sell your labor, you are receiving money (a material representation of value) in exchange for your labor, usually the money you receive is worth less than the value of labor you performed. When you gamble, you are not doing any labor (you are not producing anything) but you are potentially receiving money. You receive money from speculation. In selling your labor, you receive value equal or less than the value you produce with labor. In gambling, you receive value for producing no value. This is the same reason why the bourgeoisie is a parasitic class, because they extract value without producing value.
This pretty much answers the thread right here
alcohol and gambling are indisputable societal ills and should be phased out in any kind of utopian vision. this is just libertarianism
and at the very least, until they are fully phased out, could be subjected to harm reduction measures (eg mandatory riboflavin supplementation in all alcoholic drinks, severe limits on advertisement of gambling apps, time spent gambling, elimination of gambling-adjacent features in children’s games among others)
are you even a socialist? if you can’t reduce social ills what is even the point of your ideology? some half-baked individualist “i can do nothing all day”?
Wtf is my alcoholic gambling addict brother supposed to do? Pull himself up by his personal responsibility and yeet his phone, tv, and internet into the sun?
Because those things are full of fucking predatory gambling app advertisements.
Heaven forbid someone likes sports and tries to stop gambling too considering every ad break during sports games is for a betting app
Hell I’ve seen them plastered over subways and other places, so even touching grass won’t help
Gambling delenda est
Gambling seriously ruined sports too.
Tried watching sports center for the first time in years. Used to be they’d cover all the football games then all the baseball games then all the golf that happened etc.
Now it’s just jumping around from random game to random game as the hosts go through their bets, all of which are stupid parlays that they’d never make money on if they weren’t getting paid to natively advertise it.
Instead of talking about if one teams strong offense is gonna be enough to overcome another teams defense that’s been really hot lately it’s a discussion about if some random player is going to get more or less than 4 3 pointers during odd numbered minutes of the 4th quarter.
This sounds like libertarianism
My views put me somewhere between a Marxist-Leninist and Libertarian Socialist. I want the masses to own the means of production, and a state that enables people more than it restricts them. Longer reasoning coming.
When you combine idealism with materialist communism all you get is a philosophical abomination
Join the club. I’ve been called an “abomination” all my life :)
Join the club. I’ve been called an “abomination” all my life :)
If almost everyone in a leftist community thinks you’re being a selfish asshole, maybe you’re not some sort of martyr and actually you’re just being a selfish asshole and no amount of irony poisoning is hiding that.
would you like a little help getting up on that cross?
No, I mean you sound like you are a member of the Libertarian Party in the US.
There is no Marxist-Leninist party in the world that wants completely uncontrolled vices, what the fuck?
Like casinos/lotteries/now sports betting are some of the most predatory forms of capitalism known to man, you aren’t even a socialist if you want them deregulated.
You’re to the right of a typical Democrat
That’s not true at all. I’m to the left of everyone in my community except maybe the 2 Ultras I know.
that wants completely uncontrolled vices
That’s a gross misrepresentation of where I stand.
Someone mentioned a father of three becoming a gambling addict. Of course I don’t support that, and frankly I expect better of folks here than to jump into arguments like that. In that particular case I want the state to intervene for child endangerment leaning towards child abuse.
But just because some people become addicted to a thing, and a few people ruin their lives over the thing, doesn’t mean the government should force all of us to avoid the thing. For every addict or idiot who blows up their account and has to sell their home, there’s millions of people who are enjoying gambling for what it is supposed to be: entertainment. Most people are putting $20 in on their bets or slots or whatever and not expecting to win anything but get some fun out of the deal.
Someone else explained how gambling is exploitative. Yes it is! So is everything under Capitalism! Cheap immigrant labor was exploited so a grocer can profit off selling me the tomatoes they picked. The supply chain of Funko Pops is probably some Dickensian nightmare of injection molds and chemical compounds that makes Flint, MI water look safe to drink. I am typing this on a device that probably contains metals mined by kids in the congo. There’s NO ethical consumption under Capitalism! Why would I single out one type of consumption when the whole damn system is rotten?
I also don’t support banning the sale of Funko Pops, produce, cars, or laptop computers.
Capitalism is essentially a world-wide open-air prison. You can’t escape it, you can’t opt out, and if you try to fight it you get punished or killed. Borders are the walls and the “free market” is the prison guard. You have to conform to survive. There’s no option to not work, to not gamble your money for “retirement”, to gamble with your health, and to make a million little decisions that you wouldn’t take if you weren’t coerced to participate in this system. This system is bullshit. I want to destroy it
As a member of the LGBT community, I really don’t want the state to have any more power over me. It’s the right wing that wants to regulate what people do with their lives, whether that’s telling women they can’t control their own bodies, telling drag queens they can’t be near kids, telling trans people in general they can’t exist, telling me I can’t marry another human with a penis, etc. I’m not in favor of a state like this because my entire life has been under a “nanny” state that restricts everything I do.
It baffles me that as leftists we claim to want to liberate the masses, and then turn around and get very paternal about a few specific things like gambling, drugs, etc. I would think us of all people would understand wanting to be left alone! I want to be left alone! I want a state that leaves people alone!
Maybe a state where the people have complete control will be different, but I do NOT ever want to allow unelected bureaucrats to have power over my body, my family, and my friends’ lives the way the U.S. has control over those right now.
Someone mentioned a father of three becoming a gambling addict. Of course I don’t support that, and frankly I expect better of folks here than to jump into arguments like that. In that particular case I want the state to intervene for child endangerment leaning towards child abuse.
Just want to point out that you don’t want the state to have power over you by banning your gambling treats, but you are fine with the state having the power to take away the children of gambling addicts.
But just because some people become addicted to a thing, and a few people ruin their lives over the thing,
It’s not a few we’re talking about the systemic robbery of the working class by Draft Kings and their ilk
doesn’t mean the government should force all of us to avoid the thing.
For every addict or idiot who blows up their account and has to sell their home, there’s millions of people who are enjoying gambling for what it is supposed to be: entertainment.
Millions!? Are you fucking kidding me, where did this ratio come from?
There’s NO ethical consumption under Capitalism! Why would I single out one type of consumption when the whole damn system is rotten?
Capitalism is bad everywhere so nothing is worse than anything else. I can actually do whatever the fuck I want. Since jaywalking is also a crime it makes no sense to jail someone longer for murder. Everything is flat! Tomatoes and the fucking Mafia are equal! I’m on a smart phone so I’m as bad as the goddamn Sackler family who should be allowed to keep up their drug operation because everything is equally bad!
“nanny” state
you sound like my racist uncle
baffles me that as leftists
“leftist” is a wobbly meaningless word that lets radlibs pretend to be revolutionary. Hexbear is a communist community. Communist communist communist. I’m a commie.
we claim to want to liberate the masses, and then turn around and get very paternal about a few specific things like gambling, drugs, etc.
I’m extremely pro laws and rules and restrictions if they’re in the interest of the working class. Banning sports betting apps is clearly in the interest of the working class.
I would think us of all people would understand wanting to be left alone! I want to be left alone! I want a state that leaves people alone!
I don’t share your sentiment and think you should change your display name to Ron Paul.
Maybe a state where the people have complete control will be different, but I do NOT ever want to allow unelected bureaucrats to have power over my body, my family, and my friends’ lives the way the U.S. has control over those right now.
Did one of your friends or family members found DraftKings or something?
Banning sports betting apps is clearly in the interest of the working class.
No, it’s your personal opinion of what the working class wants. We need to operate in reality, and the reality is demand is there for all of these betting apps and millions of people to be using them every day.
I don’t do it personally, it’s not for me, but that’s not the point. A good communist should go to the masses and build a program based on what they want, not what you think they want
I don’t need a libertarian to tell me what a good communist would do.
Who do you think the working class consists of?
That some people would buy something does not mean the proletariat as a bloc supports it. Very many people think sports gambling on this digital industrial scale is absolutely fucked, and from a democratic standpoint, if the majority believe that, the thing to do is ban it. Moreover, even among the 19% of Americans who use these apps (and not all of them are devotees, mind), a meaningful portion of them are there because of advertising glamorizing the apps, and a fair portion are still there because they are addicts, i.e. it’s not a choice being made freely. It seems like an obvious measure to present the options of banning or re-legalizing it with a discussion on things like gambling addiction.
As an aside, I am once again asking you to read Mao: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm#g9 . Once workers are given power, it is entirely possible for them to take action against the gambling that has troubled their community under the dictatorship of the owning class.
Based on limited information, I don’t like all of the measures described there, but I think it’s unquestionably superior to the previous state of things because what is lost were some cultural affectations and hobbies, and what was gained was freedom from both psychological and chemical addictions, along with food security, safety from banditry, lower rent, political representation, etc.
One other point: I think pushing to ban things like gambling or alcohol is BAD political strategy! I want a working class movement to overthrow the current U.S. system. We need this movement badly. The last thing the movement needs is to split or fracture because some people want to be nosy about how other people choose to spend their after-bills money. The fact is the left isn’t growing at the rate it needs to, and we should take a long look at why. I don’t believe any tendency has the complete picture. Try something different.
It’s not politically consistent to say on one hand we should liberate the workers from the chains of capitalism, but then turn around and go, “no smoking, no drinking, no casinos, no gacha mechanics in video games, etc.” Right-wingers take away peoples’ choices. You win people over by protecting their treats, protecting their choices, and trusting them to live authentic lives. Even if that means doing things you personally don’t approve of! If you’re not hurting someone else and you are taking care of yourself, go blow that $50 on slots! Go buy that $300 Funko, or blow that money on a new XboxStation 6, whatever. Have fun, I don’t care!
One last thing: Where does the “vice” label come from anyway? Why are some activities labeled “vices” and others are not? I have a feeling there’s a religious component behind this. I hate that religion has made so many people poke and prod into other people’s personal lives. It’s none of your business what’s in my pants, or how I dress, or what I want to do in my free time. I’m sick and tired of Christians and other religious types always trying to force their lifestyle on me! Leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone.
One last thing: Where does the “vice” label come from anyway?
I’m no longer convinced you’re even a leftist. You sound a lot more like a South Park libertarian that wants unlimited and unfettered access to treats and takes a paradoxically sanctimonious idealistic moral stance against any attempt to improve society somewhat or reduce human suffering if it even slightly inconveniences you.
I don’t think you even belong here and you should get the fuck out and find a Reddit community that will congratulate you for your very brave “fuck you, got mine” positions on the issues.
Casinos and gacha mechanics are the fucking embodiment of capitalism, of course I’d want to liberate people from that
Also smoking and drinking are very bad for your health and it’s a state’s duty to protect its people from dangers to their health
It’s a take indistinguishable from reactionary “fuck you, got mine” takes.
For some people, it’s acceptable, even desirable, for countless other people they will never meet to suffer just because they got theirs and enjoy the sports betting treats with their ubermensch powers of restraint and moderation.
What’s absurd to me is that it’s not like you couldn’t bet on sports before, you just had to have some buddies at work, or a sibling who or something who was interested.
That doesn’t allow for the quantity of gambling necessary to immiserate people en masse though.
Also all that income was untaxed now they cut in the government it’s fully legalized.
Which also contributed to it draining income from the community.
If you and your brother in law trade the same 20 bucks back and forth over a few years of 2 person bets then all you did was make the game more exciting. If you did the same but gave a quarter of that to the US government to buy bombs and tanks for the local police department then you could be hundreds or thousands in the hole each after a few years.
So when a father of 3 with a wife gambles away the house, it’s just his problem right?
Why ban gambling when you can just create conditions where its not possible to ruin your life by gambling. Like can’t gamble away your house if its community managed. Cannot impoverish ‘your’ kids if they’re not dependent on a nuclear family.
why ban gambling when you can press the big red communism button
No shit I want a world in which those conditions don’t exist, why do you think I’m on this website?
OK well you can’t ban gambling without pressing the buton either (see current conditions) Banning things is a ham fishted non solution.
Meeting and guaranteeing peoples basic necessities would render this conversation moot and is easily achievable
Basic necessities include protection from gambling
What the fuck would people be gambling in this hypothetical society? M&M? I don’t think the government current breaks up retirees player poker for pennies in their spare time.
Your close to understanding then. Gambling exists because of capitalism just as Engle’s outlined about prostitution. You can’t ban capitalism you can’t ban gambling you can’t ban prostitution you can only create the conditions in which it doesn’t exist.
Well that’s not totally true you can ban these things but only in the contest of expanding enforcement mechanisms.
Obviously it’s not just his problem. However, that would hold the same if it was to fuel his drinking habit, but we don’t propose banning alcohol because of that, right?
And I just suddenly remembered that there are some people who say that Prohibition wasn’t even done to curb alcoholism as a social vice but to prevent workers from organizing. The idea is that workers fraternize in bars and pubs after work, which would lead to a degree of class consciousness and organizing, so by banning alcohol, it was a way of destroying a third space for workers to fraternize with one another. Browsing the Wikipedia article on Prohibition shows that rich people were largely unaffected by Prohibition because they quickly hoarded large quantities of alcohol in preparation for Prohibition and had the means and land necessary to set up their own personal production of alcohol.
I’d never heard that angle before—outside of general “morals” stuff the only other lens I’ve seen was newly enfranchised women trying to stop their abusive husbands from getting ridiculously drunk all the time
America did have a large problem with alcoholism at the time and needed some sort of intervention. The problem is with how it was implemented, with the feds deliberately poisoning batches of alcohol to trace where it went and mobs gaining control of everything. There was a way to get help for the huge portion of society that were antisocial violent and abusive drunkards without throwing them in jails or driving them into the arms of the mob.
Yeah I was reading more and apparently prohibition did have some good effects with reducing illness and death from alcohol
ok now i’m completely, idealistically invested in prohibition
People don’t propose banning alcohol because a previous attempt to ban alcohol led to failure. The problem is that some people are extrapolating a single attempt to ban alcohol into some general law about how prohibition will always be doomed to failure. An easy counterexample is when the PRC banned opium. During the Century of Humiliation, huge swaths of the population were addicted to opium, so when the CPC seized power and proclaimed the People’s Republic of China, they banned opium because they saw opium as a social vice wrought by Western imperialists. And when opium was banned, the percentage of the population that were addicted to opium plummeted to the point where opium addiction ceased to be a social vice.
We have yet another example in a giant pile of examples of something leading to failure when the USians did it but leading to success when the Chinese did it. This is “China good US bad” trumping “prohibition will never work.” Instead of clinging on the false idea that prohibition never works, we ought to analyze why the CPC was successful in eradicating opium addiction while the US failed in its attempt at banning alcohol.
I do think that the substances have important differences on top of the competency gap between countries.
One of these is made from one plant, often imported. The other can be made by anyone with a waterproof container and literally any plant.
The one that’s easier to make is also ingrained in society as a way to form bonds with ones fellows by letting your guard down in a social environment, while the other basically removed you from society so the number and type of person who’s going to resist the prohibition is very different.
Yes, there’s that aspect as well. Alcohol is just a byproduct of a biological process. Banning alcohol is on par with banning plants or banning compost. Likewise, banning marijuana is a fool’s errant because cannabis is a hardy plant that’s easy to grow. It’s like trying to ban an invasive species. Once you move to stuff like cocaine or heroin, it becomes easier to target them because they are synthetic products that have chemical precursors. You don’t even have to ban the actual drug but instead target the precursors required to manufacture the drug. This would be ideal because it targets drug production instead of personal use.
Severe alcoholism with anti-social effects should be banned and rehabilitation for their addiction provided, just like with gambling addicts
Yeah that sounds good. People apparently want sports gambling to be wholly illegal in here, though
No, I want people to make small bets with their friends and family if they feel the need to gamble.
Which could hardly be banned anyways.
No communist should be siding with Draft Kings for God’s sake
But like, why don’t we extend that to drugs and alcohol though? No commericial sale, but you can make it and share with friends and family.
After all, no communist should be siding with Coors or Phillip Morris.
Quite frankly all of it could be banned and it wouldn’t affect me, so I don’t have a personal stake. I’m just intrigued by how people square the differences between vices.
Allowing it, is, and this isn’t conjecture, it’s an observable fact, sucking money out of the working class (obviously worsening their living conditions in the process) and giving it to some of the worst predators that capitalism has to offer.
Saying that that should be allowed is callous disregard for the well being of the poor and something I’d expect from a liberal, not someone calling themselves a communist.
the gambling “industry” should be destroyed with the hammer of the state
Okay swag, but if that’s how it’s gonna be then shouldn’t alcohol and cigarettes/vapes go right along with it? I sure wouldn’t miss them
Alcohol is a good that lots of people enjoy and use responsibly, and is deeply entrenched in human history and culture. It’s not going anywhere. It will exist under communism, although it will cease to exist as a commodity. Those who cannot use it responsibly and begin to exhibit anti-social tendencies with it should have mandatory rehabilitation.
Gambling, at an industry and not personal level, has no utility and is purely a system of cons to exploit the poor of their money and transfer wealth. It will not exist under communism except at a small scale between individuals. If there’s no money anymore and labor vouchers are non-exchangeable and tied to the person then gambling will pretty much stop making any sense outside of moneyless bets for bragging privileges.
Tobacco/nicotine should be phased out as an industry as well, but this has to be treated with care due to the physical component of the addiction. Probably a gradual raising of the smoking age until it is eradicated in newer generations. Hobbyists and small scale tobacco growing/use should still be permitted at an individual level, but obviously the tobacco industry itself should be mostly wiped out.
When you look at the range of people that gamble, it’s not exactly something you ever see “in moderation” very much.
That’s not a good reason to ban something.
Yes it is
No, I’m not going to let you tell me how I get to live my life.
Are you doing a bit or are you a weird libertarian?
it won’t be “me”
it will be the democratic bodies of the working class. And yes, they will get to set rules and regulations and laws you have to follow
literal “fuck you mom, bedtime is when i say so” ideology
You live in a society asshole, existing around other humans necessitates regulations on “how you live your life”. If you don’t like it you can go Ted Kaczynski off to Idaho if you want.
“No veggies at dinner, no bedtimes” petty selfishness has a lot more overlap with American Libertarianism than with any coherent leftist movement.
And you’re doing this in defense of tech corporations and their fucking sports gambling apps.
You are elevating an abstract ideal of personal choice above the reality of people suffering.
The purpose of something is what it does. If it’s a Skinner box that keeps people perpetually indulgent, addled, and even violent, it is a clear net negative, and doesn’t need to exist. There are other things, maybe even with shiny lights and tokens involved, that people can get their fix on.
I’m not saying it should be fully prohibited and prevented; just kept outside the domain of business. People can do it if they want to, but no one’s allowed to make a buck off it. In other words, a commercial ban.
Gambling is only cool when it’s largely illegal
It’s also ruining sports, the advertising is everywhere and extremely tacky, while contributing to the financial ruin of the poorest in society. If I see another HollywoodBets advert I will
Specifically, for every $1 spent on betting, households put $2 less into investment accounts. States see big increases in the risk of overdrafting a bank account or maxing out a credit card. These effects are strongest among already precarious households.
Fake society with fake finance. This is terrible.
Looking specifically at online sports gambling, they find that legalization increases the risk that a household goes bankrupt by 25 to 30 percent, and increases debt delinquency. These problems seem to concentrate among young men living in low-income counties—further evidence that those most hurt by sports gambling are the least well-off.
Yeah definitely. I see it all the time with soccer/football.
Matsuzawa and Arnesen extend this, finding that in states where sports betting is legal, the effect is even bigger. They estimate that legal sports betting leads to a roughly 9 percent increase in intimate-partner violence.
…
Legalization isn’t yielding many benefits, either. Tax revenue—one of the major justifications for legalization—has been anemic, with all 38 legal states combined making only about $500 million from it a quarter, less than alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana
Of course, these gambling operations are great at avoiding taxes, setting up their operation to be off shore on official paperwork, in office buildings that don’t exist.
But some fairweather leftists that by their own admission despise most people enjoy the corporate sports gambling treats so fuck you, they got theirs.
Sports people are more concerning to me than gamers.
Maybe you’re on to something. When’s the last time
burned down a city block over the outcome of a MOBA match?I’ve never seen a gamer eat literal shit as a celebratory act.
Oh no is it time for this struggle session again
I didn’t expect a struggle session or treat defending in a thread about international corporate-scale fucking sports gambling.
What is even left to be leftist about if someone is totally fine with ever-growing sports gambling conglomerates destroying the livelihoods (and even the lives) of individuals and everyone around them while performing one of the most direct poor-to-rich wealth transfers there is?
it’s driving me nuts lol. sorry to debatelord but clearly people learned that drug prohibition doesn’t work (true) and are drawing a complete false equivalency here.
There’s a consistency at its core: “making something illegal doesn’t make it impossible, therefore nothing should be illegal, especially if it’s a treat I like.”
i have to say i get the urge cause I’m an alcoholic and a smoker but I recognise in a utopian view of the future those things are hopefully going away lol. it’s a knee jerk reactionary urge that ppl need to learn to recognise and fight in themselves
I feel the same way.
I have my own vices, and it would be particularly selfish of me to believe that because they’re my vices that they aren’t harmful ones and everyone should be into mine.
I think the question to ask about this is why it’s such a unique problem to america. Much like guns.
Here in the UK 15% of men do online gambling and 4% of women. Ok so the top line of data says that 40% of people do gambling but this is only because of scratchcards at petrol stations. When you remove these it drops to 15 and 4.
Why is this situation so significantly worse in america? What is unique about american society and culture that causes 33% of americans to be betting on sports, let alone other stuff?
The UK is going to get a lot worse with all the betting advertising in football. Pretty much every second Premier League team has a betting sponsor at the moment. The marketing campaign has intensified and I can see those statistics doubling within the next few years.
Nor exclusive of the US, Brazil is loosing billions of dollars each year to that.
I wonder if it’s a case of them not really having culturally/socially adjusted to it like everyone else has. .
That and there’s also a lot more sports going on that are insanely popular/that people are engaged with. Here it’s mostly just football and horses. There its NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, NCAA and to a lesser extent: MLS, WNBA and NASCAR.
Maybe partially? It’s been legal here since the 60s.
Supreme court struck down a law banning sports gambling in 2018 on the logic that “illegal gambling is already happening, might as well make it legal and cut out the criminals!”. The now-legal betting companies started pushing a non-stop torrent of pro-gambling ads immediately.
Australia is also pretty bad, see below:
“illegal gambling is already happening, might as well make it legal and cut out the criminals!”
That SAME FUCKING TAKE is in THIS THREAD, RIGHT NOW.
So is the problem marketing?
I don’t know what differences lie in the marketing that is allowed here vs US.
I think the apps originated in silicon valley, so they had tons of money behind them that was willing to make a marketing push. Ads for them were already present as early as 2015 IIRC, even when they were still technically illegal, but nobody got arrested that I know of.
“Capitalism with American Characteristics” is a disease that is poisoning every part of society. I believe it breeds desperation and a “fuck it” attitude and drives people to reckless behavior, aggression, and distrust of others.
I’m not immune. I kind of hate most people, especially here. Society sucks, most people suck.
I kind of hate most people, especially here. Society sucks, most people suck.
Considering your already-stated complete apathy toward other people’s suffering because you want unmitigated and unregulated sports gambling because you enjoy it and fuck everyone else you got yours, you’re voluntarily contributing to that “society sucks” problem here.
Capitalism with American Characteristics
I think this is an interesting thing to discuss. Honestly we could do this for a lot of countries but for America especially. It’s probably useful to normalise talking this way about socialism too.
Its also a major issue elsewhere. Australia for example has a pretty horrific gambling problem and the government rolled back promises to ban gambling advertising.
Spanish here, absolutely not a unique problem to the US of A. Betting joints popped up EVERYWHERE some 5-10 years ago
40%+ of people gambling on scratchoffs or the lottery is also quite bad tbh
I don’t know about the societal effects but you might want to consider if it’s just normalized, not actually better
I really don’t think spending a quid once a week on a scratchcard is much of an issue though.
is that what the data says is happening over there though? genuinely curious bc i worked at a convenience store (in the U.S.) for a while and people would routinely come in and dump their entire paychecks on scratch-offs. and then usually they’d spend their winnings on more.
yeah I mean, if that’s all it is, obviously its a relatively trivial issue. But when you extrapolate that to almost half of the population you are still exploiting people for a huge amount of profit (see elsewhere in the thread about the misleading ways it’s sold as being for funding services or charities when often they receive no additional funds), acting as a regressive tax, and some percentage (at least like 3%) of those people are going to develop a serious gambling problem, and having gambling be widely available and normalized makes it much much harder for those people to stop.
But I believe its more heavily regulated in the UK so it may not be nearly as bad as the new wild west situation in the US.
Our brains our broken. I don’t know how else to put it. They turn us into husks. Myself included.
And the ads are fucking everywhere. Entire train stations with every square inch of advertising space plastered with Jamie Foxx or whatever washed up scumbag piece of shit actor they could find.
