WCSBittersweet Symphony - Page 2
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Kickass
Sweden29 Posts
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travis
United States23587 Posts
Im sure there's been the occasional indian who's gone off to live by himself. The tribe is there because of mutual benefit. Every member of the tribe gains by being a part of it. The tribe is not there because of some innate concept of helping your fellow man. Im not saying that there is something wrong with feeling an obligation to do good for others in your life, Im just saying I think it doesn't make you morally superior to those who do not feel that obligation. It's all relative, anyways. | ||
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travis
United States23587 Posts
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Rekrul
Korea (South)17172 Posts
is this an oxymoron but, i get your point, we are on different sides of the fence nothing to debate really | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway25466 Posts
I agree with that actually just that for every dollar you win at poker somebody loses $1+rake (which is significant? ) and that rake is then given to some rich fuck who doesnt even pay taxes because his business is located at the cayman islands or whatever so basically, when you are a winning poker player you ARE inflicting harm upon other people. (and im not saying hermits are bad people) | ||
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BlaCha
Poland743 Posts
and btw.who the hell are hermits ? time to google.. | ||
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0x64
Finland3997 Posts
I think even a selfish person should realize that poker is not a very good activity for the brain for a long time (many jobs aren't either). Your brain is like a muscle and playing poker is like working out your jaws, your ankles and your left little finger. The lack of social contacts and working for a mutual benefit is what bothers me most in poker. When you have a normal job, you have money coming on a regular basis and you have a task you are (supposed to be) able to complete. When you do, the money you get comes from someone who gladly (most of the time) pays it. Teamwork is a big part of what usually keeps people sane, they have coworkers they cares and even if the task is brainless and boring, you are happy to work because on the break or while working you can discuss all the crap in the world. Poker doesn't provide long term personnal growth. You can learn what it is usefull to learn by just playing a year (if you manage to win  ). Poker teaches some very good thing to common man who usually goes "math are useless". Some probabilities (very low level), some mental calculation (challenging in the begining). The difference now is when someone has learned and mastered those basic things, they just move to the next level. In poker you don't (you have other thing to learn obviously). So basicly you can't stop poker and go to a company and say "I am a good poker player and my earnings are 5000$ a month, give me an equivalent position in your company". It's a trap, you don't have a choice if you don't realize it in time. I am very happy Dan understand the situation. There is nothing wrong to continue playing poker for fun to make some side money as long as the play time is small over a week. (flame away this is all personnal opinion crap)  Good luck Rek for your plans! | ||
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nortydog
Australia3067 Posts
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{ToT}Strafe
Thailand7026 Posts
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jjun212
Canada2204 Posts
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Liquid`Nazgul
22107 Posts
My social responsibility is to take money from rich Americans and do something with the money that I hope to be more useful than what others would have done with it. On September 02 2005 05:39 jjun212 wrote: good write up, i dont know anything about poker players to criticize but all players are humans, cant they enjoy their winnings just like anyone else who makes 200K+ a year? They can but most of the people Rekrul has in mind are either young kids with too much money or old guys behaving like compulsive gamblers. I agree more with Rekrul and Drone's point of view in this whole selfishness and social responsibility thing, but not the way they translate it to poker or anything else for that matter. Rekruls post has so many points that I can't agree with, while I support the ethics/thoughts behind it. Among other things this whole freedom thing is in my opinion bullshit. | ||
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Clutch3
United States1344 Posts
Let's leave aside the obvious issue of a full-time poker player bashing "other full-time poker players" and the superior tone of the whole thing (the latter which I have been guilty of for sure).... My problem is the last sentence of the post in which it appears that, all philosophy aside, you're just bashing people who are in all senses the same as yourself as being posers. Honestly, you sound like a rapper screaming "keep it real!" to all the other identical rappers (and I am a fan of hip-hop, but enough is enough). Not to mention the fact that it's definitely not the first post in which you've given out life advice to others which directly contradicts how you are actually living your life. Do as I say, not as I do? And yes, if you are just living off of poker you really aren't contributing much to society unless you're doing something more valuable with the time and money you are saving. There's no rule saying that you have to contribute to society, but it helps people to take your advice more seriously. Rek, I hope you do use your winnings to go back to school and find a meaningful profession -- best of luck in the future. | ||
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Chibi[OWNS]
United Kingdom10598 Posts
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Breavman
Sweden598 Posts
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Liquid`Nazgul
22107 Posts
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{ToT}Strafe
Thailand7026 Posts
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decafchicken
United States19432 Posts
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Muhweli
Finland5328 Posts
I like what 0x64 said about Team Work and poker is supposed to be fun, but poker not being social is probably referring to the online form of this. As far as I understood, the article Rek posted is not just about online poker. I do see Rek's point though - thinking of poker as a long-time career seems a bit silly to me and it's no reason to abandon studies whatsoever, but I disagree on it being "evil" or "morally incorrect". The "someone wins => someone loses" bullshit is just plain stupid. I don't see trouble with the fact that losing players choose to play regardless of their losses. Harming other people should be defined otherwise since these losing players probably play for fun anyway and them losing the money doesn't directly harm them - If it does, they shouldn't play and that's again just their fault. Someone mentioned rake. Now there's some thought in that. It's normal to set a rake at such business, because upkeeping such systems isn't free either, but the rake levels are very very high compared to what they should be. Either way, there are corporations in the other end too, upkeeping the servers, improving the software etc etc. They're working. Now sure there is a big filthy rich boss in the company that gets the cream of the profits, but then again, there's one in each big company, no? Also about the taxes - yea if they don't pay them, they probably make a bit more - BUT the servers they run are international, people all over the world use it - shouldn't they be paying taxes in every country then? Big companies, let's say car makers sell cars all over the world, each country adds their own car taxes etc etc to these. Maybe we'd like to add a country specific rake into the pots to compensate for this? And although people make more money in poker, it only easens their life's anyway. Thinking of poker players as bad evil people who take money from other's applies to all store owner's, game makers, and well, every corporation, shop or such that sells something. They give something to get something in return. Poker is a game where you play for yourself and it's the same for EVERY person. If you think you're evil because you're taking some moderately good player's money, should the moderately good player also feel he's doing wrong still making profit from the worse players. Should this continue to the very bottom of the penny tables where people lose or break even for ages. My point being that the money will ANYWAY find itself back to the pockets of a hardworking citizen. Mr. John Doe is a head leader of a major car company. He goes to work and arranges meetings, he has this little hobby - he likes to gamble on rather high roll on his freetime. He loses a lot, but what the hell - it's still fun. Mr. Rek is a poker professional who plays and has Mr. John Doe fishlisted. He wins a lot of money from him and after the bankroll has increased enough, he decides he needs a new expensive car. He goes to John Doe's car store and buy's a car. A part of that sum goes as a rake to the goverment and a part goes all the way up, back to John Doe's pocket. On his way home, Mr. Rek decides to purchase a hot dog from a genuinely happy seller with a supposedly a less good job. The hot dog is made and Rek get's a nice smile as he just made the person a bit richer. The hot dog girl (now let's just assume it was a girl) smiles knowing that she probably made a dollar again for a piece of bread and meat that didn't cost him jackshit and with no risk whatsoever at all (excluding food poisoning and lawsuit). Now where is the moral in that ? She just sits there all day and takes money from everyone that wants to give it to her. I bet many people have done things such as downloaded music, movies or software from the internet. People work in doing these and downloading them from free is immoral, but I don't see Rek complaining about such things although it's a lot more questionable morally than taking money from people who willingly give it to you. Cheers. | ||
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BigshoT
United States171 Posts
Poker could be the worst career to ever pursue. For every success story there are hundreds (probably thousands) where people can't even feed their family. All I ever hear is how these ex-BW players play poker 24/7. Maybe if they had gone to college instead of wasting their life on a game..they wouldn't be playing poker in order to survive. Go step outside and get a job. After reading this scroll down to the bottom of TL.net website...and look bottom left. Absolutely pathetic... | ||
Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
After much thinking, here is what I can say with confidence: it is not enough that some of the rich man's money makes its way back into the hands of the hardworker. Working from Muhweli's example, isn't there something obviously wrong with comparing the situations of Mr. Rek and John Doe? One is living a much more luxurious lifestyle than the other, despite SOME of the money finding its way back to hardworking John. Part of the problem with getting rich through poker and then spending the money selfishly is that by virtue of having so much wealth and luxury, you increase the gap between rich and poor. Ultimately, the more wealth you have, the less wealth some poor person will have. The other aspect is that your contribution to society through your work is minor or trivial compared to "hardworking" jobs. I mean, you can really stretch it and say that you're providing a means for John Doe to entertain himself or to practice to try and improve, while also supporting Pokerstars.com, etc. Now compare that to the other extreme: a paramedic who saves lives. Clearly different jobs will contribute varying amounts to society. And pro poker is clearly hovering around the less-helpful end of the spectrum. On September 02 2005 03:40 travis wrote: i don't believe in social responsibility, that's total bullshit. We all owe society something because we all GAIN tremendously from society, from other people. So at the very least, we should aim to return the favour. Personally, I wouldn't consider playing pro poker and then spending selfishly a way to give back to society what it has given to you (not equally, that is). And if one person (society) is giving much more than the other (you), then the former is ultimately being harmed. | ||
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