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Pig Shot, What do you mean by bottom left of the page ? The commercials to poker sites? They're as good as any commercials as they make money for upkeeping this site to which you also post. So if you have a sudden urge of moral, go and make a deal with Meat to donate enough money every month for upkeeping the forums. Be a sport and make yourself useful. <3
Plus any decently intelligent, persistant and patient person can be a winning player, at least winning enough to make a living with it. Those who don't, lack some of these qualities and just shouldn't play. If they continue to do so anyway, it's their loss. *shrugs*
I play hell lot of poker, have a job and study at an university. Dropping studies for poker is stupid, but I doubt many people in these forums have done or will do so. What I'm trying to say that playing poker doesn't exclude ANY of the activies you described and it can also be done for fun (and even if you get your monthly salary from it, would you still consider it a waste if the people would be studying and/or going to a job the same time?).
Playing craploads of brood war might've been a mistake on some level (well... many levels probably) but it was for the entertainment value anyway, but yet again, it's a game that is played for fun and people don't need to quit college or univ or whatever to play it. I bet you're posting here for some reason too and I doubt it's because you don't play bw. This is a brood war forum and bw and poker have a lot in common and you're not better than any of us by not "wasting your life on games" so goan fuck yourself.
I'm so full of love today.
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If you play poker and you're winning sure you'll be happy but you are harming other people.
wtf?? no no no. losing players are gonna play and lose money in the long run anyway. if you're not the one to take their money, some other greedy poker pro will be. just because you stop playing in some misguided effort to stop causing harm to people you win money off, doesnt mean they're gonna stop playing too, and be all happy and thankful they're allowed to keep their money. they're only harming themselves by choosing to effectively give their money away, its their own damn fault theyre fish and just see it as gambling and trying to beat the odds. it's ridiculous to say its the winning player harms the losing player.
Even if that person is rich as hell and you're not harming him you are not benefiting society in any way you are just using it's goods for your pleasure.
Muhweli's post sums it up to a tee. To use the goods of society _IS_ benefitting the society. It's not like you decide to walk into town after a profitable day playing poker and celebrate by mugging people and stealing stuff, you pay money for the goods you use. money the suppliers of the goods will more than happily take in exchange for the goods they provide (after all, that is their living - you fulfill their goal). then they can use that money you gave them to buy things that make them and their families happy, and so on ad infinutim; in effect all you do is redistribute money, and help the local economy in Seoul or wherever you are by injecting foreign money into their local economy.
I was talking last night with a friend, Daniel Lykins aka ilnp, and he made a very interesting point. "Poker money equals freedom. Yet it's just too much freedom. Almost everyone I know who is successful at poker is dangling in neutrality or worse off because they can't handle that freedom. Only a very very select few out of successful poker players are mature enough to handle all the immaturity that being a poker pro allows." He's very right. Sure you're a poker god and you drive a corvette and have a huge house. Your life is only about one thing. Material possession. Does that make you happy? If you really think so then keep going as a poker pro I guess. But lets do a little math: Roughly 20% of people who play poker are winning players I'm guessing. Out of that 20% Roughly 10% can handle it and truly enjoy ever moment of their life at the same time. 2%, 1 out of 50, 40% of your chances to hit a backdoor runner runner flush draw. Do you like your odds?
are you serious? ridiculous analogy, the main flaw being people don't have any control of the community cards the shuffling/dealing algorithms draw but should have full control of their goals, aims, aspirations, attitude and outlook on life. if you're unable to handle all the immaturity that being a poker pro allows that's a flaw in your character but one you can mend (as you seem to want to start doing now); you can't say "well only 10% can handle the immaturity im getting bad odds lolzzlzlzlzlzoz". sounds like you're just shifting the blame on how you've chosen to live your life on your profession by implicitly implying the lifestyle must necessarily come with the profession on the shoddy grounds that most people who share your profession live the similar lifestyle you now have come to loathe.
I completely agree with "You can do anything with your life just have fun and make sure you are happy in every moment and don't harm other people" and "Helping people makes me happy" and share the same view. And if you think getting back into education with the aspiration of a career in law enforcement / national security, then best of luck to you.
just as an afterthought, it'd be a shame to waste the skills and bankroll your hard work has got you, it sounds like your earning was greatly in surplus of what you'd call necessary to live a fairly comfortable life, meaning you could very easily devote much much less time to playing poker, and spend that time doing good with your money, and DIRECTLY helping people. you'd have money AND time to give. both necessary funds for projects, and volunteer work. it's not possible to help people more directly and significantly than that. if you can do that, and achieve the right balance between personal enjoyment and variety in life, and making the most of every day, and having a sense of purpose being fulfilled in helping your fellow man, then you truly will be happy and you truly will be free.
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Every non-winning player is always such a saint.
I do agree with Bill's post though, poker is from the less productive end of the spectrum, but it doesn't make it wrong now does it. I bet many hardworking people also love what they do and doing better by doing less shouldn't make them unhappy by any means. It's like saying stock millionnaires are bad people (they probably are) for their stocks going up and them getting rich without means of hard work. The fact is that most normal jobs don't even provide possibility for huge luxury and even though many points have been given on the questionable moral behind poker as a profession, I see more envy than actual concern for the person not contributing to society. There's no such thing as altruism, everything is ultimately motivated by own interest, just depends how far you're willing to take that concept. I bet even Mother Theresa got some mental pleasure for giving her belongings to the poor.
It's always the same when a question like this comes up. Those who don't play poker or so, become hard working saints who make the world a better place to live. Is this just a co-incidence or is majority of TL.net some Red Cross live savers who give their earthly posession to the poor? I bet those who say poker is evil and shouldn't be used as a mean of income have either been unsuccessful in their trial for the game or have never even played.
Let's take another example:
Professional sports
Professional sports, including athletics, mhmhm let's say Formula 1, etc etc. Are they morally correct? These guys just spend their life building up their own body. They jump over some barrier with a pole, run around circle a few times or drive around some enormously expensive track and get paid what, gazillions? Also there are very few who make it to the top. They get their money from the people that go see them do this silly shit. They work hard for their game, sport or whatever, however they only contribute the entertainment value to the world that pays to get it. Some of these "players" make ridiculous sums of money and yet it's not considered to be evil. Poker is also a game of competition where the good prevail and the bad fail, yet because the money is not handed to them on a silver plate but their performance determines the amount they'll get, it suddendly becomes evil, morally questionable and not acceptable. What's this thing about?
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United Kingdom10597 Posts
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Just like muh I have a job, go to university and besides that I play poker. I enjoy it a lot most of the times( except the losing parts which at his turn keeps the game fun and exciting) I really dont see anything that is wrong with this? Im making a little money and some people lose that, so what. Its their choice to play poker. If they go to a cinema they pay too, should the guy who sells ticket feel bad because they lose money? As long as you dont push people into playing poker or cheat the game there is no reason to feel bad and if you think there is any you are being plain stupid(excuse me) Poker is fun overal and makes me a lot of friends too. If you say this cant be a social thing then you are totally wrong. At first I was just playing online, now im playing 3 or 4 times a week at a bar here with a lot of people who slowly become friends. Overal poker is just a good experience for me and I would like to try to go to WSOP, just like every muslim wants to go to mekka. And I would like Muhweli to be there too! If this is a waste of my life then I dont care. In my opinion there is nothing usefull to do anyway. Helping society so someone else can fuck it up? no thx.
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On September 02 2005 09:24 Bill307 wrote:
A very insightful and thought-provoking topic, this has become.
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.
1. How does this differ from any other job? Hell, if you work a shitty job at McDonalds you may be working your ass off but in the end all you're doing is making this society more and more unhealthy. Should poor scrubs therefor refuse to work at McDonalds? Hardworking jobs contribute more my ass. I doubt people suffering from hunger in Africa care about whether or not you work hard. When a person becomes rich and donates $200,000 to those people he is the one helping them, not you nor any other hardworking citizen.
2. One of my contributions is this website where every day 5000 people gather for whatever reason they may have. Who are you to judge how much I, as a poker player, contribute to society? I dare to go as far to say that playing poker makes me contribute more to society than I would have been able to otherwise.
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I don't play BW...just am off of work today and no school, waiting for my FF draft to happen :D. I just enjoy reading what's happening in the BW scene once in a while.
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As Muhweli said, I don't see how playing Poker is any different from professional sports. From your post a person like Shaq is no better than a poker pro. I agree with with many points you made, but also disagree with the moral corruption points. Poker can be a job like any other, but there just happens to be a lot more money in it.
Anyhoo, I think everyone's pretty much covered the arguments. Nice post though.
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dood.. rek.. you should write a book really.. i didnt read all that yet but u write hecka long life story type posts =P
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On September 02 2005 05:58 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
Any commercial job is harming people, unfortunately. So many non-profit jobs are harmful to others as well. You think of a job and I'll tell you what bad it does to the world. Poker makes it more obvious because there's no medium in between.
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.
*cough* self-serving bullshit *cough*
that's about as convincing as the silicosis lawyer who claims he's making the world a better place by filing those me-too lawsuits.
edit: no doubt many lawyers are thus able to afford to spend time on "worthy" pursuits too. that doesn't change the fact that they are parasites.
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On September 02 2005 10:22 RowdierBob wrote:
As Muhweli said, I don't see how playing Poker is any different from professional sports. From your post a person like Shaq is no better than a poker pro.
Except Shaq's salary doesn't come out of the pockets of the other people on the floor with him.
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im becoming a lawyer, thx for the compliment though. Just wait till you chop someones head off which you didnt.
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United States4714 Posts
On September 02 2005 10:39 expostfacto wrote:
Except Shaq's salary doesn't come out of the pockets of the other people on the floor with him.
Ok what about say tennis players whose success directly hurts their competition? If there is a prize paid out to first and 2nd and you beat a guy to take first arent you directly taking money from him? So are tennis players evil parasites of society?
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On September 02 2005 10:42 mig wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2005 10:39 expostfacto wrote:
Except Shaq's salary doesn't come out of the pockets of the other people on the floor with him. Ok what about say tennis players whose success directly hurts their competition? If there is a prize paid out to first and 2nd and you beat a guy to take first arent you directly taking money from him? So are tennis players evil parasites of society?
Tennis prize money isn't provided by the players.
Duh?
Edit: to spell it out: 1P isn't taking money from 2P since the prize money was never 2P's to begin with; it was provided by the sponsors, who, presumably, feel they are getting what they paid for in terms of exposure/advertising
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How about golf? There it is. Besides dont be a saint, if a new orleans hits you, you will be the first guy to loot, snipe and rape fucker.
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On September 02 2005 11:02 {ToT}Strafe wrote:
How about golf? There it is. Besides dont be a saint, if a new orleans hits you, you will be the first guy to loot, snipe and rape fucker.
That's right, because anyone who doesn't agree with your infantile ravings must be a hypocrite.
QED.
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On September 02 2005 11:00 expostfacto wrote:
Tennis prize money isn't provided by the players.
Duh?
Edit: to spell it out: 1P isn't taking money from 2P since the prize money was never 2P's to begin with; it was provided by the sponsors, who, presumably, feel they are getting what they paid for in terms of exposure/advertising
Tennis prize money comes from companies looking to sell more of their products. The money they have to invest comes from the people on the street.
I'm not saying one thing is better than the other, but there's always a downside for anything we choose to do with our lifes.
On September 02 2005 10:39 expostfacto wrote:
Except Shaq's salary doesn't come out of the pockets of the other people on the floor with him.
His salery comes from those willing to pay for it. The people who enjoy watching the game. In poker they actually get to play themselves, how is that different - both cases it is them who choose this will be their way to spend money.
Don't get me wrong I don't feel good about making money from other people either (which would still be the case for any job I can think of). But the things money allows me to do offer enough perspective to be happy with that.
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On September 02 2005 11:00 expostfacto wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2005 10:42 mig wrote:On September 02 2005 10:39 expostfacto wrote:
Except Shaq's salary doesn't come out of the pockets of the other people on the floor with him. Ok what about say tennis players whose success directly hurts their competition? If there is a prize paid out to first and 2nd and you beat a guy to take first arent you directly taking money from him? So are tennis players evil parasites of society? Tennis prize money isn't provided by the players. Duh? Edit: to spell it out: 1P isn't taking money from 2P since the prize money was never 2P's to begin with; it was provided by the sponsors, who, presumably, feel they are getting what they paid for in terms of exposure/advertising
So the fact that the losing player can't pay his bills and will starve to death doesn't worry you at all? And they're still being "given" money for no apparent reason. The money comes from somewhere - ultimately from the society, the people who actually go watch it.
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On September 02 2005 11:06 expostfacto wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2005 11:02 {ToT}Strafe wrote:
How about golf? There it is. Besides dont be a saint, if a new orleans hits you, you will be the first guy to loot, snipe and rape fucker. That's right, because anyone who doesn't agree with your infantile ravings must be a hypocrite. QED.
I bet you're just pissed cuz you're one of the fat rich americans he's getting his poker winnings from <3
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EPT
