EPTBittersweet Symphony - Page 8
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Rekrul
Korea (South)17174 Posts
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HeadBangaa
United States6512 Posts
Hmm, let's say you gain a large amount of money in a day, like $1,000. You most certainly did not take it all from a single person (or if you did, it was from pots they had previously won from many different people, for the sake of the example). So let's say your winnings of $1,000 caused one-hundred people to lose $10 each. If you redistribute that money how you see fit (ie, "Rek's Adult Literacy Program", etc) then society is benefiting at an acceptable aggregate cost. It's almost as if you are collecting taxes for social welfare programs, which almost makes you like a government entity. Except better. | ||
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Rekrul
Korea (South)17174 Posts
anyways this debate could really get deep, a good philosopher could write a gigantic book about this, actually i'm quite sure theres much material on the subject already, but, fuck that i need to hunt a deer and eat it | ||
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Rekrul
Korea (South)17174 Posts
On September 03 2005 04:37 HeadBangaa wrote: If you continue gambling, you could commit yourself to donating to a charity of your choice, or fund a local school program, meanwhile getting your name in the papers for being a generous semaritan? Think about it, "Rekrul's Music Awareness Program". I mean, if you are rolling in that kind of dough, I don't see why not. Hmm, let's say you gain a large amount of money in a day, like $1,000. You most certainly did not take it all from a single person (or if you did, it was from pots they had previously won from many different people, for the sake of the example). So let's say your winnings of $1,000 caused one-hundred people to lose $10 each. If you redistribute that money how you see fit (ie, "Rek's Adult Literacy Program", etc) then society is benefiting at an acceptable aggregate cost. It's almost as if you are collecting taxes for social welfare programs, which almost makes you like a government entity. Except better. Yes this is perfectly fine, nothing against someone who does that..they are certainly benefiting society. But that kind of indirect help would not satisfy me, I guess getting my name in the papers would a little bit..as we all know I am an attention whore. But it's just not the path I want to take. | ||
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tfeign
United States2980 Posts
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Rekrul
Korea (South)17174 Posts
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Liquid`Nazgul
22427 Posts
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HeadBangaa
United States6512 Posts
Win the biggest televised tourney in Vegas, be a total attention whore and let the media love on you, let the poker noobs idolize you. Then throw it all away. Abandoning your promising poker career, you move into a log cabin in northern california and hunt deer for sustenance, and use satellite internet to monitor the world. You could leave a career-suicide note on a well-frequented poker forum explaining how you find the self-lavishing lifestyle to be detestable, and seek to master other pursuits. See, this way, you disappear at the top of your game, kind of like Kurt Kobain, to be forever idolized as the wealthy, enigmatic, impossible-to-understand mastermind, who is surpisingly transcendental in his world view. And after like 6 months or so, you could slide back into society under the media radar, grow some facial hair, and start all over using a different alias. Then when you win the tourney again, BAM! You reveal that you are actually Rekrul smurfing as some hairy guy. Then you'll get like 3 pages of glory detailing the legacy of "Rekrul" in Wikipedia. There  | ||
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Rekrul
Korea (South)17174 Posts
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{ToT}Strafe
Thailand7026 Posts
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inc
Sweden889 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28722 Posts
and a sad fact of life is that money is pretty important at least for most people. and I can't deny that I enjoyed hardly spending a dollar in holland. I'm really not judging people for playing poker and it doesn't make me lose respect or whatever for people who do. BUT, I think the extreme upswing in poker players we have seen in the past 5 years is a very, very negative trend that to me symbolizes the extreme greed in our society today which I find a very bad thing. I usually act by the think globally act locally rule of thumb. due to that, a reasoning such as "if I didn't take it someone else would" is to me, very flawed. if everyone has the same mindset that if you don't take it someone else will, then yes, someone else will. if nobody has that mindset, nobody will. being addicted to gambling can have just as harmful an effect as being addicted to drugs. I'm not comparing poker players or poker dealers with drug dealers heavens no, but.. well, I'd personally feel really shitty knowing that some poor idiot just gave me his entire welfare check or maybe he even robbed his grandmother so he could give me money. sure someone else would take it if I didn't, but only because the if I don't take it someone else will take it thought is such a common one.  gotta fix myself before I can fix others. and if everyone capable of making money through playing poker started doing that, then our society would crumble. :[ | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
In fact I admit a slight contempt for those who can achieve a high social status unsupported by a corresponding responsibility, maturity and cultivation. Two hundred years ago Edmund Burke delivered his famous criticism of the East India Company in Parliament, of the new corruption of the India merchants, their purchase of parliamentary seats, their intermarriage into the families of the aristocracy, turning the ancient dignity of wealth into nothing more than a consequence of greed and exploitation. If we are to view the objects of his contempt today, we should confound ourselves at this piece of anachronistic extremity, but so has our society changed. Overall though, I think greed is a myth. People don't want money, they want so spend money. They spend money on SUVs and designer clothing and two storey homes. They do this because they want respectability. There are very few people who prefer to horde money rather than display outward signs of class vanity. | ||
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Liquid`Nazgul
22427 Posts
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Muhweli
Finland5328 Posts
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
I'd say you would certainly be right in arguing both the material evidences and morals and manners have largely collapsed as a consequence of the bulging of the middle class and the elimination of the gentry though modern social mobility. Still, ask yourself what wealthy people purchase: gold watches and expensive paintings, antique furnature and private cars. Some things have not changed so much after all. These are people who attempt to reap the respectability of a class whom they have helped eliminate. “One must not blind oneself to the fact that democratic institutions most successfully develop sentiments of envy in the human heart. This is not because they provide the means for everybody to rise to the level of everybody else but because these means are constantly proving inadequate in the hands of those using them. Democratic institutions awaken and flatter the passion for equality without ever being able to satisfy it entirely.” | ||
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
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Liquid`Nazgul
22427 Posts
On September 03 2005 09:04 MoltkeWarding wrote: Call it what you will. Respectability used to mean that one belonged to a certain class, that one can provide the necessary material evidence to accomodate one's claims to a certain circles predicated on morals and manners. (For example in Jane Austen's Emma it states that Mrs. and Miss Bates had to depend on the charity of their neighbours to maintain claims to gentility.) I'd say you would certainly be right in arguing both the material evidences and morals and manners have largely collapsed as a consequence of the bulging of the middle class and the elimination of the gentry though modern social mobility. Still, ask yourself what wealthy people purchase: gold watches and expensive paintings, antique furnature and private cars. Some things have not changed so much after all. These are people who attempt to reap the respectability of a class whom they have helped eliminate. You go right ahead and live in a world where people merely purchase because they want to be respected. In the meantime I'll keep using my computer (which I think looks nice), bed (which I think looks nice), TV (which I think looks nice) without giving a fuck what anyone else thinks about them. In fact if any of the things I own somehow makes people respect me (more) I'm not so sure I want to be friends with those people. | ||
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Rekrul
Korea (South)17174 Posts
What the hell did I just say? I'm pretty drunk. | ||
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{ToT}Strafe
Thailand7026 Posts
 and that hyundai sucks but whatever im getting drunk too! | ||
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