zlacker

>>jimbob+(OP)
Silly take: humans are really bad at controlling themselves and stick to doing the correct things, that's why newer languages like Go and Rust force you to check errors in return values, among many other additional checks/guardrails that didn't exist or weren't common in older languages. It is just easier to have the compiler checks these things for you instead of manually making sure things are correct. Same for sports gambling. Human nature is really bad, and it is really hard to control yourself. See that wsj reporting. Even someone as rich and educated as a psychiatrist can sink 6 digit amount of money into gambling. When the law allowed gambling, especially online gambling, it opened a can of worms.

>>rty32+0p2
If human nature is truly that inherently bad and dangerous, then the worst possible thing we could do is to allow adult human beings to rule over other adult human beings as their parent, using the threat of violence to prevent them from doing things “for their own good”.

Indeed, allowing this to occur has wrought orders of magnitude more death and destruction than sports gambling or drug use or prostitution.

no victim == no crime

>>sneak+ip2
I used to think this, but do you really see the liberalization of gambling laws as having a positive effect? Would you describe the previous state of it being illegal as some kind of dystopia? Do you care at all about the wreckage it creates in the lives of individuals and their families?

>>snapca+1N2
I think laws should be viewed from the lens of human rights and the idea of what might be an actual justifiable application of violence, and not a naive “positive effect”.

It would have a positive effect if I went around summarily executing everyone accused of child exploitation, for example, but it would be insane and unjust. There’s a reason we don’t do it that way.

Threatening people with violence for what other people view as misapplication of their own resources is incredibly unjust.

If you don’t have the freedom to destroy yourself or your own resources, you don’t have freedom.

It isn’t the legal system that causes this wreckage (although you might disagree, “lifting” a ban isn’t an action - it’s cessation of the threat of future enforcement action), and it isn’t the legal system that is the appropriate solution to the problem. All bans are, practically, are the threat of someone pulling out a gun to force you to stop. If you personally aren’t willing to go to that length, you shouldn’t vote for or support such policies.

Are you willing to pull a gun on an addict to stop them from indulging in their addiction? If not, what possible moral justification do you have for instructing a cop to do same?