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[return to "Legalizing sports gambling was a mistake"]
1. snapca+0M2[view] [source] 2024-09-27 13:20:58
>>jimbob+(OP)
The older I get the more I hate gambling. When i was younger I tended to think "hey it's their choice" but i've realized how unfair our society is in terms of things like this.

Food, gambling, etc. are all backed by hordes of brilliant well paid people trying to get you to ruin your life so they make money. On the other side is just regular people like us stressed out trying to survive.

This isn't some "freedom" issue, it's an incredibly huge power asymmetry and I think "we the people" need protection from these forces

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2. hn_thr+gT2[view] [source] 2024-09-27 13:58:50
>>snapca+0M2
> Food, gambling, etc. are all backed by hordes of brilliant well paid people trying to get you to ruin your life so they make money. On the other side is just regular people like us stressed out trying to survive.

Don't forget social media. I mean, we have some of the smartest, best paid people on the planet incentivized to use every bit of data they can to hack your evolutionary biology to keep you scroll, scroll, scrolling.

I think one reason I've sadly become quite disillusioned with technology is because I see it less and less as a tool for improving the human condition, and more about creating addiction machines to siphon ever increasing amounts of money from the system.

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3. anthom+J93[view] [source] 2024-09-27 15:23:08
>>hn_thr+gT2
> Don't forget social media. I mean, we have some of the smartest, best paid people on the planet incentivized to use every bit of data they can to hack your evolutionary biology to keep you scroll, scroll, scrolling.

I remember this being said about NYC investment bankers (often Ivy League grads) during the 2007/2008 Great Recession.

Around that time, Silicon Valley upstarts were seen as the altruistic alternative. Google, Facebook, whoever else was getting started around that time, were giving you a "free" service. Whereas Goldman Sachs and company were being broadly (and appropriately IMO) castigated for ruining lives and crippling the economy.

It is interesting to have lived long enough to see the heroes turn into villains.

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4. kgwgk+2e3[view] [source] 2024-09-27 15:40:05
>>anthom+J93
Somewhat related, the recruiting pitch from Jobs to get Pepsi's Sculley to work at Apple: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?”
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5. jeremy+dy3[view] [source] 2024-09-27 17:14:09
>>kgwgk+2e3
Apple makes a lot of revenue from addictive games, but do they have employees working on or marketing those games?
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