zlacker

>>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

>>snapca+0M2
I'm kind of the in "hey its their choice" camp but would love to hear an alternative perspective.

My main gripe is that it seems like a strangely weird place to decide where we need protection.

I would think a similar article could be written about, just off the top of my head:

* Junk food

* Participating in dangerous sports (Football, Boxing, etc)

* All forms of gambling

* Alcohol, cigarettes

* Pornography

All of which are also dangerous, potentially addictive, and probably has a larger net negative impact than sports gambling.

What principles could be adopted to not turn this into a larger and larger bureaucracy that decides which of these industries gets preferential treatment over another?

>>czhu12+1y3
Agreed that it's not totally clear cut on some of these, but I would just advocate for:

- a recognition that humans have exploits, we're not rational automatons. The power/resource asymmetries in a lot of these industries make it fundamentally "unfair" to model this like we would rational utility maximizers

- evaluate these things in terms of societal harm

That being said, yeah junk food should absolutely be regulated the industry is killing and crippling millions of people right now