zlacker

Simple question: isn't risk taking a part of most people's lives? Speeding on the highway and jaywalking may seem harmless, but can have dire results at times. Other risky behaviors can spin out of control sometimes before you have a chance to understand how it all went so bad as quickly as it did!

I've known several gambling addicts down through the years, the damage they did to their financial and family lives was tragic. Divorce was almost a given, homelessness occurred on several occasions. Being shunned by their parents and siblings sometimes followed after money was borrowed and never paid back.

Two things I never could understand after all the above. First, I couldn't get any of them to attend GA meetings after I offered to attend with them and second, why they ever thought they had a chance to win consistently in any gambling endeavor when the gamble itself is connected to a computer. (Yes, I'm saying cheating can be involved. Imagine!)

>>bloomi+(OP)
>Speeding on the highway and jaywalking may seem harmless

These two are not at all the same, and one is much more dangerous and asocial than the other.

>>tokai+61
They're also a terrible comparison to gambling because the participant can massively reduce the risk compared to the baseline by having the "skill" to not take the risk when the odds are particularly bad, like not jaywalking through traffic that's blinded by sun whereas with pretty much every form of gambling you can only change the risk very slightly if at all.

>>bloomi+(OP)
> why they ever thought they had a chance to win consistently

> isn't risk taking a part of most people's lives?

Do you not see how these things are different? Leaving the house contains a risk of an accident, but the "you don't stand a chance of winning" certainly does not apply.

Many comments in this thread seem blind to this nuance, yet I wonder how one can go through life without understanding that not all risks are the same. I imagine one would die pretty fast.

>>bloomi+(OP)
> Speeding on the highway and jaywalking

Are both illegal, because of the risk they pose.

>>tokai+61
Those two examples were meant to bring the idea that many things in life, though different, can be risky.

>>potato+O5
"skill" is why gambling institutions are making record profits. Sports betting, for example, has way too many variables to ever make winning consistent.

Jaywalking when being blinded by the sun is about as silly as you bringing it up to prove some point. Only a fool would do that, like someone who thinks they can beat a possibly rigged gambling system.

>>lucian+El
I'm afraid you missed the point. Life is full of risk, why risk your money and the possibility of addiction when life is hard enough?

>>Vegeno+d61
Indeed and shouldn't be done, but who hasn't done either of these? We humans are risk takers almost by nature. This world is so full of uncertainty, limiting the types of risk we participate in is both wise and needful. Thankfully, moderation is a virtue, but for some it is merely a hindrance.