Being told "professional poker doesn't contribute to society."

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I am able to think about these issues particularly clearly, more so than lots of other people in my field, because I am a gambler. So if poker players don't contribute anything, neither do academic theorists.

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i'm pretty sure they teach courses in logic at cornell. you might want to look into that.

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So you don't understand the meaning of this sentence or are you deliberately dense?

Be careful stinkypete, it might require a little thing called INFERENCE. I don't know if your deductive logic capabilities can handle it.

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nobody's suggesting that it's impossible for a poker player to contribute to society. they're just pointing out the simple fact that the act of earning money by playing poker does nothing to contribute to society.

you wrote a paper. you are a poker player. poker players are thus in the same category as academics, because academics also write papers.

to me, that's a pretty retarded argument. but maybe you used some special ivy league logic that the rest of us mere mortals can't comprehend.

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Pete,

Where in this post do I say that I was in the ivy league, or that I would take any pride in it if I were? What is this chip on your shoulder? In life you have a choice: You can instantly attack any statement you hear, or you can try to understand and learn from your fellow human beings.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I've made this argument a lot and so maybe I skipped over a part. I thought it was clear that my paper is essentially a glorified poker concept. I actually wrote that line and deleted it in my last post. Therefore, (oops I have to be careful with you when I use the word "therefore") I think getting some of the poker concepts such as sample size, selection bias, the value of information, etc), out there is a good thing for academia as well as the mainstream. Therefore poker is helpful to academia and others.

Sorry if I was unclear. Also sorry that I am admittedly a little proud of my work right now and I shouldn't let my enthusiasm carry me away.