Do you care if you contribute to society?

[gumpzilla]

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Imsa,

That's flawed when you're talking about gambling.

To take an extreme example, how do you reconcile that position (money represents value created by individual) with buying a $1 lottery ticket and hitting a $300M jackpot?

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I think we can solve this problem by more accurately defining "gambling". A lottery winner can't say to have contributed the value of his win to society, but can a poker pro? Where does his win fall in terms of luck/skill if he played, say, 200k hands this year? What about after 5 years in the profession? Poker is a game of risk, to be sure, but do it professionally requires expertise comparable to other professions. For this reason, and reasons I've posted above, I think we should group poker pros with dentists, teachers and other 'normal' professionals and not with grandiose lottery winners.

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Here's another counterargument to this view of things:

People can still derive utility from playing poker among their friends, with amateurs, and in many cases can derive more utility in that setting. So specialization in this field doesn't seem like it necessarily offers much. By contrast, unskilled surgery and science don't really offer much utility at all. So I think the disappearance of poker pros wouldn't really impact people's ability to get entertainment utility from poker in the same way that the disappearance of doctors would negatively impact health utility.

[D.H.]

Imsa: [ QUOTE ]
I'm equating value to "contributing to society". For poker, that contribution is the entertainment provided to losing players.

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NozeCandy: [ QUOTE ]
I think he's saying money you actually earn is a measure of your value to society?

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The more money you win from someone, the more entertained he was?

The way I see it the "entertainment" argument in poker is really only valid for TV pros, who provide entertainment to people that actually turned on the TV to watch well known pros.

Losing players are fully capable of entertaining eachother while letting the poker site take their money (through rake). The poker site could be considered an entertainment provider here since they provide the software, but if you take the seat of one of the losers I wouldn't consider you an entertainment provider.

Edit: Didn't read gumpzilla's post before posting

[ImsaKidd]

The average lossrate of a losing player is their cost to play/time unit.

Like I said, I probably only have this viewpoint so I dont feel as guilty about playing poker/taking peoples money.

[BHold]

In order to determine if contributing to society is important to us, we must first establish if society can infact be made "better", yes? What contributions can one make to better this world?

I suppose the most common answers to this question from a Western perspective would be saving lives and contributing some sort of service to our monetary economy (since the OP's question deals with how we attain our money). But are either of these things truly "bettering" society?

Many people may attempt to make a large contribution by our current value system via the preserving life option. To take an extreme example: Let's say some guy is able to cure every disease currently known to man over the course of his life. He would be hailed as the greatest human being ever to live surely. But what has he truly done? Is not disease a means of population control? Disease is most prevalent in areas of high population density, it serves to create a sustainable population level. This man has now destroyed this control. But, clearly, the earth can support a very finite amount of life. Now that this human population is too large for its own good, someone/something must perish. One can never be engulfed in light without shoving the darkness somewhere else.

Have our "contributions to society" over the last 10,000+ years netted us anything? Is our human experience different now? Or does it just look different?

[JaBlue]

I don't give a [censored] about society but I am starting to care about contributing to other people

[manpower]

Gumpzilla,
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to get at, but I'll summarize the basic jist of the argument as this: The money is there. The money is going to be taken/earned/whatever regardless. The person who does this job has contributed to society in the form of increasing economic efficiency.

I don't mean to imply that the profession of playing poker is morally equal to some of the more saintly professions out there, dollar for dollar. But I do think that it matters, and if you make a ton of $$$ playing the game, it's probably better for all of us that you don't quit and teach preschoolers.

[ImsaKidd]

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I don't give a [censored] about society but I am starting to care about contributing to other people

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This might be my new way of phrasing my beliefs re: money/contrib to society.

I'm not going to screw over people I know for money. But I care a lot less about society in general.

[manpower]

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Have our "contributions to society" over the last 10,000+ years netted us anything? Is our human experience different now? Or does it just look different?

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BHold,
Yes, they have. You and I are going to live a longer, safer, more comfortable life, which is arguably happier and almost certainly better than the life of the overwhelming majority of humans who have graced this planet.

[Taraz]

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what would really qualify as contributing? a doctor, lawyer, accountant?

it just seems that there are so many people that do these things, and am i really going to be contributing by being the 1 millionth doctor?

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I would say that being a doctor would contribute more than playing online poker. Personally I feel that I have the opportunity that many people don't. I could conceivably become a doctor fairly easily, it would be much harder for a large percentage of society.

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if i'm not there to save someone's life, there's going to be another person there to do the job. i just don't see how this can justify someone's existence.


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I'm not trying to justify my existence or anything. But I do credit those around me (including American society) with putting me in the fortunate position that I am in. I hope to be able to do the same for others.

[ImsaKidd]

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Have our "contributions to society" over the last 10,000+ years netted us anything? Is our human experience different now? Or does it just look different?

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BHold,
Yes, they have. You and I are going to live a longer, safer, more comfortable life, which is arguably happier and almost certainly better than the life of the overwhelming majority of humans who have graced this planet.

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Many of these advancements have come from a very select few. The mark some random desk drone has on society is very negligible IMO (although those jobs still have to be performed).