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

[mo42nyy]

very few jobs directly contribute to society
if someone isnt a doctor teacher cop fireman and maybe 2 or 3 other things dont even bother answering them

[Tien]

Contribution and productivity is really our own definitions or societal definitions.

It is a subjective argument.


To me, someone that writes a check to the government to pay taxes or spends a bunch of money to help fuel the economy is 100000x more productive than someone who does not, regardless of what job they do, provided that the job is not immoral / illegal in anyway.


Jobless beggars don't contribute anything to society in all definitions, and poker players are much higher in the productivity scale that jobless beggars.

[Dima2000123]

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The flaw to this entire argument all together is people's definitions of what "contribution" really is.

YOUR definition of contribution is different than someone else's definition of contribution.

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There isn't a lot of leeway in the economic definition of "contribution to society".

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If Lyric paid 100 000$ in taxes as well as spent a whole bunch of the remaining money buying tangibles and helping fueling the economy by spending the money, than to me, he contributes to the economy. He earns a lot and spends a lot. The more you inject liquidity into the economy, the more it is stimulated.


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I would estimate conservatively that 95% of the economic arguments that start with "stimulate the economy by spending" are complete crock. The fallacy is ignoring the opportunity costs. The money that the poker pro spends would've been spent anyway, by the fish instead of the pro. The problem is that when the poker pro enters the picture, you're using up one more person for no net gain in spending.

Thus, you actually lose one person's worth of spending, instead of spending (and necessarily producing) more. In general, before making fallacious "stimulate spending" argument, it always helps to remember that everything that is spent has to be first produced. If your economic theory increases spending without increasing production, then your theory tries to make something out of nothing. Look up "broken window fallacy" on Wiki for more detailed explanation.

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Let's erase all these jobs in society that don't produce anything nor make these people productive in any way and you will suddenly find yourself with millions of unemployed people.

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Now, this particular fallacy is called "lumps of labor fallacy". If we erase all those unproductive jobs, then we'll free up a bunch of people for more productive jobs which will now get created. In the end society will win, because the more goods and services get produced, which is going to happen if unproductive jobs are replaced with productive jobs, the more there is to spend.

Please remember that I'm not making an argument that unproductive jobs should be eliminated. I'm merely disproving fallacies that try to show that unproductive jobs are productive. I really hate it when some [censored] gets passed around as fact about the subject I'm knowledgeable about.

[Dima2000123]

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And you are so horribly wrong when you say:

"paying taxes is not being productive"
"Spending money is not being productive"


You do understand that the entire world economy works because people pay taxes and spend a bunch of money.

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No, I do not in fact understand that. Please do explain that to me, I must've been sick during that lecture in college.

[stinkypete]

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And you are so horribly wrong when you say:

"paying taxes is not being productive"
"Spending money is not being productive"


You do understand that the entire world economy works because people pay taxes and spend a bunch of money.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, I do not in fact understand that. Please do explain that to me, I must've been sick during that lecture in college.

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i was trying to come up with a good reply to tien, but that about sums up my thoughts.

[disjunction]

I continue to quote an Italian or maybe Greek cosmologist who gave a talk my first year at Cornell. He said that government types ask him a lot, what good is cosmology? His response (delivered with a Greek accent: "I don't know, get off my back."

The gamblers way of looking at things has a lot to contribute to Economics, Math, Computer Science, and maybe even physics. And any other field where probabilities are involved. I will soon submit a paper to a distinguished conference, and the idea came from a gambling concept. I'll be surprised if the paper is not accepted. 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.

[stinkypete]

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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.

[Lyric]

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Professional sports are valuable because other people play sports and imagine that they could be as good. It is contributing by fueling dreams.

Poker fits right in in that regard. Lots of people play poker. Professional players fuel the dreams of these players.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

Look ma! I fuel dreams!

[mittman84]

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I see it as just another way of making a living.

How does a bank clerk contribute to society? He doesn't, he just works, gets his money and puts food on his family's table. Same with poker pros.

[/ QUOTE ]A bank teller provides a needed service to others........????

[arcdog]

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How is poker different from any professional sport? There are poker pros that are well known and are probably just as good for society as professional athletes. Sure a lot of us sit around in our underwear and don't provide entertainment, but there are a lot of minor level professional athletes (like minitour golf pros) that just squeeze out a living.

In our culture being good at something is enough of a contribution.

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not really. a professional thief may be really good at stealing, but that's definitely not socially acceptable. in fact, many (often religious) people equate professional gambling with theft.

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they also think the world was created in 6 days and that one time the Red Sea split in half and the original Team Israel walked through it, so who cares what they think?

BTW, poker doesnt contribute to society, but if while you arent playing poker you are nice to folks, do a few good things in your spare time, etc, then you are at least a pick it with the person who clerks at the bank (ie, does a job that an ATM machine can mostly do).