Comment by Edward Farrelly (edward-farrelly) on The Online Sports Gambling Experiment Has Failed · 2025-01-04T09:04:05.750Z · LW · GW

It might be worth asking how often and in what disciplines the phrase 'I enjoy it but others...'tracks with a form of enlightened sociopathy where the predator is aware of their predatory behaviour.  

Trying to draw lines in the sand in this case will not work.  

Liberatians are simply people who have a bias against empathy (solution: read Dickens A Christmas Carol).   Either that, or they have not had any close encounters/connections to people who are endemically vulnerable (for instance  a family member with learning difficulties/mental health issues).  At least 1% of the population of post industrialised countries are not able to sustain themselves independently long term. Without support, most end up cycling between the streets, prison, mental health wards and prematurely at the morgue.  We have been failing people with mental health issues forever, but arguably closing the mental health institutions in the 1980s was crueler than it was kind.  A healthy society can be judged by the wellbeing of its most vulnerable, not its most wealthy. 

A possible solutions to the sports betting problem is to create a virtual world for problem gamblers. Once the system detects that you are an addict, it switches you into a fantasy world where everything is the same, except you are betting tokens, not real money.  You aren't aware of this, of course, and the betting companies don't profit, but on the other hand, currently they should be picking up the pieces to put these peoples lives back together, which would be far more expensive. So they can consider themselves lucky just to forgo profits here. 

Longer term, it would be desirable if we could find ways of giving vulnerable people systems of entertainment that give them dopamine hits for things that benefit their physical and mental wellbeing, rather than predate on them.  Given that the system that provides the entertainment is a fantasy/social contract anyway, this would not need to be deceptive.  

Since money is a promise anyway, Society could do well to explore other vice/addiction based incentive systems.  For instance lottery tickets issued for paying consumption or VAT taxes.