Gambling machines. I'm seriously impressed.

[mistermack]

How can you be feckless whilst poor? The choice to be feckless requires a wad of cash to be feckless with. And if someone doesn't learn from losing too much of their monthly wad a few times at the bookies then that is stupidity not addiction. This change is religious inspired small mindedness that pretends to be moral guardians whilst robbing people of their adult choices.

So you think stupid people are fair game? Exploitation is ok, because some people don't have the mental tools to deal with it?

Charming world you inhabit.

[JimC]

The other critical action all governments (including Oz) need to do is to completely ban any advertising of gambling. They did it with smoking, they can do it with gambling...

[pErvinalia]

What sort of lack of imagination do you have to have, to view addiction as fecklessness?

I don't know, but not surprised to hear it out of SD.

[Sean Hayden]

I'm okay with people having addictions. I hope they can overcome them and have the life they want.

I have very little patience for former addicts who would ban anything for the good of those people/themselves?

[Sean Hayden]

edit: former addicts, tsk, tsk, 'once an addict always an addict' I should have said I have very little patience for addicts.

:fulloftheshamies:

[JimC]

This is a debate that has cropped up on Rationalia threads many times. Like many of our debates, it tends to become polarised into 2 camps, which I will portray with a bit of hyperbole...

1. People who harm themselves by their own actions (which includes various addictions, as long as the person started themselves) only have their own weakness to blame. Society and the law should make no effort to prevent the harm other than criminal sanctions against them, with the possible exception of child victims.

2. Everything that befalls people is the fault of the social structure around them, typically including rapacious capitalist corporations. Given this, societies themselves have a responsibility of legislation for effective and comprehensive social control, often in the form of "Ban X, Y and Z"

Hopefully a more nuanced view can be found, where personal and societal responsibility both have their roles to play.

[Sean Hayden]

Everybody knows somebody who has been hurt by addiction, so the attitude pretty much seems to be that we want to help addicts --to a point. In most of the places where posters on this forum live it's already treated like a health issue. The US still has a ways to go in terms of the disconnect between how society wants to treat drug addictions in particular and how the justice system does. But that has been steadily changing for the better for a long time now. For example, the state has been offering rehab before prison for a while now. (That may not always be great btw, but I think it speaks to their willingness to move closer to how we would like addiction to be treated) There are of course exceptions in some of the more backward parts of the nation.

Also a lot of people with insurance can get some of the costs of rehab paid for, and people without insurance or people in financial trouble can request money for treatment.

[cronus]

I nearly got mugged yesterday by one of these so called victims of society. Not gonna change except to change their 'habit' with those sort of personality traits - lend us a tenner mate with that leering menacing land grab tone. And I do differentiate between learning disabled, true unfortunates with genuine cognitive impairments, and the ones visiting the bookies or their local dealer for a overkill of drugs. But I'd not ban the bookies or dealers, make them bored and they get nasty. Zombies on spice.

[pErvinalia]

You sure they didn't knock you over the head when they mugged you yesterday?

[Rum]

This is a debate that has cropped up on Rationalia threads many times. Like many of our debates, it tends to become polarised into 2 camps, which I will portray with a bit of hyperbole...

1. People who harm themselves by their own actions (which includes various addictions, as long as the person started themselves) only have their own weakness to blame. Society and the law should make no effort to prevent the harm other than criminal sanctions against them, with the possible exception of child victims.

2. Everything that befalls people is the fault of the social structure around them, typically including rapacious capitalist corporations. Given this, societies themselves have a responsibility of legislation for effective and comprehensive social control, often in the form of "Ban X, Y and Z"

Hopefully a more nuanced view can be found, where personal and societal responsibility both have their roles to play.

I think people are ambivalent about the issue. Rationally we know that addictis (particularly chemical ones/alcohol) become medical 'conditions' that require some sort of treatment. Addicts have our sympathy for the most part.

The next moment we fall into judgemental mode blaming them for the difficulties they have and for their relapses and so on. I think many of us hold both views at the same time.

I also think that the social and economic position people are in makes a difference to the trajectory of their addiction. Well off people can often afford to indulge their addiction without too much financial or personal disruption - certainly with alcohol and some drugs. Those often least able to afford their substance of destruction end up homeless and in the stereotypical homeless drunk situation. I'm pretty sure I came across a good few 'functioning' drunks in our senior management group before I retired for example who might well have been on their uppers without the wherewithal to buy their bottle of Scotch for the evening.

[JimC]

Very true, Rum...

[Strontium Dog]

How can you be feckless whilst poor? The choice to be feckless requires a wad of cash to be feckless with. And if someone doesn't learn from losing too much of their monthly wad a few times at the bookies then that is stupidity not addiction. This change is religious inspired small mindedness that pretends to be moral guardians whilst robbing people of their adult choices.

I think it's reasonable to - "rob" is the wrong word, but certainly "limit" - people's adult choices when, in so many cases, it's not their money they're spending. A lot of the time, it's money we give to them to save them from a life in the gutter, because they're unable or, more likely, unwilling to go out and earn their own through an honest day's work. If this means me getting harassed for money in the street by toothless simpletons slightly less often, then I'm all for it.

[pErvinalia]

God you are a disgrace. Reality has no impact on you, does it? Where's your evidence that any significant number of people are "unwilling to go out and earn their own through an honest day's work"? Welfare fraud at the bottom end of town is tiny, and is dwarfed by the top end of town - the people who you and your neoliberal buddies wank over. Not to mention that there are far more job seekers than there are jobs. But don't let reality get in the way of your conservative biases...

[cronus]

The only serious gambler I knew was a ex-fisherman. Unemployed, disabled from a mast falling on him one time during a storm at sea. Fair enough to me how he wanted to spend his money. And it was his money he spent having put quite a wad in the pot during better days.

[Strontium Dog]

God you are a disgrace. Reality has no impact on you, does it? Where's your evidence that any significant number of people are "unwilling to go out and earn their own through an honest day's work"? Welfare fraud at the bottom end of town is tiny, and is dwarfed by the top end of town - the people who you and your neoliberal buddies wank over. Not to mention that there are far more job seekers than there are jobs. But don't let reality get in the way of your conservative biases...

The UK is at or close to full employment. You have no idea what things are like in the UK, I don't go a single day without being pestered for money by some fucking mutant in the street. I can just ignore them, but goodness knows how intimidating that is for someone less physically imposing than me, my girlfriend has given money more than once out of genuine fear for what might happen if she didn't.