Problem gambling...

[mashman]

We see it on the TV every day, don't gamble tis bad m'kay. Now i've just popped out for a bag of BBQ chippies and was greeted by the Instant Kiwi Scratchy Bus. I didn;t really pay it much attention until I had a chat with the local dairy fulla...

Turns out that the Scratchy Bus is travelling around the country offering people freebies... The concept had to go through processes for several months (dunno how long), whereby the Government would vet and approve the concept.

But it's gambling. How the hell can you approve the Scratchy Bus when you throw adverts on TV and make policies that deal with gambling issues in the communities?

Bet the process isn't cheap either...

Makes me ...

[MSTRS:Me]

It's the same for anything that is bad for you.
To your face the pollies are saying "Don't. Bad. Stop. You'll die"
Behind their hand, in a whispered aside to their polly mates, they are saying "Don't stop. We'll do what we can to ensure you don't. The income we derive from it is too big to ignore"

[Swoop]

When will we see a "pokies bus" then??

[mashman]

When will we see a "pokies bus" then??

damn i got excited there when i read "porkies bus"... probably once they've been kicked out of the pubs...

[Pascal]

How the hell can you approve the Scratchy Bus when you throw adverts on TV and make policies that deal with gambling issues in the communities?

I want you to stop smoking. Here is Quitline. Here are advertisements. We'll make you a social outcast. But only barely because hey, let's face it. That tax revenue is just such a juicy little plumb that we're not going to stamp it out when we can.

[mashman]

I want you to stop smoking. Here is Quitline. Here are advertisements. We'll make you a social outcast. But only barely because hey, let's face it. That tax revenue is just such a juicy little plumb that we're not going to stamp it out when we can.

surely it has nothing to do with money and "industry"? After all, you can grow your own tobacco and gamble yer life away that way if ya felt like it (and i do)

[Ronin]

Bet you $5 I don't have a problem...

[EJK]

I got off to a good start.

I lost $20 when I was 17 (some gambling game) at Timezone and never ever gambled ever since.


Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

[mashman]

I got off to a good start.

I lost $20 when I was 17 (some gambling game) at Timezone and never ever gambled ever since.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

I spent several years on the fruities (pokies to you) and made a relatively good living out of it ... not bad for an 11yr old kid who found memorising fruit machine reels more lucrative, and life more interesting, than going to school... for a poor family I was dressed quite well thanks to the arcade black market... I'd love to know how much money I wasted between the ages of 11 and 24 (some of it (when younger) from mums purse )...

Damn I wish i'd had your foresight EJK

[Hitcher]

The only thing worse that pokies are the agencies, like NZCT, who filter this dirty money back into communities on that basis that it's a worthy exercise that adds value to people's lives. Ban them, I say.

I hope that Wellington never surrenders to those pressure groups who believe that a casino is an essential component of a "grown up" city.

[piston broke]

is it problem gambling,,,or
problem GREED

[Grasshopperus]

Good to see people calling it what it is;gambling

SkyCity's advertisements with their double-speak calling it "gaming" is so manipulative.

[Edbear]

is it problem gambling,,,or
problem GREED

Good to see people calling it what it is;gambling

SkyCity's advertisements with their double-speak calling it "gaming" is so manipulative.

Like any addiction it is a very difficult thing to deal with for the person addicted. Addiction is closely related to depression and both aspects need to be dealt with. It is rare that an addict can stop themselves without professional help.

Marketing always promotes the "fun" aspect and those who do win. There are TV shows about the winners and how winning changed their lives for the better - how they deserved it and are much happier! There is not nearly enough advertising the misery and despair of those who won and in a year or so were worse off than before, either through reckless mismangement of their winnings or family break-up. Or of the millions who do not win and wind up in the toilet due to their addiction - the broken families, the poverty the domestic violence, the loss of homes and jobs, the lying and deceipt. These are what need to be promoted!

[Scuba_Steve]

I'm not addicted, I can stop any-time I want! I just don't want to is all

[scissorhands]

Hegelian Dialectic

The Hegelian Dialectic is a philosophical approach that in principle explains how human beings progress toward a better and more egalitarian condition but in practice provides the power elite with a strategy for controlling society.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was among the most consequential philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. His was heavily influenced by Plato -whose social ideal was rule by an elite composed of philosopher-kings. Though Hegel may not have intended to provide a Platonic methodology for the modern-day control of the many by the few, that is how his insights have been used.

The Platonic influence on Hegel was reinforced by the age in which he worked. Hegel accepted that "enlightened" human beings are responsible for their own destiny, and that culture and history are a product of human development, which in turn is driven by reason. Hegel subscribed to the Rousseauian notion that humans are a blank slate, a tabula rasa. In fact, Hegel was a big fan of the French, in cluding the authoritarian leader Napoleon and the French Revolution itself, a bloodbath he described as the realization of more perfect freedom.

Today most behavioral scientists see humans beings not as purely rational or perfectly elastic but as complex creatures many of whose behaviors are instinctual or biologically programmed. This has not hindered the practical application of Hegel's conceptual tools, however, which have been used as an effective methodology of control for at least the past century.

It is necessary to examine the dialectic in a little more detail to understand this. Hegel postulated that each stage of human advance – and the course of history itself – was driven by an argument (thesis), a counterargument (anti-thesis)) and finally a synthesis of the two into a more advanced argument – at which point the process restarted. For Hegel, the dialectic could explain everything – art, culture, history, even nature.

From our more modern vantage point, Hegel's dialectic may not seem so persuasive as an explanation of all things – and in fact it probably is not. But for the elite of his day, and for the monetary elite today, the Hegelian dialectic provides tools for the manipulation of society.

To move the public from point A to point B, one need only find a spokesperson for a certain argument and position him as an authority. That person represents Goalpost One. Another spokesperson is positioned on the other side of the argument, to represent Goalpost Two.

Argument A and B can then be used to manipulate a given social discussion. If one wishes, for instance, to promote IDEA C, one merely needs to promote the arguments of Goalpost One (that tend to promote IDEA C) more effectively than the Arguments of Goalpost Two. This forces a slippage of Goalpost Two's position. Thus both Goalpost One and Goalpost Two advance downfield toward IDEA C. Eventually Goalpost Two occupies Goalpost One's original position. The "anti-C" argument now occupies the pro-C position. In this manner whole social conversations are shifted from, say, a debate over market freedom vs. socialism to a debate about the degree of socialism that is desirable.

The Hegelian dialectic is a powerful technique for influencing the conversations of cultures and nations, especially if one already controls (owns) much of the important media in which the arguments take place. One can then, as the monetary elite characteristically do, emphasize one argument at the expense of the other, effectively shifting the positions of Goalposts One and Two.