Hard News: Dopamine psychosis and other great nights out
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My point being that some of those 'frauds' weren't that complex. They didn't need to be.
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Last Cullen quote, promise:
So let’s look at their record. They never cut taxes on the lowest income earners. They never cut taxes on savings. They never cut taxes on the business sector. They did cut taxes on the dead in a fit of emotional empathy!
Waiting for Craig to tell Cullen to "STFU", any time now...
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Once upon a time drunken munters seldom lasted past 1am down at the top 40 nightclub, now these pests hang around at clubs all night, fall over, getting in the way and generally disturbing the more refined psychoactive experiences of an aghast dedicated late night crew.
A few times a year I work on Sundays. And on my way to work, I always notice a few bars that are still going strong at 9am. But no one seems to be having a really good time. It's like they're in a zombie-like state, with the soul purpose of drinking and staggering around. It's so unappealling that it makes working on a Sunday seem fun in comparison.
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Oh come on... catchy tune, but I don't think you need a Ph.D. in textual analysis to get the subtext. We care, they don't; we love all the colours of the rainbow, and they don't. Gag...
What else is a campaign song supposed to do but strike a positive position though?
I think you're being overly sensitive about it. Compared to the 2005 National billboards or Dr Brash's unfortunate declaration that Labour voters couldn't be mainstream New Zealanders, it seems most unobjectionable.
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RB answered first, and stole my thunder, but I would also add that Pokies are addictive, and have hooked a lot more ppl than the Horse Racing (equally moronic) ever did.
It's teh dopamine.
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I know alcohol's really bad and gives you cancer and everything, but my delivery for the balance of the Whisky Galore contra (and then some, by the look of it) just arrived.
Oh. Wow.
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It's teh dopamine.
Yes, dopamine's bad. It should be confiscated from anyone in possesion of any.
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Yes, dopamine's bad. It should be confiscated from anyone in possesion of any.
Ha ha.
But seriously, I recall getting really pissed off once hearing a Tainui representative rave on about how terrible marijuana was and how much Tainui should be allowed to open a casino (full of pokies, no doubt) in Hamilton. In the same bloody interview.
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My brother was actually on one of those 'committees' that aportion the 'proceeds' to 'community groups' a few years back. He and his mates formed their own club, and sought funding for what was essentially a 3 day 'sports fishing trip' up North. Hired Boats and accommodation all to be paid for by the funds sought. But they were an officially registered club so they met the criteria for funding. And by 'fishing trip' I mean 'drinking binge'.
About 8-10 years ago we used said funds to purchase paintball gear. I really don't see the public good in that.
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I've actually got no objection to regulating things that have a community detriment. It's demanding a community benefit that I disagree with.
I think UK pubs are/were allowed one or two pokies (or fruit machines as they call them) with a fairly small stake/win (coins, not notes). That would seem a good compromise to me. The pub gets a few quid but it doesn't lose their core concept of being somewhere to socialise over beer/food.
However, the real solution to all these problems of gambling/substance abuse is not to try and patch over the symptoms, but to build a society where people have a better level of self-respect and personal resilience. Which is a much better idea than taking away everyone's freedoms to protect the vulnerable.
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but to build a society where people have a better level of self-respect and personal resilience
Are you meaning that people should just be able to use self-restraint with respect to staying away from pokie machines?
Basic behaviourism suggests that the variable ratio schedule used by the machine gives the a very high response rate and strong resistance to extinction (ie, stopping). This combined with a high degree of temporal contiguity (ie, the reinforcement arrives immediately after the action, cf. Lotto) makes them pretty bloody insidious. -
James: So why have I never touched one since I was a 17 year old in the pub in England? I think a majority of the NZ population would be the same.
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Rich: Prolly a lucky combination of learning history and genes. Also, I think if during your stint of playing as a 17 y.o. you either didn't win at all, or had a sufficiently rubbish streak that it seemed like it wasn't worth it, then you don't get hooked in (which is basically a part of your learning history). The worst possible scenario is when you start playing you have a couple of small wins, and you start to think that you are "lucky".
In reality, like me, I'd guess you were actually lucky, in that it seemed kind of dull, and not worth it. -
I think UK pubs are/were allowed one or two pokies (or fruit machines as they call them) with a fairly small stake/win (coins, not notes). That would seem a good compromise to me. The pub gets a few quid but it doesn't lose their core concept of being somewhere to socialise over beer/food.
It's quite different here. Labour tightened the regulations last year iirc, a but a lot of these places are pokie dens that happen to have a bar attached for convenience.
However, the real solution to all these problems of gambling/substance abuse is not to try and patch over the symptoms, but to build a society where people have a better level of self-respect and personal resilience.
Sure. Call me when you're done with that ...
I have huge respect for Inia Taylor, who bought the Grant Hotel in Helensville and -- much to his financial cost -- called the pokie company and told them to take their infernal machines away. They wouldn't believe he was serious, so eventually he just carted them out to the footpath and told the company where they were. Then they picked them up quickly enough.
The idea that pokies operate as harmless fun doesn't really wash. In places like North Carolina in the US, where they're barely regulated, they're a very serious social blight.
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Sure. Call me when you're done with that ...
I'm not saying it's quick or easy, but it's the only lasting solution.
The US prohibits gambliing in most states - organised crime fills the gaps (as it did in the UK before off course horserace betting was legalised).
What percentage of the NZ population gamble at all frequently? I don't believe that myself and most of my friends are part of some freak statistical outlier that hardly ever gamble? So what makes us different - it isn't randomness - I think it just comes back to the self-respect thing.
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Mind you I did do Stats 101. Plus if I did want to gamble, I'd use the financial futures markets, where the odds are a damn site better than any casino offers.
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For info: I have seen at first hand fruit machines in the UK (Ma ran a pub).
a) I failed to see what was sociable about them: addict turns up addict fixates on machine plays for several hours, drinks little goes home, presumably to dream about tomorrows (non)winnings.
b) The money from fruit machines is generally divided between the machine owners, the licensee and the taxman. We only kept one or two because they were easy money. Lots of machines brought in kids who should’nt have been there anyway. There is little or no benefit to the community. We made a lot more money from the two pool tables upstairs (all ours).
c) The machines are relatively small stakes devices; nonetheless it is possible to lose up $200 equivalent a night on them. That scared me, consequently when I won a sweepstake on a horse race, I realised this was as good as it was going to get and I have never been back.
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I have huge respect for Inia Taylor, who bought the Grant Hotel in Helensville and -- much to his financial cost -- called the pokie company and told them to take their infernal machines away. They wouldn't believe he was serious, so eventually he just carted them out to the footpath and told the company where they were. Then they picked them up quickly enough.
The idea that pokies operate as harmless fun doesn't really wash. In places like North Carolina in the US, where they're barely regulated, they're a very serious social bligh
The East Sydney Pub (in East Sydney silly) is a great local pub with no pokies and a fantastic warm atmosphere, if you're ever stuck looking over there. Just down the hill from Hyde Park
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Plus if I did want to gamble, I'd use the financial futures markets, where the odds are a damn site better than any casino offers.
Speculating in Oil futures seems to be money for jam. If you say it will $100 a barrel by the end of the year it will be a $100 a barrel by the end of the year. And if the price stalls, just get your chums in the media to get excited about a possible supply threat in Iraq/Mexico/Columbia due to whatever the latest instability is (weather, political, or labour/civil unrest) whether real or imagined. And then BANG!! you're off and running again ...
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However, the real solution to all these problems of gambling/substance abuse is not to try and patch over the symptoms, but to build a society where people have a better level of self-respect and personal resilience. Which is a much better idea than taking away everyone's freedoms to protect the vulnerable.
I think there's a line where on one side you say what you've said, and on the other you say "well that's great, but until someone gets to solving that, these things should be regulated/age restricted/banned etc, as a simple harm reduction measure".
I'm at regulated/age restricted with pokies, cigarettes I'm well on the banned side of the line.
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I don't believe that myself and most of my friends are part of some freak statistical outlier that hardly ever gamble? So what makes us different - it isn't randomness - I think it just comes back to the self-respect thing.
It's somewhat like Nigerian Scam/Spam. You don't need a huge uptake for it to work profitably.
Also, people that are you friends are not a random sample! That is, you share experiences, some of which may make you less likely to gamble.
Also, people who don't have a particular vice are far more likely to believe that their lack of vice is due to their own agency (virtue, discipline) than it probably is. Some interesting reading at fundamental attribution errorAs for oil futures or whatever, I entirely agree. But at the point that you've learnt that, then you've probably learnt too much to play pokies. Also, bear in mind that the best way to lose money investing/trading is day-trading, which suffers from the same sort of issues as pokies. A very quick gamble-reward pay-off time, you have a few big wins, and then you think you have a good "strategy"...
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I don't think it's self-respect, Rich. I think there's an amount of variation in the way people's brains a wired, and some of us will always be on the wrong end of the bell curve. I have no problem in principle with trying to protect them (as long as those attempts are likely to work, aren't onerous to the rest of us, etc).
James is right, certain forms of gambling couldn't have been designed better to be powerfully reinforcing.
Just because prohibition isn't the answer doesn't mean all regulation is pointless.
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It is not inconcievable to make pokies less addictive. They contain ROMs which I presume to be progammable ?
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A good friend of mine developed a pokie addiction -- we had to watch him in pubs where machines were present. That was a bit scary -- although not as scary as my friends who got addicted to the other P.
I once had a go at Peter Dunne, that tireless defender of the vulnerable, for actually bragging about his party's role in legislating to allow pokie operators to let their machines take $20 notes.
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It is not inconcievable to make pokies less addictive. They contain ROMs which I presume to be progammable ?
Ah. But then they wouldn't be so profitable ...
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