| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 852.1 | wow, it's nice to hear a similar view on this | 3D::CHABOT | California born | Fri May 20 1988 18:37 | 24 |
| Yah. The "Easy Street" ads I used to see years ago on TV in Boston
used to make me very upset.
I know the aim of lotteries is to make money, but the appeals seem
to be calling on something more than philanthropy, something often
called more ancient, greed. (Although it's not clear that generosity
isn't as old as greed.) And the images used...sometimes I feel
as though I'm being told that I shouldn't worry about how poor or
wretched I am because there is an out if only you are pure of heart
and joyfully buy tickets. But then this seems to be an affirmation
of something higher, such as it is better to consume than to produce.
Sit home and buy things, but don't do anything innovative.
Winning the lottery is often depicted as the pinnacle of this, because
once you win you need never work again but you can buy all sorts
of good things.
Maybe some find this a comforting and attractive message. I find
it stifling and destructive. The ads create a persisting need to
be rich, much like new car ads make you want to go and drool all
over that nice new enamel. It's just as lulling and just as much
a false ideal. Banning television ads of cigarettes did work some
deal of good, but when you ask the regulating party (the state
government) to regulate themselves ... especially when they consider
it against their interests...
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| 852.2 | another possible place to discuss this | DANUBE::B_REINKE | where the sidewalk ends | Fri May 20 1988 20:07 | 11 |
| Lauren,
If you would like to enter your topic in a conference that is
more 'generic' (for want of a better word) I would suggest
Quark::human_relations. That conference was originally founded
to deal with issues comon to both sexes...
Bonnie
p.s, if you do not have human_relations in your note book press
the 7 key on your keypad to add it.
|
| 852.3 | | 21001::BOYAJIAN | Monsters from the Id | Sat May 21 1988 10:15 | 17 |
| re:.1
�Although it's not clear that generosity isn't as old as greed.�
But of course it is, Lisa. The first generous person probably
gave money to the first greedy person. :-)
I have no problem with the dream to be rich. And I have no
problem with lotteries per se. If they want to prey on the greed
of the public as a way to raise money, fine.
The only problem I have regarding lotteries is the inherent
hypocrisy. Gambling is outlawed unless, of course, it's
administered by the government. There's something wrong with
that picture, non?
--- jerry
|
| 852.4 | Yeah - and then what? | ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI | I know from just bein' around | Mon May 23 1988 10:36 | 28 |
|
Oh, the power of the $! More powerful than free will, more powerful
than love, more important than life itself!...Or so *they'd* like
you to believe.
Remember these words: "Just get the money - doesnt matter how
- just get the money."
Sell hard drugs to the American public to finance your foreign war!
Sell addictive substance to the American public as your legitimate
business!
Sell false hopes to the American public as a way to make it
big!
Think they care about your Integrity? Think they care about
your Higher Consciousness? Think they care whether you're well off
or broke, healthy or ill, addicted or not? Think again...
God *is* green to the Monetary Monsters. I say capitolism *must*
remain in balance with ethical behavior. It'd be my guess a lot
of people dont think so...They're content to try an transform society
into a group of impulse buyers, addicts and such - till they extract
*every last drop*. And then what?
Joe Jas
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| 852.5 | | 3D::CHABOT | California born | Mon May 23 1988 11:19 | 40 |
| Re hypocrisy in government-run gambling
Yes, but that kind of hypocrisy is all over: certain kinds of killing
are okay if done by the government...and then there's taxes, printing
money, imprisoning people, and lots of other things. If you're
going to go libertarian, might as well do a thorough job of it!
:-)
The dream of work hard and you'll grow rich seems to be being replaced
by the dream of buy a lottery ticket and you may get rich. While
both dreams are fallacious (you have to work hard just to keep yourself
fed is the reality), I have better feelings about the former than
the latter. Yes, working hard can lead to burn-out and
disillusionment, but at least it's not resigning your fate as much
to some arbitrary and insufficient process.
While Alger never did write the great American novel, he did depict
the great American dream very accurately, with its emphasis on
diligence and certain moral values.
Of course, even Horation Alger's stories included the element of
chance. The boy who worked selling newspapers on the street may
have worked hard, but it took a chance encounter with a rich man
who perceived the boy's qualities to elevate him to a track for
success. Even then hard work was required to maintain the new status.
With lotteries, there is no personal contact, it's all mechanical.
No person will see your potential and grant you an opportunity;
and after you win, you need never work again. Since you have no
obligaton to anyone, you need feel no obligation to assist any young
person with potential, either, and for that matter, you will have
no pattern for helping other than urging your friends to buy lottery
tickets, reinforcing the ads.
Who was it that described capitalism in sort of Darwinian terms?
Smith? That everyone is out for there own good, and some how it
just all seems to work out for the general good. One could say
that consumerism only affects those who aren't watching out for
their own good. Unfortunately, most of us have been affected.
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| 852.6 | Maybe so but.... | MCIS2::MORAN | | Mon May 23 1988 17:05 | 12 |
|
If you don't play you can't win.
Why not be able to dream and work at the same time?
There is nothing wrong with the lottery. Anyone willing to take
the chance, are the one's they are making the money from. not you
obviously.
So have a little variety in the way of thinking, it doesn't have
to be so one-sided.
;^)
|
| 852.7 | Nice folks | STAR::BECK | Paul Beck | DECnet-VAX | Mon May 23 1988 17:30 | 4 |
| The nice thing about the lottery is that there are all those
other people VOLUNTARILY paying more taxes than they owe, so
that my taxes needn't be so large.
|
| 852.8 | Helps support my habit - Theater! | MEIS::GORDON | Unstuck in time... | Tue May 24 1988 10:53 | 7 |
| I have to agree with Paul - I view the lottery as a stupidity
tax - if you're stupid enough to throw money after a 1 in 1.9 million
chance (Mass Megabucks odds) then I'm more than happy that my theater
group gets money from the Mass council for the Arts (which is funded
through some of the lottery profits...)
--Doug
|
| 852.9 | Governmental Hypocrisy | IAMOK::ALLEN | From the home office in Scottsdale Arizona | Tue May 24 1988 11:36 | 20 |
|
I view the lottery as a statement of governmental hypocrisy at its
best. Many states won't allow gambling because it is morally and
ethically wrong. Yet these same states spend vast amounts of money
on lottery advertising to get the public to gamble all under the
guise of it's okay to gamble in state run operations because its
good for the state. Well I don't think it is okay.
Their was an interesting article in the Boston Globe sometime ago
that dealt with this very issue. The conclusion of the article
was that the people who can ill afford to gamble money away are
the ones most hurt. The author did a breakdown of money spent
by region on state lotteries. The outcome was that those regions
with the lower per capita income had the highest outlay of cash
spent to lotteries.
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