Plenty of people have the same exposure and are not hooked by it. That’s my point. I’m happy to be rid of the exposure, I’m not defending it, but it doesn’t address what makes a subset of people susceptible to it. My general point is that if the strategy boils down to “make sure people don’t find out gambling is an option” then I think it’s a pretty primitive strategy.
Let’s be clear, I don’t think advertising this garbage is in anyway okay, however there’s probably a lot more we can do than simply reducing exposure to adverts. Banning gambling outright seems like it wouldn’t really work (prohibition, etc…) but there’s probably more levers that we could use. Possibly taxing the ever-loving crap out of gambling companies for a start, but this kind of policy isn’t my area and I defer to people with the background.
Yeah but actually addressing the route cause of addiction would require isolating the genes responsible and removing them, which is basically eugenics, no?
The other way of combating this would be for quality of life to increase dramatically across the board for everyone, as debilitating addiction is a trauma/stress response. But no government is going to do this, so it’s probably going to be eugenics if it is attempted.
I don’t know, honestly I was just guessing it was linked to various gene expressions. Many folk with adhd are very susceptible addictions, so I was kinda assuming if there was a gambling gene so to speak, it would be linked to that.
I could absolutely see it having a genetic component, but without data to support it I’m not going to start suggesting policy (even if policy was my area!). If we could prove it was genetic then we could start putting policies in place that treat gambling as what it is, predatory, and have an unassailable reason to not tolerate its current place in our society.
I have nothing moral against gambling in and of itself but I do have something against preying on our people.
Plenty of people have the same exposure and are not hooked by it. That’s my point. I’m happy to be rid of the exposure, I’m not defending it, but it doesn’t address what makes a subset of people susceptible to it. My general point is that if the strategy boils down to “make sure people don’t find out gambling is an option” then I think it’s a pretty primitive strategy.
Let’s be clear, I don’t think advertising this garbage is in anyway okay, however there’s probably a lot more we can do than simply reducing exposure to adverts. Banning gambling outright seems like it wouldn’t really work (prohibition, etc…) but there’s probably more levers that we could use. Possibly taxing the ever-loving crap out of gambling companies for a start, but this kind of policy isn’t my area and I defer to people with the background.
Yeah but actually addressing the route cause of addiction would require isolating the genes responsible and removing them, which is basically eugenics, no?
The other way of combating this would be for quality of life to increase dramatically across the board for everyone, as debilitating addiction is a trauma/stress response. But no government is going to do this, so it’s probably going to be eugenics if it is attempted.
Do we have the data backing up that it’s genetic?
Edit: Someone doesn’t like me asking…
It was not a rhetorical question. If we know susceptibility to gambling is genetic that changes the approach we need to take as a society.
I don’t know, honestly I was just guessing it was linked to various gene expressions. Many folk with adhd are very susceptible addictions, so I was kinda assuming if there was a gambling gene so to speak, it would be linked to that.
I could absolutely see it having a genetic component, but without data to support it I’m not going to start suggesting policy (even if policy was my area!). If we could prove it was genetic then we could start putting policies in place that treat gambling as what it is, predatory, and have an unassailable reason to not tolerate its current place in our society.
I have nothing moral against gambling in and of itself but I do have something against preying on our people.
We shouldn’t refuse to take action just because we don’t have a perfect understanding of the problem.
I absolutely agree, harm reduction is tremendously important. However I have no power to take action so discussing it is fine.