Nostr

there is no benefit. it's ultimately soft-gambling

a key promotional technique for all businesses is lotteries, raffles and competitions

i mean, i'm even participating in one currently with my local supermarket, the prize is a 1000 euro gift card that i can use to pay for my groceries if i win... i have probably already racked up nearly that much in spend since i started submitting the promotional codes to the competition website... 99.999% chance i won't win, i'd say, this is a portugal-wide promotion

that bugs me, and is why i don't normally play these games but a lot of people get a puff of optimism out of "being in it to win it"

i know how lotteries work, intimately, i have built proof of work lotteries for blockchains, i know how infrequently rewards are given the more people play, the less likely you win, and they calibrate it so they always win, it's like

no casino bro

but yeah, i'm playing one game, but normies love them because it creates a buffer of consolation against the certainty of their savings being debased, same reason they participate in the real estate inflation lottery, and all the other fiat games

they are worthless shit, and to be honest, i almost want to refuse to play the one i'm in at the moment except i get the entry codes just by doing my shopping so i spend a minute to submit them, even though i know most likely i won't win jack shit, this is just them trying to build their balance sheet with more sales leading up to their next shareholder report

which is another shitcoin lottery game bullshit

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 10mo ago

this is the thing

what they are basically doing is using people's stupidity, people who would otherwise not choose their business will select it because they are gambling

i think, by the Law of God that both offering this and partaking in it actively are sins, as gambling is a form of usury

at least i see it that way

i probably shouldn't waste my time submitting my promo codes but it's just so cheap i do it because it may profit me, but they are getting rent free storage in my mind out of this and that's the evil of it

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Discussion

gojiberra 10mo ago

There's something to winning. And even if we didn't win, maybe it inspired us to dream and go do something we wanted. the contrarians, they can be "damn the lottery for a free trip. I'm going to go anyway."

https://youtu.be/aEw9mVOz_vM

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 10mo ago

yeh, nah, casino is casino

it's a contract where they mostly will not give you something offered unless they decide, it's not a contract, that's what usury means

yeah, they get entertainment, but don't pretend it's anything more than a circus

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 10mo ago

bitcoin mining is different... the random selection of the winner is a way to prevent anyone from having influence over the issuance of the currency or acquiring an unfair share of the issuance

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 10mo ago

you win tokens from bitcoin mining in exact proportion to the resources you expend to get them... large scale mines are needed to do that alone, or you can pool and they distribute the winning in proportion with the provabel effort you expended

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 10mo ago

this is why bitcoin is a digital commodity... it's a contract, you get exactly what you pay for, no more, no less

the only caveat is you need a lot of hashpower to win a block by yourself, and so there is pooling schemes which use protocols that aim to prove you are working fairly towards the goal and how much effort you are expending

gojiberra 10mo ago

I agree about the casino stuff and the tokens taking rent in our heads and not having any value.

But then I started thinking about lots in life. And people being afraid to try to gamble with their skills/potential.

It's all sort of a gamble right? Perhaps guided by wisdom.

And then businesses themselves are a gamble. And investing is a gamble.

How about "Gambling with a vision" is something I could get on board with.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 10mo ago

it's not a gamble if you have a good measure of the odds of success

that's a bet

gambling is where you hope that you will get an undue reward

gojiberra 10mo ago

Ok. So investing sounds more like a bet...

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 10mo ago

that's what should prompt you to do it

vesting is really just a synonym for saving, or stacking capital into something

it is literally folly (foolish behavior, self delusion) to vest your resources into things you have a low chance of success in, and if you do it based on shiny sparkling lights and weasel words you are definitely a fool

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 10mo ago

like, my bet, when i first started doing Go programming back in 2016 was that it would eventually yield me something

i am now in a financial position that several of my respectod compatriots have a sense of envy for, because this is some serious capital i have acquired and as such i am confident that one way or another i can turn my sunk capital (which was some 8 years of hard work, at some points almost dangerous) as it is not sunk, this is welath i have acquired, my ability to write software that few spend such a large amount of time to develop... it's not talent, though my talent at thinking did help me pick this.

i don't think i have fully yielded as much as i could out of this either, my pay rate is probably pretty low on the market for what i can do... and partly this is because i want to apply that capital to something that has a psychic profit for me of promoting freedom and decentralizing power