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Notes -
What are some interesting contrasts on the same issue in your personal policy views?
For me, I think it should be illegal to sell already cold beer for off premises consumption, because people use it to drink and drive- but also that lowering the drinking age would probably be a good idea.
I feel pretty similar about Gambling.
Adults should be allowed to gamble.
But there should be some friction in order to participate, so I'd like to remove e.g. scratch-off cards at convenience stores and force all casinos into specifically designated areas.
When I worked in a convenience store the people who would hang around the till buying and scratching cards until they were out of money were a big annoyance, the more inconsiderate ones would let a queue build up behind them while they did it.
Can't lie. At least part of my animus is from getting stuck behind people buying like 12 scratch-off tickets at a time, and oftentimes trying to claim winnings at the same time.
In my state you don't even have to scratch them off, the cashier has a machine they can scan the ticket on and tell you if you won or not.
At that point, where's any of the fun?
I know these folks would probably just find a way to get their jollies elsewhere, but seeing how gambling has penetrated every aspect of society now, I really do want to put this genie back in its bottle.
I'm so torn on gambling. I'm generally staunchly in the "let people do things" camp, and I dislike regulating things that will immediately create uncontrollable black markets because the demand is very strong.
But holy shit gambling is a fucking disaster for our society. The explosion of sports betting has made me firmly convinced of this.
Crypto at least is harder to get into and plausibility useful. Same with prediction markets
Gambling is very tricky for me because it doesn't usually create obvious externalities.
Other than being stuck in line while someone buys scratchoffs.
Its unclear what interest I have in whether someone is spending their money 'wisely' or not. There's an argument that someone who would gamble money away would probably do something else stupid with it, like play with options on Robinhood or fall for some crypto rugpulls, so really they might be better off giving up control of their money entirely.
But its increasingly clear to me that I don't WANT to live in a society where gambling is everywhere. I don't like the ads, I hate having the odds splayed across the screen constantly, I'm old enough to remember the time before this was ubiquitous, and sports gambling indeed had a sheen of shame on it.
The one time I went gambling in a Casino was a rush. I see why people get really into it, I felt an urge to return and try my luck for months afterwards.
The optimal amount of gambling in a society is (probably) not zero.
The compromise that seemed to mitigate the harms is to keep legal gambling relegated to certain geographical areas. This makes it easier to keep things restrained or dare I say 'regulated.'
Otherwise, every single business out there tries to inject some gambling aspect into their products and services to capture some of those sweet addict dollars.
And all THAT said, I'm also not in favor of having police raids on grandma for running a BINGO game out of her backyard.
You have described my feelings about marijuana. As with obesity, the real enemy is our culture’s allergy to moderation.
+1 on the marijuana thing. In principle, I want it to be legal to smoke weed because it's not my business what people do to their bodies. But in practice, it turns out that legal weed emboldens a bunch of jerks who think it's ok to smoke absolutely everywhere, so that I can hardly drive around my city (Denver) sometimes without having to smell their foul-smelling weed. I'm to the point that I would rather make it illegal again, which I know sucks for people who act reasonably. But I don't see how else we can make it so that the unreasonable folks don't get to make everything smell like weed.
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