If probability and statistics were required learning in school there would be far fewer gambaling addicts
Wanna bet?
Submitted 12 hours ago by daggermoon@piefed.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
slazer2au@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I like those odds.
Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
**Chef’s kiss
TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 hours ago
I don’t think you understand addiction and it’s causes if you think it can be mitigated by education alone.
The issue with substance abuse isn’t that people don’t know that nicotine, alcohol or methamphetamine is wildly addictive.
melfie@lemy.lol 11 hours ago
Yeah, it’s common knowledge that the house has an advantage, and they will eventually take all of your money if you continue playing. A doctoral degree is not required,
Delta_V@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
IDK, I think we’ve seen adequate evidence that a lot of people out there are unswayed by facts and logic, and many of the ones who can be reasoned with are vulnerable to sophistry, sealioning, and other bad faith propaganda/debate techniques.
Demonmariner@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Probability and statistics are part of the high school math curriculum for the majority of students in California and we have our share of compulsive gamblers. Just because a person knows something doesn’t make sense does not assure they won’t do it.
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
Anti-drug education is in schools and people still do it
Kolanaki@pawb.social 7 hours ago
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Not as much as you think.
It wasn’t until graduate level statistics until we got into how to tear down bad stats as part of understanding how to make good stats.
Like, even for people who took regular college level statistical analysis, the hardest part of it is still keeping you bias out.
Teach a bunch of high schoolers stats, and they’re gonna think they’re smarter than a gambling app. That leads to more people trying it, and naturally more people getting hooked.
You’re thinking of it as innoculation when it’s more like the first hit for free…
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
My brother took intro to counselling, diagnosed himself as suffering with Special Boy disease, everyone else in the family with Evil Syndrome and went off the deep end into a full public mental breakdown, from which our relationship has never recovered.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 11 hours ago
Reminds me of psych 101 - much of the class thought they had something.
Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
the best way to decrease it is to limit or avoid exposure to gambling until mid 20s when the brain is more likely to be developed.
Considering most videogames have been dopamine hacked with lootcrates and similar. Just like lemmy’s feed, random searching leading to stochastic rewards trigger our hunter gatherer neuro-circuitry the same way gambling does.
No one matures without being tweaked by the more conservative amish and global super-poor.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Sounds a lot like antivacxers screeching everyone gets chickenpox…
Klear@quokk.au 11 hours ago
Can’t wait to gamble today. Literally shaking. That’s called dedication. Buddy, I’ve been gambling everyday for 20+ years. It’s all I think about and I still haven’t gotten addicted so I doubt it’s happening.
urheber@discuss.tchncs.de 7 hours ago
Uhm, it is…
Object@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
You guys don’t learn probabilities??
ttyybb@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Sometimes I wonder if the problem isn’t the content we cover, but the content people remember. Then again it could just be different districts.
db2@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
They don’t even teach civics, or how to do taxes. And there’s a constant push from a vocal minority to do less and teach young earth creationism. It’s very stupid here.
BussyCat@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Taxes is a combination of a 3rd grade reading level and 3rd grade arithmetic. It literally directs you where to get the values for each box and the most complicated math you have to do is basic addition, subtraction, or multiplication.
Teaching a person how to fill out a 1040 is a complete waste of time especially considering they likely won’t need to fill one out for several years and teaching people all the obscure possible forms is pointless as the tax code changes and it’s only applicable to a small fraction of the class and likely not for 5+ years
bless@lemmy.ml 10 hours ago
Some of us did learn that, but were not paying attention.
Also never bet against advertising making you act against your best interests. We’re all vulnerable given the right exploit
DrBob@lemmy.ca 12 hours ago
It would have no effect whatsoever. All of that learning stuff is forebrain function. It’s hard to acquire, and the first thing to go when under stress or intoxicated. People make all kinds of bad decisions when they know better. They splurge on vacations when they are already paying interest on credit card balances. They sleep with strangers while they want to keep a stable home life. They buy too much car or spend to much on clothes for little hits of feel good when they would be better off saving money.
Knowing something doesn’t equate to action. And the impulse to gamble can easily over ride some school lesson on poor odds of winning.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 11 hours ago
… they are in my country, at least for people who want to attend a university.
I realize myself that the lottery is a tax on lack of statistical knowledge. I still occasionally play it because if I don’t play, then the probability of winning (and never having to work for money again) is 0, and I can easily afford to occasionally buy a lottery ticket.
TheWeirdestCunt@lemmy.today 11 hours ago
Where I am the lottery funds a lot of smaller museums and some other community things like that so in my mind when I buy a lottery ticket I’m donating money to those causes rather than just trying to win.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 9 hours ago
This is why probability needs to be taught, and taught properly. This line of logic clearly demonstrates the problem.
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Your expected return from not playing a $5 ticket is exactly $0.00.
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Your expected return from playing a $5 ticket is approximately $-4.99
“Gaining Zero” is vastly preferable to “Losing Five”.
If you can occasionally afford a $5 ticket, you can occasionally afford to buy shares of an index fund. You’re still gambling, but your expected return is positive.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 8 hours ago
I realize that, academically.
I feel that what I am buying with a lottery ticket is a few days of allowing myself to imagine what my life might be like if I win.
And I invest vastly more of my money than I buy in lottery tickets.
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plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
It’s taught in out schools.
HeyJoe@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
The biggest gambler i know is a VP in accounting. He has been since I met him right outside of college. If anything he does make a lot more reasonable bets and finds loopholes to make the best of his bets. The thing is he keeps a spreasheet for the year to track what he spends and honestly he is almost always ahead by a lot or sometimes break even or slightly under. I have never seen him actually lose so he is a terrible example of having a gambling addiction lol. We all say he is one of the luckiest people we know which also stems from the fact that when we play poker he will almost always hit the statistically low percentage card needed to win and it’s frustrating to say the least.
yesman@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
ieatpwns@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
They either would learn or they wouldn’t. It’s really just 50/50
Today@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I don’t need facts. I have luck and karma.
etherphon@piefed.world 11 hours ago
The problem with gambling is that you have to put some trust into whatever you’re gambling on, and that’s already bad because there’s no reason you should be trusting them to begin with since whoever is taking your money obviously doesn’t want to give it back. There is no way to tell that what you are gambling on hasn’t been fixed in some way unless you are on the inside in which case it is usually illegal.
Krudler@lemmy.world 58 minutes ago
Used to be a lottery game dev, now I’m in addition.
This suggestion would do nothing since compulsive behavior is not a choice and it is not rational.