Posted On: Saturday - November 18th 2017 10:52PM MST
In Topics:   General Stupidity  Music  Movies  Curmudgeonry  Economics  Liberty/Libertarianism  Educational Stupidity  Socialism/Communism  Scams
Yeah, I know, I know, it's entertainment! Spending 5 minutes frantically scratching off some cards up at the clerk's counter at the gas station, while I'm waiting to get my change back after filling up the tank, no, that's not entertainment in any sense of the word, especially for me.
This is indeed a tax on stupidity, as you've can't be very bright to understand that the odds are against you. Hell, they advertise that "1/3 of all the money we make goes to the schools!" Yeah, well are you spending any of this money on any stats teachers to teach the little ones probabilities? How would the state end up with any money at all if the odds were with you? I'm just trying to get my money back for un-pumped gas, because it's cheaper to pay in cash, and now that you have to prepay everywhere, you've got to go in twice, unless you know your tank really well. So, forgive me if I make a remark or two.
Hey, this site promotes Liberty/Libertarianism (one of our topic keys), right, so what's the problem? Peak Stupidity is all for freedom to gamble, but there are 2 problems here:
1) We've got Socialism around here anymore, not liberty. So, though the lotto IS a tax on stupidity, the money spent must be redistributed to lots of these suckers via welfare, as they can't seem to make ends meet. The money just goes round and round ... where it ends, nobody knows.
2) Where does the state government get off deciding that ONLY it can run a gambling (oh, excuse me, "gaming") operation? Anyone should be able to have a gambling business, but The State wants the monopoly on this vice. Again, follow the money.
Anyway, all that aside, it's not like this is glittery, glamorous Las Vegas. Even Las Vegas in no longer glittery, glamorous Las Vegas. The one-armed bandits (slot machines) don't loudly spit out a pound of change when they happen to let you win once in a while ... to keep spirits up. They just print your winnings on a piece of paper now. You can cash that out, or stick it into another machine and let it suck the money back out of that paper. That's not my idea of a good time. Lost Wages is just a big-corporate-run outfit now, and they make it less fun, and give you worse odds, than the damn mob that used to run it.
So, excuse me if I could not help remarking "suckers!" out loud as this one lady was making a big transaction about 6 or 8 different types of lottery cards. The old guy next to me while I said that turned out to have one lotto card in his hand too. Haha, he didn't know what to say! Excuse me also, if I only partake of any Lost Wages entertainment via old movies, when there was still some fun to be had in this country:
We don't like to repeat music here at Peak Stupidity, so we refer the reader to the appropriate song for this post, here, the Lido Shuffle by the smooth-singing Boz Scaggs.
Next stop shy town
Lido put the money down let her roll.
He said one more job ought to get it,
one last shot 'fore we quit it,
one for the road.
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