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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2866 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 22, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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It’s a bit odd how gambling is hardly mentioned in the Bible. Was the addictive technology that makes it so dangerous not invented yet?

I think gambling preys on what makes people successful in more modern societies.

When people get into trouble it's often best to ignore negative setbacks, focus on the positive, knuckle down and work hard.

In more primitive societies people are at the mercy of the elements. If you're a peasant and there's a major crop failure right before winter, working hard won't make anything better. Starvation is coming and you just have to curl up and endure until spring.

Invasions are similar, hide until the problem goes away.

That is odd.

I wonder when gambling really gains traction in the West. Wikipedia is pretty barren. You’ve got 5,000-year-old dice from the Middle East, then nothing until the Renaissance. Except further down it says that Aquinas and friends were debating the subject.

Ah, here we go. The Romans were, of course, really into gambling.

Maybe it’s an urban thing. The biggest cities, and the most developed economies, were the ones which saw gambling as a larger phenomenon?

The conflict in the Mahabarata, which could be loosely described as a Hindu holy book, is instigated when the evil uncle and cousin lure the emperor into a dice game with weighted dice. The way it's described (at least in the translation I've read) paints the emperor as fairly blame-free as he bets successively more and more on the dice game trying to chase his losses to the point where he loses his kingdom. The responsibility lies chiefly with the uncle and cousin who made the gambling available.

That’s interesting. I did some googling and don’t see a lot of mentions of gambling from Ancient Israel. It would be a sin by consequence though, falling under foolishness / love of money

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