The Epistemology of Poker Pedagogy

[shipitfish]

My post beginning my series for introductory players got two (1, 2) surprising responses. The basic argument is that educating people about poker draws them into a dangerous world of addictive gambling, populated by seedy people, and that such an introduction can ruin people's lives. My commentators indicate that I should consider the unintended consequences. Indeed, they argue that one might have a duty to divert people away from the poker world.

I think the argument is a seductive one, but is flawed. In fact, there are a dozen other things I could make this same argument about, using the same evidence. So many things in life which are acceptable in moderation have the same sorts of addictive qualities as poker.

I have spent a lot of time (my whole career in fact) around computer programmers and computer networking experts. I've known a few who are addicted — truly addicted in the sense my commentators talk about — to programming, or to cracking network security, or to some other sub-genre of the computer 3l33te world. They have let all relationships in collapse. They have left spouses, or spouses have left them, because they couldn't not help but stay in front of the computer for 20 hours straight out of every 30.

Sex can be the same way. Indeed, there is even Sex Addicts Anonymous, just like there is Gamblers Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Of course, many people do engage in sex, gambling, drugs, and alcohol and don't become addicted in the DSM-IV sense. As one commenter points out, most people who do these things, in fact, aren't addicted. But, we still have to draw some distinctions between these activities. Introducing a person to any of them is not necessarily the same type of act. Let's consider in this post some very rough distinctions.

The first distinction sets aside substances that have a proven element of direct physical addiction. That's one class in itself. I would say that likely cocaine, heroin, and nicotine are three common substances to go in this class. The body becomes truly dependent, sometimes after the first introduction of the chemical. Another distinction is the group of substances that are a less physically addictive, but do cause serious changes to body chemistry. Some examples here might be alcohol, marijuana, and maybe sex. This class is different still from activities that, while they may generate some physiological responses, do not interact directly with the body chemistry. Of course, these lines aren't fine, nor are there only three classes, but let's just take a rough cut here for the moment.

Now, I agree in regard to the first class of substances, for sure. I think it's wrong to offer people cocaine and heroin. However, even in this class, is it wrong to tell people about its existence, and that it feels amazing? Probably not. It's just information — data about an activity. That in itself can't be wrong. Indeed, if it were wrong, the course I took toward at my Psychology department in college, The Biology and Psychology of Substance Abuse was chock full of information that was “wrong” in this sense.

Now, consider that middle layer in my classification. Well, I have to say, somewhere in there I stop believing that it is wrong to encourage people to engage in the activity. If a waiter offers me a glass of wine, or a website tells me how to brew my own beer, are they harming me? Would they do better to keep me from harm by not giving such information? That seems ludicrous. Indeed, I had a drinking problem in college and have shied away from alcohol ever since then, but imbibe maybe once a year. My co-workers invite me out for drinks much more often than that. Should they stop offering, just in case I fall into a drinking problem again and ruin my life? Would it be there fault if I did?

And, consider sex as another example. It's the example that analogizes nicely with comments about how seedy the poker world is and the caliber of people who sometimes occupy it. Wandering over to the “Casual Encounters” section of Craig's List, you'll find some really seedy people in the sex world, but does that mean “Craig” is culpable for introducing harm and should stop? And should he discontinue the “Women Seeking Men” section too, just in case? What about the people who wrote Joy of Sex? Are they to be shamed because they boosted their egos by writing the book and thereby introduced some people to seedy underworld of sex addiction?

Maybe some poker-playing friend of mine will have a collapse like is suggested in this comment. Maybe no one will. Maybe I'll go out drinking with my co-workers one night and become a serious alcoholic and ruin my life. Maybe someone who didn't know about Craig's List's “Casual Encounters” section will read this post, find it for the first time, and descend into sex addiction. Maybe his wife will call me up to tell me how he caught HIV, ruined their marriage and is almost dead now. Sure, I would feel awful about it if it happened! I'm a human being who doesn't want to see people suffer. But, it's not fair nor necessary to blame myself for those consequences, and the fellow's wife would be wrong to do so. She'd just be looking for somewhere to hang her pain and picking the wrong place.

Yes, the friends I help learn play poker will probably be losing players. But, that doesn't mean it was wrong to give them information. The epistemology of whether or not generally useful technical information should be made available is a field of study where I have some experience. In fact, I studied with a MacArthur award winner who (more or less) invented the idea that information with a didactic component should always by freely available for all who wish to learn. It was even my job once to educate people about that very issue. So, I would say I'm surely prepped to enter this debate about the ethical correctness of the idea that “information wants to be free”. But, the arguments on the other side seem so ludicrous, I don't know if it is worth it.

Finally, there is some truth that sharing information in a pedagogical way is sometimes about the ego of the teacher. Having studied a large sociological culture built around making information available, I can speak with some experience — there is no denying that hubris and ego drives some of it. But, humans are complex beings. There's a bit of ego in being the teacher, but there's also the joy in sharing something you love — something that, might I remind you, a noted psychologist told me would be helpful to make me feel better about my own obsession with my job and the world that surrounded it.

And it did help me. I met one of my best friends (nick_marden) hanging around that seedy poker world. I do believe the poker world can be good for others, too, even if, like so many things in life, it might be bad for others.

Comments

[roryk.livejournal.com]

I hope that you will not have to come back one day and reread this post and see how ignorant it is because that will mean that you will not have had the experience of introducing a friend into gambling and having had them ruin their life.

All of this intellectualization of addiction will mean nothing to you when someone you care deeply for is in a hell that you to which you led them. You will wish that you could help them, but you will not be able to help them. You will wish one thing, "I wish that I had never introduced them to poker." And then you will see that your wish could have come true. If you had listened.

You can do what I did. You already have met a bunch of people playing poker. You already have a little network built up of poker people. There are web sites of people who play poker that you know about. Meet people there, who already play. Don't get your family members and loved ones involved proactively by going on about how great poker is. That is all I am saying to you. Do whatever you want other than that. Then you are not responsible for them and you are protecting them and caring for them.

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call myself as an ambassador for poker; I'm not actively out there recruiting for it. Indeed, one of the things I like about poker, as opposed to my non-profit-centered job, is that I don't feel I have to be “on” all the time — in the sense of trying to advocate a position and bring people on board with it. Causes and missions like my day job require that you do a certain amount of advocacy. Poker doesn't require it, and I'm not going to start; I'm tired of that work.

But, I do share my life with the people I care about. And, poker is a big part of my life. If they get interested, and get involved, great, we have another thing in common! Plus, most of them are finding it elsewhere (because of the boom), and then coming me to after the fact to ask about it. That's not much different from what you suggest, anyway.

Still, I'm not going to hide myself and my enthusiasm for my hobby from the people in my life. That direct harm — being distanced from friends because you're afraid to tell them about what you do — is more harmful than the potential harm of possible addiction.

And, frankly, if someone I tutored in poker descends into it compulsively, I'd say to them: “You should stop; you are making a mistake&rdquo. If they decided to take my advice about playing at first, and then suddenly stop taking my advice when it becomes “quit”, I'll feel bad for them, but I will have told them how I felt. If they are too blinded by their troubles to take good advice from a friend, then it's likely they would have fallen into something dangerous no matter what.

Some people out there are susceptible to addiction. Having spent a good amount of time with addicts in my life, I have found that someone with the addiction illness will find a way to feed it, one way or the other. Living your life in fear that you'll be the one to introduce something innocent in moderation to the addict who does it compulsively is just giving up on people and on life. Addiction is a tragedy of the human condition. Let's not make it worse by living in constant fear of it that everyone around us will instantly become addicts.

[roryk.livejournal.com]

'I hope that you will not have to come back one day and reread this post and see how ignorant it is because that will mean that you will not have had the experience of introducing a friend into gambling and having had them ruin their life.

All of this intellectualization of addiction will mean nothing to you when someone you care deeply for is in a hell that you to which you led them. You will wish that you could help them, but you will not be able to help them. You will wish one thing, "I wish that I had never introduced them to poker." And then you will see that your wish could have come true. If you had listened.'

[roryk.livejournal.com]

Your "advice" will mean nothing once they are already addicted. You cannot give advice to people who are addicts. They don't have a choice to suddenly stop taking your advice, it's not their fault. They are an addict. A friendly pat on the back, old chum, just quit, that doesn't work. That is what being an addict is! You quote all of this crap about addiction and then think that oh, well if I tell them to quit and they don't, my job here is done. I did my part. I can wash my hands of the situation. Bullshit. You can't just tell someone to quit and they will quit. That is what being an addict is.

Where do you think the 3,000,000 people in the United States with compulsive gambling problems come from? They start with innocent things like this. Small games. Just having fun. Friends bringng them to the casino. If you gave a friend a cigarette, and they never smoked before, and then a couple months later you saw them smoking a pack a day, what do you think, you're not to blame at all for the fact they are now smoking a pack a day? How can you go on and on about all of this addiction crap and not at least own up to the fact you are responsible for what happens to the people you get involved with things that can hurt them? If you are going to get your friends and family involved in potentially dangerous things, you have to be willing to accept your share of the responsibility for what can happen to them. Instead, you do this: If my friend gets addicted to gambling that I introduced them to, I will make a lame gesture to help by telling them to stop gambling. And if they don't, which is impossible by definition because they are ADDICTED TO GAMBLING AND CANNOT STOP, then oh well, I feel bad for them, and it's their problem now.. (continued next commment)...

[roryk.livejournal.com]

You are willing to accept praise for getting your friends into poker, for the fun side, of course. Right? Wow Bradely, poker is so fun. You want the praise, yeah? Look at us all having fun. But when it goes bad, you wash your hands of it. Not my fault if it goes bad. It's their problem if it goes bad. But the fun side, you can accept credit for getting them involved in the fun fun poker world. But if it goes bad, that's all their problem. It's bullshit and I'm calling you on it. You don't want to accept responsibility for what can happen if things go wrong with your friends and family. And I'm just telling you, if something goes really really wrong, like say you get your dad or mom or I don't know, someone really close to you, someone you care deeply about, your best friend in the world into it, and they wind up killing themselves over it. Just imagine that happening for a minute, okay? Because maybe it won't happen to that person close to you. But it's going to happen to someone you spread it to. And maybe that person won't be the person close to you, but it will be a person that is a person who is a really close person to someone else. And even if you don't want to accept responsibility for it, that responsibility is on you. Just like when you give your friend the first cigarette, and a couple months later they are smoking a pack a day, part of the responsibility for that is on you. There are consequences for the actions you take. And you can try to intellectualize and rationalize it all you want, that everything is addictive and blah blah blah, but all that crap will go out the window if it ever comes back to you in a real and personal way. It hasn't to me, but I got a taste of what it could be like with a friend when he started to slip into it, and I started reaally thinking about it. Like... what if he really didn't stop. What if he didn't? How would his life be? What if he went on like that forever? And I read the Augusten Burroughs book "Dry" about alcoholism. Things can go on like that, how bad they can get. And then I started really looking hard at people in the card rooms, really listening to their conversations, watching them when they got up, watching them pull out their money, watching the denomination of bills get smaller, watching their faces, watching them walk out to the car. And one of those people could be one of the people you really, really love. Because of you. Find one of those people when you go to the card rooms and watch them, not with your glee that they are losing their money to you, but with compassion for them because they are really sick. Because the money isn't really important in life. And then when you can really see how sick they are, and imagine how their life is, place someone you care about in there. And then you will understand why you should shut up about how great poker is and listen to me around people you care about.

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

Over on the other thread from the first post, I've given my last comment on the subject.

is this for real?

[(Anonymous)]

Did some rambling negativity robot take over Rory's brain and start pounding at the keyboard?

I can appreciate your passion for the subject. It's an important subject -- one worth being passionate about.

You seem to have some deep-seated issues with the role of money in society, combined with the potential for people to become psycologically addicted to activities involving money. You better tell your friends to stay out of the business world and the market. We'd all be better off just moving into the woods to live a life of humlity and peace.

And what about non-money-related activities? Should Brad also never say the words "World of Warcraft" around his nerd gaming friends? What if one of them has managed to avoid it until Brad spills the beans to them? The feller might start thinking he's a level-two elf with magical powers and stop showing up for work in the morning.

If all this hard ranting is not just to stir up debate and create effect, then I think you should step away from poker for a while. It doesn't seem to be a positive force in your life. You're a smart, talented person who doesn't need it for income or whatever else you use it for.