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Comment by alphabettsy | Hacker News Reader

It’s been a while since I was in college, but this was a problem then too.

So was alcoholism and overuse of recreational drugs. You can’t just ban away vice.

To an extent you can. Have you used FanDuel, DraftKings, EspnBets? They've only come about in the last couple years after the sports betting ban was lifted.

I'll be honest, I think they're really fun to use and I've been betting more than I ever have. I never would have gone through the trouble of sports betting before they existed. I don't consider it a problem personally, but I can only imagine the problems these apps might cause a lot of people.

I don't gamble but friends were using betting sites in the college library or in class before it was unbanned. Bodog especially comes to mind.

You can get far by banning private profit from other people's vices.

0r at least regulating it, if private profit complains too much.

The goal isn't to eradicate vice, it's to avoid situations where people create misery for others because they stand to profit from it.

You can, but you need a supportive community. Muslim countries have effectively banned alcohol, not only as a legal matter, but in practice. Alcohol or drug use subjects you to shaming and other social consequences. When the community is permissive, the law alone won’t work.

Social consequences like what exactly?

Everything from aunties throwing shade to diminished marriage prospects (in a country where 90% of marriages are arranged).

I don't see that as a viable option. I have no interest whatsoever in living in such a repressive culture.

If it works great somewhere else, good, but keep it somewhere else.

My point is don’t say it can’t be done. It can be done, you just choose not to do it.

I think that when someone says "it can't be done" in this context they mean "It can't be done without a tremendous amount of detrimental side effects."

That phraseology only makes sense if you assume the audience agrees with you about what’s “detrimental.” But here, whether the “side effects” are “detrimental” depends on how much you value individual freedom, which is part of the debate.

It’s like saying “we can’t have universal healthcare” because you personally consider the resulting tax burden unacceptable. You’re obfuscating your message by glossing over an underlying value judgment that’s very much subject to debate.

Which countries have effectively banned alcohol?

https://www.google.com/search?q=Which%20countries%20have%20e...

I'm more interested in what the user I'm replying to believes on the matter than Google.

Same because people certainly drink in those countries and alcohol is available.

Obviously and that is true literally every time someone uses that sentence. And speaking about obfuscation:

> But here, whether the “side effects” are “detrimental” depends on how much you value individual freedom, which is part of the debate.

And how much you value human rights. And how much you value people not being tortured for this. The way muslim countries do it rely on systematic excessive cruelty and control in many private aspects of life.

Since we are at "we need to spell it out" maybe we should not hide behind soft euphemism like "valuing individual freedom" which suggest something much softer.

> And how much you value human rights.

There is no such thing as “human rights.” If you autopsy someone you won’t find any human rights in there. It’s just a party trick that allows Europeans to insist that their cultural emphasis on individualism is superior to other cultural values.

> And how much you value people not being tortured for this. The way muslim countries do it rely on systematic excessive cruelty

For the most part, it’s aunties chiding you, which is only figurative rather than literal torture.

Then there is not such thing as "other cultural values" either. There is no such thing as morals or ethics. No abstract concept ever exist. And speaking of these, muslim countries are much more picky, demanding much more and mistreating people (especially women) in much higher numbers.

> For the most part, it’s aunties chiding you, which is only figurative rather than literal torture.

Sure, there is a lot of that too. And then, there is the rest of it, like, actual literal torture.

“Human rights” don’t exist not because it’s abstract, but because it’s self-contradictory. “Cultural values” and “rights” can exist with respect to a particular society, or by reference to a particular legal code. But “human rights” implies rights that are universal to humans, and there is no such thing.

“Human rights” is a religious concept that makes sense if you have a God that provides the source of universal values. But presumably we are having a secular discussion here, not a theological one.

That is some nice sophistry, but that is all there is to it. Human rights and cultural values exist or not in the exact same level. If anything what you call "cultural values" are almost purely religious ones as they exist within the context of one faith and the reason for them is religion.

> “Human rights” is a religious concept that makes sense if you have a God that provides the source of universal values.

This is not true. Atheists frequently like and agree with this concept. The rights that we apply to all humans. I dont need god to believe in morals.

“For the most part” is doing some extraordinarily heavy lifting.

The way Muslim countries do it strikes me as something I 100% do not want at home. Like, I do not want any of it at home.

You can. I remember the ban on sports betting right after it was initially starting to take off online. It had a massive chilling effect and you had to jump through a lot of hoops to make a bet (VPNs, fake addresses, knowing a bookie in person etc.), so people just didn’t do it. Not just sports betting either, it really put a damper on online casino games like poker, blackjack etc.

Sports betting, or gambling of any form, for that matter, wasn’t a fraction of the problem it is today.

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