Going to sound like an old fart (I'm a millennial) but I even think gambling used to be better. The thing I always loved about physical real casinos was talking to random interesting strangers while getting free drinks. I once saw a lady drop $400 each on 5 rounds of roulette, lost all $2000 and stormed out of the casino cursing. The comedy and tragedy of the situation was a learning moment. I'm afraid the nature of online gambling hides all that shame and social costs. Another symptom of our time.
In theory, I love the physical casino! I think we need places to periodically indulge in vice. But it’s clearly something different when vice becomes a micro-transaction repeated throughout the everyday. It loses the cathartic elements of vice and just becomes mundane.
I share your optimistic sentiment. Hedonism is nothing new and though it may be more accessible than in the past, other good things are more accessible too like free books and great writing, contacting your friends and loved ones across the world, nutrition to a level never seen before by humanity, and many more examples.
Wow wow wow, great writing. I especially loved, "All of our culture, through the lens of our phones, has transformed into this 24/7 carnival that transcends space and time. There are no clocks, no holidays, no traditions. There is instead the constant, glimmering lure of the chance of fulfillment. And here still, the house always wins."
Powerful statement. I also kept thinking of that one Twilight Zone episode with the slot machine - life is beginning to feel like a mix of that episode and Black Mirror. I often feel like, for my own personal sanity and health, the best option most days is to unplug and touch grass. Funny how the people who do this now are the weird ones or the ones asking too much.
I would add to this the culture of donating money to streamers during live broadcasts. "If we hit the goal, then I might play your favourite game next week", etc. Parasocial gambling, in essence.
Robert Johnson while talking about the wounded feeling function and using the handless maiden tale to make his points calls it a Devils Bargain, the opportunity to create something that we feel as desirable without having to pay the price for it, and then the consequences from that are the ones that create malaise and neuroses on our lives.
I feel I can relate to your optimism. I choose to at least, for me, for myself. I believe this rupture of inner and outer self has created all of the longing for connectiong and also the fear that impede it as well. Projection feels like a bitch when you're trying to live an almost barren inner life and then anything that that energy touches just crumbles in front of you like dust.
"communion with algorithm" is a perfect encapsulation I think. It's like we're approaching a reality where sex with the machine is the point, not with whoever is on the other side of the silicon and glass. 'Maximal pleasure, minimal exposure' has to be one of the great cons of our time. A couple lines in, I immediately though about chaturbate and similar platforms, tokenized casinos hybridized with an infinite "bordello" where, after converting your quickly-forgotten real money to house currency, one can feed the machine of flattened, utterly objectified digital sex and maybe see an orgasm transacted by your donation. I doubt the average visitor thinks about, hopes for, or insists on the financial success of whose webcam feed they are looking at, or the calculations by which they are really paid out. She may get safety and change; he may escape the law with his pants down. But they are both in the casino, betting something on red--just as the house has designed.
I am conscious about using a variety of sources from different ideological backgrounds, and I push back on the framing of this specific survey within the essay. With regard to gambling, however, there is clear universality to the issue.
If given the choice between believing others that the world is pessimistic, or going out and interacting with people in real life, and experiencing the beautiful reality of what life has to offer for myself and with others, I’ll choose to believe my own experiences over what I read online.
Don’t get me wrong, the world is flawed and unjust, but it is also a positive place with people who share much more in common than what we are told and really actually makes this place not only small but beautiful.
I truly hope that people eventually reject the construct of living in an online world for the falsehood of ease and convenience and seek out in real life experiences that will make you feel more alive than any app or website ever could. Those experiences will make you feel alive because they are unique, rare, and, if done with others, will give you a community and connection that repetitive online platforms can rarely, if ever, provide.
The most effective thing about a casino may not be that it gives you something every time you pull the lever ，. It only has to give you something once in a while.
Ten swipes are boring, then the eleventh makes you laugh. You post over and over with no response, then one suddenly blows up. You lose bet after bet, then win one.
Once the result appears, the action stays: one more swipe, one more post, one more bet.
So the digital casino doesn’t need to keep satisfying us. It only needs to make us think the next one might。
Going to sound like an old fart (I'm a millennial) but I even think gambling used to be better. The thing I always loved about physical real casinos was talking to random interesting strangers while getting free drinks. I once saw a lady drop $400 each on 5 rounds of roulette, lost all $2000 and stormed out of the casino cursing. The comedy and tragedy of the situation was a learning moment. I'm afraid the nature of online gambling hides all that shame and social costs. Another symptom of our time.
In theory, I love the physical casino! I think we need places to periodically indulge in vice. But it’s clearly something different when vice becomes a micro-transaction repeated throughout the everyday. It loses the cathartic elements of vice and just becomes mundane.
I share your optimistic sentiment. Hedonism is nothing new and though it may be more accessible than in the past, other good things are more accessible too like free books and great writing, contacting your friends and loved ones across the world, nutrition to a level never seen before by humanity, and many more examples.
Wow wow wow, great writing. I especially loved, "All of our culture, through the lens of our phones, has transformed into this 24/7 carnival that transcends space and time. There are no clocks, no holidays, no traditions. There is instead the constant, glimmering lure of the chance of fulfillment. And here still, the house always wins."
Powerful statement. I also kept thinking of that one Twilight Zone episode with the slot machine - life is beginning to feel like a mix of that episode and Black Mirror. I often feel like, for my own personal sanity and health, the best option most days is to unplug and touch grass. Funny how the people who do this now are the weird ones or the ones asking too much.
Still one of the greatest to ever do it on this platform. Thanks for continuing to write here Magdalene. I've been around a hot minute : )
wow thank you so much!!
I would add to this the culture of donating money to streamers during live broadcasts. "If we hit the goal, then I might play your favourite game next week", etc. Parasocial gambling, in essence.
Super interesting! Makes me think also of this article by Teddy Brown https://tedthoughts.substack.com/p/everything-is-gambling?r=353uhg&utm_medium=ios
"The sense of dystopian tragedy it distills upon us moreover makes our own apathy more palatable." Spot on. Great writing
Casino-ification is the perfect word to describe this.
Robert Johnson while talking about the wounded feeling function and using the handless maiden tale to make his points calls it a Devils Bargain, the opportunity to create something that we feel as desirable without having to pay the price for it, and then the consequences from that are the ones that create malaise and neuroses on our lives.
I feel I can relate to your optimism. I choose to at least, for me, for myself. I believe this rupture of inner and outer self has created all of the longing for connectiong and also the fear that impede it as well. Projection feels like a bitch when you're trying to live an almost barren inner life and then anything that that energy touches just crumbles in front of you like dust.
Sweet Bastet's Tail!
I suppose that gambling doesn't seem so irrational in a world where the only thing that working hard and playing by the rules will get you is old.
Sort of like trying to become a YouTube celebrity or something.
Still, life itself is enough of a gamble when you live by your wits.
"communion with algorithm" is a perfect encapsulation I think. It's like we're approaching a reality where sex with the machine is the point, not with whoever is on the other side of the silicon and glass. 'Maximal pleasure, minimal exposure' has to be one of the great cons of our time. A couple lines in, I immediately though about chaturbate and similar platforms, tokenized casinos hybridized with an infinite "bordello" where, after converting your quickly-forgotten real money to house currency, one can feed the machine of flattened, utterly objectified digital sex and maybe see an orgasm transacted by your donation. I doubt the average visitor thinks about, hopes for, or insists on the financial success of whose webcam feed they are looking at, or the calculations by which they are really paid out. She may get safety and change; he may escape the law with his pants down. But they are both in the casino, betting something on red--just as the house has designed.
Starting this piece by sourcing a far-right Christian think tank is a wild choice
I am conscious about using a variety of sources from different ideological backgrounds, and I push back on the framing of this specific survey within the essay. With regard to gambling, however, there is clear universality to the issue.
Completely agree.
If given the choice between believing others that the world is pessimistic, or going out and interacting with people in real life, and experiencing the beautiful reality of what life has to offer for myself and with others, I’ll choose to believe my own experiences over what I read online.
Don’t get me wrong, the world is flawed and unjust, but it is also a positive place with people who share much more in common than what we are told and really actually makes this place not only small but beautiful.
I truly hope that people eventually reject the construct of living in an online world for the falsehood of ease and convenience and seek out in real life experiences that will make you feel more alive than any app or website ever could. Those experiences will make you feel alive because they are unique, rare, and, if done with others, will give you a community and connection that repetitive online platforms can rarely, if ever, provide.
The most effective thing about a casino may not be that it gives you something every time you pull the lever ，. It only has to give you something once in a while.
Ten swipes are boring, then the eleventh makes you laugh. You post over and over with no response, then one suddenly blows up. You lose bet after bet, then win one.
Once the result appears, the action stays: one more swipe, one more post, one more bet.
So the digital casino doesn’t need to keep satisfying us. It only needs to make us think the next one might。
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻