Nate

"Rand, in her "Virtue of Selfishness" -- which I have not yet finished-- mentions the need for an ultimate goal." Which essay? I've been hopscotching around in this book. I would like to read this.

Well hopefully more people are interested. I vote for sunday early evening. I don't believe in fashionably late in general ... not a good source for an answer there. Self, what the hell is a "period live chat" ? I thought I fixed that. It is suppose to say "periodic" but then I THOUGHT I changed it to "weekly"

I think you are both right to some extent. Some casino's seem to place a value on having regular cardroom characters (with celeb. potential) as you've stated. I'm specificially disinterested in large tournaments mainly because I do not want to attract attention to myself at this point in my life. I value my privacy. Anywho, some casino's don't seem to care one way or the other because, as you stated, atleast on a hand to hand basis, it doesn't matter to the house who wins. I've been to some casino's that seem to think regular big winners naturally increase the number of regular big losers. The casino fears that the regular losers will stop playing, and thus, so would some of the winners due to the decrease in losers to support them. Basically, almost every card room manager has his own idea on this subject. I've never bothered to figure out which is correct because I don't see how it would matter to me. Add to this that some cardrooms, especially larger ones, have several managers. This causes some very conflicting messages to be sent to the professional player between and/or within casinos.

What do you think about having a weekly live chat about a "topic of the week"? The topic could be determined by taking suggestions during the week, having a poll, and then announcing the topic for the following week at the chat session and on the poll thread.

Uh, in many cases, much better than tvs for trying a few different products. I pmed you since I don't want to spam the forum with advertisement or referral links.

Vladamir, I mostly agree, but I don't see how "The offeror has likely already calculated the percentage ..." is revelvant to the ethical issue. Maybe it wasn't suppose to be and I'm looking for something that isn't there. --- What the ? The new topic title is orders of magnitude worse than the original title. (gross exaggeration) First, the in the original title "how to WORK through ethical problems," the word work had a double meaning. Perhaps this wasn't clear enough. This topic is NOT about whether or not poker as a profession is moral. It was about what makes a profession or other means of generating income moral (or immoral). Contract adherence? Added value? Something else? Further, I was hoping for some insight on how people like to approach there own ethical problems. Perhaps these issues belong in several threads, but being a new member I did not want to start 39492849 threads. Anyway, JSnow, "If you don't like what you're doing now..." I couldn't agree more. Passion is almost a prerequisite for sucess on the highest level of ANYTHING. Enough of this for now, I'm going to start a thread about MP3s.

You guys snuck two in on me while I was typing! First, this bargain question isn't just a hypothetical. It has real implications for me. I've done a few of these sites where you complete free trials and you recieve a free gift from the company running the website for doing so. (No, they are not scams ... mostly. I participate in forums that quickly reacts to those that are scams.) The sponsors are ultimately paying for you to try their products. I've since started to transition from a moral relativist to an objectivist, so I am now thoroughly examining my life. Hal, thank you! Vladamir, do you think you have to give the product an honest try though? why or why not? What if there is nothing in the contract that states that you can only complete the offer one time? Do you think it matters if it is a paid subscription or not? For example, pay for one month of service, get $20 vs trial free for one month, get $20. The former case isn't a "trial" per se. I think it DOES make a difference, but I'm interested to hear what others think. I don't think there is any implied "trial" in the former case. This also has significant implications. You see there are quite a few of these sites, but not so many sponsors. You end up seeing some sponsors over and over again. I know someone who has done the same offer 7 times!

Terrific ... use the unfilling as a means to the fulfilling. I must be SLOW tonight. Also, I'm not claiming that this alone makes it ethical. You would still have to decide that this is the best option available for your longterm well being.

Thanks for the replies. Lathanar, agreed. I think that as long as I'm not violating anyone's rights (i.e. cheating), assuming they freely decided to play, I am not doing anything wrong. I guess I'm also assuming that it is in my self-interest to play in the first place ... which wasn't assumed when I originally asked my question. I don't know how I could possibly expect someone else to answer that. Gordon "aequalsa," I basically agree with everything you said except "sense other courses would probably lead to a more fulfilling life." Wouldn't simply being aware of this fact indicate that I am not making the best decision considering my rational self-interest, thus making my decision immoral? LaVache, interesting point ... I, myself, derive some value from losing to players superior to me. I also hadn't considered the possibility that I am in some way contributing to the entertainment value "poker community." Even if I never made a televised appearance, surely I would have contributed to the tournament either by making it possible for those players to be there, or directly by entering myself. " I assume that you are asking if it would be ethical for someone to essentially sell another person the rights to do something that would normally be considered a rights violation" I guess I hadn't explained myself well enough. I was asking if there were any other factors to consider, ethically, besides what is written, either literally or implicitly, in a contract. I guess you answered my question when you said "I'd say that if your had no interest in their product, but did try it out and ultimately returned it you wouldn't be doing anything wrong." Let me come up with a better example. Say Weight Watchers offered me a free digital scale for signing up for a one month free trial. Let's further assume that I'm 5'10" and weigh 125 lbs. Would you agree that it would be immoral for me to sign up for the free scale? Clearly, there is no possible way I would continue in their program. Slightly different... let's say some video game rental place offers me a free 13" tv for signing up for a free trial for unlimted rentals at $9.95 per month. Now, say I don't really play video games now. I don't think it is completely impossible, but certainly highly improbable, that I would continue with this subscription. Is this second scenario ethical? At what point would it be ethical? 0.000001% chance of continuing? 5%? Certainly there is a 0.000001% chance that some skinny guy would somehow decide he wanted to lose weight! Does this clear up my question (#2 from original post)? Obviously, I'm not expecting you to say "Oh, I'd say about x%." It is either wrong or it isn't. I don't see how the answer to the first scenario (weight watchers) could be different to the second scenario (video game rental), but I'm all ears ... err, eyes ... if you think I'm wrong.

How do you generally approach questions of ethics? I've recently been doing some thinking about what makes a given means of generating money "ethical" or "unethical." Consider the following examples: 1) Playing Poker Skip this if you already know poker isn't all luck. Please do not respond about how poker is all luck. Contrary to what some believe, there is a large skill factor involved that, given a long enough period of time, removes the luck factor from the game. This is further evidenced by the fact that it is a player vs player game as opposed to all other games being player vs casino. You'll also notice the same names at the top places of most large tournaments. I'm not going to go into much detail here. This isn't the point of this post. END SKIP I don't see anything in particular that makes me think playing poker as a profession is unethical, but I have a nagging thought that "You are not adding any kind of value to society" if I am playing "professionally" rather than just for fun. I feel like I am just a drain on the economy or something. Does anyone have any insight here? Is this more of a personal issue than an ethical one? ROOT QUESTION: Is adding value to society a prerequisite for an ethical means to make money? 2) Incentive Offers and Other Freebies Assume XYZ company offers you a free widget for trying out their service. Further assume that you KNOW you have absolutely NO interest in XYZ's product and will definitely cancel during the trial period. Is it ethical to sign up and accept the free widget? Does it matter whether or not you give the service a fair shake? (actually TRY it) I almost don't want to post this, but ... 2a) Is this an example of the "prudent predator" principle? If so, what do you feel the consequences of this action would be? ROOT QUESTION: Do the terms and conditions of contracts between freethinking individuals determine what is ethical behavior between these parties, or are there other factors? I could go on and on, but I'm going to cut this off here for now. I appreciate your replies.