Slot machines make sense in an addictive way. They function like any other addiction. You think you’re going to win, and you win pleasure just often enough to keep you pumping the coins in. Other traditional casino games and most physical addictions have a better payout, sometimes more than 50% of the coins; but the house always wins on average.
In modern times we have a burgeoning industry of Ted Williams Games.
I’m thinking of the weird Nash sweepstakes in 1954. You sent in an entry, and had a fair chance of winning some small prizes. The grand prize DID NOT reward the player. Nash went to the trouble of designing and building a special little roadster as the grand prize. If you won first prize, you DID NOT receive the sporty little car. The car went to asshole baseball star Ted Williams. After Williams won it, he publicly disdained the car, never drove it, and SOLD it to another asshole.
Politics is a Ted Williams game. You register, vote, support Candidate A, often pump coins into Candidate A’s slot. If A wins, NONE OF THE VOTERS win any prizes at all. In fact most voters continue to be PUNISHED by Candidate A, just as they were PUNISHED by Candidate B.
All the rewards go to asshole billionaires and defense contractors.
Effective Altruism is the best modern Ted Williams Game. The altruist impoverishes and kills vast numbers of currently alive people, in order to give a chance of winning to some people who may or may not exist 1000 years in the future. The altruist himself (eg Sam Altman or Sam Bankman) gains billions of dollars from the game.
Of course the oldest Ted Williams Game is religion. You pray and tithe and contribute in the hopes of winning in the future afterlife. Priests and preachers and popes win massively in the real current life. They get money to buy sports roadsters and mansions, and they get the power to sin without real punishment.
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Later thought… Social media is even more peculiar because there’s no promised payoff. You aren’t expecting to get pleasure or pain from scrolling. It does occasionally reward you with some real information or some good writing, but the IMMEDIATE pain and anger are vastly larger than the occasional benefit. It’s like a slot machine that shocks you 90% of the time and returns a dollar once or twice a day.
Polistra's Mill 