What would the African you do?

[RandBlade]

Thank you for your responses so far. For the record, this thread was indeed inspired by the notion brought up in recent threads that you shouldn't play games when the deck's stacked against you, eg. a national lottery. I was wondering if that held true in the case of the lottery of life. Loki's observation about the world collapsing without optimism may be relevant here

I think its a bad comparison and am glad I was consistent with my response of making the best of your situation.

The logic of not taking part in a lottery is that its optional, it costs you something to take part, and there are better alternatives instead. How many of those are true for your African situation?

[Aimless]

I think its a bad comparison and am glad I was consistent with my response of making the best of your situation.

The logic of not taking part in a lottery is that its optional, it costs you something to take part, and there are better alternatives instead. How many of those are true for your African situation?

Every single one of them. Life is optional, in this case taking part comes with costs such as pain and suffering, and death may conceivably be a better alternative.

[CitizenCain]

Every single one of them. Life is optional, in this case taking part comes with costs such as pain and suffering, and death may conceivably be a better alternative.

Really?

While I'd be the first to point out that some peoples' lives aren't worth a buck, to suggest that there's any significant similarity between suicide and deciding not to buy a lotto ticket is... insane, to say the least.

[Aimless]

Really?

While I'd be the first to point out that some peoples' lives aren't worth a buck, to suggest that there's any significant similarity between suicide and deciding not to buy a lotto ticket is... insane, to say the least.

I'm only looking at the dimensions RB mentioned, not trying to demonstrate that suicide is as trivial as deciding not to buy a lottery ticket.

Obviously life is a much more difficult lottery than the lotto is, both to play and to avoid. This is just a contrived scenario, but I have no doubt there are real scenarios where a person may hypothetically be able to choose not to "play", but only at a very high cost (eg. death) that may even be comparable to the costs of not taking an out. Depends on your perspective

[Aimless]

I really liked this series of posts by Wiggin:

http://www.theworldforgotten.com/sho...page=5&p=67814