It isn't?
In my school it was.
They also taught us the effects of smoking. People still smoked.
this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026
50 points (75.5% liked)
Showerthoughts
40936 readers
748 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
That is not how addiction works
Yeah, I failed to consider that.
Counter point: Nikola Tesla was a gambling addict in university.
Logic and Reasoning as well.
Part of the reason we learn mathematics is to develop logic and reasoning skills. Unfortunately Americans tend to practically brag about being mathematically illiterate.
Used to be a lottery game dev, now I'm in addition.
This suggestion would do nothing since compulsive behavior is not a choice and it is not rational.
Nah, monkey brain would still think "THIS time I'll win for sure!"
I don't think you understand addiction and it's causes if you think it can be mitigated by education alone.
The issue with substance abuse isn't that people don't know that nicotine, alcohol or methamphetamine is wildly addictive.
Yeah, it’s common knowledge that the house has an advantage, and they will eventually take all of your money if you continue playing. A doctoral degree is not required,
Wanna bet?
I like those odds.
**Chef's kiss
Probability and statistics are part of the high school math curriculum for the majority of students in California and we have our share of compulsive gamblers. Just because a person knows something doesn't make sense does not assure they won't do it.
Anti-drug education is in schools and people still do it
Uhm, it is....
IDK, I think we've seen adequate evidence that a lot of people out there are unswayed by facts and logic, and many of the ones who can be reasoned with are vulnerable to sophistry, sealioning, and other bad faith propaganda/debate techniques.
Even an informed public seems incapable of making good decisions.
Can't wait to gamble today. Literally shaking. That's called dedication. Buddy, I've been gambling everyday for 20+ years. It's all I think about and I still haven't gotten addicted so I doubt it's happening.
Some of us did learn that, but were not paying attention.
Also never bet against advertising making you act against your best interests. We're all vulnerable given the right exploit
Not as much as you think.
It wasn't until graduate level statistics until we got into how to tear down bad stats as part of understanding how to make good stats.
Like, even for people who took regular college level statistical analysis, the hardest part of it is still keeping you bias out.
Teach a bunch of high schoolers stats, and they're gonna think they're smarter than a gambling app. That leads to more people trying it, and naturally more people getting hooked.
You're thinking of it as innoculation when it's more like the first hit for free...
Quick edit:
It's like how med students think they know more than every doctor they've ever seen and diagnosis themselves with a bunch of shit
A little bit of knowledge mixed with teenage confidence and an undeveloped brain doesn't always result in a positive.
So with something as addictive as gambling, the best way to decrease it is to limit or avoid exposure to gambling until mid 20s when the brain is more likely to be developed.
My brother took intro to counselling, diagnosed himself as suffering with Special Boy disease, everyone else in the family with Evil Syndrome and went off the deep end into a full public mental breakdown, from which our relationship has never recovered.
Reminds me of psych 101 - much of the class thought they had something.
the best way to decrease it is to limit or avoid exposure to gambling until mid 20s when the brain is more likely to be developed.
Considering most videogames have been dopamine hacked with lootcrates and similar mechanics almost no one is avoiding this until their 20s. Just like lemmy's feed: random searching leading to stochastic rewards trigger our hunter gatherer neuro-circuitry the same way gambling does, little hits of dopamine to reward us for searching.
No one matures without being tweaked neurologically, except the more conservative amish and global super-poor who never touch casinos or technology.
Edit for clarity
Sounds a lot like antivacxers screeching everyone gets chickenpox...
It would have no effect whatsoever. All of that learning stuff is forebrain function. It's hard to acquire, and the first thing to go when under stress or intoxicated. People make all kinds of bad decisions when they know better. They splurge on vacations when they are already paying interest on credit card balances. They sleep with strangers while they want to keep a stable home life. They buy too much car or spend to much on clothes for little hits of feel good when they would be better off saving money.
Knowing something doesn't equate to action. And the impulse to gamble can easily over ride some school lesson on poor odds of winning.
It’s taught in our grade schools.
They either would learn or they wouldn’t. It’s really just 50/50
... they are in my country, at least for people who want to attend a university.
I realize myself that the lottery is a tax on lack of statistical knowledge. I still occasionally play it because if I don't play, then the probability of winning (and never having to work for money again) is 0, and I can easily afford to occasionally buy a lottery ticket.
Your odds of finding the winning ticket on the sidewalk about about the same as buying it. So I walk around once in a while looking for winning tickets. I haven't found one yet, but who knows. Bonus - I get some much needed exercise in the process.
Where I am the lottery funds a lot of smaller museums and some other community things like that so in my mind when I buy a lottery ticket I'm donating money to those causes rather than just trying to win.
This is why probability needs to be taught, and taught properly. This line of logic clearly demonstrates the problem.
-
Your expected return from not playing a $5 ticket is exactly $0.00.
-
Your expected return from playing a $5 ticket is approximately $-4.99
"Gaining Zero" is vastly preferable to "Losing Five".
If you can occasionally afford a $5 ticket, you can occasionally afford to buy shares of an index fund. You're still gambling, but your expected return is positive.
I realize that, academically.
I feel that what I am buying with a lottery ticket is a few days of allowing myself to imagine what my life might be like if I win.
And I invest vastly more of my money than I buy in lottery tickets.
The biggest gambler i know is a VP in accounting. He has been since I met him right outside of college. If anything he does make a lot more reasonable bets and finds loopholes to make the best of his bets. The thing is he keeps a spreasheet for the year to track what he spends and honestly he is almost always ahead by a lot or sometimes break even or slightly under. I have never seen him actually lose so he is a terrible example of having a gambling addiction lol. We all say he is one of the luckiest people we know which also stems from the fact that when we play poker he will almost always hit the statistically low percentage card needed to win and it's frustrating to say the least.
Yeah, the biggest gambler I know is a rich as fuck dentist. He has his six digit gambling fund and he bets on the money markets. He generally makes good bets and is rarely in the red. Several people have asked him for advice and tried to "follow his system" and they all lost money so idk if he is really in the black. Still, gambling is against his religion and it's futures trading mostly so he thinks he's morally absolved or whatever. I don't really care as long as he holds for 30 days (I do his taxes and I have yelled at him about wash sales, though we were "arguing" about his gambling way before I started doing his taxes), I just think it's funny he is gambling and can't call it what it is.
I don't need facts. I have luck and karma.
The problem with gambling is that you have to put some trust into whatever you're gambling on, and that's already bad because there's no reason you should be trusting them to begin with since whoever is taking your money obviously doesn't want to give it back. There is no way to tell that what you are gambling on hasn't been fixed in some way unless you are on the inside in which case it is usually illegal.