It's the same reason I worry about casinos, even if gamblers are fucking idiots who deserve everything they lose. (They aren't.) It's the same reason I worry about exhorbitant fines for speeding tickets, even though people were driving recklessly, and charging you $500 for skipping on bus fare, even though it's genuinely unfair when you do. Whether the loser deserves it doesn't matter, because the real threat to all of us is the winner.

What's being done with all those fines, and gambling losses, and greedy crypto bastards? You don't know, because your attention was skillfully redirected to think only of the ones losing the money, not the ones gaining it. It's the raison d'être for what I call the "guilt industry," people making money off of punishing the guilty, and oh what things they think of to make us feel guilty.

I mean yeah, the news media waves their arms to get your attention and points at the golden toilet seats or whatever, but these people are also spending it on investments, on political lobbying, on philanthropic conquests of our social services, and on... ...private equity...