Ethics, Youth and Growth

Ethics, Youth, and Growth and the article about "The Million Dollar Bet"

I am writing these words extremely fast. I read the eponymous article with total absorption. When I was through, a flurry of thoughts and ideas zipped through my mind at a million miles an hour.

1. The author was wise for so young (24) an age.

2. He was greedy in making the bet.

3. It was good that he lost the bet. I didn't feel sorry for him at all. I hope he learned from the experience.

4. It wasn't actually "The Million Dollar Bet". He was given 3-1 odds and he placed a bet at $300,000 and thought he would easily win $900,000. The misleading title of the article turned me off against the author, although I respected his vast intelligence and precocity. Deep down, he loved to be a teacher while he was not really a honest person. 

5. As a former lousy runner who ran twice for a marathon at 5 hours, the story absorbed my attention for the crazy bettor's flirtations with death or injury. Throughout my life, I have often gone to the extremes and skated close to the edge of the abyss. That's how I know myself and others. That's how I know I am different from most others. 

6. Money is a good test of a person's integrity and love. 

7. I am making a safe bet that I will be down to 155 lbs, able to do 60 push-ups, 200 sit-ups, and 20 pull-ups by October 2014, for $10,000. Want to place a bet against me? I need incentives.

Now the author of the article resigned from high stakes poker, wrote a well-received book about poker, gave away most of his money to fund his parents' retirement and to charity. All of these highly unusual activities occurred after he was involved in two highly publicized scandals which called into question his ethics. As I was reading his book, several thoughts came to me:

1. HQ is a very intelligent young man and an excellent poker player whose ethics, unfortunately, was opaque. He was aware of that. But I must not be too judgmental on him since he is only 24 and evolving. I am 65 and was only definitely averse to unethical activities   when I turned 59.

 2. HQ has been self-aware that he is self-conflicting. I am 65 and in so many ways I am like HQ. He is fond of writing. Writing is to crystallize one's thinking. Reading HQ  is like a taking a trip to facts, truths, and logic, a journey into the nature of epistemology and science of poker. HQ took poker out of the dark ages. Poker after HQ is like economics in the second half of the 20th century and beyond. Before that, economics was just an half-assed exercise of speculations of the nature of economic forces and economic behavior. 

3. High Stakes No Limit Poker is akin to war battle combat or physical fight to the death. It's not for the faint-hearted or the stupid.