Ethical dilemmas: do aspies react differently? (+ gambling)

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I don't think concern with ethics is unique to aspies, and I am sure there must be unethical aspies (especially as ethics is often a matter of personal judgment), but I wonder if aspies react in different ways?

I was just faced with a question where the "right" course of action is obvious to me, but it involves disappointing someone online (and costing me a lot of money) and I'm sitting here almost hyperventilating, with my stress levels right up. It's like I am under tremendous pressure, yet all I need to do is email someone and say "I've changed my mind, no thanks." I'm guessing this is an aspie thing, or do NTs feel that way too?

The details if anyone is interested:

Here is the situation: I run a web site selling games that I make, and am always short of money. I just got an offer from an advertiser. It seems to be genuine - I've conversed with the agent, I've seen similar ads on other games sites, they're based in the UK and don't sound like any scammers I've ever heard, and they pay a lump sum upfront using Paypal, so there is no danger of this being a phishing scam. They are offering me a sum that is not large by advertising standards, but is greater than my gross sales for the past six months! I could really use that money. And all they want is to put a single line of text on my front page. Not even a picture! What an opportunity!

In early discussion the agent said the product would be relevant to my site, and I guess that is true in a way. I jst found out it's for a poker web site. Well my games are aimed at slightly older people who sit at home a lot, (like me) so I suppose the demographic is similar. So the agent did not lie. But I really don't want to do this. I really, really do not. This is why:

I have nothing against gambling, in the sense that I believe in freedom. It is fun for those who only do a tiny bit here and there. But the real profit, the reason they can offer a web site like mine so much money, is because they suck in vulnerable people and get them addicted. Unhappy or deluded people who spend ten or fifty dollars every night, often much more. I do not want to ban gambling, but I do not want to encourage it either. Beyond this, it represents the opposite of what I have always stood for, so for me, personally, to encourage it would be unethical. I'm not saying it would be unethical for anyone else, but it's a question of me, personally, not being a hypocrite.

Tangent: I used to work at a kiosk in a supermarket where we would sell lottery tickets, and to be blunt it was a tax on the mathematically challenged: the less you understand math, the more you paid. I used to joke that I had made two thousand dollars from the lottery, and my winnings were guaranteed each week. Because I never played. The typical player buys two tickets (£1 each) for each of the two weekly draws. The draws have run every week since 1994. A typical player would have spent £3500 on tickets, received 50% back as prizes (on average - most get much less, and a tiny number become millionaires), so has lost the equivalent of $2000 US dollars. But I digress.

There are four other reasons why I am against this offer.

First, I am an idealist. I am working for a world where all people create and enjoy good things. This is based on a love of creating and fairly distributing good things. The whole concept of gambling is its complete opposite: it is based on "get, get, get" with a small group taking nearly everything and no interest in creating anything. it is the opposite of all that I stand for.

Second, I have great hopes for my web site. When I see gaming sites plastered with ads for gambling it says one of two things: either the site has low ambitions, or all it wants it so squeeze out every last drop of money at whatever cost. I don't want to be in either group.

Third, I dislike advertising on principle, Advertising is a shouting match. It is a fundamentally bad way to spread information (spam free search engines and forums plus eBay style reputation system are better). It is a highly inefficient way to fund anything (micropayments are a better system, creating more of what we want and less spam). It rewards bad behavior (spam again) and punishes good behavior (the genuinely useful web sites find it hard to get payment, and this will never change as long as advertising is the default way to pay for stuff). I fully accept that in our current economc model advertising may be the least bad solution, but I have a plan for changing out economic model so that is no excuse to me.

Four: based on all the above reasons, and many others, gambling sites just depress me. They represent all that is unpleasant, irritating, fake, borderline crooked, small minded and spirit sapping about the world.

back on topic

Well that's enough rambling. The decision is clear, but ding it- facing someone else, going back on my original enthusiasm, that's a social thing and I don't like it. Pressure. Pressure.

I think I will procrastinate for a few hours while I psyche myself up to reply. Procrastination can be a survival mechanism.

Well, the thing is, ethics is always a personal decision. If you feel that the proposed advertisements, or product/service advertised aren't something you feel comfortable advertising, then don't take the deal.

Congratulations on your offer. I have the utmost respect for your decision.

@trappedinhell: I wish you the best of luck! All I can say is that I have personally seen what a gambling addictions real cost is. (I am not the addict, but related to one.) So I hope you make the best decision based on what you feel is the correct choice. I will say that gambling is a choice. However, for some people it becomes an obsession because the addict feels if he/she tries hard enough/long enough, they can win back all their lost money & then some. Unfortunately, gambling establishments are not built on winners.

I don't like that kind of stuff either.

Now, something I read in ethics that kind of resonated with me, turn it into a 'how' instead of a 'whether.' For example . . .

1) maybe telling the guy or gal you're leaning against it.

2) could you take money for three months or six months and then easily terminate the agreement

3) the ads themselves, are they garish with moving pictures or are they respectful.

4) and I'm assuming that they're not asking for an exclusive, that you could sell ad space to other companies?

5) and maybe a couple of additional ways to check out this company

6) or just tell them No. don't need to be 100% sure, it sounds like you're abundantly against it.

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As far as paying for music, the Internet is there.

Micropayments for other things (and multi-path not single-path), still quite a ways off.

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I lived in Vegas for two years, tried to make money playing Texas Hold'em poker. I broke even. Please be careful.

You could take a step back, and apply the same logic you used with the lottery scheme.

How are you going to feel about this 5 or 10 years from now, long after the money is spent?

Best wishes.

I worked at a grocery store in 1992. Some of the lottery customers were pushy, think it was okay to cut in line at the express register to hand me a dollar and get a ticket?

About the poker . . . I have never met someone as good with probability as I am, including taking C++. (Not that much an everyday topic, I take a lot of alone time anyway, so admittedly not that large a sample size)

I play tight-aggressive in cash games, the only way to play. Kept an honest poker log. Read Mike Caro on tells, which I rather excel at, too. (It's a matter of being pretty good, of going with the flow, being open to appreciating someone, feeling what they are feeling. And also, in very practical terms, it's a matter of not burying my head so deeply in my own cards that I miss what is patently obvious right in front of me.)

I still broke even.

And so, a person trying to make serious money, or risking serious money, needs to understand very well the statistical concept of gamblers ruin, and how substantial the upswings and downswings are. (One thing poker has taught me is that life is streakier than most people tend to think.)

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I observed degenerate gambling in the sports book and the craps table. Maybe, precisely because poker is my game, I didn't see it as much there.

(funny thing is, I found the game itself actually rather boring. I find it more interesting analyzing the odds on my own or talking about the entire experience, including the social aspects.)

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 14 Sep 2011, 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, that would let them down gently. But in some ways that is scarier - see the original aspie question. At least if I tell them straight it is over with. Dealing with other emails and uncertainty makes it worse.



I had not really thought about that - good question. What seems like a good deal now could look not so great if it turns customers away over the next year. I know that if I see a small gaming site with ads for unrelated products it makes me want to leave - it's never a good sign.

One thing that did bother me was the loss of freedom. In a couple of months I'll be launching a completely different kind of site - where you play the game online and the whole home page is a picture, so a text ad there would be impossible. An ad would make me fee trapped.

Actually, I might take the cowards way out: thank them for their interest, but point out that the redesign will mean any text ad is impossible. I am warming to that idea. But I won't call it cowardice, I'll call itt diplomacy.


This is why I was happy to say yes in principle - it's just a text ad. Very discrete. I was hoping it was for some little company that made something interesting - I don't know, like [/quote]the guy who grows his own furniture. I'd happily advertise that for almost nothing! In hindsight that was a bit optimistic.



Thanks. As I said, I used to sell lottery tickets so I am not in principle against gambling, but in this context it feels so wrong. And if I had not decided before, your point about thinking six months ahead has sealed it. I'll just tell them about the redesign.

Thanks again.

Excellent point. Right now that much money would be very nice, but if I thought that was all I could ever earn then it makes more sense to shut the site down and apply for another cleaning job.

I intend for the site to make ten times more than it could make from advertising other people's stuff. I estimate that ads would harm the site by more than ten percent (by reducing my freedom and sending the wrong message). Therefore it would cost me more money than it brought.

It reminds me of Marvel Comics' web site. They have ads for other people's stuff. That's crazy. Aren't they trying to sell their own stuff? Don't they think their stuff would sell? They must think that if a comic lover comes to a comic web site they are more likely to buy some random product than a comic? They must have a very low opinion of their own comics. Sure, comics have ads too, but not on the front page!

Since this is your core question, I read the anecdote looking for what about it was different from what I am familiar with. I don't know exactly when this sort of ethical dilemma started happening. Perhaps in the 60's when idealism started to be more forcefully marketed and the people who published underground magazines had to decide if it was ok to accept advertisers and if so, which ones? I personally encountered it in the 80's with some friends who published a music 'zine (as they used to be known) and had the chance to accept advertising revenue from a retailer they despised and who was looked at askance by their readers.

Here is the difference between your anecdote and the way my friends' discussed it (which is how I've heard it discussed more broadly). In your anecdote, you are stressed about how to turn down the advertisers, as well as being concerned both with not compromising your own ideals (not wanting to enable gambling addiction) and worrying about what your customers would think (since it gives a distasteful feel to the website). In all the many discussions I've heard of this ethical dilemma, not once have I heard anyone worry about disappointing the advertisers. The discussions were 100% about whether the ads compromised ideals or would be perceived negatively by readers/customers.

So if you are looking for an AS/NT difference, perhaps it is that NTs are less likely to stress about how to say "no" in a business transaction, or have an easier time compartmentalizing social groups and interacting differently- "adverstiser" and "customer" being two very distinct groups.

Or maybe not. But that's what I got from parsing your anectdote.

You raise a very good point. That was actually my very first concern. This is the first reply I sent to the agent after her initial email:


Now obviously the advertiser still wants me to do it. So clearly I will disappoint them in the short term when I say no. But if I said yes I would disappoint my site viewers (it would be impossible to make the kind of site they deserve). I would also disappoint some of the customers who gamble more because of that ad, expecting winnings but are disappointed.

But my own case is a little unusual. I am making this site to fund my land rent site, which will make more money for everybody. Certainly more than they would make by advertising on my site. By refusing this ad I give short term disappointment but long term they get more money. It's like not letting somebody buy your seeds because you are planting a tree and in a few years there will be seeds for everybody.

Besides, it's a gambling site. They expect to be disappointed nine times out of ten, that's why they're in the business. if they really wanted a business where everyone takes their ads they should work for an animal sanctuary instead.

Having lived with a gambling addict, I would not be able bring myself to promote the practice in any way, either.

When your utilities start getting shut off so you have to live in the sweltering dark with no hot water and your personal property is stolen and sold by someone whose fevered logic is "I can win it all back if I just keep playing", its no longer an innocent 'game'.

I've always thought risking good money for no tangible return was stupid, but I used to think it was just one of those things people had a right to do if they wanted. Now I look at it as more on the same level as Methamphetamine or Heroin. Its so damaging to more than just the addict, it goes beyond a personal freedom issue.


My last ex (after being arrested herself for kiting checks to cover her gambling habit) used to come home from court-ordered Gamblers Anonymous meetings every week with new stories of people waiting to be sentenced to prison terms for stealing thousands of dollars from their employers to feed into the slot machines at Indian Casinos. The last General Manager who fired me was later fired himself for trying to sell Company vehicles and office equipment for cash to gamble with. When you're driven to that kind of desperation, how can it still be 'fun'?

Not crazy. Enlightened self-interest. A busy community is in Marvel's long-term business interest, and they're being paid, and the products they're flogging are discretionary purchases and low-cost. A prospective punter is probably more likely to respond with "oh, cool, I came here to get Marvel and found this other wonderful comic, I'll buy both" than "oh, drat, I need my fix of comics to live but can only afford one, best choose between Brand X and Marvel."

I think you'd be right to ditch the gambling promoters.

There are many companies offering online poker, which are easy to find using a search. A lot of these companies use invasive advertising on other websites and on tv.

A text advert is unlikely to make people start gambling in a big way (in the same way that a Heineken advert does not make somebody an alcoholic) but may cause them to change who they gamble with.

Around here there are many gambling establishments (Bingo, Slot machine centres, casinos as well as many lottery retailers) as well as the online options, if I had an addiction I could easily feed it. One (more) advert would make little difference.

All addictions start somewhere, and few people jump in feet first knowing they're making a huge mistake. It always seems innocent and harmless in the beginning.

"If I don't sell it to them, someone else will" is the amoral logic of the drug dealer. It may be true, but it doesn't absolve you of personal responsibility for supplying it.

If I were you, I'd say, thanks but no thanks, and I would tell them why.

I'm not on the Spectrum, but I have my principles and it doesn't sit well with me to go against them.

I've had two situations recently when I had to make a decision similar to yours. One involved freemasons asking me to do something for them and I refused. I did think about it first and sought advise and opinions from a variety of people, but ultimately it was about what I felt was right for me to do.

The second situation related to my dog who has damaged her cruciate ligament. My insurance covers treatment up to £1,000 and I choose that maximum limit as I don't think it is right to spend a lot of money on an animal. I know that seems harsh and it's not everyone's choice, but that has always been my opinion. This is the first time I've had a pet which had a serious injury, and so the first time I've had to really deal with this principle of mine. However, surgery is not essential and not 100% effective, and it would cost a minimum of £3,000. The vet gave me the hard sell, and did seem taken aback when I told her that I considered it immoral to spend so much money on a dog and that if I was going to be giving that amount of money to anyone I'd rather donate it to the East Africa appeal. Interestingly, the vet then told me that at the PDSA surgery, which provides free care for the pets of people on benefits, most dogs recover just fine without the surgery! Fancy that!