The French sociologist Roche-Kailuis, in Man, Play and Games, says that to diagnose a civilization, one can start with one of the most popular games. The "diagnosis" of American civilization, whether it is cultural critics or casino tycoons, believes that Las Vegas is the best object of study, "Las Vegas exists because it is the perfect epitome of the United States." American casino tycoon Steve Win once said.
In 1967, the famous sociologist Owen Goffman started with the study of cards and did an ethnographic study of the gambling phenomenon in Las Vegas. In order to do his research, Goffman worked as a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas and was eventually promoted to district manager. The result of his "diagnosis" of American culture is that in the modern society where bureaucratic bureaucracy is increasingly flourishing, citizens have long lost the opportunity to show their personality in public risk events, and this survivalal desire for "action" or important activities can be satisfied by gambling, which can "immerse players in the infinite possibilities of life."
By the 1990s, the gambling industry had entered a phase of explosive growth in the United States. Natasha Dow Shure, an associate professor of cultural anthropology at New York University, is once again setting her sights on Las Vegas, this time choosing slot machines that are legal in many places. In previous anthropological and sociological studies, it has been considered unworthy, such as Keluwa's view that slots are "a ridiculous, compulsive game with wins and losses."
Through numerous in-depth interviews in Las Vegas, Natasha Doe Shure presents a phenomenon that scholars have not noticed before. In the words of the interviewer Molly, gambling is not about winning money, but about "keeping playing: to stay in the machine's 'zone' and forget everything else." An electronic technician named Randall also said that gambling does not embody the desire of an empty glove white wolf, as everyone thinks, for him, gambling is to pursue "emptiness", "sitting in front of the machine, you can forget everything, even forget yourself". Sharon, who has a medical background and works as a dealer in a casino, is more thorough in saying that gambling is either winning or losing, and she knows it and doesn't care. For her, slots are a safe zone insulated from the "human world", which is a moody, intermittent and insecure place for her.
Casinos in Las Vegas are home to all sorts of gambling addicts, and companies, programmers, and even mathematicians busy around the gambling industry. Whether it is to find ways to create the environment and atmosphere of the casino, or to obtain sustained "gambling productivity" through technical means, or to adjust the probability of the program control, there is only one purpose, so that people can enter the "lost" state in the casino and are reluctant to come out.
Interviews and research by Natasha Dow Shure culminated in the book Luck's Bait: Gambling Design and Runaway Robots in Las Vegas. She also wants to explore the important impact of the rapid expansion of machine gambling in the United States over the past 20 years, especially as humanity enters a historic moment when human-computer interaction is becoming more and more close. "Computers, video games, mobile phones, iPods and other technological products have become tools for everyone to manage their emotional state, and have created a buffer between uncertainty and anxiety in ourselves and the world. Exploring the deep entanglement between gamblers and slot machines is not just a case study of this particular addiction phenomenon, it also provides other clues to understand the dilemmas, trends and challenges we face in the broader 'puzzle' of life. ”
Zhao Xuefeng, the editor-in-charge of "The Bait of Luck", said that the book can also let readers further feel the "rolling of large industry on individuals", "We all know that marketing, algorithms, and big data master and control of people, but how it is achieved and to what extent, in fact, it is not clear." From the virtual wheel mapping technology used in the casino in the book, the tracking and guidance of player behavior, the real-time loading of the difficulty suitable for the current player to 'hook' him, etc., we can know how far the world has developed in order to make people addicted more than 20 years ago. What about today? ”
CBN: How should we understand the "lost state" feeling of gamblers in front of the slot machine?
Zhao Xuefeng: The feeling of the zone is a kind of "boundary" type of thing, a monotonous and repetitive slot machine game, with the casino environment and the sense of time stopping created by the machine, which can make players forget the troubles of chasing themselves, whether it is their own chronic diseases, or the distress of their families, the frustration of feelings, and so on. In fact, when we usually play games, chase dramas and even jog and rush to work, we will also have the mood of "going to the toilet after doing this part", and the reason why "lost" is formed depends on its ability to create a sense of smoothness, steadiness, and control.
CBN: In the process of exploring slot machine addiction, the author wrote in detail how people and machines can make people's gambling addiction worse little by little in their interaction. With the development of the mobile Internet, the interaction between people and electronic products has become a part of daily life, and electronic and Internet products also attach great importance to user experience like slot machines, and use "upgrade and fight monsters" cool or algorithm push to meet user preferences. Can it be said that the addiction mode of slot machines actually has many similar application scenarios in real life?
Zhao Xuefeng: The author does not mention the revival or migration of these ideas in the Internet age of the gambling industry, but only mentions that everything can be addicted, from negative content such as theft and drugs to positive content such as fitness and overtime. The forms of the medium are very different, but the human heart is nothing more than those laws, they are fragile, and they all look forward to smoothness, compensation, escape, etc. Of course, the gambling industry is an industry that understands and applies algorithm design, user experience, data tracking and other products and marketing technology very early, which is very representative in terms of pinching people's hearts, and pinching people's hearts is of course also what various C-end-oriented industries are pursuing: blind box makes you feel that you will win the "jackpot", performance makes you mistakenly think that you have control, shopping carts in the live broadcast room let you click smoothly without stuttering, and advertisements for various consumer goods create beautiful stories for you to imagine...
CBN: Knowledge and technology are supposed to be tools to advance human civilization, but they are keeping pace with the times in the casino, which makes people deeply immersed. Does this once again illustrate the importance of "machine ethics" and "technology ethics"?
Zhao Xuefeng: The "market matching" part of the book actually has two very interesting clues.
First, the technology of quitting gambling and the technology of attracting people to addicted to gambling machines is actually a set of technologies, similar to using the puA technology with good intentions to pull people from the malicious PUA technology. You're addicted to the smoothness, the sense of wrapping, the sense of control of the gambling machine, so I use mutual aid groups, real-life tasks and other things to create a substitute for you. The goal of this is not to pursue gambling cessation, but to make people not spend too much money. The people involved in the withdrawal project themselves will also measure whether I spend more money/time on the project or spend more time playing with machines, and the latter is not as cost-effective as the former, so I choose the former.
Second, bookmakers were very good at exploiting regulatory loopholes in the early days, after all, the rules are all post-natal, and "barbaric innovation" came quickly. But gradually they themselves also found that PUA should also be relaxed and sustainable; under the dual constraints of social opinion and long-term customer scale, they also engage in industry self-discipline, advocate "responsible gambling", and do not exhaust themselves.
These two threads in the book seem to reflect several points: first, the technology itself is neutral, depending on how you use it; second, whether individuals or institutions, their "human nature" can not withstand trials, and there is room to pursue their own interests to maximize; third, as long as they are rational enough, time is long enough, and the interests of all parties are sufficient to collide enough - these are of course very idealized conditions - the situation will return to a reasonable situation. Of course, in reality, the forces of all parties are not equal, time and resources are not unlimited, and allowing free "oscillations" may return to equilibrium or extinction.
First Finance: The average person will feel that people with gambling addiction are greedy for wealth and lack self-control, but after further in-depth, researchers have found that players are very clear that they will lose money, they have also encountered a lot of life tribulations, and there are actually more complex social problems behind gambling. It's harder to really solve these social problems than to get them to quit gambling addiction.
Zhao Xuefeng: As mentioned earlier, people always have psychological vulnerabilities, and can this universal problem be overcome? This book may not be very optimistic. For this problem is rooted in the fundamental ethics of modern society: actuarial individualism. The individual is responsible for all his actions and predicts the consequences of all actions. But the brainpower, resources, and life of a small individual are so limited, how can they bear such great uncertainty and responsibility? In this case, all kinds of escape is difficult to avoid, either to escape to the gambling machine, or to escape to overtime. So rather than saying that we ("them" to be precise, because there is no legal gambling industry in the Chinese mainland) is tasked with regrouping and reintegrating into society, it is better to think about how to strike a balance within the established framework of "actuarial individualism", with the need to escape, but not to disintegrate real life. Because the general collapse of individuals will make the whole society unsustainable, so individuals, institutions, and societies must see the long-term significance of mutual help and mutual assistance, and they cannot all sweep the snow in front of the door and make a fortune in a muffled voice. Especially in modern society, highly stressed individuals are too difficult, blindly urging and even criticizing the "fragility" and "immorality" of any individual is cold-blooded, we should think more about how to care for and help individuals, rather than stigmatizing or even attacking individuals, and promoting social Darwinism.
"Luck Bait: Gambling Design in Las Vegas and Out-of-Control Robot Students"
By Natasha Doe Shul
Democracy and Construction Press, Republic, December 2021 edition