A dialogue on words and thought.

There's a thread on rgp where I made some unwelcome contributions. It's what prompted my post here about the old stud game at the Desert Inn. And the original poster on that thread responded to that as anyomous. I'm continuing that discussion here.

Here's what anoymous said here:

I posted (actually my first) at rec.gambling about strategy to counteract a
hyperaggressive player. Glad I could spark your memory. For what it's worth, I
never meant to nor did I express a desire to obsessively focus on making the
aggros life miserable, nor focus solely on getting his money...just was looking
for some general advice/playing strategies vs. that type of player

To anonymous.

I gave you some very good general strategic advice. You didn't like it because it didn't fit your world view nor did it fit your view of self.

That's fine.

The language you used throughout -- starting with the title reference to punishing the player -- suggested an obsessive focus on the hyperaggresive players. You used language indicative of a "just world" view where you think that good people should be rewarded and bad people should be punished.

Throughout, everything you said was about that. Punish. Beat. Proper. Knucklehead. Boob. Don't respect their playing style.

Here's" the thread

Taking the words you used, from all your posts in that thread, what you said was that the maniac needs to be punished by you beating him because he's a knucklehead boob and you need to do so in a proper way rather than the way he does it because he's not respected by others.

That's what I read from your words.

You just keep thinking that way. It will make you feel superior. It just won't win you any money.

If you want to win money then you should start thinking in terms of winning money rather than in terms of respect or reward and punishment for proper behavior.

I think this is a lesson for everybody. The words you pick to frame a situation will determine the approach you pick to deal with the situation.

Words matter in way deeper ways than you realize.