The old saying goes that if mankind were angels we would need no governments. So saying the govt. ought to do something is functionally saying something is wrong with making the machines.

Absolutely not, suggesting that the government should regulate gambling and responsible gaming has nothing to do with building the machines outright.

As I said, these machines should be available if you can use them responsibly, the government should dictate policy that gambling operators should adhere by to ensure that users don't take things overboard.

Blaming the engineer who built the machine makes for an easy scapegoat, of course, but if the issue isn't addressed on a societal scale, there will always be another engineer to replace him.

The issue is that in this case they're specifically and willfully being engineered to foster irresponsible behavior.

>Blaming the engineer who built the machine makes for an easy scapegoat, of course, but if the issue isn't addressed on a societal scale, there will always be another engineer to replace him.

We can still say theft is bad regardless of the legal enforcement around theft. Some things are just morally wrong.

> We can still say theft is bad regardless of the legal enforcement around theft. Some things are just morally wrong.

I have to assume that your perspective is being coloured by personal experience. At this point, your argument is simply: "Building pokie machines is bad because I think it's bad". Sorry, but I disagree with that, as stated before, they should be available to those who can use them responsibly.

Sure. Let's make meth available to kids too while we're at it. Why expect social or moral responsibility from people at all?

To give a counter example, I think we can easily agree that government should regulate vehicles being driven on public roads and yet we don't mean to imply that there is something wrong with making vehicles to be driven on public roads.

We can say, however, that there is something wrong with making vehicles that are inherently unsafe when on public roads. That's more in line with making products to foster addiction or compel people to behave in ways that are against their best interests.