I'm not saying we should be stopping them. But I also don't consider democratising and enabling gambling or taking drugs heroic.

Similarly, I'm all for drinking alcohol yet wouldn't cheer for an innovation that would make people drink more.

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That being said, I think that RH (and many other platforms) do in fact democratise investing (and that's great).

Do you consider legalising drugs as good for the society? Do you think drugs won't be advertised like how cigarettes and alcohol is being advertised. This is the price to live in a free society. You allow people to make their mistakes and live by its consequences.

> Do you think drugs won't be advertised like how cigarettes and alcohol is being advertised

Many countries ban advertizing for cigarettes. So while it's not banned the cost on society and public health is large enough that it's worth restricting advertizing.

I realize that likely seems totally weird for US folks, but that's really not weird at all in Europe. Same as regulating advertizing targeting kids, etc.

The US has banned tobacco ads on TV and radio for over half a century. It does not seem "totally weird" to us.

Then I understand parents comment even less :)

I don't get how that's relevant? I can consider legalising X good and also consider it bad when more people in the society become addicted to X. That's not an inconsistent view.

Yes ofcourse the view is not inconsistent. The trouble is most people immediately want the government to get involved to regulate it all the activities that they do not like or do not approve of.

There’s a difference between stopping them and stopping exploitative companies who want to profit off of them.

Huge societal costs that we all bear?

A few randos going bankrupt is a minor societal cost at worst. The big societal costs are when the big boys get bailed out, usually by deflating all of our currency.

It depends on how much you care for the person doing the gambling or drugs and at which stage its at. Being a nanny to everyone doing something 'bad' would be a 24/7 affair.

On a large scale, eventually lots of people will be hurt. Everyone thought they were having lots of fun in 2007, and then people started jumping out of buildings. Those people had family and friends. Many of the young people in the market right now have never seen or gone through that, and if they keep preaching 'stocks only go up' while trading on 40x margin, they will eventually find out that stonks sometimes go down.