Posted on Sunday, December 17, 2006 11:22 PM
Or stupidity; it's either one or the other.
I read an article in the paper about a woman who's sueing a lottery for emotional damage for not winning a prize.
Let me explain. We have a lottery here in the Netherlands, called the Postcode Loterij, and it's based on your zipcode. It's quite simple; buy one or more lottery tickets connected to your zipcode and you're playing. You need these tickets to actually receive any money in case a prize falls to your zipcode.
Well, there is a woman who sued the Postcode Loterij, because a €13.9 million prize fell on her zipcode. However, she didn't have any lottery tickets (on purpose, mind you).
Now she claims to be emotionally scarred for not being able to claim her share of said €13.9 million.
Is this woman stupid or not? The case goes to court on January 10; I hope the judge is sensible enough to not only reject her claim, but also fine her for wasting the court's time.
Cheers, K.
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# re: Greed will be this world's demise
12/18/2006 1:13 PM by
It's to serious to laugh about it. But still, what must go on in this woman's thoughts? And where does she get the money from, to pay for a legal procedure, which she most certainly will lose?
It's a strange world. Sometimes ...
# re: Greed will be this world's demise
12/18/2006 1:28 PM by
Well, it's not that simple I feel. Of course when you rationalize it, the postcode loterij is no different from any other lottery. When you don't participate, you don't win. However the postcode lottery is quite the evil organisation for
a. making everyone in the Netherlands (in a way) involuntary participate because everyone has a zipcode.
b. playing with peoples emotions by stressing the horror of everyone in your street winning the street prize except YOU because you didn't participate.
It's not greed, but regret. Regret is a very strong emotion. For example many people are afraid of deciding for a menu course on their own in a restaurant. They'd rather order the same as what their friends are ordering because they might regret it when choosing something different which turns out to be less appealing than their friends choice. The only way out is to accept the fact that you can't predict the future and choices might turn out badly. Still it's hard because you can picture yourself in the past having made "the other dicision".
# re: Greed will be this world's demise
12/18/2006 6:57 PM by
The way I see it: Postcode Loterij isn't making anyone participate, unless I missed something and PL-people are putting a gun to everyone's head except mine. ;)
Yes, we have zipcodes, and yes, PL is using those to make its lottery work. No, that's in my opinion not a valid reason to claim mental damages, other than proving you're insane to claim said damages. :)