(no subject)

[sigmaleph]

Playing the lottery gives you the ability to pleasantly fantasize about what you would do with the winnings, whereas not playing the lottery removes all plausibility from these fantasies.

I keep hearing this argument and finding it extremely puzzling. Presumably people can entertain the hypothetical of having won the lottery regardless of having purchased a ticket, so is this in some fundamental way a different thing than fantasising about it, or is it that attempting the fantasy without the plausibility of the ticket doesn't make it pleasant, or what?

(how much money does a vivid imagination need to save you on lottery tickets before it becomes adaptive daydreaming?)