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sport is a black mark on our culture
Sport is one of the things wrong with the world. It is an oil spill covering everything. If there is an "important" sport match on, no matter what show is normally on it will be replaced by sport. Sport breeds violent behavior and discourages intelligence. Some people say "but sport keeps people fit," however watching sport and the beer drunk while watching it is one of the main things that makes people fat.
I however am pro-freedom so I do not want to outright ban sport. Instead the following measures should be imposed. Sport funding should be lowered, all compulsory out of school hours sport programs should become optional and sport culture should be discouraged.
I however am pro-freedom so I do not want to outright ban sport. Instead the following measures should be imposed. Sport funding should be lowered, all compulsory out of school hours sport programs should become optional and sport culture should be discouraged.
Comments
What sports funding are you talking about? Outside of schools and community groups, the vast majority of sports are private, profit-driven ventures. What exactly do you want to lower? There are no "compulsory out of school hours sports programs" in the United States as far as I know. What do you mean by "sport culture."
"Some people say "but sport keeps people fit," however watching sport and the beer drunk while watching it is one of the main things that makes people fat."
The main thing that makes people fat is eating. Sporting and physical fitness programs are wonderful ways to maintain fitness.
"Sport is one of the things wrong with the world. It is an oil spill covering everything."
A statement like that really begs the question...
"If there is an "important" sport match on, no matter what show is normally on it will be replaced by sport."
First, the networks are driven by capitalism, and have the right to play whatever programming they want. Second, I argue that television in general is far worse than sports specifically. Complaining about sports pushing other programming off the air isn't really relevant, and I'm not sure where you're going with it.
Sport and competition are terrific motivators, especially for children. Encouraging competitive play does a great service to the education and intelligence of our youth. Physical competition also encourages fitness and a healthy lifestyle. Throughout history, society has recognized these benefits. Even the ancients believed in a "sound mind and sound body."
What exactly is your argument? What are you aiming at?
I am a geek, but I am an extremely physically active one. I was in the drum corps in high school. I bike, run, lift, hike, and so forth at every opportunity. I love rollerblading and skiing. I greatly enjoy playing softball or football. Despite all of this, I also love Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and anime.
I get the impression often that many nerds and even some geeks have this strange aversion to sporting events and sports. It seems to stem from their association at a young age of sports with the "jock" or "mainstream" culture that they so despised.
So, do you have any legitimate arguments against sports?
I was partly talking about school and collage funding. I was also talking about the government funding goes into sport. Here in Australia the government spends quite a bit of tax money on sport.
"There is no "compulsory out of school hours sports programs" in the United States as far as I know."
Really? Here in Australia I was forced by the school to play sport for 2 hours after school had "ended" every Monday and wednesday.
"What do you mean by "sport culture."
People "rooting" for their team to the point of insanity, painting their faces, etc.
"Sporting and physical fitness programs are wonderful ways to maintain fitness."
I am not against sport for those who want it. What I am against is sport being forced on people.
"Sport and competition are terrific motivators, especially for children."
Sport practically ruined my life as a child...
This site also has some good points.
People "rooting" for their team to the point of insanity, painting their faces, etc
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People exercising their right to paint their faces should not be frowned upon - painting one's face does not harm anybody : if you wanted to be really petty you could argue that but supporting the sale of face paints you are helping some bloke somewhere buy food for his family, benefitting the economy and thus helping the human race.
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Some people say "but sport keeps people fit," however watching sport and the beer drunk while watching it is one of the main things that makes people fat.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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I however am pro-freedom so I do not want to outright ban sport.
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Surely if you do not wish to outright ban sport, yet merely reduce funding and not making it complusary the teams will still play and thus the people will still watch sport making themselves fat, and as the funding has been removed reducing the numbers of sports facilites for communities the fat people will no longer be able to attempt to work off the weight gained from watching sport...
Mr. Period says: You should learn about run-on sentences.
Face painting is not a negative aspect of the culture (I just find it silly), the negative aspects are more along the lines of riots, beatings, etc.
"Surely if you do not wish to outright ban sport, yet merely reduce funding and not making it complusary the teams will still play and thus the people will still watch sport making themselves fat, and as the funding has been removed reducing the numbers of sports facilites for communities the fat people will no longer be able to attempt to work off the weight gained from watching sport..."
Fitness programs such as gyms would be classified as health funding and not cut.
Of course, some sports are better than others in different ways. Some sports are very entertaining for spectators, while others are not. Some sports are fun to participate in, while others are not. And some sports are great competitions, while others are not.
Let's use NASCAR, marathons and ice hockey as examples. The rules of the NASCAR make it very poor competition-wise, as far as being entertaining it's either love-it or hate-it but it is extremely fun to participate in. The rules of marathons make them very pure and good competitions, they are incredibly boring to watch but they are fun, if difficult, to participate in. Ice hockey is a relatively good competition with only the randomness of referees to stir it up, ice hockey is tremendously entertaining and participation is fun until you get hurt.
In my experience I have found that people who do not enjoy one sport or another simply do not understand, or care to understand, the sport. For example, if you were to watch football without understanding the rules of the game it would be the most boring thing ever. It's literally a bunch of guys hitting each other while throwing a ball around. But once you understand how the game works you can see what is really going on and feelings begin to build within you. Watching a game of Chess is the same way. It's literally just two people moving pieces around. Once you understand the game you can begin to get passionate about what is going on. Tense situations will excite you, risky moves will stir up your heart-rate, etc.
Being a spectator to sports or games is all about passion and understanding. Only if you understand what is going on, and only if you are passionate about it, will it give you good feelings. From what I have seen, people who are against sports simply lack, and have no desire to acquire, understanding or passion. Much of their hatred is either directed at popular sport culture, rather than sport itself. And the hatred seems to stem from resentment that other people do have passion and understanding which they do not have themselves.
I dislike the popular sports culture of drunken depravity as much as the next intelligent person. And the use of sport as yet another "opiate of the masses" is something we all learned about in school. However, I think it is wrong to say that sport itself is bad because the popular sport culture is bad. I also have to admire sports fans for being passionate about something. Too many people live their lives completely devoid of passion, and those are the people who are not worthy of any respect whatsoever. Remember, a sports geek is still a geek.
I think this leads me back to to our discussion with Anime World Order. They were upset that narutardish people were having fun at conventions. You have one person who enjoys X, and you have another person who does not enjoy X. What part of human nature makes the latter despise the former so much? If someone else is having fun doing something that you do not like, why does it upset you? I would really like to get a better understanding of this psychological phenomenon.
I agree that watching it does cause some people to sit and watch it on TV and grow fat from inactivity, but that's an indictment against TV, not sport. And it's hardly the main reason people get fat - diet is the prime cause there. Also, I don't advocate watching sport - watching sport can bore me to tears. Which is ironic, considering I really enjoy watching cricket (but not intently, as I usually multitask while it's on), which some people consider the most boring sport on Earth. Playing sport is what I'd recommend, rather than simply watching it.
Which leads me to a pet peeve: why do so many geeks and nerds hate on people who play sports? Is it envy? Have they even considered that some of those people on the field may actually enjoy some of the same things they do? Sure, some players are jerks, but the same is true for any poplulation of people. I'd argue that a geek who despises athletes with no real basis for the hatred is no better a person than the jock that makes fun of guys with glasses. Learning to judge people on a case-by-case basis is one of the most important lessons a person can learn, in my opinion.
First, when it comes to professional sport there needs to be government interference. The reason is that most sports are monopolies. Major League Baseball has a monopoly on the sport of baseball in the US. The NFL has a monopoly on the sport of football. While I usually advocate competition and capitalism, that is something which is not good for sports.
If there were two or more baseball leagues, then both leagues would lose their importance. No longer would you be determining the best baseball team. The winner of either "World Series" would be so much less meaningful. That is why the National League and American League joined forces so long ago. That is why the NFC and AFC joined forces for football. If you want to see what happens when there is competition among sporting leagues look at IRL and Champ Car. When CART/Champ Car split from IRL so many years ago it completely destroyed open-wheel racing as a sport in the USA. Because sports must be a monopoly to be meaningful, the government must intervene to police those monopolies. Also, much like casinos, professional sports have a large economic impact. Governments should wisely spend money to attract and build sports franchises to boost economies of cities and states.
Now, I'm sure most of your argument has to do with forced sport in schools. Obesity is a huge problem in the civilized world. As television, video games and computers become more widespread, kids are getting less and less physical activity after school. I remember in elementary and middle school when I would come home we would ride bikes and play wiffle ball. In high school I would come home to play video games and surf the net. Numerous studies show that physical activity helps keeps kids mind's sharp. Rym went over much of that.
Therefore, physical education is as important a subject in schools as science, math or grammar. Just because you weren't good at sports doesn't mean they shouldn't be had in schools. Just because you don't enjoy them doesn't mean they shouldn't be there. What about the kids who weren't good at science or didn't enjoy math? Does that mean that math shouldn't be taught in schools? Understanding of mathematics is just as important as physical fitness, and therefore both of them should be mandatory for any decent education.
I admit that two hours of sport after school is a bit much to make mandatory. 30-60 minutes of gym class per day is all that is really necessary for schools. But to argue that it shouldn't be funded by government while math class should be is hypocritical.
But I will grant you this: no sport or even light to moderate physical activity like a marching band is fun if you're forced to do it. As a kid, I would have welcomed more opportunity to play sports (I didn't have a father or brother, and that makes a huge difference), but I would have despised being forced to do it.
If a government wants to encourage activity in children, that's a laudable goal, but that should entail providing for many activities. That means funding band as well as football, not to mention activities other than team sports like skiing, hiking, and rowing. That certainly should not mean mandating a certain quota of activity.
But it isn't sport culture that guided the decision. I trust that the Australian government wanted to promote physical activity primarily for health reasons. But the governing of schools on every level tends to be very, very poor, and children suffer as a result.
Rym, you should do a show on marching bands and why they are awesome.
Little bit of a nitpick: Where do you draw the line at what qualifies as "health funding"?
It would be a gradual line between sport and health with some things being slightly more sporty and getting slightly less funding.
I'm done with this.
On the tax issue, lowering any taxes at all does indeed increase individual economic freedom. But to say that the spending of money on sport is taking away from finding a cure for cancer is a fallacy of the highest order. How do you know a cure for cancer is even possible? How do you know that more money is the way to find a cure for cancer? Will you save more lives by spending the money researching cancer, or will you save more lives by having a healthy and physically fit population? Think of all the heart disease that is prevented by after school sports. Didn't you say you wanted to spend that money on discouraging sport culture? Talk about economic idiocy. Sport culture brings in more revenue for the government than your school sport costs. If you really wanted to maximize funding for curing cancer you would want more sport culture, not less. You are advocating the government should stop doing something useful so that it can spend that money to decrease its own revenue. I'm glad you aren't an economist.
Also, if you want your argument to continue to hold water you have to agree with a lot of other things. First, you have to agree that all school funding should be cut. If sport is a subject in school, just like math or science, why should only sport be cut? Just because you don't like it? Who died and made you king? You also have to agree that if sport should not be mandatory then math should not be mandatory, grammar should not be mandatory, etc. Heck, if you take your argument to the logical conclusion you say there shouldn't be mandatory schooling, and there should be no government funded schooling or school taxing at all. Talk about Libertarian!
Judging by the number of times Mr. Period has pwn3d you, and by the low quality of your argument, it seems to me like your academic performance is as low as you claim your athletic performance is. Stereotypically you find very brainy people who shun physical activity. I find it rather amusing that you argue against sport as if academic pursuits are the only important part of school, yet you don't seem to know how to structure sentences properly or debate coherently. Perhaps your reading comprehension isn't very high either. I clearly stated that people require both understanding and passion for spectating sports to be maximally enjoyable. Understanding a sport is more than just knowing the rules. It means you also understand the strategies. It means you can recognize tough situations. Understanding the rules of baseball is one thing. Understanding why and when players should bunt, sacrifice or steal is on a completely different level. Without that higher level of understanding no competition is interesting to watch.
I also clearly stated that passion is required for enjoyment. There are lots of sports I understand which I have no passion for, such as basketball. If you do not root for any particular team or player, then you have no emotional attachment to the competition. A significant portion of the entertainment is lost to you without this emotional investment. There is actually one alternative attitude where you just want to see an exciting contest, regardless of who wins. That's generally how I feel about F1. But because of that lack of team/driver-associated fandom, some of the less exciting F1 races do not stir my emotions. If I was a Fernando Alonso fan, that would be a completely different story. In F1 I generally root for the underdog because I want the competition to remain interesting. This is just sad. I'm not saying you should be ashamed of not being good at sport. Personally, I'm not ashamed of anything, and there are plenty of things I suck at. But being proud of a low level of skill is just a way of rationalizing it to yourself. Someone who is proud of sucking at anything is not someone who should be respected highly.
Blast I'm not aware of any compulsory Government after school sports programs, I was forced to play after school sport but that's because I went to a private school and private schools can torture their kids any way they want. Rym's right that its not the "important" games rather than the popular ones, I play women's cricket and I am exceptionally passionate about it, I recently wrote to Channel 9 and many sponsors of cricket asking them to show women's cricket on television. Last summer the Australian Women's cricket team played several international first class matches against India, far more "important" than some AFL game and yet far less popular. No one was even considering thinking about putting it on television because it wouldn't be profitable.
I spent most of my childhood loathing being forced into playing sport as a child (again at a private school not a government school) but then, you know what? I did something about it. I went to a small, all girls, Christian school, the choices we had playing sport were all shit and I hated them all, but I loved cricket, and I knew we once had a cricket team and I knew that there was a school competition for girls so I got some like minded people together and petitioned the sports department and the principal and bugged them until we got ourselves a cricket team. We SUCKED, and I mean sucked, we were the laughing stock of the competition but we had a great time, we got to play a sport we were interested in. Don't blame sport for making your life hell as a child, blame your school for forcing you into it or yourself for not doing anything about it.
Compulsory sport in school is good for kids, it gets them out of the classroom, gives them a rest from sitting there, gets them fit etc. schools are moving away from the usual things, schools are now using DDR in sport classes and other things. Removing compulsory sport classes (I mean gym or PE or whatever you call it) removes the main battleground of geekitude in schools the geeks vs the PE teacher.