Most major and minor sports are ultimately very damaging to us, and useless.

Great Debates
61

[QUOTE=MGibson]
There’s still a risk of injury. You could pull a muscle or slip and suffer an injury while doing Yoga. You could misstep while walking and twist your ankle. You’re premise is false. There is no physical activity you can engage in that does not have risks associated with it. Granted, you’re less likely to be hurt while walking or engaging in Yoga then you are boxing or playing football, but the risk is still there.

Marc
[/QUOTE]

Of course, but it’s relatively unlikely to hurt oneself doing Yoga, and doing more of certain Yoga exercises can quickly rectify any damage done. Doing more football, for instance, will inevitably injure you further.

Why would we do such things to ourselves initially, and then persist after we get hurt?

62

[QUOTE=Ravenman]
Nothing Special, what is the overriding principle which you seek to apply in order to ban most sports: that people should never be allowed to injure themselves in any way? That people can’t be trusted to make decisions about exercise? That people who sprain their ankle doing something they enjoy are actually immoral people who hate America?

Another question: I’m a black belt in a martial art. I’ve had various muscle pulls and strains, a black eye once, a lot of minor scrapes and bruises, and that’s pretty much it. In your view, what is mentally or morally wrong with me?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t speak on issues of morality, only health.

The idea that “…people who sprain their ankle doing something they enjoy are actually immoral people who hate America,” are your words, not mine. Why in the world would you say such a thing?

Why do people want to do things that are harmful to themselves? Why do others pay their good money to watch it happen, and cheer at it?

63

[QUOTE=Nothing Special]
Why would we do such things to ourselves initially, and then persist after we get hurt?
[/QUOTE]

For the same reason we painfully answer the same question over and over again, because we are masochists!

64

[QUOTE=Marley23]
People enjoy all sorts of damaging activities (drinking, drugs, rough sex… list goes on).
[/QUOTE]

Did you notice that drinking, drugs, and rough sex (or rough anything) are bad for you?

How in the world could doing things that are bad for you feel good, to anyone, under any circumstances?

[QUOTE=Marley23]
The acts in question bring pleasure to the people who are doing them - being good at something FEELS good - and then there’s the money and the acclaim of your peers. Aren’t these the same things that drive anybody to do anything?
[/QUOTE]

(This is intentional sarcasm.) Okay, so by rights, being real good (much better than your peers) at being a serial killer, and if it “FEELS” good, is the rationale for it being alright? Then there’s the money and other objects the violent killer can glean from his (and, in rare cases, her) targets. And then of course there’s the admiration of one’s peers, other serial killers and wannabes who only want to watch. Does the killer damage himself in the course of his acts? Does s/he get a little cut or a strained ligament in the course of his/her actions? Okay! “Aren’t these the same things that drive anybody to do anything?,“ to use your words.

[QUOTE=Marley23]
When you assess how self-destructive most sports really are, I don’t think it’s a big problem. The money athletes make is ridiculous, but that’s a function of the amount of money they make for the owners of their teams and the people who sell sports-related merchandise. If people enjoy paying for those things, why IS it a problem?
[/QUOTE]

Since people do enjoy paying for and “enjoying” the self- and mutual destruction of people by other people, that’s the problem right there. What, again, is the attraction?

[QUOTE=Marley23]
Wish fulfillment? Again, fans and participants don’t usually think of these acts as self-destructive. Your repeated use of that description implies that there’s a sadistic side to it, which is usually not the case.
[/QUOTE]

Fulfillment of what wish, may I ask?

65

[QUOTE=Marley23]
Can someone explain how tennis is violent? I’m just a bit doubtful that the OP is taking this seriously. There is zero physical contact, and it’s rare that the ball even hits a player. Or am I to believe that running and making a swinging motion is violent?
[/QUOTE]

Running in the manner required for tennis causes inevitable damage over time. We aren’t designed to withstand such repeated activity for long.

And ever hear of tennis elbow? I can tell you from my own experience that with further play, the pain passes. And that isn’t a good thing.

When the pain “passes,” it’s basically your body saying, “Okay, asshole, I’ve told you it hurts and is bad for you. If you want to ignore me, ignore me, but you’ll be sorry, eventually.”

66

[QUOTE=Nothing Special]
Why do people want to do things that are harmful to themselves? Why do others pay their good money to watch it happen, and cheer at it?
[/QUOTE]

Were you ever a child, Nothing Special? Are you still one now? I just wonder because for most of us being absolutey perfectly safe is not the overriding concern in our lives. Actually living those lives in a semi-enjoyable manner seems to be what most of us want. You may, if you wish, lock yourself indoors and walk (slowly!) on your padded, low voltage treadmill for exercise, with 911 on speed-dial just in case. But I like doing things that are fun, and most things that are fun carry with them a little bit of risk.

Do you like cake? Why, oh why, do Americans eat so much cake and candy, knowing how it inevitibly destroys their teeth and disfigures their bodies and virtually guarantees their early demise from a heart-attack? Why do we pay good money for this poison? We feed it to our children for God’s sake!

What about sex? How could people even possibly think about engaging in such a disgusting, disease-ridden activity? Everybody knows that the chances are very high that your genitals will eventually rot off from some horrible STD, probably right before you drop dead from AIDS or syphillus. And pornography is a thriving business in this country!

Seriously though, listen to people when they talk about the cost-benefit analysis. Its not a matter of unsafe=don’t do it, ever. Its a matter of evaluating the risk (usually calculated as severity times probability), and then making a personal choice as to whether the benifits of that activity outweigh the risk in your mind. Obviously most people have come to a different conclusion than you. Either you don’t see any value at all in sports or you have a ridiculously unrealistic idea of the risk involved. I’m thinking the latter because you have absolutely no statistics to back up your assertions that sports are dangerous and you will inevitably get hurt if you participate.

67

[QUOTE=Nothing Special]
How can you possibly not wait to get back at it? You’re hurt. You’re bound to get more hurt if you continue.

Something is very wrong, here.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, for God’s sake. ANOTHER thread about how people who like sports are stupid?

What do you do for fun? Honest question, let’s have an honest answer. Please cite your five top fun pursuits, and don’t lie.

68

[QUOTE=brianjedi]
Actually, Senna’s death was more the result of the actions of others (for example, the mechanics who designed and built the steering column that failed.)
[/QUOTE]

Listen to what you’re saying. A bunch of guys involved in the design of a device that enables someone to do something extremely dangerous (and pointless) blow their jobs, resulting in the death of the risk-taker, and maybe a little bad press for themselves.

[QUOTE=brianjedi]
Earnhardt’s death was the result of him trying to do something good and allow his son and his close friend to decide the race between themselves. If Earnhardt wasn’t blocking for Waltrip and Little E, he wouldn’t have been in a position to get turned.
[/QUOTE]

Absurd situation upon absurb situation, for any human being to find themselves in. Death was being courted from the start, and was hardly surprising.

[QUOTE=brianjedi]
I think your premise is flawed because it fails to recognize that there is an inherent desire to compete, to compare your abilities to others. Yoga isn’t competitive.
[/QUOTE]

Alright, an “inherent desire to compete.” How does this desire ever result in a desire to destroy oneself, as well as others? What’s going on here?

And Yoga is competitive, in its healthy way. You compete against yourself to create in yourself the flexibility that results in enhanced health. Can’t say that about any other sport or exercise that’s been mentioned so far. Walking is real good for you, too. And sex.

69

It could possibly be an interesting discussion, but for one minor detail.

70

[QUOTE=Nothing Special]
Walking is real good for you, too. And sex.
[/QUOTE]

You crazy risk-taking fool!!

I don’t know a single person over thirty-five who doesn’t have some sort of pain every now and again in their legs, not to mention all the knee problems and back problems some of my older acquaintances have. I contend this stems directly from a lifetime spent walking. You don’t realize, but everyday your legs and feet take a horrible beating, and imaging this same abuse continued everyday of your life. Anybody who is on their feet more than they absolutely have to be for work or whatever, is risking pain and injury that will haunt them the rest of their lives.

Don’t get me started on sex. The risk of disease or unwanted pregnancy, or – God forbid – a sprain or overexertion, is simply too high to think about. Anybody who isn’t celibate is literally asking to die.

I just don’t understand your and your wild thrill-seeking ways.

71

I am not an athlete. I’m not even much of a fan, but the answer seems absurdly simple to me. The drive to excel.

I’ve seen writers and artists stay up for hours on end, depriving themselves of food and sleep, trying to make their creations that much better. I’ve seen little old ladies whose hands were bent into claws by arthritis struggle to complete a needlepoint.

They do it because their goal makes the sacrifice worthwhile.

One of my sons is a competitive weightlifter. Winning is great, of course, but far more important to him is to continually exceed his personal best.

And why would I, as a parent, encourage him in this risky endeavor? Because I want to see him try, even if he doesn’t always succeed. Just like I want to see my other son finish that string quartet composition he’s been working on all semester. Even if it means he deprives himself of sleep for a few nights.

Is that a straightforward enough answer?

72

[QUOTE=DrCube]
Were you ever a child, Nothing Special?
[/QUOTE]

Yes, up until about the age of 12, I believe. Then a whole bunch of other stuff started to happen and I wasn’t a child, anymore.

[QUOTE=DrCube]
Are you still one now?
[/QUOTE]

As above. But I still do find “child-like curiosity” to be useful, at times.

[QUOTE=DrCube]
I just wonder because for most of us being absolutey perfectly safe is not the overriding concern in our lives. Actually living those lives in a semi-enjoyable manner seems to be what most of us want. You may, if you wish, lock yourself indoors and walk (slowly!) on your padded, low voltage treadmill for exercise, with 911 on speed-dial just in case. But I like doing things that are fun, and most things that are fun carry with them a little bit of risk.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t take unnecessary risks (although I’ll take them if necessary, which is rare), nor do I lock myself indoors. And everything from each of our conceptions carries with it a little bit of risk. The issue is, again: why unnecessarily add more?

[QUOTE=DrCube]
Do you like cake? Why, oh why, do Americans eat so much cake and candy, knowing how it inevitibly destroys their teeth and disfigures their bodies and virtually guarantees their early demise from a heart-attack? Why do we pay good money for this poison? We feed it to our children for God’s sake!
[/QUOTE]

Well, I must confess that there are certain bakery goods which I have found appealing, including cake. You know, excellently made cake, I mean. However, it isn’t good for me (or anyone) so, having already had a number of samplings of what I would consider to be fine cake, and knowing it never was good for me, I no longer partake of cake. I just don’t. The point is that I never should have been exposed to such garbage in the first place, nor ever had to develop a taste for it that I would later have to resist until I dropped it altogether.

Most of the sports that we play are on this order of garbage, and we are introduced to them at an early age, and convince ourselves that we like them even though they are harmful to us.

[QUOTE=DrCube]
What about sex? How could people even possibly think about engaging in such a disgusting, disease-ridden activity? Everybody knows that the chances are very high that your genitals will eventually rot off from some horrible STD, probably right before you drop dead from AIDS or syphillus. And pornography is a thriving business in this country!
[/QUOTE]

Ah, sex. Yes, sex is of the essence. We, human beings, and ONLY we, have turned it into a disease-ridden degradation. This has emerged from the same mentality that we use as an excuse to destroy ourselves from our various other athletics. Sex is good for a creature, no doubt. Only a human being could turn it into an activity that threatens one’s life and happiness in so many ways. We’ve done this. It’s no one else’s fault.

73

[QUOTE=RickJay]
What do you do for fun? Honest question, let’s have an honest answer. Please cite your five top fun pursuits, and don’t lie.
[/QUOTE]

  1. Sex. It’s relatively easy for me since my preference, as a male, is for adult women. Society sanctions that, so it’s a-ok in anyone’s book, as long as my partner isn’t married. If she is, there are potential problems.

  2. Yoga. It’s worked for me every time I’ve tried it, which is almost every day for the last 15 years. It feels good.

  3. Walking/hiking. I walk, I think, I look around, and eventually write things down. Much fun, for me.

  4. Eating raw vegetables, and drinking raw vegetable juice. Both are a real rush.

  5. Breaking into an occasional, brief run while I’m walking/hiking. This can sometimes disconcert other people around, but fuck ‘em.

74

I picked up a number of minor cuts and bruises while renovating my house earlier today.

Clearly, I should instead be living in a nice safe ditch.

75

I never injured myself playing sports, but I’ve broken both my arms: once in a mandatory gym class when I was 14, the other at work a couple of years ago. Following the second one I have permanently lost some motion in my right wrist. Dammit, why do I keep doing things that cause harm to myself?

76

[QUOTE=Nothing Special]
I don’t take unnecessary risks (although I’ll take them if necessary, which is rare), nor do I lock myself indoors.
[/QUOTE]

Don’t you see how the phrase after the comma goes against everything that came before? Outdoors is absolutely FULL of risks, why go out there when you could lead a perfectly safe life indoors?

It’s not about adding more. It’s about choosing the risks we’ll worry about out of the millions of inevitible ones. Most people have some (albeit poor) sense of risk assessment, and use that along with their preferences and desires to choose the activities they will participate in.

I find it odd that the only part of my previous post that you didn’t respond to was the only one that wasn’t tongue-in-cheek or exaggerated for effect. It pretty much summed up your difficulties in this matter. I’ll spell it out:

There is risk (always, don’t tell me otherwise). In some cases, there is reward, too. People have already spelled out the rewards of competing in, participating in, and watching sports, although they vary from person to person. In choosing whether or not to participate, individuals either explicitly or implicitly weigh said risk against said rewards, and choose to participate if the rewards are worth the risk. Now you have sat at that same scale and weighed out a conclusion that is different from the majority of people in the world. In essence, this thread is asking “Why is my conclusion different from the rest of the world?” It’s pretty obvious that you either don’t recognize the same level of value in sports as the rest of us, or you have vastly overestimated the risk involved. Since other people have given you ample evidence of the value of sports, why don’t you help us help you sort this boondoggle out by telling us how you are coming to the conclusions that sports in general are so ridiculously dangerous as to merit never participating in them? That is, can you tell us why you consider sports to lead “inevitibly” to life-altering injury or death?

77

[QUOTE=Nothing Special]

  1. Eating raw vegetables, and drinking raw vegetable juice. Both are a real rush.

[/QUOTE]

Wow, you must be a blast at parties.

78

[QUOTE=treis]
Wow, you must be a blast at parties.
[/QUOTE]

The point would be that you regard a very healthy practice as undesirable somehow, in a social context. It is an indication of serious sickness to regard healthy practices as undesirable. Do you see?

79

[QUOTE=Nothing Special]
Absurd situation upon absurb situation, for any human being to find themselves in. Death was being courted from the start, and was hardly surprising.
[/QUOTE]

If you asked Dale Sr., after say his 1998 Daytona 500 win, that perhaps he should
retire now, go sit in his rocking chair, and take it easy, I’m 100% sure he would have
laughed at you and not taken you seriously at all. Senna, in the short time he was
with us, drove as well as anyone ever has-I’m not sure if he would have traded all
his accomplishments for an extra 40 years of a safe but boring and nondescript life?
That was their decisions and I honor them-you have to die sooner or later and
some would rather go out like a brilliantly shining meteor than plod along as a
grey asteriod for the rest of their days. Extreme surfers same thing (Mark Foo as
an example)-they decided to live life to the fullest and the heck with the possible
consequences. Are you to say you are unable to honor that at all?

80

[QUOTE=Nothing Special]
We aren’t designed to withstand such repeated activity for long.
[/quote]

Uh, I don’t know about your body, but my body is easily capable of period running over stretches of an hour or two. Anyway, your definition of violent is ridiculous.

Heard of it, never had it in 12 or 14 years of playing. I suspect that if you make your strokes properly and don’t have pre-existing problems, you won’t get tennis elbow.

I think I’ve got to throw in the towel for this thread. I can’t believe you are debating in earnest.