What do athletes contribute to Society?

[CarsonPalmer]

Why do the two even need to be compared? It seems to me, I haven't been here very long, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be a desire to tear down professional athletes and professional sports. There seems to be a real play on stereotypes here, because for every showboating idiot, there's a classy, quiet ballplayer, who's not noticed precisely because he is quiet, and for every drunken idiot in a sports bar, there's a fan in his home arguing the merits of the 3-4 defense against the 4-3.

Just like for every blithering Star Wars fanboy, there are the ones on this board.

[Ghost Rider]

Why do the two even need to be compared? It seems to me, I haven't been here very long, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be a desire to tear down professional athletes and professional sports. There seems to be a real play on stereotypes here, because for every showboating idiot, there's a classy, quiet ballplayer, who's not noticed precisely because he is quiet, and for every drunken idiot in a sports bar, there's a fan in his home arguing the merits of the 3-4 defense against the 4-3.

Just like for every blithering Star Wars fanboy, there are the ones on this board.

No, but there is a desire to not to overinflate the bullshit importance a lot of idiotic fans give entertainment.

If you see the desire, because you want to specifically see it and ignore the fact, many people do discuss sports, but aren't fucking gushing as if it is any more then entertainment. Just like Star Wars.

[CarsonPalmer]

There is a desire by a lot of fans of sports to overinflate its importance, I agree. I just think that sports are being singled out among many, many different types of entertainment.

[Darth Wong]

There is a desire by a lot of fans of sports to overinflate its importance, I agree. I just think that sports are being singled out among many, many different types of entertainment.

Yeah, BY ITS FANS. Name one other kind of entertainment which regularly inspires drunken fistfights between fans of different performers. Sports fans have a nasty habit of thinking their particular favoured entertainment medium is far more important than it is, hence it must be repeatedly pointed out to them that it's not. Just look as Brock's enormous shitstorm of apologist bullshit on the previous page.

[Darth Wong]

Why do the two even need to be compared? It seems to me, I haven't been here very long, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be a desire to tear down professional athletes and professional sports.

That's called "correction". It's the same reason that there was a "desire" to tear down the dot-com vapour stock boom. One of this board's purposes is to attack bullshit. If you don't like it, don't support bullshit.

[King Kong]

Name one other kind of entertainment which regularly inspires drunken fistfights between fans of different performers.

Feuds between fans of different hip-hop artists (i.e. East Coast/West Coast rivalry) are the only similar instance that I can think of. But you are correct, these instances pale in comparison to the number of violent acts inspired by professional sports.

[RedImperator]

The description makes sense, but I don't know that there's some sort of mass conspiracy by corporations, athletes, and the government to perpetuate the cycle by encouraging impoverished people to love sports.

It may actually be noteworthy that in the 1960s following the success of the civil-rights movement, the American government encouraged inner-city black youth to take up sports, ramping up spending on urban sports programs and facilities and scholarships. One might interpret this as simply a mistaken and misguided attempt to help, but there are quite a few in the "black community" who have interpreted it as a deliberate attempt to keep black kids away from academic success by enticing them them away from the books. Given the politics in play at the time (after all, the people in charge had just lost a battle to keep black kids segregated), it's not that outlandish.

I suspect the thinking was that sports gave the kids something to do after school besides hang out on the corner and cause trouble. Any kind of extracurricular activity will do for that purpose, but it's probably easier to sell a basketball league than a chess club to teenagers.

That's the primary benefit I've seen from sports in my job (another is that the athletes are typically better behaved than average because the school district actually enforces the "you get suspended, you don't play" rule for the public league). But this is a discussion of pro sports, so that doesn't apply (though one wonders what, say, Terrell Owens would be doing with himself if he didn't have a harmless outlet for his jackassery like the NFL).

[General Brock]

Darth Wong wrote:

That's because one is vastly more important than the other and you're too dishonest to simply admit that.

Conceded. Society without sport and science to compliment one another would be something less; I prefer to have both and will make an effort to weasel that deal, if presented with an either-or demand.

Don't be ridiculous. Half the unsportsmanlike conduct you see on the field is not even penalized.

A lot of dubious behaviour in fields outside sport escape penalty, but this dosen't invalidate those endeavors, only the perpatrators and watchmen.

What the fuck makes you think we need televised sports for any of this shit?

Advertising.

That's a really long-winded way of saying that elite athletes give you something to shoot for, asshole. Big fucking deal. I'm going to snip the rest of your similarly worthless attempts at distraction through sheer volume.

And how to shoot for it, and how to apply motivation to discrete action, and a lot of other things. Even non-athletes apply the perspective of sport to non-sporting parts of their life.

You honestly think that multi-geared bicycles were invented because of elite athletes? Rolling Eyes

Although the majority of bicycle market is taken up with recreational and work users, and inventors tried to make improvements to satisfy them, the demands of sport are a lot more stringent. An elite athlete has the drive to be heard more clearly, and many cylists tinker with their own machines. While the tailored masterpieces made for athletes like Lance Armstrong aren't meant for the average user, any universally applicable advancements in design find their way into the bicycle shop, and Armstrong promotes interest in cycling for all users.

At some point the advancements of science have to leave the lab to be useful to society. The industry of sport is an outlet, and elite athletes are a major part of modern sport demanding the best uses of the tech, including bicycle gears, which are subjected to a lot of stresses in competition.

Bullshit. People would still run and jog without elite "athletes" in competition. Your entire incredibly long-winded argument is based upon the obscenely obvious false-cause fallacy that developments in medicine and personal exercise equipment were triggered by the existence of elite athletes rather than advances in science and manufacturing.

I did say that people don't need elite athletes for running in my long-winded way. That won't stop people from looking at the example set by a successful athlete, who might jog as part of training for a sport, as affirmation that jogging is healthy exercise that delivers results. A culture sympathetic to sport gives people who would otherwise remain in more sedentary lifestyles the opporunity and motivation to exercise.

Elite athletes are part of the system of modern sport and exercise. Something like a skiing exercise machine probably was initially developed to train just elite athletes. Advances in science and manufacturing are taken advantage of by athletes and those who cater to that market, and that gives impetus to new advances while rewarding the science, or rather the patent-holders, that made the technology possible.

And sports is supposed to make it better?

Practice makes perfect. Athletes are another determined voice demanding effective treatment, and elite athletes in the public eye can call attention to success and failure of medicine easier than most.

Inspiration to do what, exactly? Oh yes, more sports. Your argument is continually circular.

The experience of sport is axiomic to other areas of endeavor. Sport mirrors the energy and effort that goes into the daily grind of non-sport. Just because you do not use the model doesen't not mean someone else won't find it useful. Sport exists. People value it. Somehow people find affrimation through it, non-athletes as well as athletes.

Science would ask, why is that? Sport uses science and science can use sport. Science does not whine about not having celebrity scientists paid $120 Mil to do science.

No it doesn't.

It does too. Even in the breach, it is contrasted with the ideal.

Hardly relevant to your ridiculous assertion that the contributions of science and sports to society are comparable, or your obvious attempts to pretend that sports is much more important than any other kind of entertainment such as Michael Bay movies or pornography.

They aren't comparable, but they are complimentary. To some, sports is preferable to other types of entertainment, or also complimentary. Maclean's Columnist Alan Fotheringham equated syncho swimming to overglorified crotch-peeping, and I understand the Japanese sponsored a remarkable DVD on Romanian women's gymnastics a few years ago. Entertaining movies have been made set within or about sport.

Your incredibly long-winded stream of bullshit never once justifies your claim that sports is of great benefit to society. All you do is throw up circular justifications, falsely equate sports to exercise, and practice your skills at excessive verbosity, most of which I couldn't be bothered to even quote because it has nothing whatsoever to do with the point.

The OP asked why scientists weren't paid as much as athletes for their work, despite the greater value of the contribution of science to society versus sport, and if sport was necessary to society, compared to science, implying that society could do without sport altogether.

The value of sport lies in its relative lack of political importance versus its social importance. People can participate in sports directly as participants or observers, economic consumers and producers, and middlemen. It is a more controlled and safe outlet for emotional and physical release; win or lose, it was just a game. At the same time, values to regulate social drives are imparted; fairness in competition, cooperation, and group identification as a reference for the real interactions that take place.

A scientist is usually many more steps removed, legally and otherwise, from the sale of applied technology based on science, where the money is made, than the athlete and the paying fan. The value science imparts to society is rarely personally identified with a particular scientist, and there is no market incentive to pay scientists huge amounts of money, because there is no guarantee the investment will generate marketable results. Measuring the value of scientific contribution by cash valuation of individual scientists is as awkward as trying to set a discrete measure for translating the qualitative value of the culture of play into the value of quantitative scientific achievements.

Some don't find sport useful, exciting, or otherwise relevant to their life... so what? People who do, including scientists who do sport or find sport interesting, will continue to enjoy exercise and sport and it will add something to their lives they would rather not do without.

Sportmanship is a positive set of values to regulate social interactions, scientific reasoning is a powerful set of tools for learning. They compliment one-another, and the greater value of science does not cheapen sport. The quality of a human being involved in either or both has impact on society, and while science is morally neutral, sport is not.

[Darth Wong]

Conceded. Society without sport and science to compliment one another would be something less; I prefer to have both and will make an effort to weasel that deal, if presented with an either-or demand.

None of which supports your claim that professional sports makes a greater contribution to society than any other kind of entertainment.

A lot of dubious behaviour in fields outside sport escape penalty, but this dosen't invalidate those endeavors, only the perpatrators and watchmen.

But the fucking people who do it are not glorified, asshole. I'm growing sick of your evasive bullshit.

What the fuck makes you think we need televised sports for any of this shit?

Advertising.

You're sick in the head if you think that something which spurs more advertising is actually good for society.

And how to shoot for it, and how to apply motivation to discrete action, and a lot of other things. Even non-athletes apply the perspective of sport to non-sporting parts of their life.

Bullshit. Pithy analogies do not make for a worldview, and are certainly not necessary for one.

You honestly think that multi-geared bicycles were invented because of elite athletes? Rolling Eyes

Although the majority of bicycle market is taken up with recreational and work users, and inventors tried to make improvements to satisfy them, the demands of sport are a lot more stringent. <blah blah blah>

Oh right, as if hills didn't exist before athletes came along. The notion that nobody would have ever wanted multiple gears on a bike without the Tour De France is so goddamned stupid that I can only imagine that you're a fucking liar for trying to pretend that this is the case. How much bullshit do you think you can spew, you lying little piece of shit? I and everyone else here have ridden bikes long enough to know that you don't need to be an athlete to need more than one goddamned gear on a bike.

I did say that people don't need elite athletes for running in my long-winded way. That won't stop people from looking at the example set by a successful athlete, who might jog as part of training for a sport, as affirmation that jogging is healthy exercise that delivers results. A culture sympathetic to sport gives people who would otherwise remain in more sedentary lifestyles the opporunity and motivation to exercise.

Prove it. I'm growing sick of all your bullshit made-up cause-and-effect theories. I want evidence of your endless claims of how people are more active thanks to televised professional sports.

Elite athletes are part of the system of modern sport and exercise. Something like a skiing exercise machine probably was initially developed to train just elite athletes.

And it is of no particular use for most people, despite the occasional fad. What people need for fitness is basic exercise, not fancy machines. In fact, a strong argument could be made that fetishistic attempts to duplicate the fancy specialized training techniques employed by athletes are harmful to general fitness, because most people shouldn't be doing those highly specialized things.

And sports is supposed to make it better?

Practice makes perfect.

By this idiotic logic, youth gang warfare is good for society because it spurs advancements in hospital trauma care.

The experience of sport is axiomic to other areas of endeavor.

Bullshit. I'm going to ask for evidence again that anyone needs professional sports in order to develop work ethic and other daily work attitudes. Because as I said before, I'm getting really tired of your made-up claims.

Science would ask, why is that? Sport uses science and science can use sport. Science does not whine about not having celebrity scientists paid $120 Mil to do science.

That's because science is too busy contributing to society, and not busy glorifying itself, which is what sports excels at (and which you are attempting to do as well, asshole).

No it doesn't.

It does too. Even in the breach, it is contrasted with the ideal.

Evidence. Right fucking now.

[Surlethe]

The experience of sport is axiomic to other areas of endeavor. Sport mirrors the energy and effort that goes into the daily grind of non-sport. Just because you do not use the model doesen't not mean someone else won't find it useful. Sport exists. People value it. Somehow people find affrimation through it, non-athletes as well as athletes.

How, exactly, does this series of sentences demonstrate that sports are more important to society than science? If it weren't for science, professional sports wouldn't exist; the converse certainly is not true.

[Stravo]

You know I think it stands to reiterate the point I raised much earlier in this thread and the point of the OP. There are people here arguing that sports is good. Sports is important. I asked a very simple question. What has sports done or currently do that makes it anywhere near as valuable as science?

In the High School Musical the kids are comparing Michael Jordan and other pro athletes vs. madame Curie, Darwin and Einstein. Are you seriously going to tell me that sports stars are even in the same league in terms of contributions to the society as the person who for instance cured Polio? How about we make it simpler. Bill Gates, inventor of Windows vs. Michael Jordan. How is society worst off without Gates as opposed to Jordan?

Get the fucking point now?

[Darth Mortis]

I must point out that there are "good" role models in sports. For instance, Lebron James of the Cavs, my home team, just signed on and started a company to rebuild the bad area's of Cleveland. And trust me folks, I live right by Cleveland, this was no small task. I applaud him for his continued work in the lower income regions of Ohio.

I wouldn't call Lebron James a particularly good role model. Like many athletes, he used sports to get out of the ghetto, providing yet another high-profile example of the message that good grades won't get you where you want to go. He then pounded this message home by skipping college entirely and going straight to the NBA.

Sure, now that he has megabucks, he can spend some of it fixing up the shithole area where he grew up, but I would hardly call him a good role model in general.

Let me get this straight, So you're saying if you came from a poor neighborhood, where drugs and filth were apparent, that you would turn down the money? If you had a great ability to turn formula's into practice, and could refine the best alloys in the world, with little or no competition, you would tell the firm offering you the 40 million to fuck off? I'll answer that one, hell no you, nor I, nor anybody you know would. And would you turn back and give to the people you lived around? Tricky answer, but I know that what Lebron did is what anybody would do, so putting him down is not making sense to me. Role model or not, the bottom line is you do what's best for your family and yourself.

The kid is articulate, well mannered, stays out of trouble, raises his son, and gives a TON back to the community, oh yes and he still lives here in Ohio. Which is amazing it itself. He wants to make this town a better place and has proven it time and time again.

[Darth Wong]

Let me get this straight, So you're saying if you came from a poor neighborhood, where drugs and filth were apparent, that you would turn down the money?

Are you a fucking retard or something? This is like saying that a lottery winner is a good role model because I wouldn't turn down lottery winnings if they were offered to me.

[Darth Mortis]

Let me get this straight, So you're saying if you came from a poor neighborhood, where drugs and filth were apparent, that you would turn down the money?

Are you a fucking retard or something? This is like saying that a lottery winner is a good role model because I wouldn't turn down lottery winnings if they were offered to me.

No, you're arbitrarily dismissing him as a role model because he is a good athelete and got very lucky.

[Lagmonster]

No, you're arbitrarily dismissing him as a role model because he is a good athelete and got very lucky.

A role model does something worthy of emulation. Luck is not something you can emulate, and aspiring to luck is a foolish idea, because you can waste your life sitting in filth scratching off lottery tickets and never amount to shit.

[Ghost Rider]

Let me get this straight, So you're saying if you came from a poor neighborhood, where drugs and filth were apparent, that you would turn down the money?

Are you a fucking retard or something? This is like saying that a lottery winner is a good role model because I wouldn't turn down lottery winnings if they were offered to me.

No, you're arbitrarily dismissing him as a role model because he is a good athelete and got very lucky.

Shit and hellfire boy...you don't even understand how you made yourself look dumber, do you?

I'll highlight the word for you "LUCKY".

Like Mike's point, just because you won the lottery and gave back money....means diddly and shit as a role model, because you should not at any point emulate LUCK

Do you get it now, dumbfuck?

[Mr. T]

No, you're arbitrarily dismissing him as a role model because he is a good athelete and got very lucky.

A role model does something worthy of emulation. Luck is not something you can emulate, and aspiring to luck is a foolish idea, because you can waste your life sitting in filth scratching off lottery tickets and never amount to shit.

Perhaps a good way to say this would be that someone like Lebron James can be seen as a role model....but only to other insanely rich people. As he is a role model in so far as he uses his wealth to get involved in charity work, something other very rich people should emulate (although I don't know how involved he is, alot of athletes just do token gestures as charity, perhaps a better example would be someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet).

He is however not a role model for kids on how to be successful, especially poor, black inner city kids.

[Darth Mortis]

Are you a fucking retard or something? This is like saying that a lottery winner is a good role model because I wouldn't turn down lottery winnings if they were offered to me.

No, you're arbitrarily dismissing him as a role model because he is a good athelete and got very lucky.

Shit and hellfire boy...you don't even understand how you made yourself look dumber, do you?

I'll highlight the word for you "LUCKY".

Like Mike's point, just because you won the lottery and gave back money....means diddly and shit as a role model, because you should not at any point emulate LUCK

Do you get it now, dumbfuck?

YOu piggybackers amaze me, haven't you ever heard that "It's not what you have, but how you use it that matters?"

There are worse people for inner city kids to look up to than an articulate, successful family man who happens to play a fucking game. For instance, who would you have your child try to emulate, James or Jesse Jackson?
Bill Cosby hit this on the head.

[Darth Servo]

YOu piggybackers amaze me, haven't you ever heard that "It's not what you have, but how you use it that matters?"

Yes and its still bullshit since you are still evading the point which is that professional athletes are there because of LUCK and luck is NOT something to emulate. Your trite little saying is nothing but the old "the ends justify the means" nonsense.

There are worse people for inner city kids to look up to than an articulate, successful family man who happens to play a fucking game. For instance, who would you have your child try to emulate, James or Jesse Jackson?

Ah, you really ARE hell bent on proving yourself a moron. The fact that A is better than B does NOT make A good. It just makes A less bad than B.

Bill Cosby hit this on the head.

Provide the quote please.

[Ghost Rider]

YOu piggybackers amaze me, haven't you ever heard that "It's not what you have, but how you use it that matters?"

There are worse people for inner city kids to look up to than an articulate, successful family man who happens to play a fucking game. For instance, who would you have your child try to emulate, James or Jesse Jackson?
Bill Cosby hit this on the head.

Ah, so when all else fails commit one's arguments to pointless proverbs.

Look dumbass, and I'll tell you slowly. No one is saying that what Lebron did was bad, they are saying that this is not a good role model, because he got where he was by PURE FUCKING LUCK.

So what if it was working his ass off on the Basketball court? He got spotted and is being paid big bucks because of luck of the draw. So encouraging a kid that if you play B-Ball and get really lucky, you too will be an NBA star is a bullshit platform for being a role model.

Jesus fucking Christ, do you get it now, or will we hear another evasion and not addressing the issue?

[Darth Wong]

Only a true idiot could possibly believe that it's good for kids to want to model themselves after a pro athlete rather than a more realistic role model like a doctor or for that matter, any decent hard-working person whose example they actually have a realistic chance of following.

There are actually more lottery winners every year than new players in the NBA. I wasn't being facetious when I compared the two.