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I think saying team sports is a good substitute for war is like saying that if you need a good substitute for afternoon tea, just eat a bag of mushrooms. At fir

I think saying team sports is a good substitute for war is like saying that if you need a good substitute for afternoon tea, just eat a bag of mushrooms. At first blush, this might seem like a funny joke, but there are times in combat that feel almost psychedelic: Colors seem brighter and you get a kind of tunnel vision, your senses are not only highly engaged but more sensitive, your heart is pounding, your mind is racing, you're overcome with a kind of euphoria from the adrenaline, and the bottom of your stomach drops out at the existential overload. Playing a team sport is not a substitute for going to war. Perhaps there are some superficial similarities, but nothing on this Earth compares to the experience of combat. Incidentally, this is why training is the difference between life and death: Without the aid of muscle memory, you could be trapped cognitively, and being trapped in any sense of the word will get you killed on the battlefield. Actually, this is why I find the ending of the play/musical "Hair" to be so shocking and believable: Going to war with no training would almost certainly be a death sentence.

erikpukinskis 8y ago
I feel like you’re arguing the obvious, something your OP almost certainly understands. Actually I think your point would be stronger if your agreed with them—that sports do substitute for war in important ways, and use your knowledge and experience to show specifically where and when that stops being true.
- fapjacks 8y ago
  For my arguing something so obvious, you sure seem to have missed what I said. You think my point would be stronger if I agreed with the parent instead of disagreed... Except that my point is that I do not agree with his post at all and it's obvious that he does not almost certainly understand the difference. Suggesting team sports as a "good substitute" for wartime experience plainly demonstrates a lack of understanding, really a true failure to grok. This suggestion has some features in common with the idea that Call of Duty somehow captures what combat is like. It's immediately recognizable as something a distant spectator would say. Someone that watches sports and war on television, for example. But it's not a good comparison at all, and certainly not a good substitute. Since you think this is such an obvious thing, perhaps you can compare and contrast your own combat experiences with his proposition to get what you were hoping to get out of my post. If you're not speaking from experience, then I'd ask that you not add noise by trying to oversimplify something you're only guessing at. If you don't know what it's like, that's totally okay, but I'd suggest not trying to shoehorn posts that do come from experience into the narrative you want to find, which is that it is somehow possible to "substitute" team sports "in important ways" for war. I'm telling you that they are only superficially, vaguely the same shape if you squint across a dark room. Add a few layers of abstraction, and they share cosmetic similarities. Otherwise they are not comparable in any way, let alone important ways, and I do not agree with the parent I replied to.
  - mariodiana 8y ago
    I'm inclined to agree with you. I just want to add something I heard said by a retired NFL player in an interview. He said that when he was on the field playing football, he "knew he was alive, on planet Earth." I'm guessing he was talking about an immediate, all-consuming experience—a Zen kind of thing that he experienced, playing a physically tough and dangerous game at the world class level. I cannot believe that that compares with what you describe. But I'm inclined to believe that there is some kind of continuum to which both experiences belong. Can you allow for the possibility that the football playing described by the athlete is at least a pale facsimile?
    - bwb 8y ago
      I've had moments with teams where everything is just connected and everything works, every person has latched onto something, we don't talk, the next pass goes perfectly and the next one. It is like being part of something bigger than yourself. Everyone is in the zone and all makes sense. I've got no idea on the war thing, but it is something truly magical that I will treasure for the times it did happen.
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    If you treat the people around you like idiots, they will be.

erikpukinskis 8y ago

I feel like you’re arguing the obvious, something your OP almost certainly understands. Actually I think your point would be stronger if your agreed with them—that sports do substitute for war in important ways, and use your knowledge and experience to show specifically where and when that stops being true.

fapjacks 8y ago
For my arguing something so obvious, you sure seem to have missed what I said. You think my point would be stronger if I agreed with the parent instead of disagreed... Except that my point is that I do not agree with his post at all and it's obvious that he does not almost certainly understand the difference. Suggesting team sports as a "good substitute" for wartime experience plainly demonstrates a lack of understanding, really a true failure to grok. This suggestion has some features in common with the idea that Call of Duty somehow captures what combat is like. It's immediately recognizable as something a distant spectator would say. Someone that watches sports and war on television, for example. But it's not a good comparison at all, and certainly not a good substitute. Since you think this is such an obvious thing, perhaps you can compare and contrast your own combat experiences with his proposition to get what you were hoping to get out of my post. If you're not speaking from experience, then I'd ask that you not add noise by trying to oversimplify something you're only guessing at. If you don't know what it's like, that's totally okay, but I'd suggest not trying to shoehorn posts that do come from experience into the narrative you want to find, which is that it is somehow possible to "substitute" team sports "in important ways" for war. I'm telling you that they are only superficially, vaguely the same shape if you squint across a dark room. Add a few layers of abstraction, and they share cosmetic similarities. Otherwise they are not comparable in any way, let alone important ways, and I do not agree with the parent I replied to.
- mariodiana 8y ago
  I'm inclined to agree with you. I just want to add something I heard said by a retired NFL player in an interview. He said that when he was on the field playing football, he "knew he was alive, on planet Earth." I'm guessing he was talking about an immediate, all-consuming experience—a Zen kind of thing that he experienced, playing a physically tough and dangerous game at the world class level. I cannot believe that that compares with what you describe. But I'm inclined to believe that there is some kind of continuum to which both experiences belong. Can you allow for the possibility that the football playing described by the athlete is at least a pale facsimile?
  - bwb 8y ago
    I've had moments with teams where everything is just connected and everything works, every person has latched onto something, we don't talk, the next pass goes perfectly and the next one. It is like being part of something bigger than yourself. Everyone is in the zone and all makes sense. I've got no idea on the war thing, but it is something truly magical that I will treasure for the times it did happen.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  If you treat the people around you like idiots, they will be.