5 ms·

Very nice explanation of situation, but I think we could go even further. You agree that "Skater's greatness – whatever that means – is hard to define", but I

by vladms 3y ago

Very nice explanation of situation, but I think we could go even further. You agree that "Skater's greatness – whatever that means – is hard to define", but I would say that the problem is then the idea of competition for this sport and not "how you judge" / "how you measure". There is no inherent need of competition for every sport in my opinion. There can be prizes, juries, etc, but if people would accept that in the end it is subjective might make it easier than overly complex system to rate "fairly" something unclear (doubt anybody would want to put rules on how you rate a film for an Oscar - they just know it is "fuzzy").

divan 3y ago
Absolutely. Competition is just an incentive structure for athletes. Even the word "competition" stems from the Latin words "com" and "petere" and means "strive with". Not "strive against". Strive with. We just need other humans to challenge us when we're don't feel challenged enough or intrinsic motivation doesn't justify the time/effort being spent. So, again, the goal of the competition is to incentivize athletes to show their best. Accidentally, we need some way of comparing results here, and that's where the judging system comes into play. It has (or rather should have) a nice bonus of giving feedback to the athletes on what to improve upon. Unfortunately, the majority of people in sports equate sports with competitions. Even some definitions of sports contain clauses like "...in a competitive fashion...". They strongly believe that without competition, there is no sports component. Yet, every four years, the world rediscovers a unique Norwegian sports policy for children. [1][2] They banned competitions for kids till the age of 11 in the late 1970s. You can have competitions, technically, but you are prohibited from ranking kids and publishing results with rankings. That, of course, is based on the studies of the reasons behind drop-out from sports rates and the science of motivation (self-determination theory, mainly). As a result, Norway has 1st rank in medals in the Winter Olympics and 9th in both summer and winter (they even won gold in beach volleyball!) and the highest sports participation rates in the world (9 out of 10 kids and 7 out of 10 adults, I believe). Sports != competitions indeed. Another example I like is Magnus Carlsen refusing to participate in the Worlds Chess Championships for the 11th time because it simply doesn't challenge him anymore. [3] Again, competitions are not about "finding who's the best" (that's a byproduct). It's about challenging to show an athlete's best. In the case of Magnus it failed to achieve this goal. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/03/03/norway-is-a-youth-sports-model/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/03/03/norway-is... [2] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/article-norways-radically-different-approach-to-sports-helped-it-climb-to-the/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/article-norw... [3] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11034789/Magnus-Carlsen-refuses-defend-chess-title-held-TEN-YEARS-dont-like-it.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11034789/Magnus-Car...
- DoughnutHole 3y ago
  Great point on competition in schools. The competitive focus of sports in schools rewards those that are already athletically gifted while shaming and discouraging the mediocre. That's great if the purpose of PE is to create elite athletes. If the point is to encourage a healthier population by instilling an appreciation for sport and physical activity in kids it's an abject failure. Kids that are already good at sports love PE, while less gifted kids develop a disdain for sport and by adulthood have often dropped all sports and exercise.
  - divan 3y ago
    Yes, and it's not just in schools. Drawing from SDT (self-determination theory), one of the main predictors for motivation is a psychological need called 'competence' (perception of whether your actions lead to the feeling of growth or accomplishment). Different actions and situations can send either a positive competence signal to a person (and increase motivation) or a negative one (and decrease motivation). These things are measurable. The main issue with competitions is that they send positive competence signal to one person (winner) and negative to everyone else. Like you trained for months, and now you've lost. This leads to increased dropout rates in sports, which are especially pronounced in kids. Norwegians asked the question – instead of spending money and effort to try to engage people and kids in sports, maybe we should ask a question, 'Why do they drop out in the first place' and prevent those? Competitions came as one of the strongest predictors of dropping out of sports, hence the policy.
    - vladms 3y ago
      Depends on the competition format a bit. You can also have rankings and while they are not ideal either, probably it will not be as bad as "send positive competence signal to one person (winner)". For example if you do a single elimination tournament of course people eliminated in first round will get bored and not interested (you can't even make a proper ranking) Focusing on winners only is a societal choice though. I have met people (in countries were a lot of people like doing sport) that were practicing a sport and joining competitions for years even though they were not very competent in that sport - because it was their hobby and they just enjoyed being there.
Someone 3y ago
> There is no inherent need of competition for every sport in my opinion I disagree. Competition is a defining property of ‘sport’. What’s wrong with calling figure skating an art form? Nobody calls ballet or violin playing sports [1], but there are “prices, juries, etc” for them. I would split various activities in a group where objective measurements are more or less possible (they never fully are) and one where they aren’t. The first would consist of: - games, where your opponent has significant influence on your behavior or performance (basketball, judo, billiards, etc). Basically, if you can play defensively, it’s a game. - sports, where they don’t (archery, skiing, all forms of athletics; I would include the jumping events, even though your opponent’s performance may significantly affect your strategy. Etc.) The second would be ‘arts’. [1] if you look at the modern Olympics, painting and other art forms were events at some time, but that, but even then, did people call those sports?
- vladms 3y ago
  > Competition is a defining property of ‘sport’. This requires a reference though. For example: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sport https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sport does not exclude non-competition based physical activities from the definition of sport, to quote: "a game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job: ". Definitions might differ from dictionary to dictionary and language to language Your definition of games assumes an opponent (ex: Rubik's Cube would not fit), so I think it is not ideal. Overall I think we could just stick to existing definitions and just accept that some competitions are "subjective" (ex: gymnastics, etc.)
eternauta3k 3y ago
Formal sports like artistic gymnastics and figure skating are doomed to degenerate into rigid attempts to maximize points. That's why we have disciplines like freestyle skating, where people can be creative. Unfortunately, there's less money in that.
ghaff 3y ago
I assume what you see when there really isn't competition (aside from pleasing an audience such as professional figure skating demonstrations) is more emphasis on artistry and crowd-pleasing elements that look hard (OK they are) but are easier than other elements that are much more difficult but largely indistinguishable by the average viewer.

by vladms 3y ago

divan 3y ago

Absolutely. Competition is just an incentive structure for athletes. Even the word "competition" stems from the Latin words "com" and "petere" and means "strive with". Not "strive against". Strive with. We just need other humans to challenge us when we're don't feel challenged enough or intrinsic motivation doesn't justify the time/effort being spent. So, again, the goal of the competition is to incentivize athletes to show their best. Accidentally, we need some way of comparing results here, and that's where the judging system comes into play. It has (or rather should have) a nice bonus of giving feedback to the athletes on what to improve upon. Unfortunately, the majority of people in sports equate sports with competitions. Even some definitions of sports contain clauses like "...in a competitive fashion...". They strongly believe that without competition, there is no sports component. Yet, every four years, the world rediscovers a unique Norwegian sports policy for children. [1][2] They banned competitions for kids till the age of 11 in the late 1970s. You can have competitions, technically, but you are prohibited from ranking kids and publishing results with rankings. That, of course, is based on the studies of the reasons behind drop-out from sports rates and the science of motivation (self-determination theory, mainly). As a result, Norway has 1st rank in medals in the Winter Olympics and 9th in both summer and winter (they even won gold in beach volleyball!) and the highest sports participation rates in the world (9 out of 10 kids and 7 out of 10 adults, I believe). Sports != competitions indeed. Another example I like is Magnus Carlsen refusing to participate in the Worlds Chess Championships for the 11th time because it simply doesn't challenge him anymore. [3] Again, competitions are not about "finding who's the best" (that's a byproduct). It's about challenging to show an athlete's best. In the case of Magnus it failed to achieve this goal. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/03/03/norway-is-a-youth-sports-model/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/03/03/norway-is... [2] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/article-norways-radically-different-approach-to-sports-helped-it-climb-to-the/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/article-norw... [3] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11034789/Magnus-Carlsen-refuses-defend-chess-title-held-TEN-YEARS-dont-like-it.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11034789/Magnus-Car...

DoughnutHole 3y ago
Great point on competition in schools. The competitive focus of sports in schools rewards those that are already athletically gifted while shaming and discouraging the mediocre. That's great if the purpose of PE is to create elite athletes. If the point is to encourage a healthier population by instilling an appreciation for sport and physical activity in kids it's an abject failure. Kids that are already good at sports love PE, while less gifted kids develop a disdain for sport and by adulthood have often dropped all sports and exercise.
- divan 3y ago
  Yes, and it's not just in schools. Drawing from SDT (self-determination theory), one of the main predictors for motivation is a psychological need called 'competence' (perception of whether your actions lead to the feeling of growth or accomplishment). Different actions and situations can send either a positive competence signal to a person (and increase motivation) or a negative one (and decrease motivation). These things are measurable. The main issue with competitions is that they send positive competence signal to one person (winner) and negative to everyone else. Like you trained for months, and now you've lost. This leads to increased dropout rates in sports, which are especially pronounced in kids. Norwegians asked the question – instead of spending money and effort to try to engage people and kids in sports, maybe we should ask a question, 'Why do they drop out in the first place' and prevent those? Competitions came as one of the strongest predictors of dropping out of sports, hence the policy.
  - vladms 3y ago
    Depends on the competition format a bit. You can also have rankings and while they are not ideal either, probably it will not be as bad as "send positive competence signal to one person (winner)". For example if you do a single elimination tournament of course people eliminated in first round will get bored and not interested (you can't even make a proper ranking) Focusing on winners only is a societal choice though. I have met people (in countries were a lot of people like doing sport) that were practicing a sport and joining competitions for years even though they were not very competent in that sport - because it was their hobby and they just enjoyed being there.

Someone 3y ago

> There is no inherent need of competition for every sport in my opinion I disagree. Competition is a defining property of ‘sport’. What’s wrong with calling figure skating an art form? Nobody calls ballet or violin playing sports [1], but there are “prices, juries, etc” for them. I would split various activities in a group where objective measurements are more or less possible (they never fully are) and one where they aren’t. The first would consist of: - games, where your opponent has significant influence on your behavior or performance (basketball, judo, billiards, etc). Basically, if you can play defensively, it’s a game. - sports, where they don’t (archery, skiing, all forms of athletics; I would include the jumping events, even though your opponent’s performance may significantly affect your strategy. Etc.) The second would be ‘arts’. [1] if you look at the modern Olympics, painting and other art forms were events at some time, but that, but even then, did people call those sports?

vladms 3y ago
> Competition is a defining property of ‘sport’. This requires a reference though. For example: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sport https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sport does not exclude non-competition based physical activities from the definition of sport, to quote: "a game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job: ". Definitions might differ from dictionary to dictionary and language to language Your definition of games assumes an opponent (ex: Rubik's Cube would not fit), so I think it is not ideal. Overall I think we could just stick to existing definitions and just accept that some competitions are "subjective" (ex: gymnastics, etc.)

eternauta3k 3y ago

Formal sports like artistic gymnastics and figure skating are doomed to degenerate into rigid attempts to maximize points. That's why we have disciplines like freestyle skating, where people can be creative. Unfortunately, there's less money in that.

ghaff 3y ago

I assume what you see when there really isn't competition (aside from pleasing an audience such as professional figure skating demonstrations) is more emphasis on artistry and crowd-pleasing elements that look hard (OK they are) but are easier than other elements that are much more difficult but largely indistinguishable by the average viewer.