4 ms·

The stats could be really interesting, but the whole opening salvo against sports fandom turned me off to much to continue reading. I don't know if the author

The stats could be really interesting, but the whole opening salvo against sports fandom turned me off to much to continue reading. I don't know if the author believes the ridiculous stereotype that all geeks hate sports and therefore it's okay to make ridiculous unsubstantiated leaps of logic like "attention devoted to the World Cup is founded on flimsy numerology", but it certainly is not a smart thing to say for someone who prides themselves on their logic and critical thinking ability. The randomness of a football match is no different from the randomness of every day life. People like sports because they identify with the players and their human capabilities. Every moment on the pitch there are 22 people taking action. A football match is not a sequence of random events, but rather the continual human response to a changing situation that each one can affect only in a limited way. When amazing "low-probability" events occur, it's often because of tremendous human skill that anyone who's ever tried to kick a ball can appreciate. If it was robots playing no one would care. The fact that there are upsets and freak occurrences is just another part of what keeps it interesting; absolute pinpointing of the objective "best" team is irrelevant.

timr 12y ago
That's not an "opening salvo" -- that's the thesis of the piece. His contention is that soccer, more than most other sports, is a poisson machine. He goes into the math. "The randomness of a football match is no different from the randomness of every day life." Well, no, actually. Some things in life are more random than others. And however skilled they may be, the large number of (fallible) people on the field playing this game certainly doesn't make it less random. As games go, soccer doesn't have many structural impediments to randomness. We'd (hopefully) feel pretty silly if we got worked up every few years about a global coin-flipping tournament, but, here we are, getting worked up over teams of people engaged in an event where the outcome is dominated by chance. (And oh, hey: it sort of pegs the irony-o-meter that you're accusing the author of being closed-minded about sports when you can't even be bothered to read an argument because you've decided that you disagree with it in advance. Well played.)
- cwyers 12y ago
  "His contention is that soccer, more than most other sports, is a poisson machine. He goes into the math." No he doesn't. He shows that the final score of a soccer game can be modeled by a Poisson distribution. He doesn't look at the distribution of final scores and other sports and compare them.
- dasil003 12y ago
  Come on now, this entire comment is unfair, it's like you're willfully ignoring my post's actual content in order to grind your own axe: > That's not an "opening salvo" -- that's the thesis of the piece. His contention is that soccer, more than most other sports, is a poisson machine. He goes into the math. I don't object to the thesis, I object to the opening salvo. > Well, no, actually. Some things in life are more random than others. How does this refute my point? Everything in life is random to some degree or another. Football also is. > And however skilled they may be, the large number of (fallible) people on the field playing this game certainly doesn't make it less random. What does fallibility have to do with it? Look, my point is that it is not a roulette wheel, there are humans reacting, and that human endeavour is what's interesting to people, not the precise quantity of randomness in the result. > As games go, soccer doesn't have many structural impediments to randomness. It also doesn't have much impediment to strategy, tactics and individual skill drastically altering the probabilities of each individual event. > We'd (hopefully) feel pretty silly if we got worked up every few years about a global coin-flipping tournament, but, here we are, getting worked up over teams of people engaged in an event where the outcome is dominated by chance. Clearly football falls somewhere in between a coin-flip tournament and say 9-ball pool. But, again, randomness keeps it interesting. Remember, we are not just looking at results, we are watching players play. In individual situations players make decisions and physically control what happens. You can argue about the randomness of these events, but that just leads towards the tiresome free-will-is-an-illusion debate. > (And oh, hey: it sort of pegs the irony-o-meter that you're accusing the author of being closed-minded about sports when you can't even be bothered to read an argument because you've decided that you disagree with it in advance. Well played.) What an uncalled for and arrogant remark that can do nothing except derail reasonable debate; if you squint hard enough everyone is a hypocrite. I did read the argument, and I was addressing the opening presentation.
icebraining 12y ago
If it was robots playing no one would care. Not true: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCup :)
- dasil003 12y ago
  I rest my case.

timr 12y ago

That's not an "opening salvo" -- that's the thesis of the piece. His contention is that soccer, more than most other sports, is a poisson machine. He goes into the math. "The randomness of a football match is no different from the randomness of every day life." Well, no, actually. Some things in life are more random than others. And however skilled they may be, the large number of (fallible) people on the field playing this game certainly doesn't make it less random. As games go, soccer doesn't have many structural impediments to randomness. We'd (hopefully) feel pretty silly if we got worked up every few years about a global coin-flipping tournament, but, here we are, getting worked up over teams of people engaged in an event where the outcome is dominated by chance. (And oh, hey: it sort of pegs the irony-o-meter that you're accusing the author of being closed-minded about sports when you can't even be bothered to read an argument because you've decided that you disagree with it in advance. Well played.)

cwyers 12y ago
"His contention is that soccer, more than most other sports, is a poisson machine. He goes into the math." No he doesn't. He shows that the final score of a soccer game can be modeled by a Poisson distribution. He doesn't look at the distribution of final scores and other sports and compare them.
dasil003 12y ago
Come on now, this entire comment is unfair, it's like you're willfully ignoring my post's actual content in order to grind your own axe: > That's not an "opening salvo" -- that's the thesis of the piece. His contention is that soccer, more than most other sports, is a poisson machine. He goes into the math. I don't object to the thesis, I object to the opening salvo. > Well, no, actually. Some things in life are more random than others. How does this refute my point? Everything in life is random to some degree or another. Football also is. > And however skilled they may be, the large number of (fallible) people on the field playing this game certainly doesn't make it less random. What does fallibility have to do with it? Look, my point is that it is not a roulette wheel, there are humans reacting, and that human endeavour is what's interesting to people, not the precise quantity of randomness in the result. > As games go, soccer doesn't have many structural impediments to randomness. It also doesn't have much impediment to strategy, tactics and individual skill drastically altering the probabilities of each individual event. > We'd (hopefully) feel pretty silly if we got worked up every few years about a global coin-flipping tournament, but, here we are, getting worked up over teams of people engaged in an event where the outcome is dominated by chance. Clearly football falls somewhere in between a coin-flip tournament and say 9-ball pool. But, again, randomness keeps it interesting. Remember, we are not just looking at results, we are watching players play. In individual situations players make decisions and physically control what happens. You can argue about the randomness of these events, but that just leads towards the tiresome free-will-is-an-illusion debate. > (And oh, hey: it sort of pegs the irony-o-meter that you're accusing the author of being closed-minded about sports when you can't even be bothered to read an argument because you've decided that you disagree with it in advance. Well played.) What an uncalled for and arrogant remark that can do nothing except derail reasonable debate; if you squint hard enough everyone is a hypocrite. I did read the argument, and I was addressing the opening presentation.

icebraining 12y ago

If it was robots playing no one would care. Not true: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCup :)

dasil003 12y ago
I rest my case.