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I'm not sure how I feel about this article. On the one hand, it had a weird highbrow tone. It reads a bit like an ivory tower academic discovering what "the poo

by bglazer 12y ago

I'm not sure how I feel about this article. On the one hand, it had a weird highbrow tone. It reads a bit like an ivory tower academic discovering what "the poors" are up to. Some choice quotes: "Albert suggested that sports reflect the go-to topic for small talk and building rapport across class and context" "Sports are popular because people, in general, find them fun to watch". No shit! Lots of people like sports. Did you really need to go to a talk at MIT to figure that out? On the other hand, I applaud the author for challenging the social conventions of the people around him. Disdain for sports is pointless social signalling that is ultimately divisive. Another quote, that I particularly like: "This ignorance among highly educated people limits our ability to communicate, bond, and build relationships across different segments of society. It limits our ability to engage in conversations and build a common culture that crosses our highly stratified and segmented societies" Edit: I would also like to add one perspective that is perhaps more appealing to the intellectual crowd: Sports are a magnificent showcase of kinesiology at the highest level. The same people who scoff at football probably also marvel at the latest ATLAS robot from Boston Dynamics, which is a poor analogue of the human machines on display in any high level sporting event. I could give a dozen examples. Anything from hitting a baseball thrown at 90 mph to ice-skating to a running back evading tackles. I can't believe we take this for granted. Imagine bipedal robots powered by ham sandwiches that have visual/control systems capable of tracking objects thrown through the air and leaping to catch them, all while evading attackers and coordinating with team mates.

nitrogen 12y ago
Disdain for sports is pointless social signalling that is ultimately divisive. So is participation in sports. People don't dislike sports because they were born that way; they dislike them because they didn't like the effect they had on e.g. their high school or college.
- Retra 12y ago
  Some people want to cheer for academic bookish stuffiness and boo the low-brow jockiness of field games. If that isn't what sports is all about, then what is it about?
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    This whole idea of "us versus them" is an integral part of a lot of sports culture. That creation of artificial false dichotomies is exactly what sports is about, and exactly what society needs to avoid. The question isn't academics versus athletes, it's inclusiveness versus divisiveness (or, worst case, the question of maximum long-term benefit to society). Both academics and athletes are capable of either, but at least in schools, one side is much more prominently divisive than the other.
    - Retra 12y ago
      I'm not sure society needs to avoid it. And even if it did, I'm not sure individual humans can. Differentiating between things is a core functionality of the brain, and separating people into groups and categories is necessary to identify which decisions are correct or what actions to take in a given scenario. It becomes degenerate when this kind of divisiveness stops being "friendly competition" and starts being a feedback-loop of antagonistic rationalizations. Even so, it is hard to be inclusive with people who aren't inclined to be inclusive. It's not something that you can achieve with just intent; it requires a community with the right infrastructure. And it is hard enough for individuals to control their own behavior that controlling community behavior is almost always intractable. I'm not sure that it is inappropriately cynical to think "I'm just going to pick the side I like and criticize the one I don't. If the other side doesn't understand this and value it, then screw 'em."
soylentcola 12y ago
The "weird" tone may just be a result of the author writing in a more familiar language. If the author was already part of an academic subculture, it would make sense that this would show up in the language he is most fluent in. It can come off as incongruous (if only because we're not used to an academic making an honest attempt to analyze his observations on sport fans, academics, and a common source of friction between the two cultures). I could easily imagine the other way around - a stereotypical sports guy talking about academic topics in jock lingo - being exaggerated in an SNL skit or something. The way people "code switch" and just use the language of different subgroups is one of those things we're mostly familiar with and accept...even if we can see how it's a weird bit of human behavior. Stuff like that can make for either great offense or great comedy (sometimes both). For my part, I was always drawn to more geeky/intellectual interests as a kid because I was scrawny and weird so the sports guys weren't welcoming. As I got older, being mostly unfamiliar with pro sports made it awkward when coworkers realized I was the only one who had no idea what they were talking about. I still am not a huge fan of pro sports (if only for the insane amount of hype and greed surrounding them) but I realized a while ago that a lot of my hostility toward "jock stuff" came mostly from insecurity. Nowadays I do enjoy watching football when my home team is playing. I own a couple of team T-shirts and maybe catch a baseball game in the summer or watch a few football games at the bar if the home team is playing. A big part of it was making some friends who were into computers and music and art and reading who also liked pro sports and weren't dicks about my lack of knowledge. As the author says, the social aspect is what makes it enjoyable for a lot of people and when that was bad, my thoughts on sports were negative. When my social interactions around sports became enjoyable, my general thoughts on sports became more positive.
kirse 12y ago
Intellectually gifted individuals can be quite adept at rationalizing their behavior and deluding themselves (and drowning others) with logical-sounding word vomit. This is evident as they get lost in the details of their rationalizations, but fail to consider the broader assumptions/principles at work in their justifications. For example, point number 4: It’s not all great. Football, like most professional sports, is deeply permeated with advertisements, commercialism, and money. We see that's really just a statement full of bullshit, because it's likely pretty easy to find counter-examples of things the intellectual individual thinks are great (Apple products?) which are deeply permeated with ads, commercialism, and money. Intelligence is a highly-fluid "thing", but society tends to view it as book-smart depth in a few micro-niches... i.e. the less something can be understood, the more "intelligent" one appears. And yet that sort of "intelligence" defeats the compounding interest of knowledge, which occurs when we can communicate it to others in an understandable fashion. Even further, a mother who raises her children can be highly intelligent, but she often gets little honor from a society that defines smart as a Physics PhD.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> It reads a bit like an ivory tower academic discovering what "the poors" are up to. "A bit like"? Isn't the piece pretty overtly "How I, ivory tower anti-sports intellectual, realized the error of my ways, converted to the 'working class' ritual of sports fandom, and found that it was useful for one's own social engagement, despite having some worrisome aspects." I mean, the authors journey into sports starts with hearing a speaker at MIT claim that people who talk about "working class struggle" can't speak to the working class because they avoid sport -- and seeing themself in that critique. It actually is somewhat impressive for its ability to maintain an attitude of disdain for sport while recognizing the utility of joining the fandom, while at the same time adding new disdain for those who don't play the same game.
wcummings 12y ago
An impressive robot is just so much more novel and interesting than a feat of human strength. Not to say sports aren't impressive, or that professional athletes aren't incredibly dedicated and talented, but someone hitting a baseball isn't very interesting.
- bglazer 12y ago
  A biological computer estimates the position of an object that's moving much faster than the refresh rate of its visual system using years of training data. Simultaneously it triggers a cascade of actuators, twisting its body so that its hands reach maximum velocity at the same time the object reaches the bat it's holding. It loses sight of the ball, which is following a curved trajectory, while doing this. It then takes off running at 20mph. That's fantastically mysterious and incredible to me. I'm not trying to minimize robotics or Boston Dynamics. It's an amazing field. I just think people under appreciate the movement of the human body.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    But they're all the same with no progression over time. Not fascinating to me in the long term.
- RogerL 12y ago
  Do you realize how much time and study catchers put into the abilities of every pitcher, and every opponent that their pitchers face? It's very data based, combined with prodigious amounts of athletics on the part of both the pitcher and hitter. The pitcher is trying to capitalize on the batter's weaknesses without just giving away his plan (you can hit much better if you know a slow curveball to the indise is coming). The batter is trying to watch the pitcher and detect things like late delivery, changes in release points, putting spin on the ball, and so on. Then they are tracking mid time scale things - is the pitcher getting tired, is he losing control, are his pitches drifting to the outside. Or this batter has struck out 3 times now - was that a random walk, is he having trouble with a specific pitch, is he perhaps injured? Then there is the long range stuff - how does this batter fair against left handed pitchers. As of late baseball has been a pitching game. It's often not high score, but it is a fascinating thing to watch, if you have this context. Now, whether you want to keep all that in your brain is another question, and I mostly choose not to, so in practice it is less interesting to me. But there are endless depths there to plumb.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

by bglazer 12y ago

nitrogen 12y ago

Disdain for sports is pointless social signalling that is ultimately divisive. So is participation in sports. People don't dislike sports because they were born that way; they dislike them because they didn't like the effect they had on e.g. their high school or college.

Retra 12y ago
Some people want to cheer for academic bookish stuffiness and boo the low-brow jockiness of field games. If that isn't what sports is all about, then what is it about?
- nitrogen 12y ago
  This whole idea of "us versus them" is an integral part of a lot of sports culture. That creation of artificial false dichotomies is exactly what sports is about, and exactly what society needs to avoid. The question isn't academics versus athletes, it's inclusiveness versus divisiveness (or, worst case, the question of maximum long-term benefit to society). Both academics and athletes are capable of either, but at least in schools, one side is much more prominently divisive than the other.
  - Retra 12y ago
    I'm not sure society needs to avoid it. And even if it did, I'm not sure individual humans can. Differentiating between things is a core functionality of the brain, and separating people into groups and categories is necessary to identify which decisions are correct or what actions to take in a given scenario. It becomes degenerate when this kind of divisiveness stops being "friendly competition" and starts being a feedback-loop of antagonistic rationalizations. Even so, it is hard to be inclusive with people who aren't inclined to be inclusive. It's not something that you can achieve with just intent; it requires a community with the right infrastructure. And it is hard enough for individuals to control their own behavior that controlling community behavior is almost always intractable. I'm not sure that it is inappropriately cynical to think "I'm just going to pick the side I like and criticize the one I don't. If the other side doesn't understand this and value it, then screw 'em."

soylentcola 12y ago

The "weird" tone may just be a result of the author writing in a more familiar language. If the author was already part of an academic subculture, it would make sense that this would show up in the language he is most fluent in. It can come off as incongruous (if only because we're not used to an academic making an honest attempt to analyze his observations on sport fans, academics, and a common source of friction between the two cultures). I could easily imagine the other way around - a stereotypical sports guy talking about academic topics in jock lingo - being exaggerated in an SNL skit or something. The way people "code switch" and just use the language of different subgroups is one of those things we're mostly familiar with and accept...even if we can see how it's a weird bit of human behavior. Stuff like that can make for either great offense or great comedy (sometimes both). For my part, I was always drawn to more geeky/intellectual interests as a kid because I was scrawny and weird so the sports guys weren't welcoming. As I got older, being mostly unfamiliar with pro sports made it awkward when coworkers realized I was the only one who had no idea what they were talking about. I still am not a huge fan of pro sports (if only for the insane amount of hype and greed surrounding them) but I realized a while ago that a lot of my hostility toward "jock stuff" came mostly from insecurity. Nowadays I do enjoy watching football when my home team is playing. I own a couple of team T-shirts and maybe catch a baseball game in the summer or watch a few football games at the bar if the home team is playing. A big part of it was making some friends who were into computers and music and art and reading who also liked pro sports and weren't dicks about my lack of knowledge. As the author says, the social aspect is what makes it enjoyable for a lot of people and when that was bad, my thoughts on sports were negative. When my social interactions around sports became enjoyable, my general thoughts on sports became more positive.

kirse 12y ago

Intellectually gifted individuals can be quite adept at rationalizing their behavior and deluding themselves (and drowning others) with logical-sounding word vomit. This is evident as they get lost in the details of their rationalizations, but fail to consider the broader assumptions/principles at work in their justifications. For example, point number 4: It’s not all great. Football, like most professional sports, is deeply permeated with advertisements, commercialism, and money. We see that's really just a statement full of bullshit, because it's likely pretty easy to find counter-examples of things the intellectual individual thinks are great (Apple products?) which are deeply permeated with ads, commercialism, and money. Intelligence is a highly-fluid "thing", but society tends to view it as book-smart depth in a few micro-niches... i.e. the less something can be understood, the more "intelligent" one appears. And yet that sort of "intelligence" defeats the compounding interest of knowledge, which occurs when we can communicate it to others in an understandable fashion. Even further, a mother who raises her children can be highly intelligent, but she often gets little honor from a society that defines smart as a Physics PhD.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> It reads a bit like an ivory tower academic discovering what "the poors" are up to. "A bit like"? Isn't the piece pretty overtly "How I, ivory tower anti-sports intellectual, realized the error of my ways, converted to the 'working class' ritual of sports fandom, and found that it was useful for one's own social engagement, despite having some worrisome aspects." I mean, the authors journey into sports starts with hearing a speaker at MIT claim that people who talk about "working class struggle" can't speak to the working class because they avoid sport -- and seeing themself in that critique. It actually is somewhat impressive for its ability to maintain an attitude of disdain for sport while recognizing the utility of joining the fandom, while at the same time adding new disdain for those who don't play the same game.

wcummings 12y ago

An impressive robot is just so much more novel and interesting than a feat of human strength. Not to say sports aren't impressive, or that professional athletes aren't incredibly dedicated and talented, but someone hitting a baseball isn't very interesting.

bglazer 12y ago
A biological computer estimates the position of an object that's moving much faster than the refresh rate of its visual system using years of training data. Simultaneously it triggers a cascade of actuators, twisting its body so that its hands reach maximum velocity at the same time the object reaches the bat it's holding. It loses sight of the ball, which is following a curved trajectory, while doing this. It then takes off running at 20mph. That's fantastically mysterious and incredible to me. I'm not trying to minimize robotics or Boston Dynamics. It's an amazing field. I just think people under appreciate the movement of the human body.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  But they're all the same with no progression over time. Not fascinating to me in the long term.
RogerL 12y ago
Do you realize how much time and study catchers put into the abilities of every pitcher, and every opponent that their pitchers face? It's very data based, combined with prodigious amounts of athletics on the part of both the pitcher and hitter. The pitcher is trying to capitalize on the batter's weaknesses without just giving away his plan (you can hit much better if you know a slow curveball to the indise is coming). The batter is trying to watch the pitcher and detect things like late delivery, changes in release points, putting spin on the ball, and so on. Then they are tracking mid time scale things - is the pitcher getting tired, is he losing control, are his pitches drifting to the outside. Or this batter has struck out 3 times now - was that a random walk, is he having trouble with a specific pitch, is he perhaps injured? Then there is the long range stuff - how does this batter fair against left handed pitchers. As of late baseball has been a pitching game. It's often not high score, but it is a fascinating thing to watch, if you have this context. Now, whether you want to keep all that in your brain is another question, and I mostly choose not to, so in practice it is less interesting to me. But there are endless depths there to plumb.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]