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Depth can have a real defined meaning, though. If you're in the context of discovering a process that will make electricity cheaper and cleaner, that is useful
by toolz 12y ago
Depth can have a real defined meaning, though. If you're in the context of discovering a process that will make electricity cheaper and cleaner, that is useful to everyone around the world in some way and then to have someone overshadow that achievement or ignore it entirely because 'the game' is on, is ridiculous. I live in the south east where when a college football coach has a problem with the university president, the president is lucky to last longer than a year.
There's obviously nothing objectively bad about enjoying sports, but the ravenous obsession with sports is not exactly uncommon and to pretend we should celebrate it is not in the best interest of humanity.
There is a reason a lot (most?) NFL players go bankrupt shortly after their career of being paid far more than will reflect their contribution to the future of mankind. It's because that grouping of people has a lot of backwards thinking and irresponsibility attached to it.
It's very interesting to me that someone, here, in academia, is having to defend their disdain to the vocal majority about their distaste for sports culture when it does nothing long term for our species good and could easily be argued to be detrimental via opportunity cost thrown away in human potential that grew up believing it was more prestigious to be a football player than a scientist.
So am I annoyed? A bit. Do I generalize based on your taste for sports? No. Do I think your choice to praise athletes over scientists is detrimental to society? Yes, I do.
- kevincrane 12y ago> There is a reason a lot (most?) NFL players go bankrupt shortly after their career of being paid far more than will reflect their contribution to the future of mankind. Is the reason because a very large number of them grew up in poverty or with rough family lives and therefore never had the chance to be trained into proper financial management as you were? Because that's a reason for a pretty solid proportion of athletes in the NFL at least.
- tuelz 12y ago>Is the reason because a very large number of them grew up in poverty or with rough family lives and therefore never had the chance to be trained into proper financial management as you were? Because that's a reason for a pretty solid proportion of athletes in the NFL at least. I would be curious to see the numbers, as I suspect that's not anywhere near the majority, because money buys training and the convenience of focusing on sports instead of income while you're younger. Either way being poor and having no resources to educate yourself becomes a moot point once you become one of the richest people in the world. The reason some professional athletes are stuck in an irresponsible mindset is precisely because they are celebrated for being irresponsible.
- quanticle 12y ago>NFL players go bankrupt shortly after their career of being paid far more than will reflect their contribution to the future of mankind. Isn't that supposed to be because of the mental illness brought on by the repeated concussions that players suffer, which causes physical injury to the brain? I'm not sure how you can blame the players for that.
- toolz 12y agoI'm not blaming the players for anything. It's the institution that society has propped up and praised that puts people in a position where they feel the best way to be validated by society is to put themselves in danger doing nothing of lasting good for mankind.
- omegaham 12y agoI think a far more likely reason is that they grow up in poverty and have no good role models for how to manage their finances. They're very similar to lottery winners in that regard. As a result, they piss it away.