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tiger fancini
Joined: 21 Mar 2006
Location: Testicles for Eyes
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 Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| While I have nothing against sports in and of themselves, they have basically been turned into gladiatorial events for the masses, deliberately to help distract large segments of the public from the fact that their country is being shanghai'ed by an increasingly criminal government (dismantling the constitution more and more each year) and the globalist bankers who call the shots behind the scenes. As people become increasingly disempowered in their day to day lives, that void is filled with entertainment on the TV. Males are more passive now than ever in the face of government control over their lives, but they get out their aggression cheering on their favorite football or basketball team. This is one example of human psychology being exploited. |
What you're talking about here is one of the suggestions for the existence of football hooliganism in the UK. The reason why they like to kick seven bells out of each other, and destroy public spaces is precisely because they are pi$$ed off with the treatment they've received from their government.
There is another school of thought however, and one that I personally subscribe to, which suggests that they do it solely because they like doing it. |
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
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| Seriously, living in Korea I wish I had taken my vacation during the Olympics so I wouldn't have to see grown adults revert back to infancy and conduct themselves like tiny little babies. The spite, chest-beating, and vileness defies belief. I now know that this jeering while watching figure-skating matches, of all things, is routine. |
Don't take a trip to the U.S. then. That stuff goes on 24-7. At least the Koreans don't flip over cars and set them on fire over College Sports. |
I wanted to start off by totally agreeing with the above. I've been saying for a while that sports in general are the most obnoxious and nonsensically overvalued pastime ever, so I agree with the OP's gist there, but I definitely wouldn't call it an SK specific problem.
| Steelrails wrote: |
| Actually if I had to guess, the aversion to competitive sports is an aversion to competition and failure and losing. Sometimes you lose and that means you fall flat and people laugh while the other kid gets taken out for pizza. That's life, now you either suck it up and pick yourself up or you never play again. |
I can't speak for the guy you were responding to, but I think I hate sports because they combine collectivism with mundane physical activities. It really bothers me how people can sit around and form a community experience out of watching a bunch of TV personalities go over what they thought about the billionth time some guy in a red shirt prevented some guy in a blue shirt from putting an inflatable ball in a basket. Sure, speculations about the nature of consensus reality are boring, the entirely abstract system of information that explains all matter of natural phenomena in exacting detail before we go to measure them firsthand (aka math) is boring, but the video footage of dudes running back and forth on the same stretch of grass chasing after a ball needs 10 different channels dedicated to its existence because there's so much to say about it and everyone loves it so much.
That said, I'd be cool with a chess channel and I've watched the World Series of Poker and other Texas Hold 'em games on TV before, so you could argue that's kind of the same thing. I'd differentiate by pointing out that neither are team sports and that both have much more to do with actual wit and strategy. Also, I've watched those mixed martial arts competitions and don't have a problem with them either. I think the use of the body alone in combat is a pretty interesting subject in both the artistic and the strategy focused senses. I think sports did to strategy and competition what synthesizers and the '80s in general did to music, meaning my fundamental stance here is more an aesthetic understanding than a necessarily objective truth. I might not be able to explain why synthesizers and the '80s ruined music short of citing the violation of my instinctual awareness of what makes music good. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 4:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| Yeah throughout all of the Olympics this is what was happening. Life didn't break for the Olympics. No one at my school stopped to watch Yuna's performance because everyone was busy with the changing school year. Nobody was going crazy all over it, no one was running around and yelling people's faces. The Olympics were of casual instance, if a live event featuring a Korean person was on there might be a pause in the conversation while they stoically watched. Nothing crazy. |
Reality begs to differ:
| http://www.ctvolympics.ca/figure-skating/news/newsid=53114.html wrote: |
| Much of the workaholic nation ground to a halt -- trading dipped briefly by half on the stock exchange -- to watch Kim Yu-Na secure the country's first Olympic figure skating gold medal in Vancouver. |
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Kim Yuna yes, random Short-track event, no. The second half of my post was more in reference to the short track events. As I said in the post, we were all too busy working to watch Kim Yuna.
Trading dipped by half, which meant half of the people didn't stop trading. Those who had time to stop and watch did so, those who didn't continued working. It's not like they closed the exchange. So in reality it was big, but not epic. Not like the World Cup.
I bet some businesses and schools out there took 5 minutes to watch. I be some just kept on working.
And yes this "Koreans are all in your face" about the Olympics and running and screaming and such is such hyperbole... |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| Actually if I had to guess, the aversion to competitive sports is an aversion to competition and failure and losing. Sometimes you lose and that means you fall flat and people laugh while the other kid gets taken out for pizza. That's life, now you either suck it up and pick yourself up or you never play again. |
My adversion to competitive sports is that I find them incredibly boring to watch. That's the alpha and the omega of it. If sports were cooler -- like, for instance, lightsaber duelling -- then maybe I'd be more interested. As long as it's just some physically talented guys kicking around a ball or something, though, I'll just go read a book or play a video game instead. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 4:40 pm Post subject: |
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I will say that the macho stuff in sports is dumb, but its not the evil that leads to social destruction that the OP was making it out to be.
Figure skating is a great sport and it IS sad to see the numbskull Korean fans turn it into a medieval groundling gallery.
I agree with the OP in a vague sense of spirit, minus the whole overdramatic part of it. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Street Magic wrote: |
That said, I'd be cool with a chess channel and I've watched the World Series of Poker and other Texas Hold 'em games on TV before, so you could argue that's kind of the same thing. I'd differentiate by pointing out that neither are team sports and that both have much more to do with actual wit and strategy.. |
The World Series of Poker is a strategy less all in fest. It was set up as a way to get casual players to come to vegas and lose money in the side cash games. To win the World Series, you generally have to survive quite a few coin flips and since u cannot rebuy the advantage of the skilled players is broken to a large extent as the field gets larger and larger.
The best cash games are online (as are the best players) although obviously you can't see the hole cards. Maybe watch 'High Stakes Poker'. that is pretty good.
The most popular team sports involve alot of strategy. That can be seen in the evolution of each game.
I love sports..I only have a team if Ireland is playing but I very much enjoy tourneys that don't involve Ireland. You guys are way over thinking it with the bottom line being you don;t like sports. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 2:31 am Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
So in reality it was big, but not epic. Not like the World Cup.
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Oh, no you dit'ent!!!
Yes, he did. Round two, for all you suckers out there. The ROK is about to take a giant $%* on your World Cup dreams...........
I'm still pulling for Trinidad/Tobago, as I've got a Trinidadian friend who always tells me "Caniff, you are too excessive, man!".
When he says this he is always right - island wisdom or something. |
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 9:24 am Post subject: |
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| JMO wrote: |
| You guys are way over thinking it with the bottom line being you don;t like sports. |
Yeah, I kind of came to that conclusion myself at the end of my rant by equating my hate for sports with my hate for the '80s and synthesizers. I know my reactions are real and I'm amazed that so many others don't experience this same repulsion, but I probably can't establish that sports or the '80s and synthesizers are lame in a clear factual sense.
| JMO wrote: |
| Street Magic wrote: |
That said, I'd be cool with a chess channel and I've watched the World Series of Poker and other Texas Hold 'em games on TV before, so you could argue that's kind of the same thing. I'd differentiate by pointing out that neither are team sports and that both have much more to do with actual wit and strategy. |
The World Series of Poker is a strategy less all in fest. It was set up as a way to get casual players to come to vegas and lose money in the side cash games. To win the World Series, you generally have to survive quite a few coin flips and since u cannot rebuy the advantage of the skilled players is broken to a large extent as the field gets larger and larger. |
Yeah, but they don't televise every random coin flip. And even then, strategy's still the focus overall in that you can tell when strategy's absent and why. With physical sports, the strategy's near always muddled with athletic ability and teamwork. With Hold 'em, since you don't have anything else, you see pretty clearly when players are outwitting one another vs. when players are stuck throwing their chips around on whatever to get to a position where they can start outwitting one another.
| JMO wrote: |
| The best cash games are online (as are the best players) although obviously you can't see the hole cards. |
"Online's" a pretty broad category. I know from my limited experiences with Full Tilt that there are plenty of all in coin flips there too.
| JMO wrote: |
| The most popular team sports involve alot of strategy. That can be seen in the evolution of each game. |
Maybe. I get the impression from the games I've had to watch back when I worked event staff with American football for example that no one is paying attention to any sort of strategy other than "Go on!" or "Defense!" The overarching expectation is for one team to outperform the other through "wanting it more," being aggressive, running faster, etc. Even the TV analysis of strategy in that type of sports seem to focus on presenting a loud, fast paced appreciation of athletic ability rather than an interesting exploration of game theory.
So I think it actually is the combination of mindless aggression with the sense of "community" that bothers me about it. Like I said before, I'm cool with watching one on one fights. Fighting's kind of neat to me (maybe in the lightsaber duel suggestion sense), but team fighting based around a bunch of rules about moving around a ball where each team has all its neighborhood residents going crazy for its side gives me that claustrophobic sense of community tradition based obnoxiousness. I think if "fans" were eliminated from the picture, it'd go a long way towards allowing me to treat physical sports more fairly as akin to more abstract strategy based games. I also don't like going to concerts even when they're featuring bands I enjoy listening to recordings of, so that community/fans/teamwork concept probably does play in pretty heavily in my hate here. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Street Magic wrote: |
"Online's" a pretty broad category. I know from my limited experiences with Full Tilt that there are plenty of all in coin flips there too.
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Well I meant the medium to high stakes 6 max nl or omaha. The best players online are big winners over millions of hands. There also isn't really anything inherently wrong with flips. Sometimes depending on how much money is in the pot it is a good idea to get it in even if you are a dog. Because in tourneys, the blinds raise over time it takes away alot of the skill element and if you lose one flip you can't rebuy like in cash games.
| Quote: |
| Even the TV analysis of strategy in that type of sports seem to focus on presenting a loud, fast paced appreciation of athletic ability rather than an interesting exploration of game theory. |
for some reason, tv analysis of sport is based on the very casual fan. The best strategic and statistical analysis is invariably online.
http://www.advancednflstats.com/2009/12/2009-team-specific-run-pass-balance.html
thats an article discussing game theory in football.
The best coaches (especially belichek the new england coach) know this stuff..the common fan doesn't really get it. It makes for some interesting conversations with hardcore fans. |
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks.
| JMO wrote: |
| The best coaches (especially belichek the new england coach) know this stuff..the common fan doesn't really get it. It makes for some interesting conversations with hardcore fans. |
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/165716/?tab=related |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 11:57 pm Post subject: |
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Yes he did cheat. Yes he is one of the great modern football minds. Those things are not mutually exclusive.
South Park is awesome btw. Since season 4 it has been consistently excellent. |
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cwflaneur
Joined: 04 Aug 2009
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| Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 8:42 am Post subject: |
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Urban Myth, you are a bore, and I think you need to get a better grip on reality - or maybe just the English language. Any comment or observation about a nation is a generalisation, by definition. I wrote my original post as a generalisation about Korea, not as a defamation of all Koreans. Consistently using unnecessary qualifiers in every general statement is boring.
Unless I write �all Koreans� you can take it for granted that I am merely generalising.
And my (admittedly subjective) general impression of Korea during the Olympics is a negative one. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 9:20 am Post subject: |
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Korean sports fans aren't really much more idiotic than the ones back home.
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EDMONTON - Two men went to hospital with stab wounds late Friday night as revelry following an Edmonton Oilers playoff victory turned violent.
The men, one of whom was in his 20s, were stabbed around 11:30 p.m. at a bar near 105th Street and 82nd Avenue.
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I gather that sort of thing is almost an annual occurence in my hometown. And of course the sophisticated, ballet-like street performances of European soccer fans are a matter of public record.
What makes the sports hooliganism over here more noticable to foreigners, I think, is the group mentality that underlies it. If you were to ask a rioting hockey fan in Edmonton why he's doing it, you'd probably get something like...
| Quote: |
| #$%ing' hell buddy!!! Why the #$% NOT?? @#$ing Oilers rule!! Ya wanna piece of me!! Yeah, come on ya little pantywaist!! |
Whereas if you were to ask a Korean sports thus why he was doing it...
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| Because the undeserving son-of-a-dog Ohno was given Korea's gold medal by referees who want to hurt Korea's pride! |
In short, for the Canadian sports idiot, his team's performance is just an excuse to sweep himself up in the euphoria, get plastered, and smash a few windows. Even if he does feel loyalty to his local hockey team, it likely doesn't proceed from any intense sense of civic pride.
For the Korean idiot, on the other hand, the loyalty he feels to his team springs more directly from that which he feels to his country. The guy who made death threats to the Australian referee wasn't just getting his kicks by acting out violently, he likely felt a very deep sense of humiliation, as a result of having imbued the 대한민국 ideology all his life. And the things he would say to justify his actions would be the same sort of things that we hear from many other Koreans, even those who don't take things to a violent extreme. So this kind of makes it more seem a little more ominous to those of us from countries with a less group-oriented mentality.
Having said that, I was here during the first Ohno debacle, and the subsequent World Cup 2002, which was supposedly a high-water mark for Korean sports jingoism. And, I would probably prefer that over a trip down Whyte Avenue during an Oilers victory party, because as you can see in the article, the violence can get pretty out-of-control. And a Korean might find it strange that Edmonton sports fans use a victory as an excuse to attack each other, since that kind of goes against the whole group-cohesion mentality that informs sports violence over here.
link
Last edited by On the other hand on Sat Mar 06, 2010 10:29 am; edited 1 time in total |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 9:23 am Post subject: |
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| The incident I linked to above was actually one of the tamer Oilers street celebrations in recent memory. If you do a YouTube search on "Whyte Riot" and "Whyte Ave Riots, Burning The Telus Phone Booth", you can see videos of the events described in the titles. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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World Cup is just around the corner.  |
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