Snippet from newfydog's post #59, "interesting perspective" link:
Certainly for the athletes participating they can represent the pinnacle of a career’s worth of hard work—maybe even a life’s ambition realized. But for the rest of us, what is the point? Aside from the temporary flash of sumptuous spectacle, there’s little good that ever comes of the Games. If anything, they exacerbate some of the worst of human nature.
The article author then goes on to to cherry pick the worst issues that have occurred over history of the games without much mentioning anything positive except for the above pathetic statement. It is true the Olympics games have problems especially in recent years as many in this thread have related. But these are issues that can be fixed by restructuring and or refreshing. I personally would like the bloated games broken up into smaller sensible chunks. So the article is real just a negative spin, a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I suspect the author actually has a history of disliking the games and probably has little interest in any of its sports. Maybe not a fan or ever even a participant of any sports. We all know such people and they have been around for decades spending their lives focused on the long list of other societal and cultural pursuits. Ok nothing wrong with that. But then a few of them given media skills will take biased pot shots at other pursuits in life that don't fit their own narrow choices and goals.
On another outdoor enthusiast board, as the Winter Olympics began, someone started a negative thread on the games that on the first couple pages a few others chimed in with their own snarky one-liner negative comments. I posted some links for viewing the games just as I did here and then a bit later the below. After that the tone of thread changed with other members overwhelmingly being tv viewers, being much more positive.
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The Olympics represent something we human beings can be very proud of. We intelligent gregarious creatures as civilization evolved, spent several millennia savagely killing each other in wars as a result of our competitive natures wanting material wealth, territory, mates, glory, and power. In ancient times children didn't grow up playing baseball but rather playing fighting games to fight against each other and war against outsiders. Myriad powerless ordinary people were often pawns of the few powerful that ruled.
Although we humans still do so and are very much in this modern era close to totally destroying ourselves and life on our likely incredibly rare in the Universe precious blue planet, we have also found a way to re-channel those aggressive destructive innate behaviors into game playing ways we call sport that both satisfies those tendencies in a benign way and provides us enormous satisfaction and entertainment. At sport's highest level, the Olympics involves humans from every race, country, religion, and corner of the globe coming together in a peaceful honorable and noble way that all of humanity needs as a hopeful example of what we can be instead of falling into the horror of ultimate eternal destruction.
Certainly for the athletes participating they can represent the pinnacle of a career’s worth of hard work—maybe even a life’s ambition realized. But for the rest of us, what is the point? Aside from the temporary flash of sumptuous spectacle, there’s little good that ever comes of the Games. If anything, they exacerbate some of the worst of human nature.
The article author then goes on to to cherry pick the worst issues that have occurred over history of the games without much mentioning anything positive except for the above pathetic statement. It is true the Olympics games have problems especially in recent years as many in this thread have related. But these are issues that can be fixed by restructuring and or refreshing. I personally would like the bloated games broken up into smaller sensible chunks. So the article is real just a negative spin, a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I suspect the author actually has a history of disliking the games and probably has little interest in any of its sports. Maybe not a fan or ever even a participant of any sports. We all know such people and they have been around for decades spending their lives focused on the long list of other societal and cultural pursuits. Ok nothing wrong with that. But then a few of them given media skills will take biased pot shots at other pursuits in life that don't fit their own narrow choices and goals.
On another outdoor enthusiast board, as the Winter Olympics began, someone started a negative thread on the games that on the first couple pages a few others chimed in with their own snarky one-liner negative comments. I posted some links for viewing the games just as I did here and then a bit later the below. After that the tone of thread changed with other members overwhelmingly being tv viewers, being much more positive.
------------------
The Olympics represent something we human beings can be very proud of. We intelligent gregarious creatures as civilization evolved, spent several millennia savagely killing each other in wars as a result of our competitive natures wanting material wealth, territory, mates, glory, and power. In ancient times children didn't grow up playing baseball but rather playing fighting games to fight against each other and war against outsiders. Myriad powerless ordinary people were often pawns of the few powerful that ruled.
Although we humans still do so and are very much in this modern era close to totally destroying ourselves and life on our likely incredibly rare in the Universe precious blue planet, we have also found a way to re-channel those aggressive destructive innate behaviors into game playing ways we call sport that both satisfies those tendencies in a benign way and provides us enormous satisfaction and entertainment. At sport's highest level, the Olympics involves humans from every race, country, religion, and corner of the globe coming together in a peaceful honorable and noble way that all of humanity needs as a hopeful example of what we can be instead of falling into the horror of ultimate eternal destruction.
