311–320 of 352 posts
He was profiled in the most recent issue of Tech Review. He said his mother has been asking him to retire for a few years, but he still loved the athletic challenge of playing against top players.
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> "i ... live on less than $25k a year." there's no way i can believe that. my rent alone is $24,000.
He probably owns his home. Most people who own property don't count the imputed rent as part of their expenses. Whether they should depends a lot on context.
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Good point. In most of the US, a decent 2-bedroom apartment can be had for <$1,000 / mo. An apartment that would be considered quite large by international standards.
Sure, but imagine a stereotypical American family with three kids, two cars, maybe a dog, and both parents working professional jobs. I don't see how you could consider it abnormal for them to spend $2000 a month to rent a house in the suburbs. If you're talking "globally normal" that's one thing, but by that standard nearly everyone within a thousand miles of me is in abnormally large and expensive housing.
That's a massively expensive and large house for the stereotypical American family in the majority of the country.
(They're also not going to be paying 2K to rent a house in the suburb, they're much more likely to be paying off a 200K mortgage, looking at the median US home price as well as the median in areas like Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte...)
If you're paying a lot more than that you're either abnormal in terms of "spending way more than most / you have to" way or abnormal in the "you live in a super expensive area" way.
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> skiing, running, or mountain biking, that is fine Perhaps it's not a red or blue split, but those sports you listed are definitely on one side of a major class divide. Basketball and football are moving towards the other. And while I understand that a competition between some farm hicks and big-city boys can bring two groups together, access to sports like skiing is fairly exclusive.
In the West yes. In the East a lot of small slopes are pretty accessible and cheap. New York even has a state run one not too far from NYC.
A few colorful facts to the story here: 1) 3 years of service vests into NFL pension plan, he just hit qualification - value pegged at $21,360 a year for life (3) 2) He has not publicly commented on his retirement or reasons for it. 3) He has a hugely awesome secondary option - doctorate of math at MIT 4) He was at end of his rookie contract, next year would be the "in the money" year for him so he is clearly leaving…
http://blog.futureadvisor.com/nfl-players-must-go-long-on-re...
Has "whether you let your kids play football" joined the long, long list of boolean values that separate members of the Red Tribe from the Blue Tribe? If not, I think it's inevitable that it will. Someone will try to get their school to close its football program, someone else will complain that the health dangers are exaggerated by the liberal media because football is a red-state passtime, and pretty soon it'll be…
Interesting anecdote from Chomsky on football and how it's a way of building jingoist fanatacism. Training young people to cheer for my team is preparing people to submit irrationally to power. As long as my political party wins, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA5jOdPiZWI
Yes, submitting irrationally to power is bad, and so is purely tribal thinking. But as it turns out, human beings are a bit more complex, and many are fine maintaining critical thinking skills while simultaneously having a sports team they identify with.
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It isn't immoral or unethical to have sports where long-term injury can occur. Using that metric we would have to ban all sports. What is unethical is not educating the participants of the risks. We need to push for more studies and education, not bans.
We (society) typically require someone reach a certain age of consent before we allow participation in life-altering activities. e.g. drinking, smoking, driving, enlistment, marriage, tattoos, etc. A 13 year old jr. high schooler who wants to play for their school's football team isn't able to fully assess and weigh the risks of long term brain injuries from an activity. Maybe parental education and consent is enough…
Marriage and tattoos are allowed with parent/guardian consent at quite young ages depending on where you live. And not allowed other places, of course. Laws on this vary widely, even just inside the US.
> Maybe parental education and consent is enough for some people
Right, that is the question. Is playing football more like smoking? Or is it more like marriage or tattoos? Or like downhill skiing or any of a host of other dangerous activities minors can engage in with parental consent pretty much anywhere?
I abruptly stopped being a football fan last November. The immediate reason was Bill Belichick staking his own reputation on Donald Trump's assaults on the media, in a close state in a close election. But CTE was making it hard to remain a football fan anyway.
So players killing people, players beating their wives and kids, and players breaking the law constantly didn't make you stop being a fan. But one coach exercising his political rights did. Fascinating.
Belichick went further, however -- he supported a pack of lies meant to undermine the value of First Amendment rights anywhere. And we've seen subsequently just how destructive lying attacks on the press can be. Anybody who, while knowing better, spreads those lies is damaging our country. I do not want them to succeed; hence I do not want them to have the kind of success that strengthens their reputations.
>"I think it hurt my ability to think well mathematically," Urschel said. "It took me about three weeks before I was football-ready. It took me a little bit longer before my high-level visualizations ability came back."