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Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

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Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#311
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... Yes okay. But is this the world you prefer? Wouldn't it be nice if we could both tell children to be the best they could be at something, to strive for greatness... And then also supported them when they did? Or would you rather reduce humanity to the cold calculus of capitalism?

Yes, I prefer it this way. Children can be the best they can be at something, and have that thing generate no value to anybody else around them. No need to subsidize it.

Children can be the best they can be at something, and have that thing generate no value to anybody else around them

Except that the IOC generate billions in revenue so there obviously is value to a lot of people in it somewhere. The problem as stated is that the root source of that value, ie the athletes, see very little of that revenue.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#312
post #191
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a family member who works as an assistant at a dealership and they are often pressured into buying a newer car for this reason.

Also a variant of ‘exploitation starts at home’.

Also a variant of rule 211: "Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don't hesitate to step on them."

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#313

20yr ago they were all stripping for all of the same reasons but that was easier to keep on the down low because some journalist couldn't see and contact a dozen of them from their desk and many employers didn't even know who these people were. It really is a no brainer when you consider the investment they have to make in their bodies.

I was there six months in Dubai consulting for Al-Futtaim and quickly realized that female athletes are now doing way more than stripping and taking pictures.

The high level escort services use business jets to move good looking people into and out of Dubai. They must get paid a lot when it costs $5,000 and $8,000 per hour to move them around. Eastern European athletes are over-represented but there are many westerners as well.

Dubai is the Vegas for ultra rich "What happens in Dubai stays in Dubai."

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#314
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Criticizing a system built mostly on government handouts This was not what I was criticising. It was about turning someone’s life into entertainment and, in this extreme GoFundMe example, the right to life becoming a function of how entertaining one is. > (by definition a socialist or communist structure) Socialism and communism are not about government handouts. Both are about controlling the means of production (…

> You might correctly argue that the Soviet Union was not a shining beacon of how to implement it India as implemented Socialism btw. Which lead to economic crisis[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Indian_economic_crisis

There isn't any mention of socialism, or anything related to it in your link.

It sounds like a classic balance of payments issue (importing too much compared to exports/tourism/other revenues) being hit with an exploding in price critical import (oil). Sri Lanka had the same issues just a few years back, was it "socialism" too?

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#315
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You might correctly argue that the Soviet Union was not a shining beacon of how to implement it India as implemented Socialism btw. Which lead to economic crisis[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Indian_economic_crisis

There isn't any mention of socialism, or anything related to it in your link. It sounds like a classic balance of payments issue (importing too much compared to exports/tourism/other revenues) being hit with an exploding in price critical import (oil). Sri Lanka had the same issues just a few years back, was it "socialism" too?

India until 1991 was very socialist. After 1991 they implemented reforms to reduce state controls. This [0] explains a bit better

[0] https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/india-and-the-tragedy-of-soci...

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#316

The comments here are depressing, especially coming from a forum that hypes unprofitable and niche companies competing against larger "profitable" and "popular" companies. By the logic here us programmers should never work for startups and work only for the Big Tech companies because, frankly, they pay far far better and much more stable. By the logic here you shouldn't found companies because it's too niche. You can…

I couldn't agree more. Elite Olympic athletes are a representation of extreme talent, perseverance, physicality, creativity, luck, risk-taking, emotion, mentality and work ethic. Even if I find most of the disciplines boring, sometimes unintelligible and aren't 'economically' valuable, I still admire them for representing the positive aspects of humanity. Similar behaviours are necessary in other endeavours, be they of a intellectual or physical nature, where great achievements are made.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#317
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many sports have lost and struggled to get an audience again, before suddenly booming. Like cricket in Australia going downhill, and then Big Bash and women's leagues reigniting. What brings in viewers isn't a predictable measure of much. Like the weather forecast, you're not going to have much more than vague generalisations each season - and they can turn out very wrong.

If you seriously think that there is even a tiny chance of fencing ever continuously bringing in even half as much viewers as football, I don't know what to tell you. The uncertainty there is not weather report level, more like "the sun will rise tomorrow".

As a counterpoint, I bet if you had told people a thousand years ago that swordsmanship would be less interesting to people than kicking a ball, they would also think you were crazy.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#319

System working as designed? Like, if your hobby is throwing a disc as far as you can, have fun. But don't expect many people to pay to watch right? But people pay a whole lot to see nice bodies doing sexual stuff. So since money comes from what other people value, no need for a surprised Pikachu face.

A few years ago, I remember when the Olympics was hosted in Vancouver, BC. The news reported that an insane amount of free condoms was distributed to the athletes. Some lower level athletes were interviewed, and they said they knew they had zero chance of a medal, but were having the time of their lives.

I think people chose to interpret that more lasciviously than it was.

If you offer something for free, especially to people we now understand to often be quite poor, they're going to fill their suitcase with them.

Even if you are offering beer coasters for free, someone's going to fill their suitcase with them.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#320
post #106

Being a former athlete (100/200 meters), the issue is that the top-tier sports (e.g., football, volleyball, basketball, etc.) capture the majority of money/value, and if you are from javelin throwing, fencing, or racewalking, unless you have a great sponsor, it will definitely require personal sacrifices to make it to the games. In Brazil a very long time ago, there was a gigantic tug of war between the top-tier spor…

Fencing as done now looks legit stupid, so does racewalking. Javelin, while slightly more cool, is you throwing a stick. Mildly interesting for a few seconds. Football is a top tier sport because it's entertaining. People will pay to see it. Hence there's money to be earned. If someone wants to spend their time seeing how far they can throw a stick, cool, but they shouldn't be surprised they're waking up to an empty…

Preference for specific sports is highly cultural.

Example: In China, table tennis is king.

Germany has the strongest table tennis league in Europe, and yet mainstream media mostly ignores it. Even the second and third soccer leagues get more media attention. If you ask me, most of soccer is very boring, players safely passing the ball back and forth, looking for openings. Somewhere between 0 and 5 goals in 90 minutes, if you see the 3 to 10 most interesting minutes, you haven't missed anything. How exciting /s.

If we care about Olympic games, and maybe even medal rankings, we'd do well to discard notions that some forms of sport being more or less interesting based on cultural and personal preferences.

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