Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports • Hacker News Board

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#41

Post by loso » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 7:54 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #34

scott_s wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much saying you should like something to fit in. It's asking you if you dislike it to not fit in. And if that's the case, then that's elitist.

Snob, elitist, etc... I see a lot of names being thrown around to describe/explain/put down this idea of sports-disdain. Not saying you are, just pointing out that these words are coming up a lot. At the end of the day, people will like what they want. They will dislike what they want, too. Whether that is because of a valid reason, or whatever silly notion of not wanting to fit in, or anything else is irrelevant.

Not liking sports doesn't make you a snob or elitist. Its when a percentage of people who don't like sports put down people who do that these words come into play.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#42

Post by ssalazar » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 7:54 PM UTC

People tend to view football as a bunch of dumb lugs pushing each other around, but theres crazy amounts of raw physical strength, finesse, and smarts involved. Each play might involve linemen pushing defenders one way or another to mislead them just long enough to let the ball carrier run through. Watching a great run play unfold is truly amazing, especially at the professional level where the players are basically freaks of nature/superhuman.

Then theres the Odell Beckham catch from earlier this year which is just an insane feat of athleticism: http://www.gfycat.com/PointedKindheartedAtlanticsharpnosepuf...

2 years ago I thought football was stupid. Then I started actually watching it and realized theres a lot more to it than I gave it credit for. Now I highly anticipate the start of each season.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#43

Post by ska » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 7:56 PM UTC

solson wrote: post #20

When you show overt contempt for sports you are showing contempt for most everybody and that is problem with your social skills. It's called being a snob. The disdain for working class culture among academics was part of the reason I choose not to pursue a formal higher education. I suspect this overt snootiness keeps many gifted working class kids from participating in higher education. I grew up working class and w…

To be fair, disinterest and contempt are very different things.

Saying "I'm not interested in X" has very different connotations from "I can't see why anybody is interested in X".

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#44

Post by aaron-lebo » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 7:57 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #39

aaron-lebo wrote: post #19

I think professional sports are the closest we have to real-life dramas, tragedies, or even comedies, and they have profound life lessons. I am a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan. I grew up when they were a dynasty in the 90s, and at the time it seemed like going to the Super Bowl is something they were supposed to do every year. I cried after some tough losses. Sometimes I get into other local teams when they are doing w…

> I think professional sports are the closest we have to real-life dramas, tragedies, or even comedies, and they have profound life lessons. I think anyone who thinks this is spending too much attention on professional sports and not enough on real life: because there is plenty of actual real-life drama, tragedy, and comedy; professional sports are not the "closest we have" to those things (though there is some of al…

I could have phrased it better, but my reference to dramas, tragedies, and comedies was specifically in reference to the theatrical tradition of them (hence not real-life).

Unlike those, sports are not scripted, they unfold in real time. Sure, other real-life situations have this, but sports are one of the few stages where millions or billions watch and share in the same experience.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#45

Post by solson » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 7:58 PM UTC

theoh wrote: post #29

solson wrote: post #20

When you show overt contempt for sports you are showing contempt for most everybody and that is problem with your social skills. It's called being a snob. The disdain for working class culture among academics was part of the reason I choose not to pursue a formal higher education. I suspect this overt snootiness keeps many gifted working class kids from participating in higher education. I grew up working class and w…

A lot of academia is bullshit, and it isn't always driven by snobbery, just naïveté. But in the light of massive and increasing financial inequality, nerds and academics are NOT the problem. The corporate CEO or jock lawyer who is sucking up all the money is very likely to be a sports fan like everyone else.

I'd argue that the big money in education is contributing to financial inequality as much as any CEO or attorney.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#46

Post by golemotron » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 7:58 PM UTC

I won't deny that there's a cultural aspect but I've never been into team sports for the same reason I'm not into religion. When I was a kid I realized that thinking your home team is better than everyone else's is something that happens just because of where you are. It's the reason why people believe that Jesus is better than Buddha or Mohammed also, or any other ordering of those three.

Teams sports amplify and dignify an "us versus them" dynamic. I think that part of us is one of the most problematic aspects of our nature.

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#47

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 7:58 PM UTC

solson wrote: post #20

When you show overt contempt for sports you are showing contempt for most everybody and that is problem with your social skills. It's called being a snob. The disdain for working class culture among academics was part of the reason I choose not to pursue a formal higher education. I suspect this overt snootiness keeps many gifted working class kids from participating in higher education. I grew up working class and w…

[deleted]

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#48

Post by BurgerEarmuffs » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 7:58 PM UTC

Thank zeus for this article. Sports is a 4 letter word in a lot of social circles (academia, tech to a decent extent) and it usually just reeks of pretentiousness. I find myself having to be unusually careful not to bring up sports when talking to anyone in tech I don't know well, whereas I rarely have that issue outside of it.

Congratulations, you dismissed the entirety of American football as "roid rage violence". You also have an encyclopedic knowledge of internet memes, so I'm not sure I really trust your judgement vis a vis what qualifies as a worthwhile endeavor.

> Sports aren't intellectual

> Sports talk is glorified tabloid talk

Go to a sabermetrics conference and prepare to be baffled. Nate Silver got his start as a baseball writer.

> Sports are overly violent

So is GTA 5. Watching sports doesn't make a person any more violent than playing video games does. Sports-related violence is semi-frequent and deplorable, but blaming sports for causing drunken boorish behavior is just like blaming Doom for Columbine.

Most professional athletes are well aware of what they're getting into these days [1], so I don't buy arguments about "protecting the athletes" as a reason to ban sports entirely either (augmenting the rules to decrease injury rates, sure, absolutely).

> I'm not going to pretend to like something I don't like

That's fine. Just don't be a pretentious asshole about it. I can't even begin to count the number of times a conversation has navigated to sports one way or another, and some jackass decides to one-up the group by going on a 5 minute monologue about how ignorant they are of sports because they're too busy with "intellectual pursuits".

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JMsWtObHhE#t=30s

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#49

Post by callmeed » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 8:00 PM UTC

If being into sports is a conscious decision, you're probably not really into sports.

Maybe I'm reading between the lines incorrectly but this post has an air of condescension and elitism. The white-collar, academic author decides to like sports because another white-collar, academic told him it was good for him. It almost feels like he chose to like sports to assuage some form of guilt.

Maybe I'm wrong and this is just normal for people in academia, I don't know.

At least he's a Patriots fan ;)

Re: Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports

#50

Post by disputin » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 8:01 PM UTC

I have no interest in ball games. I enjoy Formula 1, some MotoGp, and some some cycling. My interest in Formula 1 used to be primarily strategy, but not anymore and I'm not sure when it changed - maybe refuelling, or moving everyone onto the same tyres. There's is nothing cultivated about my disinterest in ball games. If I did have an interest in football/soccer then I would cultivate a disinterest because I wouldn't support something so regularly in the news for corruption. My first live football/soccer game was one of the biggest let downs of my life - I sat there dumbfounded that anyone could be interested. I found the live games look better the further up I sat in the stands, and the bigger the stadium, but still no interest. I went to a rugby final something or other (Wasps vs Leicester?) and fell asleep. There is no chance of me following them just to have small talk with someone, I can work around that.