110 N.F.L. Brains • Hacker News Board

Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains

#21

Post by paulcole » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 4:43 PM UTC

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #7

jordache wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>might only change youth and amateur level competition. Professional leagues will probably continue apace, even amid full disclosure of well-known hazards. You don't see a direction link between the grassroots levels to the pro level? If you kill the interest, or participation at the grassroots level, there will never be a compelling pro league to source from. Good riddance to a lame game of consisting of mostly low…

Football is only 5th on this list of dangerous sports: https://www.thetoptens.com/most-dangerous-sports/ The real issue is that football trauma has effects over longer time periods and the long term effects are discounted in the near term. >Good riddance to a lame game of consisting of mostly low skilled athletes Having played up to college, it's tremendous fun and has roles for a range skillsets. While not necessari…

Is there any data behind that clickbait link?

Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains

#22

Post by autokad » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

i wish they would outlaw head slapping, from teammates. when i played hs football, after every play, players would slap teammates on the head (usually the back) to show support - i hated it.

i also think players are too big today, more weight at higher velocities only makes things worse for the head. the only reasonable thing I can think of is a 'salary cap' based on player weight as well.

Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains

#23

Post by chasing » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

et2o wrote: post #19

The prevalence of CTE in the NFL brains is irrelevant until we can compare it to the prevalence in the general population. And the issue is it's being more closely examined in the NFL brains currently. General population prevalence estimates are likely underestimated.

From the article:

"So even if every one of the other 1,200 players would have tested negative — which even the heartiest skeptics would agree could not possibly be the case — the minimum C.T.E. prevalence would be close to 9 percent, vastly higher than in the general population."

Where are you getting your information that estimates of CTE in the general population are low?

Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains

#24

Post by Touche » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

saulrh wrote: post #14

mikeh1010 wrote: post #12

I want to push back on the "every sport is dangerous" argument I'm seeing in here. There's a difference between "you might die right in the middle of this very fun activity" and "you might die slowly and horribly years from now when you're retired and in the midst of raising a family." I ski pretty aggressively, and of course I might die doing that. But every day I go home and know, "well it wasn't today! Today was j…

It's even worse when it's "you will die slowly and horribly years from now", which is what football is starting to look like. There's no "risk"; you're just storing up your consequences for later.

Hm, is it true that everyone with CTE dies "horribly"? I think that might be overstating things a bit.

Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains

#25

Post by chasing » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 4:57 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #24

saulrh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even worse when it's "you will die slowly and horribly years from now", which is what football is starting to look like. There's no "risk"; you're just storing up your consequences for later.

Hm, is it true that everyone with CTE dies "horribly"? I think that might be overstating things a bit.

Not every single person with CTE dies horribly. As I understand it, some simply live decades happily forgetting their children's names and what day of the week it is.

Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains

#26

Post by Touche » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

chasing wrote: post #25

Touche wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, is it true that everyone with CTE dies "horribly"? I think that might be overstating things a bit.

Not every single person with CTE dies horribly. As I understand it, some simply live decades happily forgetting their children's names and what day of the week it is.

Is that really best-case scenario? So you're saying that among the retired football players who do TV today, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan, Cris Collinsworth, etc. 90% of these players have CTE and will have decades-long dementia? So for the older players we should start seeing that very soon, no?

Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains

#27

Post by ovrdrv3 » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 5:08 PM UTC

artursapek wrote: post #9

I think people take for granted now how good the Times is at these interactive, zine-like layouts for their feature articles. I just want to say another job well done on this one. Each one of these I see is a work of art that clearly took a lot of time across the team.

You can tell there are many devs and designers on their team that take pride in their work! Have you seen those articles that say, "guess what the rate is for X over the years", and you fill out the graph with your mouse, and once you are done you can see what the actual data looks like? It's refreshing

Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains

#28

Post by Melanie_ » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 5:09 PM UTC

showerst wrote: post #17

mikeh1010 wrote: post #12

I want to push back on the "every sport is dangerous" argument I'm seeing in here. There's a difference between "you might die right in the middle of this very fun activity" and "you might die slowly and horribly years from now when you're retired and in the midst of raising a family." I ski pretty aggressively, and of course I might die doing that. But every day I go home and know, "well it wasn't today! Today was j…

It seems likely that some activities are orders of magnitude more dangerous than others for CTE. Maybe you'd rather your kid play football or learn boxing than lay on the couch. If the risk is 10x that of baseball, and 50x that of track and field, however, you might steer them to different activities.

I've made $64,000 so far this year working online and I'm a full time student. Im using an online business opportunity I heard about and I've made such great money. It's really user friendly and I'm just so happy that I found out about it. Heres what I do, ========http://www.smartfinancemedia.com/?682

Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains

#29

Post by danso » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

hervature wrote: post #18

FanaHOVA wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NFL isn't a 10 years old league, there's plenty of players who passed away. If anything there would be more examples since equipment was worse before and there were less rules that protected players, especially top/crown helmet leading tackles which started getting penalized with 15yd only in 2013.

I think the prevalence of concussions in football compared to rugby is proof that "better equipment" doesn't prevent concussions. It has the paradoxical effect of causing them. Better shoulder pads allow for people to launch their bodies without fear of separating their shoulders. Conversely, helmets are not designed to protect the brain, only to prevent skull fractures. Thus, I don't think your argument holds water.

Similar to how boxing gloves don't protect the punched as much as it allows the puncher to go full throttle without fear of breaking their hands: https://www.economist.com/news/international/21639765-bare-k...

Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains

#30

Post by chvrn » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 5:15 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #26

chasing wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every single person with CTE dies horribly. As I understand it, some simply live decades happily forgetting their children's names and what day of the week it is.

Is that really best-case scenario? So you're saying that among the retired football players who do TV today, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan, Cris Collinsworth, etc. 90% of these players have CTE and will have decades-long dementia? So for the older players we should start seeing that very soon, no?

How do you know we aren't seeing the slow onset of dementia for some of these guys? Isn't the whole schtick with Bradshaw that he's a "little off in the head"?

I don't think that it's fair to look at these former players that go into broadcasting and "diagnose" them in anyway. We don't see inside the private lives of these guys and we don't know what struggles they may or may not live with everyday.