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All real intellectuals are sports fans.

Rimbo

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Rimbo

Rimbo 25908

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Time to go full offseason. Been thinking this a while, partially because I tend to run in circles with the sort of person who uses the word "sportsball" without irony, but also because back during the pandemic, the NY Times, a publication usually above such things, ran an editorial titled "College Football is Not Essential." I won't bother linking it here; DM me if you genuinely want to see that drivel.

But yes. Fandom in general, and college sports fandom in particular, is embraced by honest intellectuals.

To wit:

Human intellect evolved as a way to justify tribal association. There's people who believe that they use human reason to derive the conclusions they come to from evidence, and it's all complete bullshit. The way human reason works is that you start with what you believe, and then look for evidence to support it, and ignore anything that goes against it. It's called Confirmation Bias. If you go into certain fields, such as Mathematics, at some point you must train yourself out of this way of thinking, and having been close to people who have done so, they're completely insufferable dipshits.

We associate with our tribe for comfort, for support, and agreeing with each other is how we strengthen those bonds.

The tribe you associate with forever determines your biases. If you call yourself a "Christian," you will be forever blind to any evidence to the contrary on the nature of God. If you call yourself a "Democrat," you will forever despise anything the Republicans do, no matter what it is. And so on and so forth. If you identify with your home state of, say, Colorado, you'll forever be blind to the charms of California, Texas or New Mexico, while ignoring the horrors of living in Colorado.

But there's a way out of this trap. You can identify with something utterly meaningless and pointless in the grand scheme of things. There are plenty such things. You can be a Trekkie. Or a card-carrying House Hufflepuff-identified Harry Potter fan. Or, of course, a sports fan.

But college sports is better than other fandoms. Because by associating with a sports team of a (presumably) prestigious public University, you are associating with a group that is ideologically diverse and highly educated. You are surrounding yourself with people who have good brains, the ability to express themselves, and who have different views and life experiences for you to learn from.

For an intellectual, the local alumni center before the game is a veritable smorgasbord of brilliant ideas; the modern-day Salon.

In short, when I say "ou sucks," this is an assumption accepted as truth, defended with all possible blindness to the contrary; by saying it, I'm creating a safe space where we can begin with this agreement, and from there debate amicably about actually important things like politics and the nature of existence.

"But wait," I hear you cry. "I've been to Tiger Stadium aka Death Valley. Are you trying to tell me that that teeming horde is where I'd find intellectuals?" I mean, obviously the Venn Diagram of Sports Fans and Intellectuals is not a circle. What I am saying is that the circles in the Venn Diagram of Intellectuals and People Who Are Not Sports Fans... do not intersect very much. And the quality of university clearly matters; it's difficult to have an intelligent conversation when every other word compulsively has to be, "Whoop!" Of course, I might be only saying that because of my own personal choice and my own confirmation bias.

But I don't think so.

Edited by Rimbo
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DFW Horn

DFW Horn 6123

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Rimbo said:

Time to go full offseason. Been thinking this a while, partially because I tend to run in circles with the sort of person who uses the word "sportsball" without irony, but also because back during the pandemic, the NY Times, a publication usually above such things, ran an editorial titled "College Football is Not Essential." I won't bother linking it here; DM me if you genuinely want to see that drivel.

But yes. Fandom in general, and college sports fandom in particular, is embraced by honest intellectuals.

To wit:

Human intellect evolved as a way to justify tribal association. There's people who believe that they use human reason to derive the conclusions they come to from evidence, and it's all complete bullshit. The way human reason works is that you start with what you believe, and then look for evidence to support it, and ignore anything that goes against it. It's called Confirmation Bias. If you go into certain fields, such as Mathematics, at some point you must train yourself out of this way of thinking, and having been close to people who have done so, they're completely insufferable dipshits.

We associate with our tribe for comfort, for support, and agreeing with each other is how we strengthen those bonds.

The tribe you associate with forever determines your biases. If you call yourself a "Christian," you will be forever blind to any evidence to the contrary on the nature of God. If you call yourself a "Democrat," you will forever despise anything the Republicans do, no matter what it is. And so on and so forth. If you identify with your home state of, say, Colorado, you'll forever be blind to the charms of California, Texas or New Mexico, while ignoring the horrors of living in Colorado.

But there's a way out of this trap. You can identify with something utterly meaningless and pointless in the grand scheme of things. There are plenty such things. You can be a Trekkie. Or a card-carrying House Hufflepuff-identified Harry Potter fan. Or, of course, a sports fan.

But college sports is better than other fandoms. Because by associating with a sports team of a (presumably) prestigious public University, you are associating with a group that is ideologically diverse and highly educated. You are surrounding yourself with people who have good brains, the ability to express themselves, and who have different views and life experiences for you to learn from.

For an intellectual, the local alumni center before the game is a veritable smorgasbord of brilliant ideas; the modern-day Salon.

In short, when I say "ou sucks," this is an assumption accepted as truth, defended with all possible blindness to the contrary; by saying it, I'm creating a safe space where we can begin with this agreement, and from there debate amicably about actually important things like politics and the nature of existence.

"But wait," I hear you cry. "I've been to Tiger Stadium aka Death Valley. Are you trying to tell me that that teeming horde is where I'd find intellectuals?" I mean, obviously the Venn Diagram of Sports Fans and Intellectuals is not a circle. What I am saying is that the circles in the Venn Diagram of Intellectuals and People Who Are Not Sports Fans... do not intersect very much. And the quality of university clearly matters; it's difficult to have an intelligent conversation when every other word compulsively has to be, "Whoop!" Of course, I might be only saying that because of my own personal choice and my own confirmation bias.

But I don't think so.

You lost me at New York Times.

Ryan Reynolds Wtf GIF

Edited by DFW Horn
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pubes

pubes 139

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I masturbate a lot but mostly it’s to impure thoughts of Kate Chopin and Willa Cather munching each others boxes while I have Stephen a smith scolding me about something in the background on tv. I live at home with my parents 

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Poolflood

Poolflood 845

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10 minutes ago, pubes said:

I masturbate a lot but mostly it’s to impure thoughts of Kate Chopin and Willa Cather munching each others boxes while I have Stephen a smith scolding me about something in the background on tv. I live at home with my parents 

John Kennedy Toole lives and posts on surly.

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Guest

Guest

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Sports are amazing. 110,000 people aren't packing Michigan Stadium to cheer on Gary Kasparov versus Deep Blue.

But everything outside of the actual sport sucks. Pre-game talking heads, analysis, sideline interviews, video replay, traffic, conference realignment, and concession prices. I will give a pass to jet flyovers, which are just as -- if not more amazing -- than sports.

 

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DougO

DougO 5243

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They certainly aren't smarter today than they were decades ago. Now they mostly regurgitate opinions from ESPN hosts and fucktard bloggers. The games aren't getting progressively dumbed down because their fans are so smart. The leagues want to appeal to more dumbshits to make more money.

 

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Guest

Guest

Posted
Posted
On 3/18/2023 at 10:14 PM, DougO said:

They certainly aren't smarter today than they were decades ago. Now they mostly regurgitate opinions from ESPN hosts and fucktard bloggers. The games aren't getting progressively dumbed down because their fans are so smart. The leagues want to appeal to more dumbshits to make more money.

 

Football- OL is tough as hell to learn.  So is RB.  QB isn't  a walk in the park.  people talk constantly about the intelligence of great coordinators on both sides of the ball.

Basketball?  Still evolving on both ends of the court, Feel like it is the simplest major game besides soccer.

Hockey? Like hoops, play at both ends of the rink is constantly evolving. Throw in line changes and other strategies, and I don't see a decline.

Baseball?  They have incorporated analytics to the point that related strategies are being outlawed. It still basically comes down to the pitcher/ catcher vs the batter; with both managers dueling with lineups and fielding alignments.

What sports have been dumbed down?

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