Ban football


It’s the only decent thing to do. It’s a thuggish sport that allows thugs to rise to positions of privilege, and fosters an environment of brutality and viciousness.

Or, if that’s too radical for you, shut down the football program at Dietrich High School in Idaho (warning: tale of gross racism and rape at that link). They’ve lost any right to ever play the game again.

Comments

  1. says

    Well yeah, this is an awful thing, but I don’t see what it specifically has to do with football. It could have been the soccer team, baseball team, or lacrosse team. And these sorts of incidents do happen with other sports. The dangerous and violent nature of the game of football is a separate issue, it seems to me.

  2. chigau (違う) says

    cervantes
    In the USofA, highschool football is a religion and its practitioners are holy.
    Soccer and baseball, not so much.

  3. says

    It could have been the soccer team, baseball team, or lacrosse team.

    It could, and it does. As a liberal, I think that consenting adults should be allowed to beat each other senseless. I am also not convinced that their activities should be paid for/subsidised by the taxpayer. If they want to beat each other into demented parsnips, they can do it on their own time, and with their own money. Just because they are brainless brutes is not a very good reason to encourage their behaviour, in my opinion.

  4. says

    In many places in this great land, there are no high schools. There are football teams, with academic programs attached.

    I admit this is sorta one of the reasons why I oppose things like Race to the Top and Common Core, because when you establish standards, they telegraph to everyone exactly which things they have an excuse to eliminate, like art and music, in order to pay for the football stadium.

  5. wzrd1 says

    Frankly, I’m for eliminating all sports that frequently result in traumatic brain injuries.
    Just howinhell is a student to learn when they’ve a traumatic brain injury or worse, multiple TBI’s?

  6. throwaway, butcher of tongues, mauler of metaphor says

    Bart B. Van Bockstaele @4:

    It could, and it does. As a liberal, I think that consenting adults should be allowed to beat each other senseless.

    As a liberal paying attention to the studies of repetitive brain injuries I wholeheartedly disagree. Those who succumb to their injuries later in life often do not go gently or quietly, nor peacefully at a ripe old age. They may even drag their families with them. In this way they affect our society and communities at large. That I do have a concern with.

  7. Vivec says

    Meh, if we get rid of football, we’ll just come up with some new version of tennis or something so we can get our repetitive concussion tribalism fix.

  8. MassMomentumEnergy says

    Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

    http://thesportjournal.org/article/chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy-cte-and-former-national-football-league-player-suicides/

    Subsequently, during published case studies and investigational reporting interviews, family members and friends noted cognitive impairments like memory loss and psychological consequence like increased depression, irritability, aggression, and suicidal thoughts before the former NFL players committed suicide.

  9. batflipenthusiast says

    As a sportsball enthusiast i do find option one a tad bit extreme. I might suggest major reforms, especially when it comes to recourse allocation and safety concerns for minors (Particularly for football).

    I also don’t really see how this is endemic to the sport. It seems like there are a number of underlying issues seprete from the athletic endeavors themselves that are much more concerning.

  10. moarscienceplz says

    IMHO, organized sports of any kind, especially team sports, are mostly a naked expression of insider/outsiderism and ultimately pathetic and worthless. Rather than encouraging every person in the village/state/nation/world to develop their individual talents to add to everybody else’s talents, team sports walls off a tiny set of skills as valuable, then uses every trick in the book to create an us vs. the other mentality. If you don’t feel comfortable being part of the tiny elite, you’re a lesser being. If you do want to be part of the team but you can’t deliver the microscopically narrow skills they demand of you, you’re a loser.
    Never mind that the skills that allow someone to be a “success” in their chosen sport are nearly always entirely useless in the true society they actually live in. If you are one of the select, you can bask in a fandom that will regard you as godlike, for a few short years until you get too old, and then you are just a broken-down old husk, of no value to anyone.
    Women’s sports have less of this, mostly because there is usually so much less money available, but even it I find sad. PBS did a biography of Billie Jean King a while back, and while I admire that she used women’s tennis to show the male troglodytes that they were wrong to dismiss women like her, she still is mostly known for being able to bat a fuzzy ball with a racket really well. Big whoop.

  11. says

    I don’t understand how it is that colleges and high schools have been able to shelter violent sports from litigation. There has to be some serious corruption going on under the rug, there.

    The whole school sports/fitness/toxic masculinity of that particular sort in schools thing is fairly recent – 1900s or so. Thanks, Friedrich Nietzsche!

  12. says

    As a liberal paying attention to the studies of repetitive brain injuries I wholeheartedly disagree. Those who succumb to their injuries later in life often do not go gently or quietly, nor peacefully at a ripe old age. They may even drag their families with them. In this way they affect our society and communities at large. That I do have a concern with.

    You make a good point, but where does it stop? Four idiots died on Mount Everest recently. The consequences of climbing Mount Everest can be devastating and the probability is high (death rates are between 7 and 10%, if I’m not mistaken). Yet, our society seems to have no problems with this. In the same vein, I do not really see why activities such as American football should be treated differently. I would withhold subsidies, vote legislation to prevent educational institutions from wasting resources on such activities. I would provide educational programmes to inform people, but for the rest, I don’t see what can reasonably be done?

  13. James McCusker says

    Anyone else struck by the “paradoxical irony”? I’ll try to state it…. A group of males who would gleefully bash any homosexual ( or even “different” person) into sawdust, actively participate in something that they (BTW, not I) would view as “homosexual”. Again, I do not view this act in any way but as a crime.

  14. says

    Four idiots died on Mount Everest recently. The consequences of climbing Mount Everest can be devastating and the probability is high (death rates are between 7 and 10%, if I’m not mistaken). Yet, our society seems to have no problems with this

    Well, if my kid went to school to learn philosophy and astrophysics and, instead, was encouraged and recruited by the school to go climb Everest, and got killed, I’d spend my remaining few years trying to cost them a great big chunk of their endowment and end the careers of whatever administrators and teachers came up with the crazy idea that climbing Everest was a part of a well-rounded curriculum.

    After the lawsuits were all done, future kids who wanted to climb Everest in the school’s mountain climbing club would probably have to get their parents to sign massive wads of waivers if the kids were minors. And that’d pretty much be the end of that.

    The problem with arguing by analogy is it’s so easy to cheat by not including a full analysis of the situation. The situation is not at all like some bunch of people deciding to climb Everest. For one thing: fairly few people don’t know that it’s something that might kill you.

  15. Ichthyic says

    I admit this is sorta one of the reasons why I oppose things like Race to the Top and Common Core, because when you establish standards, they telegraph to everyone exactly which things they have an excuse to eliminate, like art and music, in order to pay for the football stadium.

    That’s an aspect I had not considered before.

  16. cartomancer says

    While I have no love of any team sport, and particularly not of the bizarre brand of concussive rugby people across the pond insist on playing, I think this story is about far more than just the noxious culture surrounding team sports in the USA. That’s a part of the whole horrid constellation of corruption and bigotry, but it does the victim here a tremendous disservice to focus on that and nothing else. This is a case of extreme institutional racism, criminal neglect of duties of care and, from what I gather at the Washington Post article, a kind of wagon-circling community nepotism. Those go far beyond the fallout from a fetishisation of sporting activities, and simply banning sports here would not serve to extirpate the underlying rot.

  17. Ichthyic says

    As a liberal

    what followed that had NOTHING to do with being a liberal… you complete fuckwit.

    ugh.

    go away.

  18. James McCusker says

    Carto,
    I registered here and screwed up my user name and it came out as my real name ( no big deal)…. But, over on Dawkins i am crookedshoes. I cannot figure out how to get my favorite pseudonym active over here.

    Anyway, your point is well stated and very much portends the next chapter of this story at a community level. This young man will be vilified and further hurt and ostracized. The bigotry and male entitlement does not stop here nor is it limited to the three boys who attacked him. The alpha males in the entire community will galvanize and dare anyone to stand against them. I’d stand.

  19. says

    Cartomancer@#21:
    I think this story is about far more than just the noxious culture surrounding team sports in the USA. That’s a part of the whole horrid constellation of corruption and bigotry, but it does the victim here a tremendous disservice to focus on that and nothing else.

    I don’t think anyone here is advocating blaming the victim. Except for our ultra-sympathetic “liberal” whose answer to anyone who hurts themself appears to be “fuck you.”

    While I agree with PZ’s characterization of football as “thuggish” it does have a certain beauty when played well – just like all the other pinnacle competitive sports. I don’t mind if boxers suffer injuries hitting eachother in the head; they go into it knowing that they’re going to be exchanging head injuries – they don’t go into it expecting an education and a possible career doing something else afterward.

    What bothers me about this issue is that it’s generally victimizing young people who aren’t told, “hey, kid, even if you don’t get brain damage, you’ll have messed up knees and ankles for the rest of your life, it’ll hurt, and you’ll wonder why you didn’t spend that time studying philosophy or something instead. Because you’ll need the philosophy of the stoics when you’re 45 and those torn bits of cartilage start to hurt.” We are surrounded with popular culture (Rocky, Fight Club, whatever) that makes it pretty clear that hitting people in the head is going to hurt. We are surrounded with popular culture that focuses on the short-term injuries of football and … somehow… doesn’t talk about the rest. It amounts to simply this: the kids are being lied to It’s lies by omission but it’s lies. To make it worse is the corruption: somehow, in order to enshrine this shit, schools and universities have been indemnified: treating kids like professional athletes, making a ton of money off them, and yet they have no right to collectively negotiate salaries because they’re forced to work for free (and it is work!) and their bosses can go, “Oh, injury? That sucks, kid. How’s your parents’ insurance?”

    The way to fix all this is for a couple insurance companies to add to their policies that they’re not going to pay for injuries incurred when people under the age of 21 engage in extreme sports: boxing, skydiving, football, hurling, mixed martial arts, etc. And as soon as parents figure that out, then they’ll be asking the schools “why do you want me to sign this 300 page consent form?” because the schools will know that they’re going to get sued when the parent’s insurance companies don’t pay for junior’s spinal damage. “Hey kid! Good news/bad news! The good news is you’re going to get a lifetime supply of oxycodone. The bad news is, you’re gonna need it!”

  20. says

    Well, if my kid went to school to learn philosophy and astrophysics and, instead, was encouraged and recruited by the school to go climb Everest, and got killed, I’d spend my remaining few years trying to cost them a great big chunk of their endowment and end the careers of whatever administrators and teachers came up with the crazy idea that climbing Everest was a part of a well-rounded curriculum.

    Actually, in my own experience: I went to art school. Instead of going to an important exhibition of the “Flemish Primitives”, our class was encouraged to go skiing in Switzerland. I refused to go, and made it very clear it was non-negotiable. At one point, the school offered to pay for the trip. I refused. It was not about money, but about the reason I was in that school, and skiing wasn’t it. I was not treated very kindly for my refusal. I still think it was the right one.

    The situation is not at all like some bunch of people deciding to climb Everest.

    Really?
    “And yet the hopefuls keep coming. More than 400 people have attempted the Everest climb this season, including 288 foreigners and more than 100 Sherpas and guides, said Sudarshan Dhakal, director of the Nepal Tourism Department. That’s more than the average for previous seasons, he said.”
    http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/22/asia/everest-climbing-deaths/

    For one thing: fairly few people don’t know that it’s something that might kill you.

    A recent death: http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/25/world/everest-deaths-climb-maria-strydom/
    An older one: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mount-everest-descent-claims-canadian-woman-2-others-1.1201678

  21. Vivec says

    Really?

    Uh, yes? I don’t see that many disadvantaged kids being coerced into climbing mount everest and almost certainly hurting themselves for life in order to get an education, all for the sake of entertainment.

  22. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    BBvB, you sound an awful lot like an American liberturd. You don’t give a shit about anybody but yourself….
    Which isn’t very liberal….

  23. says

    Didn’t you mean to write “asshole”?

    Well, if you think this type of self-destructive behaviour should be paid for by the taxpayer, that is your choice and you should vote for people who advocate this.
    You can call me whatever you want, I think people who choose to destroy themselves should pay for it themselves. I also think that people should have the right to do so. Even if not entirely self-effacing reasons. I profoundly hope that I will be able to acquire an effective dose of numbutal or the like when the moment comes I feel I should deactivate myself. As best I know, this would only be possible in a truly liberal society. If that means I am an asshole, I welcome the qualification.

  24. says

    Uh, yes? I don’t see that many disadvantaged kids being coerced into climbing mount everest and almost certainly hurting themselves for life in order to get an education, all for the sake of entertainment.

    Indeed, but that was not what I was replying to, was I?

  25. says

    BBvB, you sound an awful lot like an American liberturd. You don’t give a shit about anybody but yourself….
    Which isn’t very liberal….

    Does that mean you oppose the legalisation of marijuana, and that you are in favour of legislation banning gambling, alcohol, tobacco …?

  26. Nathair says

    “are in favour of legislation banning gambling, alcohol, tobacco …?” In high school? Yes, actually.

  27. says

    I don’t understand how it is that colleges and high schools have been able to shelter violent sports from litigation. There has to be some serious corruption going on under the rug, there.

    Why stop at *violent* sports? Lots of things aren’t violent, but still very dangerous.

  28. says

    Well, if you think this type of self-destructive behaviour should be paid for by the taxpayer, that is your choice and you should vote for people who advocate this.

    Nice false dichotomy. Just because I think you’re being an unsympathetic asshole doesn’t mean I think the taxpayers should be covering self-destructive behaviors. Simply because I think A does not automatically imply I think B. So, to “asshole” let me add “not so thinky good.”

    For your information, I think that many dangerous sports should require an informed consent from the practitioner’s insurance company, parents, and potentially a personal acceptance of risk. In Marcus-land, you would only be able to purchase and smoke cigarettes if you had signed away your right to expect your medical insurance to help pay for your lung cancer. At the point when someone has been warned repeatedly and says clearly “I want to do this thing because it is dangerous” then the rest of us can say “well have at it.” In fact if someone were to say they wanted to climb Everest specificially because they wanted to cheat the 1 in 12 death-rate, then we’d be doing them no favors if they started yelling for rescue. That’d be like giving them the cheat-codes. But it’d have to be specifically against their will. “Here, sign this ‘do not rescue’ waiver.”

    I think people who choose to destroy themselves should pay for it themselves

    Unless you’ve only just recently encountered this thing “philosophy” you ought to be familiar with the topic of consent and when it can and cannot be considered informed, and when and how a person can be said to have a choice. I’m doing you a favor by calling you “asshole” because otherwise I’d have to assume you were accidentally or willfully ignorant of this thing called civilization….

    I profoundly hope that I will be able to acquire an effective dose of numbutal or the like when the moment comes I feel I should deactivate myself.

    So you seem to be in favor of choice. I’m with you on that. And I even support your choice to sound like a smug shallow-thinking asshole.

    Consider the case where you choose to take a lethal dose of painkiller. Well, if you can make an informed choice, that seems reasonable. But if you’re like Socrates in the Monty Python sketch, who doesn’t understand the implications of drinking hemlock then you haven’t really made a choice. You’ve been fooled, lied to, or allowed to remain ignorant. That is much closer to the situation the high school student or college student is in: they are not being informed of the dangers and consequently they are deprived of the ability to make an informed choice. And you’re doubly an asshole (or triply) for deriding them for suffering consequences that they didn’t choose.

    If that means I am an asshole, I welcome the qualification.

    I suspect you don’t have a choice about being an asshole, since you appear to be uninformed about liberalism, philosophy, and matters of freedom of choice. So I can’t really blame you for being one, but – yeah, you seem to be.

  29. Vivec says

    As we know, poor people (especially of color) being offered tuition and the potential for huge paychecks without being made aware of the almost certain lifelong injuries they risk are totally uncoerced and making informed decisions -eyeroll-

  30. Artor says

    “They’ve lost any right to ever play the game walk among decent people again.”

  31. says

    “are in favour of legislation banning gambling, alcohol, tobacco …?” In high school? Yes, actually.

    So am I. Which is why I mentioned “consenting adults” in another reaction.
    My complete opinion is this: consenting adults should be allowed to do anything they want, on the condition that it does not obviously/demonstrably harm others.
    If what they want to do is known to be dangerous, this right should be subjected to following a course on the subject and succeeding in a test. The idea is not to make the activity inaccessible, only to make sure that the person wanting to engage in the activity is fully aware of the advantages and the disadvantages. Even a reasonably intelligent person cannot be expected to have extensive-enough knowledge on the subject. When this step is taken, the person should be allowed to engage in this activity.
    There may be other ways to achieve the same goal, but the current situation is clearly not helpful. I am of the opinion that reasonably intelligent adults will tend to spontaneously refrain from certain activities once they know what the dangers are. If not, well, it was their decision, and they can at least no longer credibly claim that they didn’t know.

  32. Matrim says

    If by “ban football” you mean “ban football in high school,” I’m all for it. College too, though that’s for different reasons. But, as a professional sport absolutely not…though I would be happy if state and local governments would stop funding multi-million/billion dollar fields for these private organizations.

    @35, Marcus, @29, Bart

    Wow…sounds kinda like you’re both being assholes. So, who gets to decide what is an unacceptable risk that no one else should have to pay for if something goes wrong? Insurance companies? Congress? Do we take a poll? Smoking is one you obviously think is worth letting someone die. How about speeding? After all, they chose to speed, therefor if they’re in an accident and need treatment they should be able to pay or GTFO. Obesity? Having a job that causes long term health effects? Owning a dog? Using a dull knife? Climbing a ladder? Yeah, I get that I’m being all slippery-slope here, but my point is that drawing a line and saying that someone who consciously makes a decision to do something dangerous doesn’t deserve health coverage is a pretty messed up argument when you try to parse it out. If someone has a traumatic brain injury it shouldn’t matter if they got it playing football or because a brick fell off a roof or because they shot themselves in the head; they deserve treatment and they deserve not to spend the rest of their life crushed under debt because of it.

  33. says

    I am of the opinion that reasonably intelligent adults will tend to spontaneously refrain from certain activities once they know what the dangers are.

    Have you ever noticed how many people stand around outside perfectly good buildings smoking cigarettes?
    It may be your opinion that that is the case, but the facts say otherwise.

    An absolute standard of consent doesn’t always work. Because some people will fall for marketing or ideology or will simply do dangerous things because they feel edgy or whatever.

    It’s not as simple as you’re trying to make it sound. Especially because, as Vivec pointed out, there are sometimes perverse economic incentives. Do you think an economically underprivileged young person would be more likely to jump at a sports scholarship from a prestigious school than a millionaire’s kid with a trust fund? How do you think that being poor and being offered a way out – even if it was indentured servitude – might erode someone’s ability to make a free choice?

  34. says

    As we know, poor people (especially of color) being offered tuition and the potential for huge paychecks without being made aware of the almost certain lifelong injuries they risk are totally uncoerced and making informed decisions -eyeroll-

    Yep. However, I have some doubts. As far as I know, a causal link for some of these lifelong injuries has only been demonstrated fairly recently. It is unfair, I think, to accuse people of not disclosing what they could not have known in the first place. Obviously, that excuse is no longer valid, and the practice reminds me of part of Belgian history, where poor and illiterate peasants were tricked into joining the military to replace rich people who could then escape this ordeal. There is a movie about this revolting practice. It is called “The Conscript” in English:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070338/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

  35. says

    It’s not as simple as you’re trying to make it sound.

    I am not trying anything of the sort. I am trying to think about a reasonable system that still allows for some freedom, knowing full well that freedom has a price. But then, non-freedom has a price as well. Life must remain worth living. A balance must be found, and while we cannot reasonably hope to create a perfect solution, we must at least attempt to maximise freedom and minimise harm.
    In my opinion, screaming bloody murder every time an incident becomes public knowledge and sitting on one’s hands when the storm has calmed down and the TwitFacers have forgotten about it, is *not* the way to go.

  36. says

    So, who gets to decide what is an unacceptable risk that no one else should have to pay for if something goes wrong?

    I’m not pretending to have answers to those kinds of questions. In my view, answering those kinds of questions is what civilization is – it’s what societies do. How do we collectively decide that? Well, it’s hard. I can only answer that kind of question with my opinions; at least I’m not trying to pretend there is some kind of “liberalism” that supports or compels my beliefs. I think this stuff is hard.

    Because it’s hard, it’s hard to rain contempt down on people who make poor choices for whatever reasons they have. There are hard problems around what is the “common wisdom” about what’s a bad choice. The impact of the decision is also an issue that has to be factored in – I’m going to try much harder to argue someone out of trying to climb Everest than if they announce their intent to put a gummi bear up their nose. Both are bad decisions, but they are going to have various impacts – a bad decision on Everest might kill rescue team members or anyone tied into the chooser’s rope. A gummi bear up the nose isn’t maybe going to have much impact, and it might make a lot of people happy on FAILblog to offset its negative consequences. I don’t know. I don’t pretend to know.

    My personal view is that maximizing our ability to choose is very important. That means informing people about the significance of choices and teaching them about how choice works and the effects and impacts of their choices on the collective. There are many ways in which societies abuse their members by constraining or manipulating them economically or through peer pressure into making choices that are convenient for some parts of society and not for the individual. If you’ve ever seen those ads on the side of a bus for the US Marine Corps – you’ve got a beautifully photographed handsome person looking tough… Oddly the ad doesn’t show its intended victim lying in a ditch somewhere after an IED explosion, or dealing with PTSD.. The ad only talks abou the opportunity and the scholarship – just the good parts. It’s lying That, by the way, is why I say marketing is an inherently immoral profession: it exists to portray things as better than the marketer knows them to be (otherwise they wouldn’t need to do marketing, right?) Celebrity culture says that if you’re a football star or a marine or a movie star, you’re special and you should want that. Celebrity culture is used to manipulate people into doing what may not be rationally good for them. I think a lot of these things would be improved by educating young people about the realities of life, which is why I get head-poppingly angry when an institution that is being trusted to provide education is actually participating in marketing something dangerous to its students. I’d be just as pissed off if high schools were encouraging kids to smoke (without pointing out the downsides) as if they were encouraging kids to play football (without pointing out the downsides). A hint that something is wrong is when you see a portrayal that’s all upside; unlimited upside and no downside. That’s almost always a fiction and I don’t like people who lie (but that’s my personal aesthetic)

  37. says

    How many people played football? Because I did and I, my parents, and everyone else I know was warned out of the wazoo about concussions, and other assorted risks.

    I’m sorry, but I think the average person knows that getting hit repeatedly in the head can lead to all sorts of problems. It’s condescending as hell to imply that a poor person of colour is not making a reasonable calculations.

    Side note: on a strictly utilitarian grounds our football practices are probably justified given the extreme mismatched between utiles generated by footballs and the amount of suffering it causes.

  38. says

    I am not trying anything of the sort. I am trying to think about a reasonable system that still allows for some freedom, knowing full well that freedom has a price.

    No, your opening move was pretty much: “bad decision? fuck them.”

    Now you’re moving the goalposts toward something more thoughtful and reasonable. Perhaps, then, my time hasn’t been entirely wasted. (Although since you’re now arguing something quite different from your opening move, you’re wasting my time by being dishonest. If you actually weren’t an asshole, why did you start off pretending to be one?)

  39. billroberts says

    In regard to the comment “I don’t mind if boxers suffer injuries hitting each other in the head; they go into it knowing that they’re going to be exchanging head injuries – they don’t go into it expecting an education and a possible career doing something else afterward.”

    That’s a rather nuanced statement. There are several highly regarded institutions of higher education in the United States at which Boxing is a required study in the physical education curriculum and at present every male student is required to complete the course. Female students partake in “Introduction to Combatives”. All of the students at these institutions fully expect an education and a possible career doing something else afterward, i.e., commissioning in the Armed Forces of the United States.

  40. unclefrogy says

    the insurance angle above I suspect will be the one that puts an end to football in education, in both high school and university as well. The more we come to understand the effects of repeated “mild” head injuries on long term brain health and its overall effects on society including the monetary cost of the behavior effects the pressure will mount for some changes.
    As was clearly pointed out in the linked article there was a not insignificant racial element to this story and many who were responsible stood by and at least did nothing at all.

    seat belt laws and helmet laws are a way that society uses to prevent or reduce the costs to society of the long term care for those who are injured as the result of accidents because we decided that we should not just euthanize those who can not pay for their own care.
    I see no unsurmountable problems to applying the same kind of reasoning to football

    there is something troubling about the privilege granted to sports and the hero worship of the games that always seem to come with dark nasty scandals.
    though to be fair most things are not immune from scandals. Football however just wow!
    uncle frogy

  41. says

    No, your opening move was pretty much: “bad decision? fuck them.”

    What I wrote was this:

    It could, and it does. As a liberal, I think that consenting adults should be allowed to beat each other senseless. I am also not convinced that their activities should be paid for/subsidised by the taxpayer. If they want to beat each other into demented parsnips, they can do it on their own time, and with their own money. Just because they are brainless brutes is not a very good reason to encourage their behaviour, in my opinion.

    In other words, you are advocating subsidising these activities, yes?

  42. Vivec says

    It’s condescending as hell to imply that a poor person of colour is not making a reasonable calculations.

    Even if they are made aware of the concussions and injuries, it’s still coercive and fucked up.

    “Hey poor kid, want to actually be able to get a job and survive? Cool, just sign here and get concussed for our entertainment.”

  43. Vivec says

    Spoiler, I’m not a fan of capitalism and don’t think it’s possible for “offering a person tuition/money to get injured for entertainment” to be anything but coercive, especially if said person is poor and belongs to a disadvantaged class.

  44. says

    Even if they are made aware of the concussions and injuries, it’s still coercive and fucked up.
    “Hey poor kid, want to actually be able to get a job and survive? Cool, just sign here and get concussed for our entertainment.”

    Unfortunately, it seems that this type of coercion is well-liked in some part of American culture. I recently watched all episodes of MacGyver and there were a number of episodes where boxing by disadvantaged people was seen as positive. How anyone can see boxing as a positive is a mystery to me, but the promotion of “sports” as the to escape a sordid existence seems criminal to me.

  45. Vivec says

    It’s pretty much just that episode of the simpsons where Mr Burns pays homer lots of money to humiliate and injure himself, but from every major college in the country. Totes morally okay, though.

  46. consciousness razor says

    In other words, you are advocating subsidising these activities, yes?

    What the hell do subsidies have to do with that?

    I mean, I don’t see Marcus implying anywhere that we should subsidize the NFL, or whatever it is that you’re confused about.

  47. says

    Spoiler, I’m not a fan of capitalism and don’t think it’s possible for “offering a person tuition/money to get injured for entertainment” to be anything but coercive, especially if said person is poor and belongs to a disadvantaged class.

    Yep. I see it as male equivalent of enticing a girl to become a prostitute. You just know these people will pay an intolerable price.

  48. consciousness razor says

    Side note: on a strictly utilitarian grounds our football practices are probably justified given the extreme mismatched between utiles generated by footballs and the amount of suffering it causes.

    That’s fascinating. I was just wondering to myself (again, idly, for the thousandth time) whether sports like football served any useful purpose within an education system, one that’s not much better served by numerous other programs or activities. But as long as you say that the balls generate enough “utiles” somehow, then I guess I’ll just have to believe that.

  49. says

    Side note: on a strictly utilitarian grounds our football practices are probably justified given the extreme mismatched between utiles generated by footballs and the amount of suffering it causes.

    You may have a point. What are these utiles?

  50. vucodlak says

    You know, I’ve often wondered if the bad behavior off the field is related to the frankly unsatisfying nature of the game, particularly when combined with the language often employed by coaches/spectators/commentators.

    Certainly, I know I was initially drawn to football because of its reputation for violence and brutality. Hearing the fans and sportscasters talk, it sounds like a bloody and exciting battle, a full hour of non-stop savagery. I was profoundly disappointed when I learned it was actually several hours of mind-numbing tedium, with a few seconds-long bursts of “action” that mostly involves running and a little grappling. Definitely not what I was looking for, not as a spectator and especially not as a participant.

    And so I wonder, how much off the field bad behavior comes from difference in rhetoric surrounding football and the actual game? The coach is always out there screaming at the players to “crush” and “destroy” and “kill,” to “bust some skulls” or “kick some asses,” while the spectators are often even worse. But then, there’s what? Maybe thirty seconds of grappling, then the whistle blows and you have to stop? Maybe someone gets knocked down? Why stir up so much bloodlust, if you’re not going to allow anyone to actually sate themselves?

    I mean, jesus-fuck, it’s just a game, and a particularly boring one at that. For my part, I refused to play at recess in grade school, once I found what it actually was. I also refused to participate in games during PE class, when I got to high school. All the shouting and the pseudo-aggression, with no outlet, was more than I could handle.

    I realize that most people aren’t as bloodthirsty as I was, but you can’t tell me that none of the players feel what I felt. I wonder how many of them do feel that way, but don’t remove themselves from the game, for whatever reason.

  51. says

    In other words, you are advocating subsidising these activities, yes?

    I can’t decide if that’s a strawman argument, a false dichotomy, or just plain bullshit.

    I don’t think you’re arguing in good faith. At this point you’re just moving the goalposts so you can feel you’re right about something and that you’re not an asshole. Ironically, that’s the kind of thing assholes do on blogs so it’s pretty bad strategy.

    To be fair, I attempted to dismiss your comment as pure asswipery because it depended on “consenting adults” which isn’t relevant to a discussion about high school students – I should have just heaved a few jagged verbal rocks in your general direction and ignored you. You keep trying to circle back to “consenting adults” in spite of several of us trying to explain that “consenting adults” may not be present in this situation – you’re not actually thinking about the issue at all, you were just looking for an way you could smugly rain some shit down on “demented parsnips” and “brainless brutes.” Considering the brainiac performance you’ve put on here, you may want to take an umbrella before you start throwing shit at stupid people.

  52. says

    I am of the opinion that reasonably intelligent adults will tend to spontaneously refrain from certain activities once they know what the dangers are.
    Have you ever noticed how many people stand around outside perfectly good buildings smoking cigarettes?
    It may be your opinion that that is the case, but the facts say otherwise.

    Wrong. Smoking has decreased. I have this opinion because the facts support it.

    Well, if you can make an informed choice, that seems reasonable. But if you’re like Socrates in the Monty Python sketch, who doesn’t understand the implications of drinking hemlock then you haven’t really made a choice. You’ve been fooled, lied to, or allowed to remain ignorant. That is much closer to the situation the high school student or college student is in: they are not being informed of the dangers and consequently they are deprived of the ability to make an informed choice. And you’re doubly an asshole (or triply) for deriding them for suffering consequences that they didn’t choose.

    Quoting myself:

    I compare it somewhat to climbing Mount Everest: an utterly irresponsible act with a high probability of major harm, but we don’t actually prevent people from doing it.
    Adults should be allowed to make their own decisions, on the explicit condition they can show they are in possession of all the important facts.

    I therefore fully agree that cannabis (and any other substances used recreationally) should be legalised and regulated. Banning anything has been rarely successful in reducing harm and tends to increase crime. However, none of these substances are harmless. In my view, the legalisation scheme should include mandatory education, linked to a permit scheme, similar to a driver’s licence, as well as legally required quality control.

    If, after following and succeeding the mandatory classes and permit exam, people are still stupid enough to use these substances, they are welcome. If they then succumb to the consequences of this deplorable behaviour, they will at least not be able to use the “Wir haben es nicht gewusst” defense.

    (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ3AEd81W5E)

    I am sadly well aware that people are often not informed. I am also well aware of the sad realities of “peer (dis)information”. The claim that marijuana is not harmful, and has a gazillion benefits comes to mind. Specialised institution simply can’t handle the steady overload of drug addicts, and drugs are just one type of irresponsible behaviour. Climbing Mount Everest remains my favourite example. It is precisely why I am advocating a permit system for irresponsible behaviour.
    I have also NOT advocated not helping people who suffer the consequences of their irresponsible behaviour. I AM advocating not subsidising such behaviour. That is quite different. I think that a compassionate society will help anyone in deep trouble. Instead of “shoot first, ask questions later”, it should be “help first, ask questions later”.

  53. says

    I can’t decide if that’s a strawman argument, a false dichotomy, or just plain bullshit.

    No. I was merely trying to misinterpret you as you do me. From the looks of it, I may have succeeded.

  54. says

    But, as a professional sport absolutely not

    Why not? Giving blood is also not allowed as a profession. It is something we can do if we so choose. Why would activities that are arguably a lot more dangerous (and serve no discernible purpose other than satisfying the blood lust of a certain public) be allowed to go on as a profession?

    sounds kinda like you’re both being assholes.

    I cannot speak for Marcus, but I can speak for myself. I think this is a sad misinterpretation of what I wrote. I advocate NOT subsidising dangerous activities. If people want to practice them, they should pay for these themselves. If they can’t, so much the better.
    I do NOT advocate not paying for people’s healthcare costs after they did something irresponsible. The very idea of refusing care to anyone who needs it makes me want to puke.

  55. rq says

    I would just like to note that the OP in question is (a) about high school football (so few, if any, consenting adults) and (b) not about concussions but about the toxic culture surrounding the sport (the part not resulting from multiple concussions, since the OP references high school football players, one of whom has an unofficial record of being a racist shithead without receiving any consequences for that).
    This has nothing to do with how dangerous playing football is; it has to do how dangerous the social dynamic has become, right from an early age. Y’all are way, way, way off-topic.

  56. says

    @moarscienceplz
    I agree. To me, “sports” is nonsense. “physical activity” is a means to an end. “Sports” is the perversion of that means into an end. People should practice less “sports” and be more physically active.

  57. rq says

    It’s a thuggish sport that allows thugs to rise to positions of privilege, and fosters an environment of brutality and viciousness.

    This being the key part for which the article was supportive. Note that there is no mention of the medical effects of repeated head injuries, but a specific reference to the environment of brutality and viciousness. And then, of course, the supporting article itself, which is not about concussions, but about an environment of brutality and viciousness (against one’s own teammates, as it were).

  58. rietpluim says

    @Matrim #40

    If someone has a traumatic brain injury it shouldn’t matter if they got it playing football or because a brick fell off a roof or because they shot themselves in the head; they deserve treatment and they deserve not to spend the rest of their life crushed under debt because of it.

    QFFT

    Re: sports, they are like a religion. Supposedly bring out the best of people but in reality seldom do.

  59. John Morales says

    Bart B. Van Bockstaele:

    @moarscienceplz
    I agree. To me, “sports” is nonsense. “physical activity” is a means to an end. “Sports” is the perversion of that means into an end. People should practice less “sports” and be more physically active.

    Heh.

    You do realise that “sports” and “physical activity” are not synonyms, right?

    (as a degererate case, basal metabolism is a physical activity :) )

    The OP is about the relative danger of a particular sport, not an anti-sporting vent like yours.

  60. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    <3 Marcus.

    To Matrim in 40

    As a general rule, I probably support monetary penalties on people when they engage in some forms of behavior that might cause them to become a tax burden on society.

    Marcus gave a proposal of removing health care benefits (which I hope was just a straw proposal to highlight the point). It's imposing a monetary penalty, and an extremely harsh one.

    However, consider laws that impose monetary penalties on adults who don't wear seatbelts. It's the same logic. Not wearing a seatbelt has been judged by society to be an undue risk without sufficient reward, and thereby society has decided that we will impose personal monetary penalties in order to discourage this behavior in order to reduce the general tax burden on everyone, and especially reduce the tax burden on people who don't do this particular risky and needless behavior.

    It's the same concept, which I think I support in the general and abstract, and in some specific cases like seatbelt laws (or something like it).

    I also echo Marcus's general sentiment, which is the classical liberal, dare I say liberal of the Enlightenment period, position of John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle. Informed consenting adults should do as they will, but if they are going to take actions that might make them become a tax burden on the rest of us, then that constitutes a harm under the Harm Principle, which means it's fare game, morally, for laws that penalize that behavior (but the penalty should be no more than what is necessary to achieve the necessary deterrence for the desired tax burden relief, IMO).

    I'm also very much in agreement with Marcus that it's hard to answer "ok, what risks are too much, and what risky activities are worthwhile and which are not, etc.". As Marcus said, that's what we do as a society and civilization. That one of the core and central questions that people answer to make society.

  61. rietpluim says

    I think that is blatant bullshit.

    If we want people to make their own choices, than we should make it possible for them to make those choices. We should not penalize them for doing so.

    Yes, we may make certain demands. If you want to drive a car, you must wear a safety belt. If you want to engage in sports that bring certain risks, than you must wear a safety helmet or whatever. But we do not penalize people for sporting, neither as we penalize them for driving cars.

    And then, if someone without a safety belt on is hurt in an accident, we help them nonetheless.

    If someone is drowning, you don’t ask whether he fell, jumped, or was pushed into the water. You rescue him, period.

    THAT is what fucking civilization is.

  62. Nathair says

    “If we want people to make their own choices, than we should make it possible for them to make those choices. We should not penalize them for doing so.”

    And if they choose to, say, murder their neighbours? Or, to be less dramatic, they choose to smoke cigarettes and (statistically) become a significant burden upon the rest of us? Then why should we not penalize, disincentivize, discourage, etc. ? Seems to me that THAT is also what fucking civilization is.

  63. rietpluim says

    @Nathair – Yeah, like engaging in a sport is comparable with committing murder. Do you really expect me to answer that?

  64. Nathair says

    “Yeah, like engaging in a sport is comparable with committing murder. Do you really expect me to answer that?”

    Hey, you’re the one making sweeping statements, that’s not my fault. However, I do think that football and CTE tracks reasonably well with smoking and lung cancer. So yes, I do expect you to answer. Why should we not penalize or disincentivize such things?

  65. Vivec says

    I don’t think most of us are condemning sports in general, we’re specifically talking about football. Further, there’s no reason being a sport is necessarily incomparable with murder just for being a sport. Blood bowl is a (fictional) sport that involves murder as a part of the game. “You categorically can’t compare sports to murder” just doesn’t follow logically.

  66. rietpluim says

    Yeah, like the freedom to make your own choices would include the freedom to murder your neighbors. And you’re accusing me of making sweeping statements? What do you expect me to do, add a disclaimer to every statement I make?

  67. Nathair says

    @rietpluim ” And you’re accusing me of making sweeping statements? ”

    I am, yes. You’re the one who said we should not penalize people for “making their own choices”. That’s a sweeping statement. I merely offered a dramatic example of a choice which I think we should penalize.

    Of course, I also offered a less dramatic example, one which you have repeatedly refused to address… I wonder why?

  68. militantagnostic says

    RQ @64

    This has nothing to do with how dangerous playing football is; it has to do how dangerous the social dynamic has become, right from an early age. Y’all are way, way, way off-topic.

    Why the hell has the coach not been charged over the incident where the black kid was forced to fight the (much larger) racist while he (the black kid) was wearing boxing gloves and the racist was bare knuckled, a fight that continued until the
    black kid was knocked unconscious.? This was an act of sustained torture even worse than the sexual assault with the coat-hanger.

    Vivec @76

    Blood bowl is a (fictional) sport that involves murder as a part of the game.

    Have you calculated the Utiles for that?

  69. gmacs says

    Vivec @52

    Spoiler, I’m not a fan of capitalism and don’t think it’s possible for “offering a person tuition/money to get injured for entertainment” to be anything but coercive, especially if said person is poor and belongs to a disadvantaged class.

    Hell, I am a fan of capitalism* and I think it’s a fucked up system. Also, at colleges, they’ve totally set it up to make the tuition-paying students resent the players, rather than the administrators or the coaches on $2M per year salaries. It follows the old model of wealthy whites encouraging the poor whites to resent black people, rather than the parasitic aristocracy.

    *As you can probably tell from the rest of my statements, I am also a fan of socialism. I don’t find the two mutually exclusive, and I think unfettered capitalism ultimately leads to monopolies that defeat the whole point.

  70. gmacs says

    Reading the story, I would say it’s not an isolated incident. A lot of the stuff those guys are accused of doing is something I personally witnessed in the locker room when I played high school hockey. The “boys will be boys” mentality is toxic and dangerous to absolutely everyone.

  71. Vivec says

    @79
    I can’t say I’m familiar with what a utile is, aside from a kind of tree.

  72. rietpluim says

    Nathair – Of course, you first offered a very dramatic example… I wonder why?

  73. Nathair says

    “Nathair – Of course, you first offered a very dramatic example… I wonder why?” To illustrate the stupidity of your sweeping statement.

    …and you still haven’t addressed the point. Why would we not penalize, disincentivize or discourage such choices?

  74. flange says

    I’m for eliminating all team sports (football, basketball, baseball) from high school and college for health and education reasons.
    Let the NFL and NBA start and pay for their own athletic-college farm teams and athletic “scholarships.”

  75. says

    @vivec

    You keep using the word ‘coercive.’ That word doesn’t mean what you think it means because under no reasonable conception of that term can our societal practices relating to football be consider ‘coercive’ as they do not place people in a choice situation in which A) there is only one rational option to avoid violence, 2) the participants are not of sound mind and judge (i.e. impaired, being poor and black is not an impairment) or 3) needed information that grossly changes the calculations is withheld. You either don’t know what the word means or your notion of it is so expansive that all choices are coerced.

    Now, our practices might be immoral, gross, unfair, or exploitative. That is an argument that we can have, but if you are going to contend a decision that not all people (of a given class) make despite being presented is coerced, than no there’s no point in arguing.

    @vivec, Bart, and anybody else being sarcastic about my use of utiles

    I’m typing this with as much condescension as I can muster because what you all just said to me was the normative ethics was equivalent to a creationist asking why are their still monkeys around if humans came from monkeys.

    Utile is a philosophical term of art for units of pleasure (or the mental state of being in pleasure). The term is used in normative ethics, economics and (rarely) political science. They are meant to be measurable, objective and if you are a utilitarian what a moral act will maximize. The are the opposite of disutiles, or a philosophical term for units of suffering (or the mental state of being in pain).

    Now, in the context of this conversation, how you measuring them and how they are actualized in physical reality is beside the point. It’s generally considered not problematic in conception that these things exist and can be (in theory) measured. In any case, I, and virtually every modern ethicist I know of, don’t see any problem of having the normative argument while granting them. If you disagree take it up with a utilitarian.

    What I was saying in my first post is this if you grant utilitarianism as atheists generally are want to do, our football practices are probably moral, that is justified, because the massive amount of pleasure generated by football (directly, indirectly and so forth) more than likely outweigh the significant amount of suffering. It’s an argument against banning football in lieu of reforming it.

  76. treefrogdundee says

    I can’t tell whether this is a serious suggestion or just some click-bait vomit. Do you seriously think banning a consensual activity between adults because an indirect effect of which is money and power for some wretched excused for human beings? I don’t give a rat’s ass about sportsball but this constant desire of some minority of the Progressive movement to dictate beliefs and personal conduct via law has skyrocketed them past the fundies as the largest hypocrites in the country. What in the fuck is wrong with some of you people?!

  77. Vivec says

    Now, our practices might be immoral, gross, unfair, or exploitative

    Alright, argument withdrawn. It’s not coercive, it’s immoral, gross, unfair, and exploitative.

    @vivec, Bart, and anybody else being sarcastic about my use of utiles

    I wasn’t being sarcastic, I legitimately was confused. When I googled it, I just got results about trees and spanish-to-english dictionaries. So, y’know, you can fuck off with that condescension.

    Either way, not actually interested in engaging with someone that opposes anti-doscrimination legislation (yeah, not letting that thread from march go, fuck off) so, yeah, don’t expect another response from me.

  78. says

    treefrogdundee@#88:
    I don’t give a rat’s ass about sportsball but this constant desire of some minority of the Progressive movement to dictate beliefs and personal conduct via law has skyrocketed them past the fundies as the largest hypocrites in the country. What in the fuck is wrong with some of you people?!

    Actually, I was suggesting that sportsball not be protected from certain forms of employment regulation that it has somehow avoided, and that it not be protected against liability for injuries sustained by employees or as a consequence of recklessness or negligence by the sportsball operators. It’s not a question of dictating belief, it’s a question in the form of “why do schools get away with treating students as unpaid labor for a lucrative and dangerous entertainment industry?”

    As I’ve repeatedly said, I also support consensual activity between adults. The relevant words being “consensual” and “adult”… A working definition of adult is one thing but consent – as we see over and over in human history – is not always as simple as “hey, I’ll give you $100,000 to bash your head against that wall.” Some individuals might find that offer so compelling <- see what I did there? that it's an offer that cannot be refused. Like getting your necktie stuck in a drillpress, consent pulls in the entire social justice debate as soon as you touch it.

    So, it's not as simple as you're trying to make it sound. Offering an economically underprivileged student a scholarship to a good school in return for being an entertainment toy and recipient of traumatic brain injuries is an entirely different question from making the same offer to a student that's living off a comfortable inheritance or trust fund. The question of informed consent is also skidded by: can you meaningfully consent to a life with brain injuries, when you're 19 and in excellent health with no experience of brain injuries? The cliff's notes version is that you can't consent to something you don't even understand.

  79. says

    Flange@#86:
    Let the NFL and NBA start and pay for their own athletic-college farm teams and athletic “scholarships”

    OMG you can’t do that. Because then the players would be employees and the whole “get them to work for free” scam falls apart. Worse, if a student employee suffers a crippling injury, would the sportsball companies still be able to say “we’re not liable”?

    Sportsball is exploitation. But, on the upside, you can get brain damage too! To be fair, most injuries are legs/knees/ankles, so let’s sweep them under the astroturf while we’re at it.

  80. says

    @vivec

    “I wasn’t being sarcastic, I legitimately was confused.”

    That I can believe because you in general don’t seem to know your ass from your elbow when it comes basic normative theory or political ideology. Case in point: you cited the 14th amendment, of all things, to argue that PRIVATE discrimination shouldn’t be allowed. This is despite that the 14th amendment has fuck all to do with non-state action.

    “Either way, not actually interested in engaging with someone that opposes anti-discrimination legislation (yeah, not letting that thread from march go, fuck off) so, yeah, don’t expect another response from me.”

    If you are going to bring it up at least get my position right. I was not arguing against all anti-discrimination law. Clearly, unequal treatment by the state is wrong and should not be allowed. Likewise, I probably do come down on most private discrimination being illegal because of the enforcement issue (i.e. the power of the state being applied unequally).

    What I was arguing was the limit of which racist behavior should be allowed by law, because clearly there is a sphere of racist behavior that ought to be protected because of, say, the freedom of association. Unless you think the state should compel racists to have black friends or see people of color romantically.

  81. Vivec says

    Anyways, yes, screw college and high school foot ball, for its (non-coercive) immoral, unfair, gross, exploitative practices.

  82. says

    @Marus Ranum

    “The question of informed consent is also skidded by: can you meaningfully consent to a life with brain injuries, when you’re 19 and in excellent health with no experience of brain injuries? The cliff’s notes version is that you can’t consent to something you don’t even understand.”

    And a 19 year old is precluded from understanding brain injuries because…? If you say that they have to experience brain injuries than informed consent is impossible for everyone regardless of anything else. First person experience is not needed for risk assessment.

    This smacks of agism.

  83. says

    @vivec, Bart, and anybody else being sarcastic about my use of utiles

    No need to become defensive. I asked a question. I think that is appropriate when a general dictionary search gives only one plausible explanation.

    Now that I do know, I disagree with the original statement. Assuming that Adolf Hitler and his brethren got numberless utiles from the holocaust is simply not a plausible defense for the suffering caused. The same is true for football. In my opinion, someone who defends an action because of the pleasure/advantages it brings, is monstrous.

  84. says

    @Bart

    *bangs head against desk*

    I am not assuming that football generates a shit ton of utiles. It clearly, clearly does. Have you seen a football game? Have you heard people talk about football? How much money we sink into the enterprise? Every single touch point I can think of demonstrates this. Nor am I wavering away the suffering it causes. What I am saying is, taking everyone into account the pleasure derived from football outweighs the suffering. Let’s assign numbers: pleasure caused by football = 100 u, suffering caused by football = -50 u, for a net gain of 50u making the practice justified.

    The holocaust is not a good counter example to this sort of reasoning because while yes the Nazi got a shit ton of utiles from murdering 12 million people those 12 million lost all expected utiles over their lives, plus all the disutiles that the murdering caused. It’s not plausible that the holcaust wasn’t net suffering.

    You might find this sort of reasoning monstrous, a lot of people do. But it’s (classical) utilitarianism, and it’s a very solid basis for godless morality. I’m not a utilitarian, ultimately, but I think it’s extremely helpful to combat such idiot notions as banning football.

  85. says

    I’m not a utilitarian, ultimately, but I think it’s extremely helpful to combat such idiot notions as banning football.

    No sane person would *ban* football. People should be allowed to harm themselves if they *know* that harm may occur.
    Any sane person would *withhold subsidies* for it. The time of panem et circenses is behind us, or it should be. Even if it isn’t, inflicting harm one some for the perverse pleasure of some others is abhorrent. One does not sacrifice another for someone’s pleasure. To me, that is an absolute, with only one exception: if the one being sacrificed could volunteer without being asked or even suggested, and only if he/it/she is in a demonstrably reasonably stable and sane frame of mind.

  86. vucodlak says

    @ Mike Smith, 96

    I’m not quite sure how assigning random values to actions is supportive of your point. I mean, by that line of reasoning, we should be torturing Muslims on live television. Given the strength of anti-Muslim hate in the United States right now, it would be a sure-fire hit. A whole lot of people would get off on it. Probably more “patriots” would enjoy that than there are Muslims in the U.S., so why not do it?

    And yes, I’m aware that I’m being an asshole. But when people engage in masturbatory exercises trying to quantify suffering, so that we can determine how much suffering it’s acceptable to inflict for the “greater good,” it really pisses me off.

  87. militantagnostic says

    Mike Smith @96

    This smacks of agism.

    As do the laws on age of consent. What it also smacks of is a knowledge of the reality of human brain development.

    vucodlak @98
    The Utility Monster turns out to be a monster. Colour me unsurprised.

    I wonder if Mike Smith’s Utilitarianism has led him to stop eating meat like Peter Singer, or to spending $20,000 on bednets like that guy from The Reality Check podcast. Or has it merely justified taking pleasure in the suffering of other human beings?

  88. says

    Mike Smith@#94:
    And a 19 year old is precluded from understanding brain injuries because…?

    I specifically said a 19 year-old without brain injuries – yes, it’s hard to consent to have an experience you haven’t experienced. That’s why there’s the whole question of “informed” consent versus, uh, the other kind. This is reflected in court cases where people’s ability to sign consent forms has been challenged. It’s an open question. It has to do with the question of whether an individual can understand and agree to something and how much they have to understand in order to agree.

    If you say that they have to experience brain injuries than informed consent is impossible for everyone regardless of anything else. First person experience is not needed for risk assessment.

    Understanding someone else’s experience is the crucial question about “informed” consent. You might want to read a bit about informed consent law and do a bit of thinking about it. It gets …. complicated, with all this “ask your lawyer” and doctors sitting down with patients and explaining things to them in great detail so they can make the best decisions. You’ve got to also worry about who can give honest advice to someone trying to decide what they consent to – a sportsball business’ recruiter probably can’t “inform” a prospective player about the health hazards of taking the job; they would be encouraged to have their own attorney or advisors assist them.

    I was trying to avoid having to write big wads about legalese and instead to encourage people to think about consent. Because thinking about consent is a crucial part of the problem. Yes, if a prospective sportsballer was informed about the kind of injuries they might suffer, and their consequences, including whether or not the sportsball team was going to compensate them for injuries, etc – they might think harder. They might just sign. Young people join the military, too, in spite of the rather obvious potential health consequences of that choice.*

    This smacks of agism.

    You’re reaching pretty far there, to try to score a fairly small point, don’t you think?
    I threw 19 years in there because it’s 1 year more than the “age of consent” and majority. If it’s “ageism” it’s society’s, not mine.

    (* I did! And I was 19! So am I being ageist?)

  89. Meg Thornton says

    I read the linked article, and was vaguely sickened. Part of me wants to go “gods, US football culture is TERRIBLE” – but another part is very quick to point out the various football cultures here in Australia[1] aren’t much better. There have been reports of gang-bangs involving rugby union players, multiple drug scandals involving players of rugby league and AFL, lots of rape and harassment scandals involving players of all codes (including soccer) and so on.

    But it isn’t just confined to football – there’s scandals of the same kind around our cricketers, and our basketball players as well. We also get similar scandals over here involving prisoners, soldiers, police and fire-fighters as well. So maybe it’s a class thing? But no – because one of the other fertile grounds for breeding scandals of these kinds are our high-end residential colleges[2] at the major universities, mainly patronised by the scions of our upper classes (you get something similar in the USA with fraternities, don’t you?). So it’s not related to class, and it’s not related to sport per se. We also see a variant of the same thing occurring on the internet – it’s just that the expression is verbal, rather than physical.

    But it all appears to be strongly linked with firstly, the creation of an all-male (or majority-male) environment; secondly, the encouragement of “bonding” within this environment; and thirdly, a strong tendency to remove external oversight of the way this “bonding” may be performed.

    Which leaves me thinking we really need to do something about the way Western masculinity demands the creation of aggressively enforced hierarchies, where only the players most willing to aggressively assert their dominance through brutality, bullying, abuse and harassment retain the power. But in the meantime, one of the things we need to do is keep up a level of oversight on these spaces which will serve as a reminder that the sorts of internal cultures which depend on harassment, violence, physical assault, bullying and so on are not regarded as either civilised or socially useful. This means things like creating things like codes of conduct (linking to another thread from this site) and enforcing them. It means having these codes of conduct be as blunt as saying “if you do something which is against the law of greater society, we will ensure those laws are enforced” – and then following through on this, no matter how internally “valuable” the individuals who are in breach of the law may be.

    [1] We have multiple codes of football played, thus multiple football cultures.
    [2] A bit of context: in Australia, a university education is not a residential experience, and the vast majority of university students will be either living at home with their parents, or sharing a group house with a few friends. While all our universities have residential facilities attached, the main users of these tend to be either students from rural backgrounds, or students from overseas. The residential colleges, meanwhile (such as Wesley, St Johns, Trinity etc) tend to be private institutions loosely affiliated with the “best” universities (here in Western Australia, the colleges tend to be affiliated with the University of Western Australia – our “Big 8” candidate) and largely attended, as I mentioned, by the privately educated sons and daughters of the well-to-do (or wannabe well-to-do).