I mean... kinda? But most “sports” really are to a degree or another simulations or abstracts of principals of human conflict. Team sports are an analog to military combat, but is that inherently a bad thing? Why do sports “feel good?” Why do we enjoy winning? There is often no prize in non pro sports. There is usually only the knowledge that we did better than our personal best, or did better than the opposition. Team sports tend to dilute the first one. Generally non pro team sports don’t track personal metrics instead focusing on how well a team performed. In dodgeball- you’re often on a team, but every person is for themselves by and large. But it’s still interesting- all but one person on a team can be out and if that single person manages to beat the other team, their team celebrates the “shared” victory do they not?
Taking that a step further- we celebrate the victory of teams we don’t even have a part of at all. When “your” team wins the cup or championship- people commonly celebrate. Often these vents hold great emotional impact. People cry, get tattoos, remember it for years or decades plus. People celebrate, congratulate other team fans- the other day a game was on while I was eating dinner out, and after “his” team won a man ran through the parking lot screaming about how the other team sucked, how “his team” was so much better, how players on the other team sucked...
... and I wondered..? They suck? Could this man get on the game surface with those players and contribute meaningfully? Is he competitive at their level? If he played one on one or got in most any physical contest with that player who “sucked” could he hope to win? Likely not. So then- this man would likely admit that he sucks far worse than the guy he is saying sucks... but he is celebrating a victory because some other guy he chose to like sucks less than the guy who sucks far less than him? It’s kind of nonsense when you think about it. It’s one thing to celebrate the success of a good friend, but this is a total stranger. Every time someone gets a promotion at a company somewhere does this guy run around whooping about it? Doubtful.
Yet in the case of dodgeball- the first person out still celebrates victory with the team if even one other person manages to go the distance, largely and likely independent of their efforts on most cases of non professional or organized dodgeball. The lesson there is a very basically human one. “A rising tide raises all ships.” If one from “your group” succeeds, it’s a victory for your group. Most democrats or republicans will cheer when one of their own is elected to office even though they are not directly involved simply because they know that it is a victory by association.
There is a very human impulse to wanting to “be better” than others and show it. In wanting to prove your strength and ability especially in public view. It’s also classically human that the way to do that isn’t through individually excelling but through subjugating another. That’s why most sports are played against an opponent.
Imagine a Gabe if soccer where there are two soccer fields identical and back to back. Each field only has one team. Instead of trying to score against the other team- each team instead tries to score the most goals as possible against an undefended field. The physical prowess, coordination, and endurance to run and kick and repeat is still there but now the enemy is yourself. The game is now only about being as accurate and fast and consistent as you are capable of, and you’re goal is to do better than yourself and work as a team as efficiently as possible. Sounds like boring crap huh?
That’s the thing right? It’s just not the same if we aren’t watching a person beat another. It’s not the same without the aggression of head to head contest. Look at sports aimed towards individual betterment and see the list of sports that just aren’t very popular to spectators. Those few exceptions tend to be panel judged subjective events such as skateboarding or ice dancing where there is a clear spectacle.
Compare that a sport like auto racing, where single car time trials will often exhibit a greater lap time (where drafting is prohibited or a non factor,) but haven’t gained much traction outside of rally racing which is a rare exception and perhaps a case of man vs nature.
The deeper truth may perhaps be one of gratification. A sport like power lifting where personal records are the guiding star is one where problems are solved off the field and not on it. Likewise- time trials in auto racing are similar. The training and set up before the trial, the memorization and visualization of the line around the track have largely determined the outcome before the start. At a pro level it is almost never the case where a driver will simply show up and mid lap have a revelation about a static track which will grant any vast improvement. Certain conditions like temperature etc as well as people having “off days” will create variance- but not magnitudes of order to night and day where a pro driver will suddenly figure out mid race how to shave 5 second off their fastest record on a 1.5 mike track.
So if we view this competitive spirit in less a light of our need to feel superior to another and more as the feeling of superiority an effect... Look at it as a need to solve puzzles. It’s all a puzzle. On a dynamic field things are ever changing. Competitors must adapt to new situations as they compete. The puzzle is to achieve the victory conditions of the sport and a combination of tactics, strategy, and application of force within the bounds of the rules are the tools they have. When the dynamic change is being imparted by another human being it introduces several elements. There is now a theoretically equal intellect and ability conspiring against them which they must anticipate and adapt to. That increases the difficultly and decreases predictability in theory. Even FPS style games incorporate this active puzzle solving. One must use their tools, environment, and knowledge of the enemy to solve for where the enemy might be and how to best eliminate them while avoiding the same.
These are examples of puzzles we get to see play out and we get to see being solved as opposed to ones where months or years of wok away from view went in to solving them. An untrained athlete doesn’t simply walk in to a power lifting competition and take the gold as an average occurrence. No one gets under a bar and suddenly figures out how to go from never having attempted a lift to lifting 4x their own weight. The “puzzle” is a diet and exercise program. It’s simply sticking to a formula that is well established with dedication for years and hoping you have the genetics to be the best.
While these factor in to other athletic sports- they aren’t the key factors. The dynamic nature of the game field, the number of different people involved and integral to success, the team dynamic all introduce variables which make it so that while extensive training and dedication are prerequisites, and genetics is often a key determining factor, that there is still a strong element of chance that requires specific and observable strategy.
So I wouldn’t say that sports on the whole is some sort of primitive enterprise- the element we often overlook is that at our core people tend to enjoy puzzles, but we also tend to enjoy puzzles we can understand. Few weekend cross work players would be thrilled to sit in front of classic unsolved Theorems of mathematics. So if the level of puzzle we are capable of understanding is a dynamic puzzle of force- we will gravitate to that ends I suppose.
@betterthanyou- I don’t have an accessibility functions enabled- so I can’t actually hear any of this. I have to read it. But more over I just like discussing things. In this case there wasn’t so much a point as an idea, and that led to ideas so I followed those here. Now they are there should anyone want to discuss, analyze, or dispute them.
If there was, I doubt they’d enforce it. I mean- people have posted straight up pornography here, not to mentions rules on water marks or lesser conventions like codes of conduct for language or treatment of other users. It would really only be an issue if there was spam or something. As it stands- if a single user chain replies their own comment, theres no great difficulty in simply not reading it if one isn’t inclined. The format of the site is such that it doesn’t really prohibit others from using the site of one does reply to their own comment, so the priority of such a modification would seem rather low.
Except it is somewhat difficult to sort through several posts in a long column of posts if your trying to reply to someone other than the chain-poster. (maybe more annoying than difficult).
Also, the format of the site is such that it has a relatively small character limit per comment, which is usually put in place to avoid walls of text.
Also, the format of the site is such that it has a relatively small character limit per comment, which is usually put in place to avoid walls of text.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/dodgeball-dangerous-stop-ubc-professor-1.5161403