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Manchu wrote: Still think the term authoritarian needs to be considered more critically here. Since this is Dakka, let me use analogies to game IPs.
We are accustomed to thinking about authoritarianism in the style of 40k, where the state demands obedience on a unilateral, vividly ideological basis. The Imperium is the obvious example: the alleged destiny of humanity to rule the galaxy requires that all humans totally submit to the authority of the human state (which is inextricably the human nation, "the people"/das Volk). This is, more or less, Nazism. Although not (explicitly) racist, the Tau work on the same principle: the Greater Good similarly requires any conceivable sacrifice, of which unflinching, zealous devotion is simply the most fundamental. Although they look and feel very different, the Imperium and the Tau are in this sense cut from the same authoritarian cloth.
Authoritarianism is not, however, limited to an archly ideological/coercive approach. In Rick Priestley's new game Beyond the Gates of Antares (which I understand is influenced by Ian M. Banks's Culture novels), the most powerful societies are managed by networks of advanced AIs called IMTels. The IMTel constantly mines the population for data to inform its calculations of the best possible social outcomes. As opposed to the style of authoritarianism discussed above, obedience to the IMTel does not require any active ideological commitment much less fervor. There is no great struggle narrative. The IMTel is not revered like the cult of the Emperor/der Führer or some sacred concept like the Greater Good/the Master Race, etc. Rather, the people of IMTel societies totally and largely unconsciously buy into the concept that the IMTel's calculations are indeed perfect, or at least nearly so ("best possible" - something like how Churchill deemed democracy the worst kind of government, besides all the others), and therefore buy into the authority of the IMTel.
Even IRL I think many people would struggle to see a problem with the second style, while almost everyone would immediately recognize how sinister the first style is. Apart from the near constant fearful/derogatory cultural reference to Nazism in Western societies, this is probably because the second style (a) doesn't require anything active from the individual and (b) the individual can read whatever they want into the notion of "best possible" outcomes. It's also self-reinforcing: the more you accept that the IMTel is right, or in IRL, the experts, bureaucrats, etc. are right, the more you also accept that the IMTel will manage society in a way that is best for you - and vice versa.
No doubt, the article to hand is running up the red flag as to the first style. But to the extent that is on the rise, I think it is because we are already firmly entrenched in the second style. When you read what neo-Nationalists, especially young people, have to say - and yes it is pretty crudely articulated a lot of the time - you start to see that they are using the language of mid-twentieth-century fascism but what they really object to is the IRL equivalent of IMTel.
Interesting take Manchu. To use similar game IP, where does the concept of the Mega-Corp fit in with this idea? I see it falling on the IMTel side of things?
In essence, does the corporationization of the workforce feed into a natural IMTeL like response to decision making? Does this play a factor in the rise of Authoritarian thinking?
Edit: I heard the old greek Prime Minister talking about why the referendum on the Greek Bail-outs. I think it is here:
The Reaction to Brexit Is the Reason Brexit Happened
To me that reads more as an appeal to a technocracy than an appeal to authoritarianism, which your previous post rather cleverly distinguished.
And yeah, I disagree with Brexit and believe it will cause long term economic harm to England, but that's what the people decided, and so that's what they should get. Democracy is more important than making sure every decision is 'correct', and that's before we even consider the possibility that the elites aren't always correct.
Oh, and that Andrew Sullivan essay is worth reading, just as an example that shows if a person is fairly smart and creative, then they can convince themselves of just about anything. Sullivan decided from the get go that Trump's nomination could not possibly have any roots in anything conservative elites did, so instead he invented this grand story in which sometimes this unruly mob just does something completely out of the blue. He writes endlessly on that, and if you read between the lines you can actually start to see his sub-conscious determination to the never ever think about how just possibly the race baiting and conspiracy mongering that the Republican party flirted with in might just have possibly produced a base that was happy to nominate a guy who just loved race baiting and engaging in conspiracy nonsense.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
sebster wrote: To me that reads more as an appeal to a technocracy than an appeal to authoritarianism, which your previous post rather cleverly distinguished.
To me, what you seem to mean by "technocracy" is just a more efficient approach to achieving the basic authoritarian vision of society. Mass movement authoritarianism, like from the 1930s, requires a huge amount of energy input from its participants. Passive acceptance of the regime is not enough. The state/party requires active, willful self-transformation. But the post-WW2 style makes no such demands - let the IMTel take care of everything because it knows best, after all.
Easy E wrote: To use similar game IP, where does the concept of the Mega-Corp fit in with this idea? I see it falling on the IMTel side of things?
Yeah I think you are correct. Historically, we're talking about an approach to power that grew out of the "military-industrial complex."
Easy E wrote: In essence, does the corporationization of the workforce feed into a natural IMTeL like response to decision making? Does this play a factor in the rise of Authoritarian thinking?
Yes absolutely - even at the most fundamental levels, such as how we perceive time. The visual embodiment of the year is a set of blank nesting rectangles that are entirely fungible with one another (i.e., a standard calendar), for example, rather than some image emphasizing the unique, irrepeatable character of each moment.
Manchu wrote: To me, what you seem to mean by "technocracy" is just a more efficient approach to achieving the basic authoritarian vision of society. Mass movement authoritarianism, like from the 1930s, requires a huge amount of energy input from its participants. Passive acceptance of the regime is not enough. The state/party requires active, willful self-transformation. But the post-WW2 style makes no such demands - let the IMTel take care of everything because it knows best, after all.
Technocracy doesn't necessarily mean authoritarian. It can, and there's always a danger of it, but they aren't tied at the hip. Here's the thing, unless you believe in direct democracy down to the level of having a vote to determine if a street should be upgraded with a roundabout or a traffic light, then you have to allow some level of decision making from the bureaucracy. And its fairly intuitive and obvious that you are likely to get better decision making from people who are trained and experienced specialists in an area, than by asking the general public what they'd prefer.
So the question becomes one of extent, how much is democracy important in and of itself, compared to the cheaper and simpler (and often more correct) process of allowing experts to decide?
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
The IMTel metaphor was meant to convey that there is also an authoritarianism of passive deference to experts - and it is not hypothetical, like the spectre of fascism. Your last post, for example, is fairly steeped in it.
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Manchu wrote: But I never claimed that they are the same?
The IMTel metaphor was meant to convey that there is also an authoritarianism of passive deference to experts - and it is not hypothetical, like the spectre of fascism. Your last post, for example, is fairly steeped in it.
And my point is that it isn't a binary state. We don't choose between;
1) Absolute direct democracy in all things up to and including whether we should install a roundabout or a traffic light.
2) Passively accepting the decisions of experts in all things.
We take a middle ground between those two things. If the Dept of Infrastructure builds a new road plan and says that given expected traffic a roundabout will be fine, you just roll with it. But if the State Dept says that we need to go to war with some other country, well then you challenge that if you think it's wrong.
Obviously if we cede too much power then IMTel metaphor starts to become a reality. But there's little to no evidence of that. Major decisions are still decided at the ballot box.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Again, you're arguing against a point no one made.
What I laid out is more or less the social manifestation of the appeal to authority. This is a self-evidently authoritarian impulse - and yet I think many are quite blind to it because the word for them is really just a matter of sentiment: a painstakingly cultivated distaste for anything that looks or sounds like Nazism. And that's exactly why such a movement actually materializing in any meaningful way is so implausible. But the power and prestige of the expert is by contrast already firmly in place. It's not a matter of some immenent erosion of popular participation and skepticism of democracy; we are already in the midst of those phenomena.
Also, I think there's a key difference between actual authoritarianism and the "trust the experts" society. The defining element of authoritarianism is that the government takes away your freedom. You want to do something, but the state uses its overwhelming power to tell you that you can't. That's very different from a situation where most people acknowledge that the experts know best and voluntarily give up control so they don't have to deal with the problem themselves. There's no longer the same element of coercion involved, even if the end result is still a powerful government.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Peregrine, I considered that distinction but ultimately found it empty because the experience of being acculturated is non-voluntary. Returning to our sci fi examples, the people of IMTel societies see no rational objection to their way of life - the only reason someone would not voluntarily submit is because they are either themselves irrational or else immoral. In either case the deviant must be taken in hand. The people of the IMTel societies never chose to see things this way; they were "taken in hand" too, since birth.
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Manchu wrote: Peregrine, I considered that distinction but ultimately found it empty because the experience of being acculturated is non-voluntary. Returning to our sci fi examples, the people of IMTel societies see no rational objection to their way of life - the only reason someone would not voluntarily submit is because they are either themselves irrational or else immoral. In either case the deviant must be taken in hand. The people of the IMTel societies never chose to see things this way; they were "taken in hand" too, since birth.
But then that same argument applies to every society, regardless of how it is structured. You didn't choose where to be born or how "normal" would be defined for your life, so even a "free" society would be "authoritarian" since you didn't voluntarily decide to live by that concept.
Now, your statement of "the deviant must be taken in hand" hints that IMTel might in fact be an authoritarian society. But if so it's because of suppressing dissent by force and removing choices that people want to make, not the fact that the government makes a lot of the decisions for society.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
It's not true of every society, historicaly. Mass media technology - and Iam talking about techniques (such as advertising) as much as any machine - have made social engineering into an omnipresent fact, whereas only a century ago such things were largely the dreams of eccentrics. To give just one example: We chewed over the Chinese loyalty rating, designed to turn everyone into a secret police agent of the state, and for a few of us it prompted a realization that our own credit score system is none too innocuous ... but that point was lost on many. Such systems, even if we are hardly aware of them excersice massive leverage over us in a novel way - it is not the equivalent of merely being from a certain time and place, just the same as every person who has ever existed.
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Manchu wrote: What I laid out is more or less the social manifestation of the appeal to authority. This is a self-evidently authoritarian impulse
Except, you know, there is actually value in the expert. Trusting an economist on the impacts of a trade deal is as inherently as authoritarian as trusting a doctor on what your MRI is showing.
There is, potentially, a point at which too much power might be ceded to experts. One possible example would be the calls for the Brexit referendum to be ignored because experts said it was a mistake... but of course that's a hypothetical because it didn't happen - Brexit is going ahead as people decided. But of course that's a hypothetical example, as you'll notice nothing came of that and it was never a real thing, basically a handful of commentators trying to make sense of a major and unexpected change.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/07/01 07:17:50
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Manchu wrote: What I laid out is more or less the social manifestation of the appeal to authority. This is a self-evidently authoritarian impulse
Except, you know, there is actually value in the expert. Trusting an economist on the impacts of a trade deal is as inherently as authoritarian as trusting a doctor on what your MRI is showing.
There absolutely is value in experts. Experts should be listened to and their observations taken into consideration when making decisions. Experts have been shown to be compromised in the past however, through bias, corruption or even just error.
Currently, our experts are funded by groups who may not have our interests at heart. There was resistance in the scientific community to Brexit because of concerns regarding funding. That's their livelihood and they are entitled to that concern but it's important to recognize that self interest before declaring 'our smartest people want to stay!'
The Irish have a rebel song (and why wouldn't we) which goes as follows:
We're on the one road, sharing the one load, we're on the road to God-knows-where,
We're on the one road, maybe the wrong road, but we're together now- who cares?
The idea that self determination and democracy are far more important than certainty and stability or being 'right' is the whole principle behind Brexit and other movements which reject efforts to control people through outside influence or a core of elites.
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I think we've lost sight of the original discussion.
While it's an interesting exercise to think about the role of experts/cult of the expert in society, not every appeal to authority is equivalent to authoritarianism in politics/political system. You Credit rating might have huge sway on your ability to get a loan, but it's not the byproduct of an authoritarian process. It's just a byproduct of a whole bunch of economic risk assessment processes. It's not really what the OP article was talking about, and I don't think it's something most people would call authoritarian in a political sense. This is a whole other topic.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/07/01 11:58:46
Well, it could be argued that Authoritarian systems and societal pressures (such as credit score) outside of government are eroding people's awareness of authoritarian structures and therefore ability to resist them in the political sphere.
Regarding the OP. I did say it was Hyperbolic.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/07/01 13:21:39
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LordofHats wrote: You Credit rating might have huge sway on your ability to get a loan, but it's not the byproduct of an authoritarian process. It's just a byproduct of a whole bunch of economic risk assessment processes.
Risk assessment processes designed by the powerful and wealthy which systematically class the weak and the disenfranchised as undesirable and thus give them low credit scores. It's widely accepted because it's just the way things are. Of course a privately operated bank has the right to ensure that its loans are not only repaid but profited from. Nobody thinks about how this isn't the inevitable function of natural laws but rather the end result of a long line of decisions made by the powerful and motivated by their self-interest.
This is the neoliberal consensus, the so-called end of history, to which its proponents will boldly state that there are no alternatives.
Rosebuddy wrote: This is the neoliberal consensus, the so-called end of history, to which its proponents will boldly state that there are no alternatives.
Exactly so. IMTel is the sci-fi analog to this concept. To be clear, we're not talking about asking a doctor to check you out when you feel sick. We're talking about semi-spontaneous mass shaming of anti-vaxxers. (Please note, I am not against vaccinations - the fact that I feel compelled to spell that out to avoid criticism is actually an example of what I'm talking about.)
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=Angel= wrote: There absolutely is value in experts. Experts should be listened to and their observations taken into consideration when making decisions. Experts have been shown to be compromised in the past however, through bias, corruption or even just error.
Currently, our experts are funded by groups who may not have our interests at heart.
Of course, there's nothing saying that people should just meekly accept the opinions of an expert. Not just because of the possibility of corruption, but more because expertise doesn't mean infallibility, and often groupthink in technical circles can lead to bad theories, and in other cases technical answers can dismiss real human impacts - look at the austerity disaster across Europe, which was both stupid economics and quite heartless.
I feel like I've been characterised as arguing for some kind of pure technocracy, but I'm not. I'm simply saying that respect of expertise is a good thing, and the delegation of lower level decision making to experts is a necessary thing.
There was resistance in the scientific community to Brexit because of concerns regarding funding. That's their livelihood and they are entitled to that concern but it's important to recognize that self interest before declaring 'our smartest people want to stay!'
Just as an aside, we shouldn't confuse 'expert' with 'generally clever kind of person'. A guy could be a world leader in astro-physics, but his opinion should carry just as much weight in national decision making on Brexit as the guy at pub who never buys his round. A person needs to not only be smart, but actually be an expert in the area being discussed.
I liked that rebel song, that was cool. Thanks for posting that. I don't even know how to sing it but I'm humming it in my head.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
sebster, I think to some extent we're talking past one another ... I am certainly not arguing that any time we rely on the skills and talents of a certain person in the applicable moment we are therefore also throwing away our freedom
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I liked that rebel song, that was cool. Thanks for posting that. I don't even know how to sing it but I'm humming it in my head.
It's quite a bouncy, catchy tune. It's also relentlessly optimistic about the future- something that can be seen in both Brexit and the Trump campaign.
Unfortunately removing power from elites and restoring proper representation isn't an easy ride, though I'll take political and social resistance any day over the bloody fighting my fore-bearers endured.
Manchu wrote: sebster, I think to some extent we're talking past one another ... I am certainly not arguing that any time we rely on the skills and talents of a certain person in the applicable moment we are therefore also throwing away our freedom
Yeah, I think it's likely we're talking past each other.
It's quite a bouncy, catchy tune. It's also relentlessly optimistic about the future- something that can be seen in both Brexit and the Trump campaign.
Unfortunately removing power from elites and restoring proper representation isn't an easy ride, though I'll take political and social resistance any day over the bloody fighting my fore-bearers endured.
Cheers, I'll play that when I get home tonight.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/07/04 03:14:31
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Easy E wrote: Here is a hyperbolic story about how Brexit is a sign that Liberal Democratic values are beginning to fail with regular citizens in the "West".
However, this little factoid struck me as deeply concerning....
Across most countries in North America and Western Europe, voters have grown deeply dissatisfied with the political class. For a rapidly growing number, this dissatisfaction with particular leaders has started to transform into an actual rejection of democratic institutions. Across North America and Western Europe, the number of citizens who say that it is important to live in a democracy is shrinking. At the same time, the number of citizens who are open to making their countries more authoritarian is rising.
This trend is especially striking in the United States. Two decades ago, 1 in 16 Americans believed that Army rule would be a good way to run the country. Today, it is 1 in 6. The picture is even bleaker among the young and affluent: Support for military rule in this group has increased nearly sixfold, from 6 percent to 35 percent.
Well, is it truly the beginning of the end for Liberal Democracy as its own citizens begin to turn away from it as an effective form of government?
Two decades ago, we hadn't been at war for 16 years straight. Just a little food for thought. There are more COMBAT veterans in the United States since the Vietnam War. Furthermore our veterans are no longer getting crapped on by the population regularly and the war was viewed for the most part as justified (Don't care about your conspiracy theories, shovem somewhere pretty).
Furthermore, the US is over run with entitled youths who think the government should be omnipresent in every aspect of their lives, except of course for freedom of speech...but only if you agree with their philosophy and view points, otherwise violent suppression is warranted.
It would great if the U.S. moved away from giving away participation medals and went back towards greatness. You win or you lose. You work or you don't eat. simple concepts that have somehow gotten lost.
It would great if the U.S. moved away from giving away participation medals and went back towards greatness. You win or you lose. You work or you don't eat. simple concepts that have somehow gotten lost.
Yeah, let 'em starve. Stupid poors. This country was founded on the principal of 'you work or you don't eat', by God, and it's time that became our rallying cry once again! Hear that, little Timmy? Get back in the coal mine or no dinner for you! No free lunches in the good old USA, no sir, turf 'em out of those soup kitchens!
Okay, that might be a little sarcastic, but...dude. C'mon. What exactly are you railing against there?
SemperMortis wrote: It would great if the U.S. moved away from giving away participation medals and went back towards greatness. You win or you lose. You work or you don't eat. simple concepts that have somehow gotten lost.
You know what beats simple concepts? Simple realities. A simple reality like the fact that before the safety net was introduced the children of impoverished parents fething died. In other cases they survived but went it to adulthood with on-going medical problems and even with measurably reduced intelligence because of the poor diet they had during infancy.
These days a child in poverty still has a tough road ahead of them, but at least they'll probably get sufficient nutrition to avoid most of the severe lifelong issues, and they're very unlikely to actually before the age of 5.
So yeah, childhood poverty sucks and should be lessened as much as possible. I guess that's one of those simple realities that have somehow gotten lost.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/07/04 07:30:58
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
A kid who dies at five is a kid who will never have a chance to pull himself up by his bootstraps, or whatever the silly analogy reducing all success to a binary of financial gain is
LMAO, I make a comment about working in order to feed yourself and your family and you SJW types rush in with CHILD LABOR IS BAD!!
The mental gymnastics you guys have just pulled off is astounding.
Maybe instead of trying to twist anything that slightly disagrees with you, maybe take a moment to use rational thought and figure out what was said wasn't implying child labor, or that kids need to work in order to live.
Maybe, just maybe I was referring to healthy adults who have the ability to work to earn a wage in order to support their families, who instead choose to squeeze by on welfare and food stamps instead of just getting that job to support themselves.
Maybe, just maybe I was referring to our current cultural trend where we give out medals to kids participating in sporting events and not just to the winners or those handful of special awards like MVP. We are actually at a point where if a kids sports team or anyone in a competition is to successful they get kicked out of the league or fined so that the other teams don't have to feel bad about losing.
Trust me the list goes on and on, and it is absurd. When I was growing up my father was told he wasn't allowed to coach anymore unless he was willing to coach the other 3 teams at our hockey rink because the other parents were complaining about their kids losing to much to us. Instead of rewards the truly exceptional, we stunt them in order to make everyone feel special.
SemperMortis wrote: Maybe, just maybe I was referring to healthy adults who have the ability to work to earn a wage in order to support their families, who instead choose to squeeze by on welfare and food stamps instead of just getting that job to support themselves.
Now what happens if they decide not to work, no matter how much you want them to? Either you give in and feed them anyway, or you let them and their children starve. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge the inevitable consequences of your political positions does not mean that those consequences no longer exist.
Maybe, just maybe I was referring to our current cultural trend where we give out medals to kids participating in sporting events and not just to the winners or those handful of special awards like MVP. We are actually at a point where if a kids sports team or anyone in a competition is to successful they get kicked out of the league or fined so that the other teams don't have to feel bad about losing.
Ah yes, the classic complaining about "participation trophies". You do realize that these are games for small children, right? The point of the game is to have fun and get some exercise, not some kind of high-stakes contest to prove who the strongest survivors are. And three of your four examples involved cases of teams blatantly running up the score, long after the outcome of the game had been decided. Even in professional sports teams will often pull their starters out and keep the clock running once the score is a blowout with no realistic hope of the other team coming back. Continuing to play all-out competitively when your team is up by 150+ points is a sign of poor sportsmanship.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Maybe, just maybe I was referring to healthy adults who have the ability to work to earn a wage in order to support their families, who instead choose to squeeze by on welfare and food stamps instead of just getting that job to support themselves.
Then say that. What you said really doesn't have any means to distinguish itself from "get that job at the mill so you can earn your keep, Billy". I mean, that's a great way to distinguish winners and losers, right? See who has to work so Mom and/or Dad and/or Toddler Tim can eat? And you can forget about participation trophies. You either get to eat or you don't - or, wait, could a participation trophy be a crappy fast food diet because the family can't afford/access better?
The mental gymnastics needed to separate "you win or you lose, you work or you don't eat" from somebody starving are pretty astounding.
Question - are there any actual numbers for healthy adults who can work for a family-supporting wage but choose to live off of welfare instead? Or is it just one of those things that have to happen because I'm sure Dave down the street is doing it?
SemperMortis wrote: Maybe, just maybe I was referring to healthy adults who have the ability to work to earn a wage in order to support their families, who instead choose to squeeze by on welfare and food stamps instead of just getting that job to support themselves.
Yes, we know that's what you're referring to. And now extend some thought to that idea. Consider that many people who have no job or a poor paying job have children. Now, the person might have no job because they're lazy, ignorant, a drunk or whatever else... but why do their kids need to starve?
Do you get it now? Are you starting to figure that this 'every man stands alone' stuff just makes no fething sense, because we are all born dependent on either our parents or the state to provide for us during childhood?
Peregrine wrote: Ah yes, the classic complaining about "participation trophies". You do realize that these are games for small children, right? The point of the game is to have fun and get some exercise, not some kind of high-stakes contest to prove who the strongest survivors are. And three of your four examples involved cases of teams blatantly running up the score, long after the outcome of the game had been decided. Even in professional sports teams will often pull their starters out and keep the clock running once the score is a blowout with no realistic hope of the other team coming back. Continuing to play all-out competitively when your team is up by 150+ points is a sign of poor sportsmanship.
The really insane part of all the nonsense about participation trophies is that once it gets explained as only applying to very young kids no-one has much of a problem with it. It'd be a very strange kind of lunatic who insisted that 8 year olds should play in fully competitive leagues.
But despite this kind of thing only applying to young kids, and no-one having a problem with that, the complaints about 'participation awards' roll on anyway. It's like the War on Christmas, it's such an important cultural battle that it doesn't matter one bit that it isn't actually true.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/07/05 03:57:57
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
