I tweeted this yesterday and ruffled some feathers based on the replies:
To clarify, I don't care what consenting individual adults do for money. I'm not against sports (though the aches in my body sometimes suggest I should be). I was a pole vaulter for 8 years, 4 at the collegiate level.
What I do care about is what passes for "entertainment" within the human species. Read Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature to learn how not so long ago people used to put cats in bags and burn them for "entertainment." Hangings were a family event. Torture was far more common along with slavery. At least today we try to pretend slavery isn't going on so much, but don't look too closely at the prison industrial complex or you might realize it still is.
The point remains that our circle of empathy has expanded. We care about wellbeing because we've moved higher up Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. When I see millions of people on social media talking about a fight, I have to wonder, is this much different than the Roman Colosseum—just more bread and circuses for those who long to be distracted?
I get that we're tribal creatures (which I think is our shared enemy), but I also think we can and should evolve. What if instead of meeting those primitive, competition-loving desires with physical acts of violence, we turn instead to competing intellects? What if we looked to Edutainment?
With that in mind, here's an example of what I prefer.
Milton Friedman was an intellectual prize fighter, TKO'ing people left and right with his mind, not his fists. Watch this video to see what I mean:
If someone says "the government should..." what they really mean is, "I don't think those people over there are doing their part and so we should threaten them with violent force until they do what I think they should do." Often, sadly, the actual result of these "solutions" are not analyzed in much detail.
The perception that "something is being done" becomes more important than actual action by individuals desiring to improve wellbeing.
At the same time, individualist voluntary thinkers like myself can also become blind to data outside our own ideology. Every problem becomes something we can blame on government. That becomes its own confirmation bias to overcome in order to see reality as it is and take proper steps to improve wellbeing.
So what are we to do? I think we should continually work to improve our epistemology and data collection via the scientific method. We should engage philosophy, improve our understanding of ethics and morality, and refine our pragmatic understanding of what wellbeing actually is. We also have to consider timescales beyond our immediate needs. Wellbeing is a measurement with a time-axis. Too much short-term thinking will lead to long-term despair.
So, no, I'm not against those who want to entertain themselves with sports or boxing or UFC fighting. I'm just looking to a future where, I think, we'll consider this primitive (and possibly detrimental) entertainment. I think we can level up, evolve, and do better. I'm just stating my opinions.
What do you think?
