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Comment by jakelazaroff | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotally, my wife’s school (UNC) had a rival (Duke). Temple That’s not weird or exceptional. There’s long Wikipedia article about rivalries between universities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_college_rivalries_in_t...

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Is that something that's just cultural in the community or is it something explicitly taught by university orientation/course work?

Those campuses are seeped in that rivarly. You'll hear chants, speeches, etc. It's a tradition.

To add on to this, I have a co-worker from a specific university who would not buy a car because it was a rival universities colour.

This person is ~30 years out of school, and the vehicle was an INCREDIBLE deal and exactly what the person was looking to buy (other than the colour).

The person never competed in sports and was a comp sci major. It runs deep for at many schools.

I chose my car color over my other preferred color (orange) for precisely this reason.

It’s fun to use little heuristics like this - and completely harmless considering the inconsequence of the decision. I know it doesn’t matter, but I can’t buy two cars, and I really could have gone either way. Is this really so far fetched?

My wife would not let me wear a tie with Michigan colors to a wedding. Michigan and (the) Ohio State are rivals; she grew up near but did not go to Ohio State.

It’s deep indeed.

They themselves might have cared, but damn if I wear a purple shirt in Seattle folks are like Go Huskies to me, to the point where I think twice about putting it on or wearing it outside the house. I could give a damn about sports or nationalism, but lots of other idiots do.

> idiots

Downvoted and reported, frankly. How can you do callously say something about this? You do realize sports fans are (for the most part) self aware of the inconsequence of a sports rivalry in the real world, right?

I apologize for triggering your sensitivities. But I implore you to look critically at the role that sports fans and fanaticism plays in our culture.

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/sports-fan-violence-factors...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_violent_spectator_inci...

http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/violent-sports-fans

I think it's a little unfair to call people idiots for something that's extremely hardwired into their brains.

That is why we go to great lengths to civilize ourselves. Sports fanaticism is a fetal nationalism. Maybe we should challenge our hardwired programming, it does seem to offer a lot of control in our actions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_hooliganism_in_the_Un...

Or maybe sport is a way to vent the natural hate off in a harmless way.

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