Comment by illumin8 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by illumin8 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The argument seems to mainly be: Sports are unpredictable, code is always predictable, so try to make your apps have the excitement of unpredictable experiences. Also, there is a lot of money in sports.

No thanks. I believe designers should strive for predictable experiences when it comes to product design. Unpredictability is the #1 reason why I get those evening phone calls from my 84 year old father-in-law who just saw a new message on his computer and doesn't know what to do...

Regarding the money aspect: Those of us that don't really like sports think it is pretty appalling that so much money is spent on mindless entertainment. In so many Texas towns young boys are being told they will never be men unless they play full contact football and sustain debilitating head injuries at an extremely young age. They spend their entire school life being forced by their parents to try and attain some unattainable dream of being a professional athlete, and being deprived of a good education and a healthy life.

Is this not a shame that our society places so much value on sports that we would destroy our kids lives to try and live our dreams through them? I choose not to contribute my money and energy to sports because there are many other things in this world that are much more deserving of my time.

You appear to have reduced "sports" to "American football". There are a lot of sports out there. Most of them do not come with risks of debilitating head injuries. Participating in sports is a great way for people to stay healthy, build confidence, be part of a team, etc. By and large they are a great thing for kids. I can't imagine how one would find data for this, but I imagine that the percentage of sports-loving parents who push their kids to be pro athletes is about zero.

Fair enough. My experience is probably colored by the fact that I got bullied by members of the football team in my high school, who were never punished because the football players could do no wrong. In fact, my friends and I were physically assaulted by several football players, which should be a criminal offense, but no punishment or suspension was ever given.

I learned at a very young age that society places too high a value on sports. Basically, it was reinforced by the school administration that it was perfectly fine for football players to bully computer nerds because sports were more important than computer science.

In my opinion, society needs to call these administrative authorities on this bullshit. At least I never listened to them and stuck with computers.

I've only become interested in team sports since my son started playing rugby at his school nere in the UK and actually I've been rather impressed at the positive impact it can have - he's learned a lot about self-discipline, confidence and teamwork that has definitely helped with his academic work.

So I've actually completely changed my views of what team sports can do - at the moment my son believes he can go to Harvard and play rugby for Scotland, both of are his ideas, why would I want to stop him? Indeed, the QC that my wife trained with as a devil did play for Scotland - so crazy career combinations are certainly possible!

There's a world of difference between an activity that encourages self-discipline, confidence, teamwork and other positive traits, and the circus that is American sports. "Varsity Blues" was practically a documentary. Other points about American football in particular (http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2778) are quite cogent.

Edit: a quick followup for clarification: the amount of money, attention and pure worship that sports get in America is appalling. Anytime you hear a story about some football player in high school beating someone up or raping someone and not being punished, you can probably take it as true, because that's just the status quo. As for the money, who knows how many promising students are never given the opportunity to excel because money that could have gone to better teachers was instead spent on sports. Don't even get me started on the culture of anti-intellectualism engendered by this society.

I appreciate this perspective and may change my mind when my son gets older. I would still stay away from contact sports if possible, but some sports like tennis, soccer, and baseball could be very rewarding.

Rugby in the UK has a rather odd relationship with elite education:

"Football is a gentleman's game played by ruffians, and rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentlemen."

NB I've seen a few rugby 7s games and they are awesome - even more athletic than normal rugby matches:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_sevens

It's fine if you don't like sports, though I think you're giving sports a pretty bad rep. Sure there maybe a few crazy Texas high schools but overall sports are doing a whole lot more good (team collaboration, weight loss, fun, etc..) for society and the people who play them then bad. Physical forms of entertainment have and will always be around, it's human nature; better football than the arena.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com