[extropy-chat] Mature rationality

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Trend Ologist <trendologist at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Can either of you tell me what is rational concerning
> sports? Even the most trained pro football or hockey
> player for example risks seriously damaging their
> health, or being crippled. Boxers have been killed by
> a single punch. Though many pros make millions per
> year they can augment their health insurance with,
> does it appear rational they would want to take the
> ever-present risk of harming their tendons joints
> bones,  in merely chasing a little ball or puck around
> a field? Is it rational for them to face excruciating
> pain, even for a short while?

Some find pain addictive, and some find the 'second wind' addictive.
Still others revel in adulation of fans, or in having set a world
record, or in just maintaining oneself in peak physical condition.

Having broken my back in a skiing accident at age 19, I can attest to
this. I can categorically say that all the time I spend skiing, and ski
racing, in the years before and since that accident outweigh by
lightyears the pain I endured for a few months then and occasionally do
now when I overextend myself.

Looking forward to medical advances to prevent me from eventually
contracting arthritis in that area of my back is no less rational than
looking forward to nanotech to save my frozen corpsicle.

>  
> Is it rational for fans to become hysterical and riot
> after sports events?

No, it isn't. But it does add excitement to what would otherwise be an
incredibly dull life in some dull job and dull family and dull
community in a dull nanny-state that wants to take care of you from
cradle to grave (except of course when you are getting mugged). That
such individuals have been bred that way by a pathetic public education
system, and public welfare system is another issue entirely, but
irrational government will create an irrational society.

=====
Mike Lorrey
Chairman, Free Town Land Development
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                         -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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