[ExI] Pistorius

[Tomasz Rola]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2012, Dave Sill wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
> 
> > As far as I can tell, sport has two aspects about itself:
> >
> 
> I think there are more than just these two...

I think there are many aspects of every thing, but I, being ignorant in 
every domain other than how to waste time without a trace, prefer to 
reduce problem so as not to sound like a complete idiot. And even then 
results are disputable... :-)

> > 2. Competitive one, where "guys" want to be the first because it gives them
> > lots of money, their sponsors can bet and earn even more.
> 
> 
> There are lots of competitive athletes who want to be first just because
> they have competitive spirit. The two sports in which I compete, autocross
> and rowing, are strictly amateur. Cheating is pretty uncommon because
> there's not big money at stake.

Oh well, I have heard of competitive spirit. I could argue this belongs to 
heroic-popular part, but this would be cheap, because the truth is, it 
didn't come to my mind while I was writing about sports. Last time I 
thought about it, was while watching some guys doing breakdance. Last time 
I felt something like this, was during algorithmic competition year ago 
(cheating happened but poor cockbusters have been eradicated).

But sport, uh, it did not connect with the idea in my head. I know this 
tells a lot about my cynicysm and hurts a lot of people who get in just 
for the love of it. Perhaps it even tells a bit about sport itself. IMHO, 
the gap between pro and amateur sport is big and growing, it's just very 
inconvienient to show this openly, so it stays behind the scene. Of 
course, the gap is not equally big in every discipline. And in pro-future, 
there is going to be lots of enhancements of every kind. Pistorius case is 
just a very benign start of it. In a way, ideals of "citius, altius, 
fortius" will stay there (and enhancements will be introduced in the name 
of those ideals). Myself, I would really like to go and enjoy thriathlon 
from the inside, but this is not going to happen before I become a 
cyborgized (and supercharged) me. So, what kind of spirit drives me, I 
sometimes wonder. Either vanity or competitive spirit...

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **