Don't you just hate when....

Mightymic · Post by **Mightymic** » 15 Nov 2005 20:06

fingerboarding is my favirote sport in the world

Pascal · Post by **Pascal** » 15 Nov 2005 20:24

The cultural definition is important, but the only problem with it is that as far as I know, it can't be concisely written down. Given a "brand new" activity, it isn't clear how to apply the cultural definition to classify it as a sport or not.

As for foosball, I believe it requires physical exertion and so personally I have no problem calling it a sport. But I don't think that just because an activity is exhausting means that it requires physical exertion. If I solve math problems in my head all day, I will be exhausted from the intense concentration, but it does not require any physical effort.

Lastly, the thing I don't like about

A sport is a competitive event in which the dominant determinant of the outcome is skill

is that it would classify things such as: Scrabble, Tic-Tac-Toe, trivia-based games, test-taking, and scientific research all as sport, which seems like a bit of a broad classification.

Heh, I'm happy we all agree that footbag is a sport.

shredzilla · Post by **shredzilla** » 15 Nov 2005 20:49

Yeah, like everything else in life there is a whole spectrum for any given topic. Football is probably on one end of the sport spectrum, and I don't know, Texas Hold 'Em on the other. Footbag is a sport, and it'll be neat when everyone recognizes it. It's kinda wild to hear people talk about it like my friends or my boss after I've schooled em on it. It's a neat feeling just to hear them say 'Footbag'.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 15 Nov 2005 22:13

Might I also add that I found Switchkicker's orginal post crude, vulgar, unnecessary and offensive. I don't want to hear talk like that again, OK? I don't care if you think it's just a joke, I think it's sick. Stop talking violently, it's completely unecessary.

Back on topic:

I wouldn't have a problem with Scrabble being called a sport... it just seems a bit of an insult to call it a game when there are people that play it professionally.

Pascal · Post by **Pascal** » 15 Nov 2005 22:40

You're right, the word game is often used to trivialize something, maybe because we associate games with children or something. I wonder how top ranked scrabble players feel about it. Those guys (and girls) are super impressive.

Slowsis · Post by **Slowsis** » 15 Nov 2005 23:17

Mightymic wrote:fingerboarding is my favirote sport in the world

Kickflip(no pullback) backside Noseblunt slide on a dictionary! Can you test?!?
Sorry...so off-topic.

Footbag is a sport because i sweat while i do it, I'm tired when i'm done and it builds my physical capacity!!!!!
To me its the notion of physical exertion that seperates sports from non-sports.

If i can do it while hungover.......it also is not a sport.

Tsiangkun · Post by **Tsiangkun** » 16 Nov 2005 10:56

Pascal wrote: is that it would classify things such as: Scrabble, Tic-Tac-Toe, trivia-based games, test-taking, and scientific research all as sport, which seems like a bit of a broad classification.

Scrabble is a sport, like chess.

TicTacToe is a game where the outcome is predetermined. Two skilled players will always end in a a draw. The second player to go will never win a tic tac toe match against another experienced player, a draw is the best possible outcome. A sport requires that either team can win.

Trivia Based Games are chance events. You can study to increase the odds of knowing something, but ultimately it comes down to random luck of the cards.

Test Taking could be a sport. You have a timed event with everyone competeting on equal footing. The winners get money and scholarships, and the loosers get to ask if I want fries with that.

Scientific Research is not normally sport. The X-Prize is a good example of scientific research as sport, where the game was to achieve a goal within a set of rules, and teams of scientist competed for the top prize.

junkyardjew · Post by **junkyardjew** » 16 Nov 2005 12:56

I like this thread. Everyone turns into an asshole when we start talking about religion or abortion or whatever. Basically this discussion hinges on the same thing those ones do - definitions of words and values - but no one is being a dick about it. Its great!

Back on topic

I don't think that just because an activity is exhausting means that it requires physical exertion.

See now, I think that you have too narrow a view of what "physical exertion" is. You think that thinking is somehow external to your body, as if your mind was not a muscle that you exercise. Your brain may not contract when its thinking, but it expends energy - lots of it. In fact, your brain uses most of the oxygen and and energy (ie, ATP) that your body produces. I can't remember offhand how much (something like a third) but by energy use/volume of tissue its way way on top.

Pascal · Post by **Pascal** » 16 Nov 2005 15:05

What I think is even funnier is that this thread started out all pissed off and angry, and now it's not.

You're so right about the brain taking up lots of energy. As I said before, I think the debate boils down to what people consider physical exertion, and I don't think there is a clear definition. To make things worse, it's not like exertion is something that's either present or not. One hand of rock paper scissors may not count as physical exertion, but what about 10 rounds, or 100? (Heh, rock, paper, scissors reminds me of another debate I got into about whether the outcome is skill or chance)

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 16 Nov 2005 17:06

I think it's important to note that there are different kinds of sports.

For example something like darts does not require a huge amount of strength but it requires you to train your throwing arm to the point where you can very accurately throw something - this is definitely a physical skill that's needed for the sport. It doesn't mean you'll be exausted after a game all the time but that doesn't stop it from being a physical competition. Also darts is an official sport and recognised as such.

Were I to compete against John Walton in darts he would destroy me because he is physically in better condition than I am. Clearly sport is not about "physical exertion".

slapdash21 · Post by **slapdash21** » 16 Nov 2005 17:16

Pascal wrote:What I think is even funnier is that this thread started out all pissed off and angry, and now it's not.

thats because switch hasnt posted since the start

Bander87 · Post by **Bander87** » 16 Nov 2005 17:40

I heard the term E-Sport before for video games and such.

Switch Kicker · Post by **Switch Kicker** » 17 Nov 2005 10:56

... I agree with Adam... His whole post.

Someone Wrote: (Heh, forgot who I copied this from.)
"I get people all the time that think I'm playing hackeysack. I educate them in a friendly way, and tell them they can look up what it's all about on footbag.org. They say "Wow, you're really good." I say this is nothing compared to the guys that play it professionally. Then I tell them if they go on footbag.org"

Yea, I do this to. I'm usually very friendly when it comes to introducing people to footbag. What I was refering to were preppy football playing jocks that are complete assholes who don't actually care about the sport at all are simply trying to make a joke out of you by saying that "hackin'sack isn't a sport" along with other crude things that don't need to be said simply because what I'm doing isn't effecting them in anyway.

If a guy says hacky sack while in my circle, I don't stomp on his feet or anything, I simply just say, "It's actually called footbag.". And tell him why it's called that if he gives me a weird look or askes... I'm not some nameless asshole that I appear to be online, when typing, mroe bad comes out I guess. I've been trying to tone it down lately because I 'm finally noticing it. But yea. IMO, golf = boring, and not a sport.

If I'm going off on completely physical exersion... Golf isn't a sport, double badminton isn't a sport, baseball isn't a sport, video games in general are not sports. Dance Dance Revolution can be played with the hands in an effortless manner... You can make a device that makes it so that if you jump in real life, a device will press teh jump button on a controller, making it so that you have ot work your ass off in order to play a game. That's waht Dance Dance Revolution is, only you can make it work vice versa. By sitting on your ass, and smacking the required buttons when needed too. Not to mention you can also stand, and simply plop your feet where needed without actually dancing... DDR isn't a sport IMO, and does not REQUIRE physical exersion, but has the option for it.

Basically, if it hasn't been on ESPN, it's doesn't even count as a sport. Footbag has, football is, basket ball is. But just becuase it IS on ESPN, doesn't autumatically mean it is a sport IMO. Omg I'm bored with this topic already.

Right, well, a sport is a competition that requires physical exersion. Physical exersion is, well, we all know what that is. And v-games don't require physical exersion, especially Halo, meaning that Halo playing, is not a sport. Footbag, requiring plenty of physical exersion, is a sport. That's all I came here for. I don't care if you agree with me or not about golf, racing and baseball, because I'm not changing my opinion.

Btw, the person that gave that feedback to me about my frist post. The reason I found him offensive is becuase he listed sever reasons as to why something is a sport, as though trying to change my opinion, basically telling me, that these things are a sport, I reacted teh same way he did, only, a little more offensive I guess. We both had a bad, I appologize. And I'll leave it at that. I bid this topic, ado. (Did I spell that right, heh.)

junkyardjew · Post by **junkyardjew** » 17 Nov 2005 14:16

hmmm, Fred, I think you may have missed the point of Modified. You see, modified is a "Discussion Forum". It's where people carry out these things we call "discusions". That is where people attempt to convince each other of the veracity of their various statements by well thought out arguments, or by referencing examples pertinent to the point being made.

I don't care if you agree with me or not about golf, racing and baseball, because I'm not changing my opinion.

That, my friend, consitutes what is known in the business as a "statement". I'm grateful to you for starting this interesting discussion, but please don't attempt to shut it down. If your mind can't be changed, then nobody cares what you think.

Now, back to the intersting parts of the discussion:

Were I to compete against John Walton in darts he would destroy me because he is physically in better condition than I am. Clearly sport is not about "physical exertion".

When I was up in the arctic this summer, darts was huge among the inuit guys I worked with. And here's the thing, the first two or three games I played (basically ever) - I won. Totally by luck. Against the same oponent (because you can play like, ten games in an hour) I then proceeded to lose every single game thereafter. Luck is an important component of any sport, but I think the idea is that skill will eventually win out in the long run.

Its the same with rock-paper-sissors - is it skill or luck? I know a lot of people think its luck, but they are wrong. An experienced player will learn very quickly how you respond to to any series of throws, and adjust his game to defeat you. Even if it requires "throwing" a hand or two, ie, losing on purpose to mess with your head. Perhaps in a series of three, it might be mostly luck, but in a best of eleven you'd be surprised how difficult it can be to beat an experienced rock-paper-sissors opponent.

So, you're expending "mental effort", the same effort you expend aiming a dart accurately. Its not a lot of phsyical force, but its certainly a well honed skill.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 17 Nov 2005 15:06

yeah good point. I think actually, especially these days, sport is often decided by who is mentally the best rather than physically the best. A good example was my touch football team in 2002. Our team consisted of about 10 players under 20 - ranging from about 14 to 18 I guess a couple of guys who were in their early 20s and a guy who was about 40. In that team by far the strongest players were the ones under 20 and although we came up against teams that were clearly physically stronger and faster - we still easily beat them because we understood how to play the game a lot better. It didn't matter that they could run faster and throw the ball further - our knowledge of the game was definitely the reason we one the premiership that year. So I think there could be no debate that touch football is a "real sport" in the definitions of a sport - it involves teams with a ball running non stop trying to get the ball past the opposition. Yet clearly many outcomes are decided on mental ability rather than physical abilty. I think this is the case with many sports - it's not always the strongest or fastest person who wins - sometimes it's the smartest or the team that works best together. Just recently Australia beat a team made up of the best players in the rest of the world in Cricket. This was after we lost to a team made up of the best players in England. Why? The obvious reason is that the England players play and train together a lot and play well as a team - the "rest of the world" team barely knew each other, in some cases does not even speak the same language. Again deciding who is won was not because of physical skills but because of mental skills.

So I guess I'd change my opinion a little and to relate it back to the original topic - I'd say that competitive Halo is a sport - as really is any kind of competitive behaviour although as Cameron pointed out earlier - it really has to be under fair settings etc. I also think "sport" really means that the competition doesn't have a greater meaning etc.

So school debating might be a sport but debating in parliament is not a sport - nor is running for an election or trying to pick up a particular girl. However you could concievably do all these things as sport if that was your point. I'd love to be able to disregard my morals to the extent that I could compete to get elected to parliament as a game - if you didn't take things seriously it would be hilariously fun. However I can't and I'm starting to ramble a bit I think so I should stop....

Pascal · Post by **Pascal** » 17 Nov 2005 18:21

Nice post Jeremy, I really like how you differentiate between sport and competition with greater meaning. I was uncomfortable with broad definitions of sport that would include any form of competition, because things such as parliamentary debate, or scientific research (and not just for the X-prize, academia is always competitive) would fall under that category. You're comment cleared that up for me. Then again, nothing is black and white, so we could get into the whole "greater meaning" debate, but I'm not going to go there.

However, I will plunge into the rock paper scissors debate, and claim that a person who randomizes their strategy will break even (in the long run) against any strategy, no matter how good. Professional tennis players face the same type of situation when deciding whether to serve to an opponent's forehand or backhand (since the opponent is also trying to guess where the serve will go). I read somewhere that they have been coached to look at the clock time before serving, and to decide based on whether the second is even or odd. Basically, they've been told to randomize their strategy so that they break even in the long run.

My hope is that one day I will run into the rock paper scissors champion so that I can play infinitely many rounds with them and prove that I will break even!

slapdash21 · Post by **slapdash21** » 17 Nov 2005 18:52

i am a rock paper scissors fiend. i used to sit in class with my friend and we would would out strategies in secitions of five to get into each other's heads to predict and counter-predict each other's future throws based on logic and recent past. my levels of logic got to be like 5 layers deep (he will realize THAT so, he will throw X instead!), and we would throw. we played thousands of rounds...it ended up with me about 20 throws ahead. but he had me for awhile when he started doing it randomly, as soon as he knew my logic was getting REALLY excessive.

shredzilla · Post by **shredzilla** » 17 Nov 2005 20:14

The PRPS? Of course I'm in that league. Professional Rock, Paper Sissors. I think I spelled sissors wrong. Again.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 17 Nov 2005 21:19

Yeah I would say that it's virtually impossible for a human to actually make random decisions regarding rock paper scissors. For example if you played 243 times and were legitimately random you'd expect there to be at one time where the player played the same thing 5 times in a row. Would a random player actually do that? Would they over do it? Of course the other is statistically unlikely things are likely to happen in a game (because there is a lot of different statistically unlikely things that could happen - so it's unlikely to predict a particular unlikely event but likely that any of the number of events could occur) so I think it would be very hard to actually play randomly.

Blackend · Post by **Blackend** » 18 Nov 2005 01:27

Jeremy wrote:I think it's important to note that there are different kinds of sports.

For example something like darts does not require a huge amount of strength but it requires you to train your throwing arm to the point where you can very accurately throw something - this is definitely a physical skill that's needed for the sport. It doesn't mean you'll be exausted after a game all the time but that doesn't stop it from being a physical competition. Also darts is an official sport and recognised as such.

Were I to compete against John Walton in darts he would destroy me because he is physically in better condition than I am. Clearly sport is not about "physical exertion".

Well, since we're along the lines of darts as a sport and "physical exhertion", don't forget poker.

All that arm movement between cards can be exhausting.

And, Chris, you did spell scissors wrong.

Don't forget the silent 'c.'

Keep in mind I'm agreeing with you and am not trying to debunk your point.

modified

Don't you just hate when....

Re: Don't you just hate when....

Re: Don't you just hate when....