{"id":216,"date":"2009-10-12T19:48:11","date_gmt":"2009-10-13T02:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/?p=216"},"modified":"2009-10-12T19:48:11","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T02:48:11","slug":"modern-gladiators-or-maybe-cows-to-slaughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2009\/10\/12\/modern-gladiators-or-maybe-cows-to-slaughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Modern Gladiators… or maybe cows to slaughter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading a really intriguing set of articles in this week’s New Yorker. I wish they had a micropayment system where I could pay for articles that I enjoyed a la how Radiohead releases their albums, but that’s a different topic altogether. I’m going to write some thoughts, more along the lines of immediate reactions, and then maybe follow up if I can find some time after doing some thinking and discussing. The first article is by Malcolm Gladwell<\/a>, and can be found here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Ignore for a fact that the article draws links against dogfighting because of the prominence that dogfighting has gained in the last few years, and instead think about when humans pitted humans in battles to the death against each other for entertainment. I ask you to ignore it because I’d rather focus on the notion of long-term human suffering in the name of entertainment as opposed to animal cruelty. I think the major pieces that come to my mind are the Gladiators of the Roman Empire, and the jousters of the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n

(I’ll admit that I know very little about either in any form of depth, and so please let me know if I’ve made an assumption, and you know it to be wrong.)<\/p>\n

I think a crucial difference between then and now lies in how we view fellow persons. There isn’t a need to prepare soldiers as there was in the Middle Ages. If I’m not mistaken, which of course I can be, the tournaments of the time acted as a way for those who competed to show off their prowess in the ability to wage war. Winning wars is no longer an indicator of the success of a man. The merits of that can be debated in another forum, but to me it also makes the value of physical prowess much less.<\/p>\n

On a similar note, the spoils of war are also no longer something which is an integral part of society. Slaves, wealth, and property were all benefits given to the winning army in the age of the Roman Empire. Slaves, and again I could be quoting popular fiction instead of historical fact here, were often in the center of the Coliseum tasked with being the kill or be killed<\/em> entertainment du jour. Thankfully, in my opinion, we’ve found that elevating even our enemies in victory to a higher level of understanding has replaced the notion that success should be measured by spoils won and stolen.<\/p>\n

Given that these forms of entertainment have become outdated either because they are no longer necessary in preparing for war, or because we’ve advanced in our moral treatment, what is it about football that keeps us engaged. It has so many of the attributes of the Coliseum and the Tournaments of the Middle Ages. The battlefield analogies, the insane athleticism, the unbelievable wealth associated with it all. And it turns out that we’re still cheering for a sport that at the end of the day leaves the players in a broken state, unable to even take care of their families despite the millions they have earned.<\/p>\n

It actually turns me off to the sport in my mind, and yet, as I sit here and watch Monday Night Football, I’m completely engaged in it all. Why can’t I see that in my entertainment, that these men are killing themselves? Why is that okay? I don’t really know, but I’m fascinated by it all.<\/p>\n

What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading a really intriguing set of articles in this week’s New Yorker. I wish they had a micropayment system where I could pay for articles that I enjoyed a la how Radiohead releases their albums, but that’s a different topic altogether. I’m going to write some thoughts, more along the lines of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-3u","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1558,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/04\/27\/bringing-amplifize-back-from-the-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":216,"position":0},"title":"Bringing amplifize back from the dead","date":"April 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I've built a website called amplifize. It's a small community of 10-12 folks who share articles, and talk about them together. It started as a Google Reader replacement at scale, and has downsized\u00c2\u00a0into my own, small Internet water cooler shared by some really fun, random, and interesting folks. Last week,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1038,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/03\/25\/9-memorable-books\/","url_meta":{"origin":216,"position":1},"title":"9 memorable books","date":"March 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Gregory Fischer (who came into my life through Micky's dear friend Stephanie Grand Jacques) passed along one of these \"chain letters\" that makes the rounds on Facebook. I tend to ignore them, but I really liked the premise behind this one - List 9 books that touched me. 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One issue that really stands out to me, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":400,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/11\/01\/understanding-motivation-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":216,"position":3},"title":"Understanding motivation - part 1","date":"November 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not convinced that motivations are well understood, least of all by me. You see, I was taught in economics that perfectly rational people will respond to a set of incentives in a perfectly rational way.\u00c2\u00a0While I'm sure that that makes sense in a textbook, and of course for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":64,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2007\/08\/22\/first-day-of-classes\/","url_meta":{"origin":216,"position":4},"title":"First Day of Classes","date":"August 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I started my final year of college for this go-around. I think that before I die, that I will end up with a Ph.D in Economics. I think that if Economics in the real world weren't such a banking\/finance endeavor, that I would have found myself doing Economics full\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "School Year 07-08"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":486,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2011\/12\/08\/trying-to-get-to-just-right\/","url_meta":{"origin":216,"position":5},"title":"Trying to get to \"just right\"","date":"December 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon wrote a blog post about the \"Goldilocks Principle\", and how it affected their relationship with customers as Hunch pivoted from a B2C to B2B offering. Hunch was in the position of being \"too hot\". I think that OpenTok is still in a position of being... not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Becoming a PM"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}