Tomi on 13/6/2014 at 20:37
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
In fact, I'd pile on even harder: It's amazing how many grown-ass men in America have no knowledge of the world whatsoever but can recite sports statistics the way a no-lifer, basement dwelling WoW player can recite raid stats.
Does it really come as a surprise to you that people know more about things that they're really passionate about?
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
So giving people a fantasy universe to live in is "giving people's lives substance"? What about old fashioned things like....ya know.....meaningful relationships with friends and family? Upward social mobility? Increasing one's knowledge and education?
Are you forgetting that we're talking on a forum that's dedicated to video games (ie. fantasy universes) here?
Why would those things that you mentioned have to be mutually exclusive? Can't you have meaningful relationships with friends and family or active social life if you're passionate about sports? You know, you can strengthen those relationships by taking your friends and family to a sporting event or a music concert or an art exhibition or something that you're all interested in, and meet new people at the same time. Or talk about the latest World Cup games with your colleagues at work or with some strangers in a pub. Sports is great at bringing people together from all walks of life, I can't think of (m)any other things that has the same effect.
Renault on 13/6/2014 at 20:40
Confirming ITT that Tony is a racist, apparently.
Sports is no different than any other form of entertainment - participation/involvement should be had in moderation. If too many youths are idolizing sports stars they shouldn't be, then their parents should be stepping in. Same thing if they spend 50 hours a week playing WOW, or if they start to take Natural Born Killers a little too seriously.
I follow American baseball and football, and I enjoy it. It's not my life, but it does entertain me, providing a better overall quality of life. My point on the OP was that only people who really don't like sports at all would make an argument like this in the first place. I just don't think strictly because it's bigger than other entertainment industries (like movies, games) that that makes it THE DEVIL.
Tony_Tarantula on 13/6/2014 at 21:47
Quote Posted by Tomi
Sports is great at bringing people together from all walks of life, I can't think of (m)any other things that has the same effect.
Let's see.......charity work, religious groups, motorcycles, outdoor activities, music, the arts, alcohol, dancing, politics(which does the opposite too), a good pub....Want me to go on?
Quote:
My point on the OP was that only people who really don't like sports at all would make an argument like this in the first place. I just don't think strictly because it's bigger than other entertainment industries (like movies, games) that that makes it THE DEVIL.
Ad-hominem. The argument is about PRO sports, not just sports. I've got a lot more respect for...say...the guy who plays with the local Rugby team than I do a guy who'se idea of being a "sports enthusiast" consists of sitting on his ass all day, glued to the TV, wasting his life potential.
That's my biggest problem with sports, video games, etc. They all have a massive sedative effect on their consumers and leads to them becoming disconnected from other people and the real world around them. It's part of why a cop can shoot an unarmed, innocent black man ten times and nobody bats an eye or gives a shit.
Tony_Tarantula on 13/6/2014 at 21:51
Quote Posted by Brethren
Confirming ITT that Tony is a racist, apparently.
Racist? What's racist is that bringing up one of the ways in which something you like negatively affects minorities makes you uncomfortable. Out of sight, out of mind for the black man's problems, right?
Renzatic on 14/6/2014 at 00:05
Cuz you're equating a goddamn music scene and talking about the potential negative influence of pro sports as it applies to an entire group of people, rather than the relative few who are interested in it.
You're painting a picture with too broad a brush. Rap, R&B, hip hop, what have you, might be genres of music with a heavy black influence, but these things aren't necessarily indicative of black people as a whole. Get what I'm saying?
demagogue on 14/6/2014 at 00:31
Go USA \:D/
Edit: Wait.
Scots Taffer on 14/6/2014 at 01:48
Socceroos not off to a great start...
Tony_Tarantula on 14/6/2014 at 01:58
Quote Posted by Renzatic
You're painting a picture with too broad a brush. Rap, R&B, hip hop, what have you, might be genres of music with a heavy black influence, but these things aren't necessarily indicative of black people as a whole. Get what I'm saying?
No, because you don't get what I'm saying. Ya got eyes so use em.
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negatively affects minorities
Let's try that again:
Quote:
negatively affects minorities
It's not "indicative of", it's a destructive influence on minority communities......and deliberately so. Kind of like how, you know, black people aren't more or less drug users than anyone else but the CIA tried to push drugs into black communities?
june gloom on 14/6/2014 at 05:32
Just for the record, the stereotype that black men aspire to little more than drug dealers, gangsters, athletes, rappers and sometimes actors is well-known and very hated in the black community. The influence of black media on black youth is also a (
http://www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu/prba/perspectives/winter2000/cwatkins.pdf) pressing question. This is on top of the usual problems like profiling, institutionalized racism, general discrimination, and everyone's favourite race topic of the 2010s, cultural appropriation.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_stereotype_of_African_Americans)
Quote:
The criminal African American man appears often in the context of athletics and sports. Arthur A. Raney and Jennings Bryant discuss this in Handbook of Sports and Media (2006). They cite Beyond the Cheers: Race as Spectacle in College Sport (2001) by C. Richard King and Charles Fruehling Springwood,[25] which examines the connection between race, crime, and sports. They study the ways in which "criminality indelibly marks the African American athlete". Raney and Bryant says coverage and reception of accusations of crimes by sportspeople differed depending on the race of the individual.[26]
John Milton Hoberman in Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race (1997) writes that "the merger of the athlete, the gangster rapper, and the criminal into a single black male persona ... into the predominant image of black masculinity in the United States and around the world" has harmed racial integration.[27]
I'm not going to get into Tony's CIA nonsense, but amazingly he's on the right track otherwise.
Ask yourself this (this is for American posters, btw, it's a little different outside of the US and Canada) -- how many black people do you know listen to something besides rap, maybe R&B? If you asked 100 random black strangers what kind of music they listen to, what would the response be? Sure, you'll get people who say they listen to lots of stuff, but then you'll get people who deride anything that isn't hiphop as "Nazi rock shit." It's a cultural thing, and weirdly enough it's not that different from the six million fucking white people you meet who say they listen to "anything but rap and country" (meaning they listen exclusively to Top 40 radio.)
I have no evidence for this but I believe the amount of white people who listen only to one genre of music is roughly equal to the number of black people who do the same. You're going to find some overlap, especially among whites as black music is commercialized and commodified (and has been since the 70s), but the truth is, most people, regardless of skin color, are pretty fucking boring and only listen to one thing, and blacks especially would often rather listen to something by a person who looks like them than yet another pampered white boy talking about relationships.
PigLick on 14/6/2014 at 08:01
can we get a black person in here to clarify?
actually can we stop talking about people defined by skin colour cos its making me feel mighty uncomfortable.
