Monday, December 04, 2017

Thoughts of the day - morning of Monday December 4th, 2017: Big Bangs and hypotheses; U2 and Economics

Inputs:

  1. Reading Dan Brown's Origin - not finished yet, but hitting climax on futurist hypotheses reminding me of Yuval Noah Harari's Home Deus.
  2. U2's performance of American Soul on Saturday Night Live.
  3. Make Me Smart podcast - episode 41 - Do you hear the people sing.  So much to understand, but what to do with the new smarts?

Ideas:
  1. Building on a Flickr group title as the basis of what I'm trying to say - The World Through My Eyes.
  2. Using the Red Pill / Blue Pill concept from The Matrix - do you want to continue to live in this fake world, or do you want to know the truth?
  3. What percentage of people who watch The Big Bang Theory believe in the big bang?

Friday, December 01, 2017

Is sports the best reality TV ?

Disclaimer: I'm not a real fan of reality TV.  I watch the occasional music competition or food contest, but for the most part I don't like the fabricated games and exploited stories.

So, I've been known to say on many occasions that the best kind of reality TV is sports.  In my opinion, you can't get any better than the unpredictability of a live sports event and as the commentators often say - the scriptwriters have a field day - what with all the off-field backstory mixed with the on-field rivalries, battles, campaigns and super-human achievements.


But recently I've been looking at this from a different perspective.  I think my original claim is accurate, but only if you're an neutral observer or your team (player) wins.  But what happens when your team loses ? 

I watch a lot of sport and invest many hours watching playoffs, "big" games and global sporting events where many times the result is of no real consequence to me.  I simply enjoy a tight-fought competition from world class athletes. 

I hope I can say, that everyone has experienced the euphoria of their team winning - what a natural high when your team makes a great play, scores, wins the game or comes out on top of a season-long campaign.  That's why we watch our favourites compete on TV (or in person), many fans like me invest a huge amount of time watching our favourites and some of us have lots of favourites across different sports.  I live in Toronto and we're lucky to have a large number of professional sports teams, but it can consume a large amount of time!

But what a difference when your favourites have a poor game, fall inches or seconds short of a major victory, can't seem to stop a downhill slide, don't live up to their potential, appear disrespectful or your loyalty or make you so angry you could throw something at that expensive plat screen 50" television.  That's just a awful feeling and it can often stay with you for hours or perhaps even longer, just ask a Maple Leafs hockey fan or England soccer fan. 

So there's the rub, be careful what you ask for.  So if you want the emotional rollercoaster ride of sports to either simply witness the finest of athletic ability, or invest your time and emotions in a favourite for a chance at glorious euphoria - be wary that it could bring some true sorrow to your life.  Who really wants to take a chance at adding more misery to their lives? Well, I only hypothesize that the longer lasting effects of the thrill of victory is worth the short-lived agonies of defeat*.

*taken from the famous introductory words of ABC's The Wide World of Sports