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While I agree that the fan mentality can lead to grotesque behavior (Red Sox fans flipping cars, soccer hooligans, fans throwing bottles from the bleachers, etc.), and the whole urge to wear a particular color shirt and feel like part of a special group can be retrogressive, I think the problems with professional sports owe a lot to predatory capitalism in general, and the way businesses try to market an "identity" to sell their commodity. In that respect, Rollerball was rather prescient. I think many of us have those moments when we see modern sports and say "FFS, it's just a GAME! It's supposed to be about fun and the poetry of the human body in graceful motion...." Or just getting outside with some pals and enjoying some fresh air and exercise. As for singing the praises of "teamwork," well, all you need to develop teamwork is any group project. You can gather a group and go help build a neighbor's garage (lots of physical prowess will be developed, trust me on this....)

Sorry, but I see this as wishful thinking. In reality, sports in general seems to be just another way to pit rivals against each other in a non-lethal way, but only exacerbates the problems with modern humans competing for "fun". We've worked hard so most people don't have to compete for resources, yet the animal in "us" wants the pleasure of crushing "them". The mindset sports encourages in modern, money-oriented settings is similar to modern business practices, and "winning at all costs" takes precedence over "reaching the top together". I don't think sports unite us, just the opposite. Saying it's a good thing because people all over the world are into it is bad reasoning. Humans are into a LOT of things that are horribly harmful to us and the planet.

If one analyses UFO reports and close-contact stories, and from the purely story-telling POV, it all sounds very much as humans (bipedal, anthropomorphic) from the future doing the time-warp/FTL thing (or from a parallel dimension) and trying not to leave too much of a fingerprint (so as to avoid big ripples of retrocausal interference). These 'beings' are invariably portrayed in such a way that the number one feature that strikes me is how much they look like moderately-distant relatives that care about us. I wonder if the whole thing is not just a re-edition of the biblical stories about angels, with the necessary literary elements that translate them from the olden-days folklore into a folklore that we can recognize and accept. We don't know nearly enough about time yet to say, without a shadow of a doubt, that they're completely beyond belief; but in the meantime we can entertain ourselves discussing the literary values of such stories. And literary values there are.

I'm glad we didn't do it! I'd hate to have missed out on Spider Robinson, William Gibson, John Irving, Ted Gonzales and a whole lot of other smart, talented, good people. I just want a wall to keep all the anti-vaxxers, contaminated with the Delta variant, out. And Canada isn't cold at all. But ask me again next January/February; I might have changed my mind by then.

And now I have a company making red Draft Dodger window snakes for the anti-draft movement. They're printed with "Make America Calm Again", and they're filled with shredded voter ballots. Available in Small, Medium, and Yuge.

Beyond predatory capitalism, I also fault sports for promoting "fame" culture. Internet influencers, politicians, actors, and sports stars all contribute to a negative and harmful perspective on famous people. Fame means you're above the law, you aren't subject to normal rules of behavior, you get to do and say anything you want, and people have to kiss your ass. Since Charles Barkley finally removed that tired old "be a role model for kids" clause, all this behavior is held up for our children to see as legitimate. If you're popular, it's not really abuse when you make fun of others. If you have a lot of money and everyone knows you, you're empowered to behave as you like, regardless of consequences, and I think children are idolizing these people because of all the positive attention they receive even when their behavior is negative. Fame and wealth idolization have also led to placing unnecessary trust in some of these people. Being good at making money or acting in a movie or throwing a baseball doesn't make you a good leader automatically, yet we regularly allow fame to cloud even this simple truth.

The original Rollerball (1975) had an impact on me. A corporate society that removed the good parts of individual accomplishment in favor of the worst parts of team play seemed prophetic to me at the time, just going into college. And over the next 20 years I watched the corporations gain power and pervert the working and middle classes in the US in similar ways. The aspects of human society that truly unite us? We have an extremely rich and nuanced ability to communicate with each other, coupled with the technology to extend that ability virtually everywhere we exist as a species. We are one of the most cooperative species when we forget to be afraid of those who look or act differently. We are often intelligent enough to recognize when something is so important that it requires all our efforts, regardless of nationality or profit or personal fears. We can make a tool to overcome most inadequacies we face, and often we can agree when one of those tools is the best for a particular job.

First time I saw one of them, probably 3 or 4, I thought my grandad said it was a 'giraffe excluder' and kept out giraffes! The joys of deafness. "How's a giraffe going to get under that little gap?"

Yes I see that. Actually in my case the first thing I would do is to draught proof the room. All my windows and all my doors are draughty but I have no cash to address the problem (that I just live with) 😅

I agree an equal platform in sports should be available to Trans Men and Women as to those held by men and women. If the stake holders agree those divisions are sufficient, there is no place for me to be concerned otherwise. Some sports though have been segregated specifically to ensure Women do have an equal platform. If stake holders are saying those division are not sufficient to maintain equal platforms, its not my place to dismiss their concerns either.

That's because I didn't think one was required. I took it to mean you don't think his present situation will have any significant affect on how the world economy is organized. That's a valid position and quite possibly correct, and it didn't seem to invite discussion. I did respond, if not directly, by pointing out that major changes had taken place in previous civilizations. In retrospect, historians can identify the events that led to a collapse, but the people - particularly the political leadership of the time, didn't see it coming. I woud be happy to elaborate, argue, look for examples and discuss in detail, if you were so inclined.

Because we are impatient. Would you want to be part of a large program, where your sole purpose was to travel on a spaceship your entire life just to procreate so the next generation and the next and so on... gets to their destination? This is all assuming that any destination is worth the time, investment and commitment to get there in the first place. Sure we can consider pseudo science, to conjure up warp drives and wormholes... to get around the time and distance issues. But based on our "current" known physics, travelling (in person) to even local star systems is nigh on impossible. So unless there is some science which enables FTL, or at least get around the distance issue, then the only thing we are likely to send out to other star systems is mechanical probes. Wild speculation, If aliens have technology to achieve FTL or warp drive, or some other exotic form of long distance space travel. Then they must have discovered physics/laws that transcends our current understanding. Either that or their life spans far exceed ours, so that long distance travel over long periods of time is not an issue.

Any solution that encourages unfairness to one group, so as to make life more fair for another group, should be a non-starter. A bit of 'the end justifies the means' has never worked out well. PS. I'm not British, balding or overweight, brush and use Listerine twice a day, and have had a fairly exciting life so far.

There does seem to be an innate aspect to such fears, and considerable variation between people. I never had much fear of reptiles or arachnids, always had the impression they were pretty shy and not bent on harming people. They seem like allies to our species, for the most part, snuffing pests. I have to wonder to what degree the "creepiness" is culturally learned. A fear of spiders didn't even occur to me until I learned about the poisonous ones and (Zapatos, you may wish to stop reading at this point)(j/k) I had heard about them biting people while they slept. If you're talking about a species that climbs in bed with you and administers poison, then, yes, fear is reasonable (not sure that could be termed a phobia, really). The genetics Nobel laureate Kary Mullis had a nightmarish encounter with poisonous spiders which he recounts in "Dancing Naked in the Mind Field. " Had me checking our sheets for months after reading that. Point being, I had to hear scary stories to really develop any spider anxieties. In terms of the most visceral insect fear, it would probably be ones that defensively swarm and attack humans (generally who've been unaware that they're close to a nest), like the Africanized killer bee or the Asian giant hornets which have been known to sting people to the point of kidney failure and death. Makes arachnids pale into insignificance by comparison.

Don't expect too much from me... Ethics never was a main topic for me. I would say, as any sensible person, just the risk of giving capital punishment to an innocent should be reason enough to refrain from it. And AFAIK deterrence seldom works. So I think incarceration might be the best solution, in the first place simply because we put somebody away who has proven to be dangerous, in the second place we, i.e. society must attach consequences to people who do not want to play by the rules. However, if a society does not take the chance to rehabilitate the offender, it is not much use. Just putting somebody in jail, specially when it is overfilled, you create offenders and possibly more radical ones too. In this respect, it seems to me that there is a huge difference between prisons here in Europe, and in the USA. Most of the times rehabilitation is the aim. Therefore we might take some risks, letting out somebody who will still act criminally (which hurts extremely when its is murder on innocent people), but I think a lot more crimes are committed by ex-inmates who were radicalised by their life in prison. To get a glimpse of the difference between the USA and Scandinavia, there is a short series about 'the Norden'. This is the episode about prisons (the others are just as interesting): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfEsz812Q1I To get back at capital punishment: there are also examples of murderers who felt much remorse about their killing, and ended up meeting the family of the victim, or became meditators, even meditation teachers to their fellow inmates. These are pretty extreme examples of course, but just killing a criminal, or putting him/her in jail purely as punishment I find useless, and not something a civilised society should do. Punishment yes, but for the betterment of offender and society. A loose-loose is the last we want, no?