I can't bring myself to. The Olympics lost something when competition stopped being about self-mastery. If you look at the ancient Olympic Games or maybe even just several decades ago, competition wasn’t just “who runs fastest.” It was embedded in religion, civic honor, and virtue. Excellence includes discipline and character. There was a seriousness to it...
The modern Olympics branding, broadcasting, social media, and the Olympic Village basically being treated like a giant adult summer (winter) camp. I know people say the sex, the substance use, etc... is just stress relief or “they’re adults, who cares.”
But to me, sex isn’t recreational stress relief. It’s powerful. It shapes you. So, when the highest level of competition, something that should represent extreme focus and self-command, is surrounded by that kind of culture, it feels off. Debauched.
I guess the heart of the matter is how competition is viewed: Is it sacred or is it a spectacle? What is elite sport actually for?
I cannot really cheer for team USA because I know a majority of these athletes do not represent these things. Though I can see and recognize achievement, it doesn’t inspire loyalty or emotional investment for me because the underlying values are absent.
Yeah, currently watching speed skating and have been checking out curling. I did a curling class a while ago and it's a pretty fun sport. I also was watching skeleton/luge for a while, and it's crazy how fast they go. There have been some really fun moments.
I am in the camp of "who cares" when it comes to sex/substance. For all we know, that was happening in the earlier games. In fact, as early as 1988 they didn't crack down on sex, they just cracked down on outdoor sex which had become out of control in the olympic village. Goes to assume that indoor sex was just as, if not more prominent. Sex may not feel like recreational stress relief for you, but it certainly is for others.
Either way in all the broadcasts I've seen, not a single one has mentioned sex. It's all been about the sport, and the athletes themselves. I don't care about "honor" and certainly not religion when it comes to the sports. I want to see who runs fastest, who jumps highest, who throws furthest, who has the best technique.
I genuinely cannot remember a time when olympics were "serious." Maybe you're much older, but as I remember it's always kind of been "summer campy"
Sex should be criminalized outside of marriage.
Nah. I like sex
I think he means "with other people" eh? 😹
He's a literal incel mad at others getting busy and should be ignored for his pants on head tard takes.
Check his post history lamenting no women want him... while making no effort to actually put himself in a situation women might even see him in the first place.
Lol no he means single people shouldn't be able to have sex.
So you're in favour of performance drugs, cybernetic enhancements, etc?
If they started down that direction that actually might be enough to make me give a shit.
No, I’m not. For the Olympics it should be about an athletes natural abilities
Not sure how you jumped to that conclusion from my comment lol
Ah, I see. Fair enough!
I will rephrase. I do care about honor in the framework of competition.
The thing with "it's always been like this," especially about sex, is that Western civilization has been degenerating our entire lives, in large part due to sex. I believe you're largely correct, but that just shows the huge scope of the problem.
I guess in terms of the Olympics I’m not sure what the benefit is of restricting sex in the scope of competition. It’s not like it takes away athletes abilities in the game.
General broadcasting isn’t really talking about it. Stories just get picked up by tabloids and then spread around. I have coverage in in the background because I like seeing the competitions, but I’ve never heard any MSM broadcasters talk about sex, only the events and training.
Well, first of all, sexual freedom is killing us. So knowing that the Olympics is one of the peaks of civilization-destroying behavior is inherently depressing.
In reference to the Olympics themselves, though, they aren't just about athletics. The original purpose of the games was to foster sportsmanship among the countries of the world and elevate the human spirit. Athletics is a necessary but insufficient property of that mission. Now you could argue that's all a bunch of crap, but the more the Olympics becomes a compartmentalized, mechanistic athletic meet, the more it deteriorates. Various scandals like the conditions at Sochi and Brazil become more common - why not? That's how people behave in crass, transactional relationships.
You could say that the Olympics is a case study in Western civilization, which requires the population at large to hold high-minded values. As people start to lose trust in those values, because they see that they don't in fact exist anymore, things progressively fall apart, as we see everywhere today.
I really wish people would stop being so dramatic that they think something is “killing” us when really they mean the birthrate is declining. Nobody is getting “killed” when there is more sexual freedom lol.
But I don’t really get your second paragraph.
So what would you propose as a change to the game to better foster sportsmanship/spirit? What needs to be added/what has been taken away?