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[ein]

if you wear lederhosen you're a nazi, confirmed

[Harry Baldman]

if you wear lederhosen you're a nazi, confirmed

Spoiler: Don't wear leather shorts, kids (click to show/hide)

[ChairmanPoo]

Flavoring tea with stuff (mint, fruit, etc) should be illegal

[ein]

those nasty flavoured creamers are what should be illegal

[Jopax]

@CP

Do you mean flavoured black/green tea or actual herb teas like mint, fennel and the like?

Because I agree on the former, at best they just smell really nice while tasting rather poorly- The latter tho is pretty damn great stuff, heck, proper mint tea is miles better than most other things.

[Criptfeind]

the olympics are fucking stupid and so heavily detached from the practical applications of the skills events are derived from that they feel more like a parody of human athletic capabilities than anything else. running is alright i guess, but then you've got shit like olympic fencing which is nothing like actual fencing, or the long jump, where competitors land on their fucking asses. like, what the fuck are you gonna do with that? who gives a shit how far you can jump if you're just gonna be lying on the floor afterwards

I think sports are generally super arbitrary anyway. If you wanted a practical olympics it'd be like preparing your tax returns or making a healthy meal on a budget. Those are real practical life skills, but they'd be boring to watch people do. So I don't see an effective difference between normal fencing and olympic fencing  or long jump onto your ass vs long jump onto your feet, none of them are really widely applicable to real life. They are just optimizing for different arbitrary results. So basically, eh, why not?

[ChairmanPoo]

Maybe we should remove all doping constraints and turn them into an augmentation competition. I think that might be more productive in the long run.

[Criptfeind]

I think the issue is then they kill themselves even more then they already do and push out anyone who's not willing to poison themselves. There's a sliding scale between entertainment and safety. And I don't think either extreme is correct.

Edit: That said I would like to see old fashion weapon and armor use become part of mixed martial arts so maybe I'm just a hypocrite.

[Starver]

I think sports are generally super arbitrary anyway. If you wanted a practical olympics it'd be like preparing your tax returns or making a healthy meal on a budget. Those are real practical life skills, but they'd be boring to watch people do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Summer_Olympics#Unofficial_sports
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_Summer_Olympics#Art_competitions

[Criptfeind]

I've kinda missed your point. Although your links are interesting enough further reading for people I'm not sure why you quoted me specifically, often a direct quote feels like it merits a response, and this one feels like it should at least, but since I don't know what you mean I'm not sure how to respond.

[ein]

I think sports are generally super arbitrary anyway. If you wanted a practical olympics it'd be like preparing your tax returns or making a healthy meal on a budget. Those are real practical life skills, but they'd be boring to watch people do. So I don't see an effective difference between normal fencing and olympic fencing  or long jump onto your ass vs long jump onto your feet, none of them are really widely applicable to real life. They are just optimizing for different arbitrary results. So basically, eh, why not?

for what it's worth, i've always enjoyed watching actual, proper swordsmanship. there's a lot more depth that goes into real fencing than any kind of sport fencing. even with something like kendo, which imo is leagues ahead of olympic fencing, it's still drastically oversimplified compared to actual sword techniques. at least with kendo, most techniques do carry over to actual fencing, it's just that you're restricted to a very limited number of targets and techniques. olympic fencing is about as detached from real fencing as you can get and still have your weapon somewhat resemble a sword

i'll concede on the long jump, but even then, watching people land on their ass is just as boring as watching people land on their feet, while the latter, tho not widely applicable, still has objective potential to be somewhat useful. something like olympic parkour would be a practical application of the skills that go into performing a long jump, while also being a million times more interesting to watch

Edit: That said I would like to see old fashion weapon and armor use become part of mixed martial arts so maybe I'm just a hypocrite.

while i haven't really seen any hema sparring done with traditional armour as opposed to modern safety gear, i'm sure it's a thing some people do. people honestly underestimate the efficacy of medieval armour, especially against medieval armaments. between video games being video games and the ubiquity of morons performing weapon tests against completely ahistorical butted mail, there's a lot of misinformation out there about how effective armour actually is, especially mail, and to a lesser degree padded cloth armours

[Starver]

I've kinda missed your point. Although your links are interesting enough further reading for people I'm not sure why you quoted me specifically, often a direct quote feels like it merits a response, and this one feels like it should at least, but since I don't know what you mean I'm not sure how to respond.

It just seemed like a useful point to make that the Modern Olympics have strayed beyond mere demonstrations of faster/stronger musculature before...

[Frumple]

i'll concede on the long jump, but even then, watching people land on their ass is just as boring as watching people land on their feet, while the latter, tho not widely applicable, still has objective potential to be somewhat useful. something like olympic parkour would be a practical application of the skills that go into performing a long jump, while also being a million times more interesting to watch

While the last bit's true, even landing on your arse has objective potential to be useful. On the feet and moving moreso, but when it comes down to needing to cross a gap what matters first is getting across it, not landing gracefully.

Though saying that, I did just realize I'd be a lot more interested in watching a long jump competition specifically dedicated to what amounts to crash landing. Get as far as you can and to hell with how you land so long as not too much gets broken.

[ChairmanPoo]

I think the issue is then they kill themselves even more then they already do and push out anyone who's not willing to poison themselves. There's a sliding scale between entertainment and safety. And I don't think either extreme is correct.

Edit: That said I would like to see old fashion weapon and armor use become part of mixed martial arts so maybe I'm just a hypocrite.

well, the idea is that if olympic competitors want to act as guinea pigs for the latest medical advances, might as well standarize and learn from it :p

[ein]

~

i suppose that is true. i also still feel like the long jump is one of the most boring events in the olympics and really anything you do to spice it up would be an improvement

imagine a stunt actor olympics, that would be rad