I agree with Eliezer that it seems to be the in-group/out-group dynamic that drives the popularity of sports. The popularity in turn drive the ads, the ads provide a revenue opportunity, and the revenue opportunity drives the high salaries of popular players.
The dynamic seems ridiculous to those of us who find the in-group/out-group dynamic silly. Then again, those of us who find that silly, and so do not contribute to the salaries of football players, still support the high salaries for superstars in other roles. Jerry Seinfeld and Ray Romano probably made more money than most football players delivering a one-to-many service based on humor rather than on identification with a group. Maybe someone who doesn’t understand their humor finds it ridiculous how these guys make so much money pandering to an audience so inept as to enjoy these guys’ unfunniness?
And yet the audience laughs, enjoys it, and pays for a service they perceive as well performed.
I wonder whether people, at some level, might be aware of the silliness of their group identification, but enjoy it nevertheless, just like most of us enjoy sex, even after taking actions to prevent it leading to reproduction, which is its whole evolutionary point.
If that is the case, then those of us who cannot bring ourselves to identify with a group, might be handicapped in a similar sense as a person who doesn’t see the humor in comedy, or a person who derives no joy from sex.
Politics, meanwhile, is tough. I think it’s more productive to provide constructive arguments why a certain policy is sensible, and try to spread support for that policy, than to try a meta-analysis of why existing policies are ineffective, and trying to get people to understand that.
Nature abhors a vacuum: if you have a room filled with ineffective thoughts, concepts, ideas, and you try to take them out, this will create a vacuum which will cause more ineffective ideas to flood in through the cracks in the walls. But if, instead, you fill the room with effective ideas, they will displace the ineffective ones.
Telling people what does not work is much less useful than showing them what does.
I agree with Eliezer that it seems to be the in-group/out-group dynamic that drives the popularity of sports. The popularity in turn drive the ads, the ads provide a revenue opportunity, and the revenue opportunity drives the high salaries of popular players.
The dynamic seems ridiculous to those of us who find the in-group/out-group dynamic silly. Then again, those of us who find that silly, and so do not contribute to the salaries of football players, still support the high salaries for superstars in other roles. Jerry Seinfeld and Ray Romano probably made more money than most football players delivering a one-to-many service based on humor rather than on identification with a group. Maybe someone who doesn’t understand their humor finds it ridiculous how these guys make so much money pandering to an audience so inept as to enjoy these guys’ unfunniness?
And yet the audience laughs, enjoys it, and pays for a service they perceive as well performed.
I wonder whether people, at some level, might be aware of the silliness of their group identification, but enjoy it nevertheless, just like most of us enjoy sex, even after taking actions to prevent it leading to reproduction, which is its whole evolutionary point.
If that is the case, then those of us who cannot bring ourselves to identify with a group, might be handicapped in a similar sense as a person who doesn’t see the humor in comedy, or a person who derives no joy from sex.
Politics, meanwhile, is tough. I think it’s more productive to provide constructive arguments why a certain policy is sensible, and try to spread support for that policy, than to try a meta-analysis of why existing policies are ineffective, and trying to get people to understand that.
Nature abhors a vacuum: if you have a room filled with ineffective thoughts, concepts, ideas, and you try to take them out, this will create a vacuum which will cause more ineffective ideas to flood in through the cracks in the walls. But if, instead, you fill the room with effective ideas, they will displace the ineffective ones.
Telling people what does not work is much less useful than showing them what does.