Gaming the System: The Olympics

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 6:53 pm

I'm going to go ahead and say it: the Olympics are bullshit. They bankrupt cities and countries, and leave behind vast complexes which can go unused for years or decades. The IOC is staffed by assholes. Countries spend millions of dollars on training athletes, facilities, and bribing referees. The Olympics have forced doping to evolve into sci-fi level next-generation shit. Athletes and coaches go apeshit trying to find any advantage or loophole in the rules, to the point where they might as well give medals to the legal teams on either side too. And the fucking things take over the airwaves for weeks.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 10:15 pm

The playing to win stuff, at least, is what happens to any game when the stakes are high.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 10:45 pm

What are the stakes?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 11:22 pm

International fame, eternal bragging rights, and a nonstop orgy during the games with extremely fit super people.

http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/blogs/postbl ... letes.html

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 5:58 am

Wow. If I only had a time machine, so I could go back and tell a very young me to try to excel in sports, just because of increased chances of sex, I would.

(but then I'm pretty sure that my lack of sex has much more to do with my personality than what areas I excel in.)

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:55 pm

But I feel so good when my country wins! USA! USA! USA!

On the other hand, I don't know if my country wins things unless somebody else tells me because the olympics are fucking boring. When my choices of entertainment are:

1. The Olympics

2. Super Mario World

I'm going to be shit-stomping Bowser every single time. Then again, I can think of almost nothing that is less entertaining than watching the Olympics.

Does anyone honestly give a fuck about how good somebody is at swinging around on a pole if they aren't stripping?

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 2:42 pm

Isn't it mostly the same with all sports?
Like football in Europe or baseball, basketball and American football in the USA?
Worthless but lots of people like watching it, so people make lots of money from it.

- Edit: This does look a bit interesting: http://www.fastcocreate.com/1681321/how ... -darn-fast

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 4:27 pm

I like the Olympics mostly for listening to conspiracy theorists talking about how Jews sold the land they owned around the Twin Towers just before 9/11, and that since they have been selling the land around the Olympic stadiums it obviously means there will be a "terrorist" attack by "muslims".

They'll go on to mention a large organisation having a news story online about there having been a catastrophe with thousands dead during the Olympics (explained by the organisation- Rockefeller or something- as having been an intern writing random shit), and the "fact" that a lot of the images and designs of the Olympics have Jewish/Freemason/New World Order imagery, which obviously means that the Jews and Freemasons are going to sacrifice lots of people in a fake terrorist attack to summon up support for a world currency.

I just smile, nod, and say "Thats really scary. I'd better warn my family in England to stay away from the Olympics.".

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 5:15 pm

Parthenon you hang out with serious freaks.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:27 pm

Regarding the sex thing: Why would anyone want to have sex with an athletic woman? With a few exceptions, they look like adult heads with little girl bodies. I respect their hard work and discipline but I don't want to put my penis in one.

Then again, my signature tells me that there are stranger things men have put penises in...

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:47 pm

Olympic athletes tend to be super specialized for whatever sport(s) they compete in, so you get a lot of body types.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:56 pm

Unless your definition of little girl body is purely "A cup or less", you have some serious weird exposure to athletic women.

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:57 pm

Ted the Flayer wrote:Regarding the sex thing: Why would anyone want to have sex with an athletic woman? With a few exceptions, they look like adult heads with little girl bodies.

If you seriously believe this, I don't know what to say to you.

I used to run track & field, and the amount of attractive, athletic girls was considerable. Unless they are super-extreme (which I admit, may well be the case with some/many olympians), athletic girls do not look like "little girl bodies" except in comparison to lush anime chicks or surgery-modified centerfolds.

You can make a case for extreme athletes, but "athletic women" covers a huge amount of ground.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 7:03 pm

Well, and Gymnasts who actually ARE little girls, for the most part.
The oldest American Gymnast was what.. 17?

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 7:46 pm

And here I thought this thread was about the badminton scandal....top teams removed for "not trying hard enough to win".

Madness. They were deliberately losing early games so that they would avoid the more difficult matches until the very end.

Next, marathon runners will be disqualified for not running as fast as possible in the first ten seconds of the race...

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 8:25 pm

The only athletic people I know (male or female) are in fact extreme, world-class athletes. And tend to also not be able to hold a conversation that does not involve their sport of choice in some way. I respect their mental fortitude and physical discipline but I can't even imagine them having sex...

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 8:35 pm

Ted the Flayer wrote:I respect their mental fortitude and physical discipline but I can't even imagine them having sex...

I expect their performance would depend on whether they're speed or endurance runners.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 8:47 pm

Doom wrote:And here I thought this thread was about the badminton scandal....top teams removed for "not trying hard enough to win".

Fuck them. How are BP and Coke going to get adulation and acknowledgement of their wonderfulness if the puppets don't dance?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:51 pm

Doom wrote:And here I thought this thread was about the badminton scandal....top teams removed for "not trying hard enough to win".

Madness. They were deliberately losing early games so that they would avoid the more difficult matches until the very end.

Next, marathon runners will be disqualified for not running as fast as possible in the first ten seconds of the race...

A game is a discrete unit of judgment. The first ten seconds of a race is not a discrete unit of judgment. Slippery slope, apples and oranges, etc, etc.

The problem with allowing something like that is that if it is allowed, then you should do it because the less difficult matches you face the less likely you'll screw up and lose to a weaker opponent. Talent is the key factor, but there is an element of randomness in any close match-up, so the less close match-ups you subject yourself to the better. Once you have people explicitly allowed and incentivized to do that, then preliminaries will be full of it (because it's a significant advantage) and then preliminaries no longer work. They played the prisoner dilemma and chose betray. Fuck that.

Of course, that's not a sustainable or fair solution. You can't just eyeball it and whimsically hand out punishment, because nobody is taking the preliminaries as seriously as the actual games and you can't make them and shouldn't want to; there's risks of injury and just plain old strain and fatigue. If they really want a fair system without manipulation by the teams, they ultimately need a different system. Nevertheless, this particular example was above and beyond and if you can't be assed to even feel shame or show subtlety while deliberately gaming the system in a way that leads to its ultimate breakdown, you deserve to be disqualified for your stupidity, if not your ethics.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 2:13 am

I like watching the beach volleyball. That's the extent of it.

Though the logo is hilarious, given it looks like someone performing fellatio.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 3:27 am

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:But I feel so good when my country wins!

Wow I feel really good when my country loses. Canadians are some of the worst losers I've met, especially against america so I always root for the US to beat the Canucks just to see people feel disapointed about something so meaningless and petty. Of course I'm still Canadian enough to hope that the US loses too so I support basically any country not from north america.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 3:33 am

Why you gotta be hatin' on Mexico?