Imp-Chan wrote:There's nothing wrong with discussing the Olympics, it's a time-honored tradition, and I'm glad to have at least SOME commentary going on here.
He he, and I was glad to have a thread in which I could post how much I hate this hype
And it's really just the hype I hate. There's nothing wrong with sports events, you just pick what you want to see and skip the rest. But when I cannot see news without being told about a particular event... weeks and months before it even takes place... then it becomes annoying. Earlier this year it was the Soccer European Championships, now it's the Olympics.
Two years ago, on January 1st, the first news broadcast that I saw started with the top news "the year of the Soccer World Championships has begun". I think the event was in August or so. Granted, I was living in the hosting country. But as the
top news? Not top sports news, mind you. Top overall news. More important than any political or social or economic or humanitarian event, developement, or crisis. Duh.
Imp-Chan wrote:an event that is founded on the idea of suspended differences.
The ancient Olympics included that concept. I just read Dan Simmon's "Olympos" (followup to "Ilium") and he mentioned that the Greeks got that working for centuries. But I feel that the modern Olympics are only paying lip service to the ancient traditions. Has any government currently involved in a war even considered a three-week cease-fire? I doubt it.
The modern Olympics are founded on the idea of making money fast. Wikipedia says that more than 90% of the IOC revenue is redistributed, but I wonder how many of that gets down to the people who really need it. The IOC distributes money to the NOCs, which keep some for their own running and redistribute some to subcommittees, and so on. Especially in the poorer and more corrupt countries, I doubt that much of it arrives at the "common" people who'd need financial support. But maybe I'm just too pessimistic, if not cynical.
Imp-Chan wrote:The Chinese people in particular have got to be in a weird position right now...
Not knowing whether they should complain about their government that had them relocated or did other unpleasant stuff, or whether they should stick to their government against the western barbarians who want to tell the Chinese people how to run their nation.
Imp-Chan wrote:Chinese History is generally taught as cyclical, not progressive, and so what makes sense to them on an internal cultural level as a natural decline of the current order and ways of the world is horrifying a lot of westerners who haven't had history (as in consistent, written history... the Chinese had it, even if they tended to destroy the records in waves of political fervor) for quite long enough for our culture to get used to that idea. Certainly we're not generally very accepting of it.
That's an interesting point. I recently read a german sociology book titled "Vertrauen und Gewalt", which translates roughly as "Trust and Force/Power/Violence". If I got it right - it wasn't always easy to understand
- the author says that what makes a "modern" society is that permission to use physical violence in general is granted exclusively to the state, which has rules and limits on how to use it. In particular, the state only uses localizing force ("lozierende Gewalt"), that is people are locked up or taken away from where they shouldn't be. But there is a general ban on using destructive force ("autotelische Gewalt") like cutting off limbs or torturing - or captial punishment, for that matter.
He considers this a historically unique achievement, and westerners are so used to it by now that they cannot even imagine living otherwise. We take it as granted that we can get out the door without anyone jumping on us or trying to run us over with a car. The Human Rights are based on this "modern" view of society, and we cannot imagine that this isn't the natural result of the evolution of societies. Except, the author says, that it was a very unlikely combination of events and developments that brought us this view of the world, and that it isn't likely to happen elsewhere. Which would explain why it isn't that easy to bring "democracy" (as a symbol for our view of the world) to China, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, or elsewhere.
What was I trying to say? I have no idea, but what you wrote just connected with the book I recently read. Cyclical History meaning that we will go back to the middle ages, where (some) people could hit and kill others on a regular basis and where state authorities were allowed to inflict pain and mutilate and kill... you're right, I don't like that thought at all.
And to avoid any misunderstanding: I'm not pointing fingers on the USA here. I can see early development in that direction here in Germany as well. We had discussions about allowing torture to rescue kidnapped persons, and about shooting down kidnapped airplanes with innocent people aboard. The fact that the german government showed little to no interest in getting a german citizen out of Guantanamo Bay a few years ago just adds to the picture. Terrorism is a threat to our society, and the governments that want extra authority, allegedly to counter that threat, are actually transforming the society.
Stick & String wrote:Its the age of the net, so what the heck, they do have cameras over almost every square inch of competition venues, why not get those feeds out on the net?
Because the Olympics are a big money-making machine, and the IOC is not going to take the financial risk.
If somebody wants to do internet broadcasts of an otherwise off-screen event, they'll have to pay a lot of money in advance for permission to do that. Then they can try to sell that to pay-per-view internet users, in an internet that is dominated by free offerings, from YouTube to your favorite file sharing network. Maybe it would work, maybe there are enough fans of archery to recover the cost. But that's a huge MAYBE for somebody who has to fork off the money for licensing as well as for the broadcasting and payment infrastructures.