Comments on: SSC Gets World Cup Fever

By: Alexander Stanislaw

Alexander Stanislaw — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 13:17:14 +0000

High-tribal-conflict people would be more likely to like sports and politics; low-tribal-conflict people to be apathetic about both.

I am very low tribal conflict but I like both (assuming nerd sports count). I don’t like rooting for one side or the other though so much as the mechanics of each (for example the skill or strategies involved).

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By: Multiheaded

Multiheaded — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 12:48:57 +0000

High-tribal-conflict people would be more likely to like sports and politics; low-tribal-conflict people to be apathetic about both.

I really really hate the former (and this goes double for nerd “sports” like “serious” competitive tabletop or RTS gaming! you’re having badwrongfun and corrupting what could’ve been a pleasant friendly game!) and really really enjoy the latter.

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By: ozymandias

ozymandias — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 12:35:19 +0000

Surely what this could be capturing is how strong one’s tribal conflict instinct is? High-tribal-conflict people would be more likely to like sports and politics; low-tribal-conflict people to be apathetic about both.

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By: Watchmaker

Watchmaker — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:37:30 +0000

I believe this would be a significantly more stochastic affair than elections. Voting might have sampling biases, but in sports the better team sometimes loses.

If the goal of the tournament is to select for the best team, then an optimal tournament will have enough complexity to allow for a large sample of teams (and maybe double elimination as Zakharov said), but also be short enough where team decimating injuries are less likely to happen to the best team.

The optional tournament structure will funge against the best team’s stamina risk vs game risk. There’s no perfect system. Sometimes the Giants beat the Patriots.

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By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 05:36:08 +0000

I am 300% sure that article was made in jest. Evidence:
“Sporting should be about breaking kids down before you start building them up.”
“We also spent a lot of time in the outfield chanting, “Hey batter batter!” as if we were Buddhist monks on steroids. Our chanting was compensatory behavior, a way of making the time go by, which is surely why at soccer games today it is the parents who do all of the yelling.”
“Girls are too smart to waste an entire day playing baseball, and they do not have the bloodlust for football.”
“There is no way to run away from soccer, if only because it is a sport all about running.”
And most telling, “Nonetheless, I must say that my kids and I come home from a soccer game a very happy family.”

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By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 05:31:44 +0000

College football fans might do no more than vote, but they vote more average. Political leaning and voting turnout by type of TV and by sport. Source

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By: Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 01:14:42 +0000

That people who loudly talk about not understanding why people like sport don’t seem to display any genuine curiosity, or make any real effort to *try* to understand. Nerds tend to be quite curious, you’d think that if huge numbers of people spent a lot of their time and mental energy on some mysterious phenomenon, nerds would go crazy trying to figure out what the deal is.

Stereotypical nerds seem uninterested in *people* – they’d much rather figure out *things*.

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By: Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 01:12:13 +0000

Lesser Bull – strong Republican doesn’t equal active Republican. Someone might have extreme political views but not do much about them other than voting.

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By: Lesser Bull

Lesser Bull — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 21:08:57 +0000

Apparently passionate college football fandom is correlated with being a strong Republican, so they aren’t matter/anti-matter.

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By: a person

a person — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 14:54:32 +0000

Another one!

http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/06/25/coulter-growing-interest-soccer-sign-nations-moral-decay/11372137/

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