The Battle Bar, Our Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

Dave
Soccer and Tennis, more than any other sport, showcase the best athletes on the planet.

|King Joker|

Spoiler:
AHSOKA IS FULCRUM, BITCHES!

Based
With sufficient training, any one can be an effective teacher. There's no sufficient training that can automatically make you into a top athlete.

I'm sure it's a quite complicated issue, and I don't know nearly enough to do it justice. I don't necessarily begrudge athletes their enormous earnings because entire industries and thus millions of jobs are made available by their existence, and that seems to be a good thing in this economic paradigm, to say nothing of the less tangible benefits (entertainment). There's probably a genuine clusterfuck of horrors enabling/being enabled by that, but I don't to worry about that right now. At any rate, I'd be astounded if anyone argued that athletics were more important or otherwise worth prioritizing over improving quality of and access to education. That would be dumb, probably ironically so.

edited: preempt rebuttal based on arguably specious reasoning

Originally posted by psmith81992
Emphasis bold. That reasoning applies to every single profession in the world. Doctors wouldn't make what they make if it wasn't for the patients. Lawyers wouldn't make what they make if it wasn't for their clients. The negativity towards athletes on this forum is quite amusing. Surely if "sports" are a waste of time, the majority of college professors shouldn't be getting paid what they're getting paid either. Or we can just continue to rationalize what we don't like and ignore supply and demand.

For me it's even more about the amount being paid rather than just the profession. As far as I'm concerned, anyone earning more money than the average annual income in the time it takes to take a large shit is grossly overpaid.

Football probably draws on the biggest talent pool.

Curious as to what other criteria you might be going by that aren't (almost?) totally arbitrary though. I think

The only reason I'm not viable as a professional tennis player is because there are a couple of million people who, given access to identical resources (time, quality of training, nutrition and strength and conditioning, financial support, etc.), would be way better at tennis than I would be, aka competition.

A career in professional athletics is appealing in large part because it tends to pay better than the alternatives.

At any rate, I'd be astounded if anyone argued that athletics were more important or otherwise worth prioritizing over improving quality of and access to education. That would be dumb, probably ironically so.

For me it's even more about the amount being paid rather than just the profession. As far as I'm concerned,a anyway earning more money than the average annual income in the time it takes to take a large shit is grossly overpaid.

Dave
In the states probably, but soccer draws on a bigger talent pool because it's an international sport.

Dave
The ability to play a 5 set, 5-6 hour tennis match 2 days in a row, or the ability to run for 90 minutes, basically. Most of the stuff is subjective obviously, but I don't consider baseball or golf to be a sport any more than Chess or any primarily skill based "games".

Dave
You just basically mentioned genetics. If I have the same access as you, all things being equal, and I end up better than you, more than likely it's a beneficial genetic factor for me.

Basically:
Lots of people like and play football.
Organizations seek out the very best football players.
The very best football players are recognized as being very very good, in part by attributing to them immense social significance and paying them huge sums of money (i.e. ostensibly "commensurate compensation"😉.

I would argue that "elite talent" is not exclusively the purview of the various entertainment industries, and that whether statistically significant to quite the same degree or (more likely) not, the same scrutinizing lens applied to virtually any other human endeavor would yield you some unpanned gold. But first people have to care.

Dave
Nobody would argue this but nobody would argue that career compensation should be based on its "importance".

I meant your "soccer," Texan scum. Soccer = football/non-English transliterations to the world.

Well, baseball draws from a talent pool numbering in the tens of millions. There's obviously some set of "abilities" being coveted and rewarded that a very few people have at (what has developed into) the highest level of play. Size, eyesight, "arm strength," durability (talk about a packed season), other qualities of general athleticism, etc. Golf has its own prodigies and we can presumably extrapolate the same of it (that there is a selective process culling those without certain aptitudes from participation at high levels of play), although golf has even more of a class barrier than does tennis.

That's the idea. I'm sure there are genetic/"talent"-derived aptitudes for pedagogy at various levels that would establish some sort of floor were they coveted and systematically scouted and developed with enough vigor. The C. Ronaldo/Messi-caliber "rarity" of the traits in question becomes significant only when you have mechanisms in place with enough power, scrutiny, and reach to filter them out. As you say, those two are who they are and make what they make because there are literally hundreds of millions of people in the world who would do what they do if they could, and scouting/training/marketing has evolved to make the most of that exclusivity.

Basically:
Lots of people like and play football.
Organizations seek out the very best football players.
The very best football players are recognized as being very very good, in part by attributing to them immense social significance and paying them huge sums of money (i.e. ostensibly "commensurate compensation"😉.

I would argue that "elite talent" is not exclusively the purview of the various entertainment industries, and that whether statistically significant to quite the same degree or (more likely) not, the same scrutinizing lens applied to virtually any other human endeavor would yield you some unpanned gold. But first people have to care.

I think a couple of people are heading in that direction in this thread.

Originally posted by psmith81992
Emphasis bold. That reasoning applies to every single profession in the world. Doctors wouldn't make what they make if it wasn't for the patients. Lawyers wouldn't make what they make if it wasn't for their clients. The negativity towards athletes on this forum is quite amusing. Surely if "sports" are a waste of time, the majority of college professors shouldn't be getting paid what they're getting paid either. Or we can just continue to rationalize what we don't like and ignore supply and demand.

It's like people complaining that this or that pathetic or insipid celebrity is (in)famous, and then not stop paying attention to them. If there's one thing the Simpson Halloween episodes has taught me is that you stop paying attention to something, it stops having meaning. And in the world of sports and entertainment, there's an endless supply of attention. We're just that obsessed with being entertained.

Originally posted by psmith81992
Emphasis bold. That reasoning applies to every single profession in the world. Doctors wouldn't make what they make if it wasn't for the patients. Lawyers wouldn't make what they make if it wasn't for their clients. The negativity towards athletes on this forum is quite amusing. Surely if "sports" are a waste of time, the majority of college professors shouldn't be getting paid what they're getting paid either. Or we can just continue to rationalize what we don't like and ignore supply and demand.

lol

Anyway, the economics here are a bit more involved than just supply and demand. The professions listed here are those where the outcomes are pretty much binary. A doctor's patients either live or die. A lawyer either wins the case or not. A sportsball team wins or loses. In each case, paying for a single extra "unit" of skill can have a huge impact on the result. Also, these are all in scenarios where the binary outcome is critical: Life or death, freedom or jail time, win or lose. So people are both rewarded for paying and willing to pay for skill. This is sometimes called the "superstar effect."

By contrast, professions where the outcomes can be arranged on a continuous line of accomplishment have a smaller incentive to pay for a slight increase in skill. Like, getting a slightly more skilled hairdresser is unlikely to make the whole difference for your job interview, so they haven't got any leverage in price-setting.

Originally posted by Based
Our population is retarded because they don't give a ****. The ones who care

And Asian students aren't any better off. They know how to game the system better- which isn't the same thing as actually having the knowledge they're supposed to have been taught.

But even if I let you have the point, if you think there are teachers screwing up then why are the results good enough for you to be arguing for higher pay?

The POTUS is determined by voters, has never been a main source of income for any one and has a short limit of how long you can be it. This is such an anomaly to every other occupation that it shouldn't be used as an example.

If you want to use a doctor for an example, I'll concede that it is an occupation that takes willpower to the point that only a select few of the population can match. But there's even a less few that can pull of the physical feats that these athletes can that willpower and natural skill aren't even enough. [/B]

The point of these examples is to address your claim that athletes get paid exorbitant amounts of money because their jobs require specialized skills. There are many jobs in the world that require specialized skills, some of them being even more exclusive then a professional athlete, yet don't earn nearly as much money. Thus your argument blows.

- - - - -

RE: the discussion at large, I don't have a problem with athletes making ****tons of money. I do have problem with the people who give them all that money- not because they do, but because many of those people will support multi-million dollar salaries for basketball players while sneering at the idea of pumping more money into education or scientific research or a host of other things that are critically important toward improving our society.

I love anime.

By contrast, professions where the outcomes can be arranged on a continuous line of accomplishment have a smaller incentive to pay for a slight increase in skill. Like, getting a slightly more skilled hairdresser is unlikely to make the whole difference for your job interview, so they haven't got any leverage in price-setting.

Originally posted by Tzeentch
No, they can't. Thus why half our population is retarded. But even if we go with your premise, so what? Not everyone can be an effective President of the United States or Astronaut, but that doesn't stop Kobe Bryant from making 10 times their salary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/us/alabama-supreme-court-same-sex-marriages.html?_r=0

I'm happy for you RH. Now maybe this will reduce the inbreeding.

Originally posted by psmith81992
But are you seeing this as a problem? And my point about college professors was simple. IF people are going to question why athletes get paid to play sports, I'm going to question why the majority of liberal arts professors are getting paid to teach useless material, material that one can learn on his own time with a thing called google.

about the professors vs. Google, there is a certain resource that the average internet goer lacks. The education psych term is "grit" but we mean essentially to say "sticktoitiveness" or gumption. There are Massive online open courses available through MIT, Harvard, and Yale, but there aren't MIT equivalent mathematicians running around everywhere. It turns out that it's tough to learn anything without a taskmaster keeping us on track.

MOOCS are hardly a sign of the immanent failure of the higher ed system. (Regular online courses are a much bigger threat.)

I will agree that certain subjects (math, engineering, physics) would better benefit the individual if learned through a professor (although not necessary). But those are the exceptions to the rules.

Are you going to see Magic Mike XXL, Dave?

IDK.

ILS and I planned on going though

I see, Dave.

I'll be there day 1. 👆

YouTube video

http://anonhq.com/anonymous-hacktivists-strike-blow-isis/

Zerocool baby.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/11/politics/brownback-lgbt-executive-order/

What a swell guy. I'm glad people can now discriminate as they please in Kansas. 🙂 Go Kansas!