h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Remaining cynical about the Olympics is unfashionable.

It's been said that we (GB) 'need' to keep investing in future athletes, but why do we need to? Is it to keep winning medals, and if so, how does that help us? Possibly it's because it makes so many of us feel good about ourselves, and diverts our attention away from the big issues, like the zero growth in the economy, and the coalition government falling apart. If so, wouldn't it make more sense to invest directly in the country's problems, rather than in Olympian 'bread and circuses'?

If the Olympic ideal ever existed I am skeptical of what it has become (not cynical).

It has become pseudo religious in its ceremony. The president and committee members act like pompous priests of some sacred seal. In the closing ceremony the spectators were commanded to stand for the Olympic anthem.

Separate to this - why should host nations have to bankrupt / prostitute themselves in hosting the events. Why shouldn't athletes be housed in university digs rather than building an atheletes village (to be sold off on the cheap to a Qatari + GB firm). Why is it winning a medal so important that inquests are held if athletes fail to meet targets - the GB&NI swimming team has been put under inquest following them failing to meet targets.

Well that's because they had about £27 million spent on their programme and got some silvers and bronzes whereas out canoers, kayakers and boxers managed a better medal tally through jumble sales, touting local businesses and sponsored walks

Seriously though - people like Pendleton, Wiggins and Hoy can and probably have inspire(d) a whole generation to get out on their bikes and do some exercise. How is that a bad thing?
Probably the same thing would not happen with a mediocre to rubbish performance.

A healthy nation is also likely to work and produce more I expect.

"It has become pseudo religious in its ceremony. The president and committee members act like pompous priests of some sacred seal. In the closing ceremony the spectators were commanded to stand for the Olympic anthem."

I've been thinking for a while that the Olympics might be thought of as the ultimate Humanist festival. No religion - but shared values of fair play and effort, and of people trying to do the best and being the best that they can be.

What I did find a bit annoying is the conflation of 'elite' sport and 'sport for all' as if they're one and the same thing, and that by promoting one you promote the other. While I don't think it's at all true that state schools don't encourage competitive sports (that's just a diversion from the difference in facilities, staffing, and funding), part of the point of offering non-competitive exercise option (yoga, dancing, circuit training, zumba, whatever) was to broaden the appeal.

If we go back to having a hyper-competitive 'winners only' version of school sports where everything is channelled into the 'first team', then the effect will be (as it has in the past) to put off a lot of people from sport and exercise for life.

As a society, we need to promote all sorts of exercise because we are frankly becoming a bunch of fat, lazy couch potatoes. Nothing wrong with that per se, but the diseases and conditions brought on by such lifestyles is impacting on the NHS. Doubly so, as the fat sods either miss work or can't work at all meaning the rest of us have to pay to support their lazy lifestyles.

Promoting sport as something glamorous and aspirational might mean we get role models like Bradley Wiggins and Jennifer Ennis rather than vacuous non-entities like Pete Doherty & Cheryl Cole.

>>As a society, we need to promote all sorts of exercise because we are frankly becoming a bunch of fat, lazy couch potatoes.

Instead of investing in elite athletes, why not invest more directly in the population? We sold off the school playing fields and spent £fortunes on the Olympics. Which would help schoolchildren more?

Whilst I broadly agree, what good is a playing field if no children are inspired to play on it?

Both. The playing fields provide the space, and the athletes provide the inspiration. If there is no impetus to do *something* then having *somewhere* is pointless.

You need both.


Geggs

Effectively a there.


Geggs

Although kids would still be inspired to play all those sports which aren't publically funded, and in certain cases I'd wager that they'd be more inspired by things like league football than by the insipid Olympic version.

My girl wanted to do gymnastics a few years ago, but the waiting lists were all over a year long.

>>Whilst I broadly agree, what good is a playing field if no children are inspired to play on it?<<

One can use a "Marxist" against this: the capitalists unjustly appropriate the commons from the proletariate, then sell the proletariate the capitalist cr&p as a replacement but at a price (television, playstations etc).

... "Marxist" argument ...

Whilst entertaining the masses with John Lennon singing 'Imagine No Possessions... and no religion too'?

<BB<

Cynical about the Olympics? We have our priorities entirely wrong as a nation, and the Olympics is a distraction. How much Olympic success could you buy for £300 million ? Quite a lot? How many nurses or policemen or teachers could you fund with £300 million?

As a country, we all know we're basically broke. So at a time when we're broke, why, I wonder, are we JUST THIS YEAR sending £300 million in "foreign aid" to a country that can afford its own nuclear weapons and a space programme?

At least the money spent on the Olympics was spent here in the UK for the most part, with some stuff that made us feel good at the time and other stuff that will remain as a legacy.

The entire budget of the Olympics gets spent EVERY YEAR on foreign aid, simply given away. And this spend has been ringfenced so that while our police are patrolling alone and paramedics go out single crewed, school budgets are cut, cancer patients denied treatment, the poor people in OTHER countries won't see any drop in the munificence we pour on them year in, year out. We have to tighten our belts. In any sane world, that would mean cutting back on discretionary spending FIRST, wouldn't it?

>>Promoting sport as something glamorous and aspirational might mean we get role models like Bradley Wiggins and Jennifer Ennis rather than vacuous non-entities like Pete Doherty & Cheryl Cole.

Or we might get role models like Nadzeya Ostapchuk.

"Belarusian women's shot put gold medallist Nadzeya Ostapchuk has been stripped of her title after failing a doping test, the International Olympic Committee has announced."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19242736

I think we're straying from cynicism and moving into the realms of miserable-as-sin there.

And that's *my* job

Question: Is there any possibility that countries might give foreign aid out of self-interest? Or do governments always tell the truth when they say they are acting out of concern for others?

KB surely you are not suggesting that foreign aid are not merely "bungs" in which those in receipt will then not buy stuff from the wealthy chums of the donors, nor allow these same wealthy chums to access and exploit the natural resources that these bung recipients might have under their democratic or undemocratic control.

I'm not suggesting that, no. I'm asking whether it is possible that a country's foreign policy (of which giving aid to other countries is one small part) is dictated by self-interest.