Rationalist Sport

MathiasZaman

This post is a bit of an experiment; Most of the time, Discussion post lay out an idea and this idea then get commented upon. This post, on the other hand, will be purely about discussion on a topic. If this works out well, I'll might post more of these in the future.

On to the meat of this post:

I got this idea from a reddit post on /r/LessWrong.

To quote:

I remember my sociology textbook explaining that sports often show what a group values. Bowling was popular with machinists and factory workers who valued repeated precision, while American football was watched and played by a culture that valued extreme specialization of individuals, but able to work as a team.

So I've been thinking about what we would value in a sport, and what sport we could create that exemplifies those values (not interested in picking an existing sport).

So have at it.

I only ask for one thing and that is to hold off on proposing solutions for 24 hours before giving suggestions for actual sports. In the first 24 hours, please discuss what makes current sports unappealing to rationalists and what aspects a sports designed for aspiring rationalists should have.

Edit: The 24-hour window has closed and solutions and suggestions can now be given.

On to the meat of this post:

I got this idea from a reddit post on /r/LessWrong.

To quote:

I remember my sociology textbook explaining that sports often show what a group values. Bowling was popular with machinists and factory workers who valued repeated precision, while American football was watched and played by a culture that valued extreme specialization of individuals, but able to work as a team.

So I've been thinking about what we would value in a sport, and what sport we could create that exemplifies those values (not interested in picking an existing sport).

So have at it.

Edit: The 24-hour window has closed and solutions and suggestions can now be given.

Here's Shiva Nata-- a sort of yoga that involves combinatoric movements. It would be easier to structure as competition-- the scoring could be based on the complexity of movement that a person could do accurately.

I think that goal misses the point. From the article you linked:

Continuous spiral movements consist of two complete counter-directional sine curves. Therefore, performing such movements sets a series of alternating active and passive fragments of the energy flow. These energy impulses purify energy channels and balance the circulation of energy inside them.

Synchronizing spiral movements of the limbs with the breath creates a constant and intensive energy consumption from the surrounding space, translation of it through psychic-energy structure channels, and accumulation and radiation into the surrounding space.

Complexity isn't the point but energy flow is. Those semantics are off-putting to rationalists. If you on the other hand simply drop the main part of the practice you are doing something like cargo culting. It might superficially look the same but you lose the essence.

I rather prefer to have bodywork that's from the ground up based on a more modern framework.

I don't think having competitions is necessary. But it might make sense to look at Tai Chi competitions. They don't do their Tai Chi patterns and see who does them the most beautiful way but they do push hands competitions.

I wasn't looking for something which was guaranteed to be good for people. I was looking for something which was harmless (probably), difficult, and possible to evaluate objectively-- the first makes it rationalist, and the second and third make it a potential sport.

I can believe that it's better for people to coordinate movement and breathing without buying into dubious metaphysics.

[Tai Chi competitions](http://www.wustyle-europe.com/competition2014.html include form competition as well as push hands.

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