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.

Without going into a "definition war", I think not having a clear objective for winning makes it more into a game than a sport. Wiping out 90% of the enemy team could be a decent victory condition, but that's just the first thing that comes to mind and other ideas are likely better.

I have not played airsoft and so was unaware of these safety measures. What are the risks and rates of injury after accounting for common safety practices?

They seem to be about similar to other sports that have similar movement-types. You run, jump, slide... just like in other sports and those actions have the same risks. I haven't done a lot of large-group games, but with decent precautions (eye protections and regular-powered guns) it seems like you just get sprained ankles and little cuts.

It's easy to forget that first person shooters already have plenty of game modes with strictly defined victory conditions that make fun to play watch matches. Team Fortress 2 has arena mode, which seems like it has very appropriate win conditions for a war game. Teams must eliminate each other, or capture a central point that unlocks after a set amount of time to win. It discourages fleeing and hiding if your team is mostly eliminated, because you'll lose anyway when the point unlocks. In general all you should need is one clearly defined goal for at lea... (read more)