Throughout history, many people have been encouraged to pursue arguably worthless goals

Throughout history, many people have been encouraged to pursue arguably worthless goals. Why?

Consider the Olympics, for example.

It is, without doubt, generally considered to be a high and worthy achievement to win a gold medal (or any medal, actually) in the Olympic Games.

But is there any particular reason why this should be so?

To win a gold medal at the Olympic Games, you need to be the best (out of all those people who also desire to participate) at some task. The task may be rowing, diving, jumping, running; any one of a number of activities which people have decided to compete in. To win, all you need to do is be the best. It is generally extremely difficult for someone to be the best at one of these activities, and it is considered (*because* it is extremely difficult to achieve) very prestigious to be the best.

But are there not many things in the world which are difficult, but worthless?

Why is it considered prestigious, for example, to be the best diver in the world? It is very hard to be considered the best, but is it actually a valuable thing to be the best at?

Why is being the best at diving, for example, considered to be a very prestigious achievement, but being the best at, say, ultimate frisbee, is not cared about at all by the general public?

Why is it considered important to be the best at things which are only games, and which contribute nothing of substantive value to the world?

Why have difficult things and prestigious things come to be basically synonymous, when in fact the difficulty of a given task and the value created by it may be completely unrelated?

Should we not be concerned more with value than with difficulty?

(Originally posted on Veeky Forums, but reproduced here on the suggestion of another user)

>Should we not be concerned more with value than with difficulty?
Start by giving an objective definition of value then, fagboy.
Sports are entertainment. Is having fun not a good goal?
The olympics gross billions of dollars. Is that economic profit not a good goal?

You literally have no argument whatsoever here, you're talking from your subjective point of view.

Because everyone who plays Ultimate is a hippy.

These are not the reasons that people want to win the Olympic gold medal.

People do not decide 'I will try to win the Olympic gold medal because people will enjoy watching me try' or 'because someone will make money from it'.

They're being encouraged to do it because they are being told that it's valuable in and of itself, not because it's 'entertainment' or because 'it will gross billions'.

I'm asking why people are being encouraged to believe that doing something difficult is valuable *in and of itself* - the Olympics are only an example, not the substantive subject of the question.

>doing something difficult is valuable *in and of itself*
It's a display of fitness, in the biological sense.

People wanna win the olympics because being the best at something feeds their ego. It's pure self interest. They don't think shving a tenth of a second off a world record is a societal achievement, they think it's an individual achievement. If they're happy doing it, then it's all the value you need.

>People do not decide 'I will try to win the Olympic gold medal because people will enjoy watching me try' or 'because someone will make money from it'.
Not that user, but I doubt that's how he meant it anyhow
You ask why it's encouraged to think there is intrinsic value in winning the Olympics and one answer to WHY IT'S ENCOURAGED to think this could certainly be that some people have something to gain (ie money) from this idea being promoted

But that isn't the question he purports to answer; he quoted the question of whether value is more important than difficulty and seems to have responded only to that.

at this point sports are science
>what should one eat to make the best gains for this particular sport
>what kind of training is the best
>what is the limit of the human body

it is ultimately a testing ground, which avarage joe will benefit later

same for drivers, his experiences and decisions make him the best, giving his knowledge to others will make traffic safer and self driving cars an example

But that doesn't seem to be what the focus is on. It seems to be all about competing; about winning.

Those things may be true; but they don't seem to be the purpose for which the activity is carried out; and certainly not what motivates people to spend hours every day for many years training to compete in the Olympics.

I'll leave your self exploration of existential crisis with a lil quote from a smart interblag person who likes drawing stick figures :"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."

Going into space makes complete economic sense and it would be utterly ridiculous of us not to do it, since without doing it it is probably not possible to mitigate existential risk to a sufficient degree to ensure that our species survives long enough to achieve anything truly meaningful like the eradication of suffering and discovering the true nature of our existence and fully understanding the physical laws which govern it.

We're never going to do that if people continue to derive satisfaction and happiness from just jumping really far or running fast.

because we see quality's in the pursuit of the gold medal that we would like to have ourselves. We live in a time of abundance we don't have to hunt for food etc, so we've created a world in which noble but worthless pursuits are possible which in turn show us quality we all would like to posses, because these people posses these quality's we reward them.

Plus I feel like the need to win is a very Darwinian instinct it makes us feel good to watch it because in most of our lives we don't face this kind of raw competition

This is just what if thought of now in a couple of mins, I'll think about it more because its pretty interesting

so basically we should be more concerned with worth for the advancement of mankind but creating (subjective value) is part of being human, and what probably will differentiate us from robots

He seemed to want your definition of value, without it it is impossible to answer your question.

Then he gave you two examples of value from sports.

You make an unbelievable amount of assumptions about the future of man kind.
And isn't going to space basically jumping really really high really really fast

Pic very related.

Imbecile.

Been saying this for years, pretty good design.

Some gymnastics might be in order though, as much as I hate judged events.

With the right frame of mind anything can be considered pointless

So why bother doing anything?

The reason is called culture. The origin of sport culture is training. Training to achieve a higher value if the right time has come.

You do what you value and you value what you do and there's no separating the two

All you've done is oust yourself as a non-ambitious loser.

Some people want to be the best

>you're talking from your subjective point of view.

>Throughout history, many people have been encouraged to pursue arguably worthless goals.
Any goal is arguably worthless.

>t. 26 year old fat NEET neckbeard

>Projecting this hard

Dumbest shit Ive ever Read. Epee Fencing? Really?

EVERYONE needs to be good at fucking FENCING to have a chance to compete?

And I even like watching fencing...

/thread

>everyone on Veeky Forums agreed
>fat Veeky Forums losers think they know better

lmao

It's just another form of idol worship. You devote your life to getting a gold medal, a silver cup, a gold statue, a platinum record; it's all just idolatry.

I thought OP was hard to read but Christ this was cancerous

I believe the original idea for olympics was amateur competition. Meaning the athletes have a day job and do sports on the side. Some athletes still do i suppose, but they inevitably lose to the careerists, unless it's some """sport""" like shooting.

not /thread

As good a point as it is, it doesn't address the meat of the question, but rather explained why people like to do things in general.

Why is it that the activity people design for others is useless? To give a more extreme example, imagine an Olympic for thumb wrestling. People can train their entire lives for the reason you suggested, but why the fuck are they thumb wrestling.

99% of the activities aren't enjoyable, so you can't posit that. Most don't build a team mentality. Most if not all of any character built is from training itself, not the activity.

The essence of the question is this. If we are to devote ourselves to becoming the best in something, why not choose a productive, fulfilling, or meaningful activity? inb4 phil phaggots ask what objective meaning/ purpose is. If you can't answer a fucking question don't hide behind breaking definitions.

>some nerd literally cannot comprehend athletic competition

That's all this is. If you have to ask...