Comment by meri_dian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by meri_dian | Hacker News Reader

He clearly loves math so the CTE study may just have been the straw that broke the camel's back. He may have been yearning to fully devote himself to math for a while now.

Regarding the broader debate that seems to be swirling along the lines of 'should we ban Football or not', I strongly believe we should not.

If parents want to prevent their kids from playing football, great, that's their choice to make. But if they allow them to play, we have to keep in mind that only a very small percentage of players will continue on to play in college, and then only another fraction of those players will continue on to play in the NFL. I'm sure that people who play youth and high school football but stop playing after HS graduation have a much lower incidence rate of CTE than players who continue on to play at the collegiate and professional levels. So for the vast majority of football players CTE isn't much a risk.

Because those who do reach the highest levels of the sport make tremendous amounts of money, as long as they are aware of the risks, they should be able to make the decision for themselves.

Dude. Multiple blows to the head causes CTE. And it starts as early as high school which is when tackle football starts. At this point it is immoral and unethical to have tackle football in schools.

> At this point it is immoral and unethical to have tackle football in schools.

That remains a normative claim, not a positive one. Some parents will be dissuaded from allowing their children to play football competitively, but you'll have great difficulty enforcing something like a ban.

It isn't immoral or unethical to have sports where long-term injury can occur. Using that metric we would have to ban all sports. What is unethical is not educating the participants of the risks. We need to push for more studies and education, not bans.

The challenge is that football is inching from "where long-term injury can occur" to "where long term injury does occur". That is, from "If a play goes poorly, you may tear ligaments and break bones, which may have lasting effects" to "it should be the expectation that if you practice and play this sport for any length of time your brain will resemble a block of emmentaler".

Now there's a false equivalence if ever I saw one. I stiff hip or bum knee from playing sports seems way, way different to me than suffering irreversible dementia and chronic depression beginning in one's late 40s.

There's a difference between a small risk of long-term injury (a risk you run in different ways if you're not doing sports, I might add), and near certain brain damage.

Not all sports have so grim an outlook - and I bet football too could be fixed with some rules changes (e.g. I don't recall any stories of rugby having such effects, and that's at least somewhat related).

Further research can probably help, but it's unwise to wait for that if the results are already sufficiently clear as is.

We (society) typically require someone reach a certain age of consent before we allow participation in life-altering activities. e.g. drinking, smoking, driving, enlistment, marriage, tattoos, etc.

A 13 year old jr. high schooler who wants to play for their school's football team isn't able to fully assess and weigh the risks of long term brain injuries from an activity. Maybe parental education and consent is enough for some people, but at the same time, we flat out don't allow parental consent to buy cigarettes at age 13 either even if there are parents that would allow it.

> e.g. drinking, smoking, driving, enlistment, marriage, tattoos, etc

Marriage and tattoos are allowed with parent/guardian consent at quite young ages depending on where you live. And not allowed other places, of course. Laws on this vary widely, even just inside the US.

> Maybe parental education and consent is enough for some people

Right, that is the question. Is playing football more like smoking? Or is it more like marriage or tattoos? Or like downhill skiing or any of a host of other dangerous activities minors can engage in with parental consent pretty much anywhere?

But tackle football at a young age hasn't been shown to dramatically increase likelihood of CTE.

And for the highest levels where CTE is a risk, players are compensated for the risks they take in playing. No one compensates you for smoking or drinking.

I think a more nuanced approach, eg the Zack Lystedt law is appropriate until we under stand the science better.

The key part of that law is that athletes must be taken out if they are suspected of a concussion, and they can't play until they are cleared by a qualified professional. Unless and until we find scientific evidence that it is the absolute number of concussions in someone's lifetime, and not back to back concussions without recovery, that cause CTE this seems appropriate.

Where did you get the 99% from?

I thought the conclusion from that study was at least 9% of NFL players would gone on to develop CTE. This estimate was made by making a conservative (but very unrealistic estimate) that EVERY player that did not donate their brains did not have CTE.

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