I was surprised to learn Zuckerberg was into fighting when the supposed Musk/Zuckerberg challenge happened. Why? Because for all that I think Facebook has been terrible for the world, I’d liked to think of Zuckerberg as civilised.

Now, this is heavily personal opinion, and I’ll overstate it slightly for the purpose of the comment. But: physical fights as sport, whether MMA or boxing, are not civilised. They are brutal, bloody, descents that represent the devaluation of peace in interaction. Fights are animalistic. They are the triumph of the desire for violence, however much legitimised under rules and for entertainment. They are something the species needs to move past in the same way we moved past gladiatorial fights and need to move past war.

(Martial arts as self-defence are not, though I wish were not necessary. Martial — note the root of the word, military, warlike — for sport is. The comment is about a “sport” of legitimised violence. As you can tell from this comment I detest violence. For what it’s worth I detest non-physical actions that can be called violent too. We should (but aren’t, obviously) but should be better.)