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Comment by oulipo | Hacker News Reader

It feels a bit sad to see that the "best athletes" are "ranked" as gold, silver, bronze, when often their performance is globally equivalent (when you run 100m at full-speed and you come at 0.01s of each other, you basically run the exact same speed)

It's a kind of weird society of competition we're building... I prefer flowers and gardening, reading and debating

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When you’re at the extreme ends of performance as Olympic athletes are, progress happens in tiny increments. .01s here and there add up over time until the limits of humanity are reached.

These people want to win. It's not just society wanting to define winners.

They "want to win" because they live in a society where they've been "taught" to want this... but this is not natural

Nobody is forcing you to watch or care about the Olympics. You chose to read the article and comment on it.

Ads. Ads are forcing me to care about the Olympics. Peer pressure forces me to watch the Olympics to know what people are talking about.

> Ads are forcing me to care about the Olympics.

Are they? At worst they force you to notice that the olympics are going on.

> Peer pressure forces me to watch the Olympics to know what people are talking about.

Talk about something else with these people if the olympics don't interest you...

I don't control other people's topics of conversation.

You're correct, they force me to notice over and over again.

> I don't control other people's topics of conversation.

Talk with other people then...

> You're correct, they force me to notice over and over again.

Boo-hoo.

> Boo-hoo Just because it didn't bother you doesn't mean it doesn't bother me.

> Talk with other people then...

So you have more options than I do it seems, doesn't justify being rude.

And what? I might like sports, but not the way it's presented. I like that people share their joy of performance, I don't like the celebration of competition, but rather of collaboration and shared enjoyment, which should be what is truly celebrated

We aren't building a society this way, it has been this way since near the beginning of the Olympic games. We just have events now that occur where the athletes are so closely matched that sometimes we get crazy close times.

There are other sports in the Olympics where athletes can share in a medal should both Athletes agree.

Regardless of whether you place gold, silver or bronze they are still the "best athletes" in the world, heck to even make it to the final is an incredible achievement in of itself.

You can still view all of these athletes as incredible, regardless of who got the gold.

Yes, and the "fourth" athlete, which is not in the podium, is not called the "best athletes", is not interviewed, doesn't have commercial deals... just because he's, what, 5ms behind the others? on a 100m race? this makes no sense and is just human stupidity

> I prefer flowers and gardening, reading and debating

We can have both.

but they are not compatible with the mindset of competition

Gardening, reading, debating is compatible with collaboration

People are diverse. I am not sure how would you react to someone pitying you for liking flowers, gardening, reading and debating. ("It feels a bit sad").

The golden rule applies.

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