The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[Valmy]

I think a lot about that when I see people doing ridiculously ingenious strategies and pumping hours and hours into speed running some NES game from 1987. Man if only this commitment and genius could be used towards something...useful to somebody.

But hey I guess it makes that person's life worth living and that has value in itself. Maybe.

[Jacob]

That's how some folks feel about sports.

[Syt]

That's how some folks feel about sports.

Or artistic pursuits.

[Valmy]

That's how some folks feel about sports.

Certainly fair. I think it is obviously the boggling intelligence and cleverness combined with their insane work ethic that hits me. You start going "wow this is an exceptional human being" and it would be cool if they were curing cancer or something. But maybe that is their day job.

I don't necessarily look at Michael Jordan and think something similar since his skills are so specific to basketball. But I guess when you hear about Basketball players knowing where the ball is going to rebound based on its sound and crazy stuff like that...

[Josquius]

It's not even just imagine they used their genius to save the world level stuff that hits me.
It's with such amazing tech skills surely they could be earning 6 figures at tech companies or making modern games that sell well and make themselves a good career.
These aren't otherwise useless skills like making pretty dots or throwing a ball in a hoop. They're very very immediately practically applicable skills.

[crazy canuck]

You can always spot people who have never done sports themselves when they completely misunderstand what it takes to be an elite athlete.

[Josquius]

You can always spot people who have never done sports themselves when they completely misunderstand what it takes to be an elite athlete.

Pursuing a professional sports career is, without mediating actions that clubs are only recently paying attention to, very damaging to your other prospects.
I used to know a guy who was a youth prospect with a major team until he didn't make the cut in his late teens.
Being merely normal human level good at a sport doesn't do too much for your life outside of the game.

[crazy canuck]

You can always spot people who have never done sports themselves when they completely misunderstand what it takes to be an elite athlete.

Pursuing a professional sports career is, without mediating actions that clubs are only recently paying attention to, very damaging to your other prospects.
I used to know a guy who was a youth prospect with a major team until he didn't make the cut in his late teens.
Being merely normal human level good at a sport doesn't do too much for your life outside of the game.

Not all elite athletes turn pro, in fact very few do.

And you could not be more wrong about athletes not preparing people for what comes next in life.  Their self discipline alone often sets them apart from the crowd.

[Valmy]

You can always spot people who have never done sports themselves when they completely misunderstand what it takes to be an elite athlete.

Go on 

[crazy canuck]

You can always spot people who have never done sports themselves when they completely misunderstand what it takes to be an elite athlete.

Go on 

In what way?

[Josquius]

You can always spot people who have never done sports themselves when they completely misunderstand what it takes to be an elite athlete.

Pursuing a professional sports career is, without mediating actions that clubs are only recently paying attention to, very damaging to your other prospects.
I used to know a guy who was a youth prospect with a major team until he didn't make the cut in his late teens.
Being merely normal human level good at a sport doesn't do too much for your life outside of the game.

Not all elite athletes turn pro, in fact very few do.

And you could not be more wrong about athletes not preparing people for what comes next in life.  Their self discipline alone often sets them apart from the crowd.

I'm entirely right.
As said I used to know a guy. My cousin went out with him for a while.
He was honestly a bit of a loser. His whole life had been football, paying no attention to anything else, but then that fell apart and his chance of success was over by his early 20s.
This is traditionally an extremely common issue. So much so that in recent years clubs have started actively making efforts, both for player welfare and PR, to make sure their kids actually get a decent education alongside playing.
Times are changing but this is not down to the football skills being in any way transferable to mundane jobs, unlike elite level programming skills.

This has been reported on  a bit over the years.
Eg.
https://news.sky.com/story/youth-football-what-happens-to-those-who-dont-make-it-12226577

[Syt]

Could it be a Euro/North America issue? In the US at least, most (home grown) top athletes attended college (at least nominally) whereas it used to be uncommon for players in Bundesliga to even have Abitur (the school exam that permits attending university), and the club system being the ones growing/building talent.

[Zanza]

Anno 117 "Pax Romana" announced. 

[Grey Fox]

Oh wow.

[crazy canuck]

I'm entirely right.

It's a rare quality to have.  But I have no idea what your anecdote has to do with what I said.