> The level of athleticism in professional basketball players is superhuman. They too are alien beings. And very quick learners. Getting the best of them in a sport they live and die in is a near-impossibility by 2040.
Essentially, we admire the outliers, the 7 sigmas in our population. But they pay a price, supposedly compensated for with astronomical salaries. But many's the athlete who can barely get out of bed and walk. It's a hell of a price.
I'm a very poor pianist, and have to wonder at some pieces specifically created to show extreme virtuosity. Actual artistic beauty is all over the map, in my own opinion. And then there are the tenors!!
From "Amadeus" Mozart is quoted as saying (I need to check) "manly love, Signore. Not male sopranos screeching.
And yet, the opera channel greatly favors "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot and “Ah mes amis”. from La Fille du Regiment. It has an astonishing 9 high C’s
And there are your 10,000X outliers.
Beauty and excellence can and do exist within a sigma or two. We worship the ultra-wealthy as their excesses trash the planet. But! cognitive biases [0].
And wouldn't it be better if more kids played basketball, or piano or lemonade entrepreneur (I sure could use a lemonade now) than watching someone else, or being boxed out by zoning laws enforced by town cops with tanks and rocket launchers.
> To be very clear, I fully expect to watch robot olympics. I will be one of many willing to pay to see robots dance, compete in sports, and amaze us with their kinetic abilities. Basketball robots are likely to invent new basketball moves that humans didn’t think of doing, or couldn’t do easily. In the long-term, robots could change how humans play basketball professionally.
I watch planes fly and space telescopes explore the universe, but they are meant to help us travel and learn, not to compete with us. There is vast space and yes, divinity within us to grow and achieve happiness, without looking elsewhere. Spectacle aside, games are wave functions that collapse into W or L, and lately, sports are overtaken by gambling. While this robotization opens vast new vistas for speculation and insider cheating, I feel the need to explore my own potential rather than someone else's, though I am inspired by less monumental works that push me to do better and do more. There's room to grow within those limits, and how many of us really exercise more than a percent or two of our potential?
I have always gambled on myself and my ability to learn and grow in balance, not to break some record with 'superhuman" effort, and records are made to be broken.
And where are the home-cleaning bots, exoskeletons and self-driving cars that don't kill? I really, really, really could use them today.
> The level of athleticism in professional basketball players is superhuman. They too are alien beings. And very quick learners. Getting the best of them in a sport they live and die in is a near-impossibility by 2040.
Essentially, we admire the outliers, the 7 sigmas in our population. But they pay a price, supposedly compensated for with astronomical salaries. But many's the athlete who can barely get out of bed and walk. It's a hell of a price.
I'm a very poor pianist, and have to wonder at some pieces specifically created to show extreme virtuosity. Actual artistic beauty is all over the map, in my own opinion. And then there are the tenors!!
From "Amadeus" Mozart is quoted as saying (I need to check) "manly love, Signore. Not male sopranos screeching.
And yet, the opera channel greatly favors "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot and “Ah mes amis”. from La Fille du Regiment. It has an astonishing 9 high C’s
And there are your 10,000X outliers.
Beauty and excellence can and do exist within a sigma or two. We worship the ultra-wealthy as their excesses trash the planet. But! cognitive biases [0].
And wouldn't it be better if more kids played basketball, or piano or lemonade entrepreneur (I sure could use a lemonade now) than watching someone else, or being boxed out by zoning laws enforced by town cops with tanks and rocket launchers.
> To be very clear, I fully expect to watch robot olympics. I will be one of many willing to pay to see robots dance, compete in sports, and amaze us with their kinetic abilities. Basketball robots are likely to invent new basketball moves that humans didn’t think of doing, or couldn’t do easily. In the long-term, robots could change how humans play basketball professionally.
I watch planes fly and space telescopes explore the universe, but they are meant to help us travel and learn, not to compete with us. There is vast space and yes, divinity within us to grow and achieve happiness, without looking elsewhere. Spectacle aside, games are wave functions that collapse into W or L, and lately, sports are overtaken by gambling. While this robotization opens vast new vistas for speculation and insider cheating, I feel the need to explore my own potential rather than someone else's, though I am inspired by less monumental works that push me to do better and do more. There's room to grow within those limits, and how many of us really exercise more than a percent or two of our potential?
I have always gambled on myself and my ability to learn and grow in balance, not to break some record with 'superhuman" effort, and records are made to be broken.
And where are the home-cleaning bots, exoskeletons and self-driving cars that don't kill? I really, really, really could use them today.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases