guyfromlouisiana wrote: I'd argue that there is no place for young children to play tackle football...
Young kids can't hit hard enough to cause brain damage.
guyfromlouisiana wrote:...and college football is a dubious endeavor at best given the fact that at least a percentage of these young men are dismantling their intellect at a place of "higher learning." In the process, college football players enrich so many people, but they themselves do not earn a dime of legitimate earnings. Let's just make it a professional game.
Most of the players are just there to play ball anyway. I'm ok with paying them.
guyfromlouisiana wrote: As for the cultural value in and of itself of bonding with others, there are a lot of ethically unsound things people have bonded over. If you follow the precepts closely, then alcohol is an example of this, isn't it?
Don't think it's actually ethically unsound
per se. It's just that it easily leads to behavior that is ethically unsound, hence the precept.
guyfromlouisiana wrote: What about the Roman gladiators? Was it an ethically sound thing for the spectators to bond over the deaths of gladiators? This is the same thing, except players die much more slowly.
I guess, but that's a little different. Gladiators weren't paid millions of dollars the way our athletes are. From Wikipedia on gladiators: "Most were despised as slaves, schooled under harsh conditions, socially marginalized, and segregated even in death."
I'm happy to agree to disagree on this one.
kmath