"Syndrome" Syndrome: or the Fallacy of "Special"

[Afrodyte]

Now imagine that instead of an elite athlete, he's a superhero with superhuman powers who defeats supervillains and saves people's lives every day. I'd say it would be pretty difficult in those circumstances to have normal human relationships that the rest of us "mundane" people take for granted.

I just got a sense of foreboding about a live-action Aquaman movie.

 

[Garthanos]

Good point. Since The Dark Knight Returns (the graphic novel by Miller and not the movie from last year), the comics have REALLY pushed that the Bruce Wayne persona is the actual mask and that Batman is the actual real person.

It was true way back when the character was created .. Miller reconnected the bat man with his roots as well as giving a sense of time .. it brought the character forward.

 

[Hussar]

Huh? No it isn't.

The definition of cheating is to defraud and decieve. Dash cheats when he loses. He does not cheat when he wins. When he wins it is because he is legitmately faster than the other students, not because he's gained an unfair advantage.

Dash competes fairly at all times. It's no more his fault that he runs faster than the other competitors than it is Usain Bolt's fault that he runs faster than the other competitors.

Compared to me, Usain Bolt is a super. Does that mean it would be unfair for him to compete with me? Should Usain bolt be forced to run with blocks of concrete in each hand to make the competition fair?
/snip

Handicaps are quite common in many, many sports. Would it be fair for someone who is 50 kg to box someone who is 120 kg? After all, it's not the bigger's guy's fault he's twice the size.

I'm quite at a loss to see how anything fraudulent or deceptive takes place.

It is 100% fraudulent and deceptive. Does he tell anyone of his abilities? Does he not keep his capabilities 100% secret? If Usain Bolt dressed up in disguise and gave fake ID, would he be guilty of deception?

Alot of people see an injustice in the 'super' competing against the 'normals' and are calling it 'cheating'. Some of you even picked up on the idea that when someone blows away the competition to a great extent and in a trivial manner that people percieve it as 'cheating' when what they mean is, "We ought to change the rules to make that illegal." The problem raised by 'supers' in atheletic competition is that such competitions become uninteresting and pointless. If Dash participates in the race, the race becomes meaningless because the outcome is basically obvious and we cannot be surprised by it. Watching a race with Dash running in it is even less interesting than watching an atheletic competition in rerun - all the thrill is gone.

Again, it's 100% cheating because the super's are being desceptive. They have not stepped forward and said, "Yes, I can run at the speed of sound". Neglecting to tell people that you are a profession skater and then winning a low level amateur figure skating contest benefits no one. Those whose abilities are actually at the amateur figure skating level don't learn anything and the professional is way beyond their capabilities.

We have differing levels of competition for a very good reason. Dash should not be competing with normals because he's not normal. There is no competition here. None. There is absolutely no way he can lose.

How is that even remotely in the spirit of competition?

 

[Storm Raven]

It is 100% fraudulent and deceptive. Does he tell anyone of his abilities? Does he not keep his capabilities 100% secret? If Usain Bolt dressed up in disguise and gave fake ID, would he be guilty of deception?

Umm, running fast enough to win isn't being deceptive. Pretending you are slower than you are to come in second is.

Again, it's 100% cheating because the super's are being desceptive. They have not stepped forward and said, "Yes, I can run at the speed of sound". Neglecting to tell people that you are a profession skater and then winning a low level amateur figure skating contest benefits no one. Those whose abilities are actually at the amateur figure skating level don't learn anything and the professional is way beyond their capabilities.

But Dash isn't pretending to be an amateur when he is not. He is an amateur. He's just a really good one. Does Usain Bolt have to submit a "my best speed" dossier before he competes? The difference here is one of degree, not one of kind.

We have differing levels of competition for a very good reason. Dash should not be competing with normals because he's not normal. There is no competition here. None. There is absolutely no way he can lose.

Where would you draw the line and have it be anything other than entirely arbitrary? Why is being really fast now a disqualification for running races?

I think the problem is this: when the superhero comic was being developed, comic book writers didn't want to think about the implications of having super fast, super strong and other wise super powered people in society. They just wanted to write stories about beating up bad guys. So they glossed over the fact that these guys would be unbeatable at sports, and then came up with silly explanations why they would not all be famous professional athletes in normal life, making piles of money. (Although I do remember a story in which Superman, as Clark Kent, played high school football and was a star player). And this idea has become so ingrained in our culutre that, for no real logical or coherent reason, someone with superior prowess in this manner is somehow behaving badly when, instead of becoming an extralegal vigilante and breaking a dozen laws by beating people up on the street, they instead choose to go into the sporting arena and compete completely within the rules and win. Its a stupid meme that just seems stupider the more you look at it.

 

[FireLance]

Handicaps are quite common in many, many sports. Would it be fair for someone who is 50 kg to box someone who is 120 kg? After all, it's not the bigger's guy's fault he's twice the size.

I don't think they are common in competitive sports, though. Even in golf, I believe the handicap system does not apply to professional competitions.

What most sports do is to use a league or category system (e.g. weight categories in boxing) so that individual competitors are more evenly matched, and so there is some uncertainty over the outcome of each competition.

Exceptional sportsmen, while almost certain to beat "ordinary" human beings at their sport, are usually close enough to their nearest competitors that even the best (however you measure that) may be beaten by the second (or third or fourth, etc.) best from time to time.

In a match where one competitor outclasses the others so much that there is not even the hope that he could be beaten, such as a race between Dash and normal humans (yes, even Usain Bolt), then something else must be done to maintain interest. To a certain extent, the Harlem Globetrotters addressed this by playing to entertain instead of simply playing to beat their opponents. So, even if the outcome of the game is more or less a given, for example, a game in which Batman is guaranteed to beat the Joker , it simply means that you need to be more creative about ways to maintain interest in the game.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Another bit of evidence in favor of the theory that for the most part we don't care how they win just so long as they win

I think that there are some baseball examples that would shoot that out of the water. Not only is there the issue of steroids, but lots of the homerun chasers had to deal with issues like the asterix because people didn't want to take the record away from the previous holder. The athletes attitude towards the press in many ways changed the way the "homerun chase" was shown. The personable guys were set as more heroic than the guy who just puts his head down and works hard at winning. While people who don't reach a certain level of ability will be flat out ignored, once they reach that level it is more than just their ability that is scrutanized. In some cases (running and swimming), it's more that so little attention is put on the sport that the only people recognized are the very best. In sports with a number of stars, personality counts.

So pretending that the mediocre is deserving of victory isn't celebrating mediocrity? Your definition of celebrating mediocrity (the best at the skill being tested actually wins) seems odd.

I'm saying that it is still encouraging Dash to be mediocre. The only thing he is testing his skill aginst is his previous best time.

Chris Long was born lucky. We don't keep him off the field. Cassius Clay was born lucky, we didn't keep him out of the ring. Lew Alcindor was born lucky, we didn't keep him off the court. We also didn't check up to make sure they'd actually worked hard either. You are setting a new requirement to compete (you must work hard to be deserving of being allowed to compete) that simply has never applied (nor should it).

Correct me if I'm wrong ... have any of those people retired at the end of their careers having never even come close to losing?

I'm not saying you need to work hard to be deserving to be allowed to compete.

I'm saying that it isn't competiting if you have no competition. It's only competiting if there is some risk of losing. That is why matter of degree actually matters in this case. In many sports, it's very possible that the "best" won't necessarily win. Races, on the other hands, will come down to a matter of fractions of a second in difference. When Dash is able to beat any human being by a number of seconds, short of Dash injuring himself or tripping and falling ... how would he ever lose a race.

At that point he shows up, they give him a gold medal, see if he breaks his previous record, and then move on to competing for the Silver medal. Since not a single one of them has a chance of getting a Gold medal short of Dash not showing up.

They still have men and women in seperate divisions. They still test for performance enhancing drugs. If superhuman abilities existed, they would potentially create a superhuman olympiad, or maybe not ... since superhuman really just means "more than human", there isn't necessarily a grouping that would provide for a real competition. Flash vs. Quicksilver, for example, wouldn't be a competition at all, since Flash can travel at near light speeds, while Quicksilver is closer to the speed of sound.

Performance enhancing drugs push the limits of the peak of human ability, and they are not allowed. They don't disallow superhuman abilty ... because it doesn't exist. It isn't cheating because it isn't against the rules is a weak argument for a hypothetical argument. There are some things that are against the rules.

Ultimately, I am saying that if Dash were to go around and "compete" with people that have no chance of beating him ... he is trading "pretend to be mediocre so other people feel good" with "rub it in their face to make yourself feel good". If he really wants to compete he should look for something that is at least in the same speed range as he is. Or, he can participate in different sports where his speed doesn't necessarily equate to him winning. Unless he doesn't want to compete ... he just wants to be acknowledged as being the best. He wants to be treated special just because of his power, not for actually using his power in any way that is productive to anyone other than himself.

 

[Hussar]

I don't think they are common in competitive sports, though. Even in golf, I believe the handicap system does not apply to professional competitions.

What most sports do is to use a league or category system (e.g. weight categories in boxing) so that individual competitors are more evenly matched, and so there is some uncertainty over the outcome of each competition.

Whatever you wish to call it, it's still a handicap system. Or, as you say, a system to ensure that individual competitors are more evenly matched.

Exceptional sportsmen, while almost certain to beat "ordinary" human beings at their sport, are usually close enough to their nearest competitors that even the best (however you measure that) may be beaten by the second (or third or fourth, etc.) best from time to time.

In a match where one competitor outclasses the others so much that there is not even the hope that he could be beaten, such as a race between Dash and normal humans (yes, even Usain Bolt), then something else must be done to maintain interest. To a certain extent, the Harlem Globetrotters addressed this by playing to entertain instead of simply playing to beat their opponents. So, even if the outcome of the game is more or less a given, for example, a game in which Batman is guaranteed to beat the Joker , it simply means that you need to be more creative about ways to maintain interest in the game.

Because Dash hides his abilities, he's being deceptive. It's pool sharking. The win is meaningless because there is no possible way for him to lose. If the facts were known, he would not be allowed to compete in this competition, he'd get kicked up to a higher league in order to compete with those who are closer to his skills.

But, he hides his skills. He lies about it. He wins, but, not by enough to actually show his capabilities.

I totally agree with your final point though. In this case, if his abilities were known, then something could be done.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I see what you think the problem is. I just think that your position is untenable

Up until this point, I have been agreeing with everything you've written in this thread. And then you had to go and add the insult

, and pretty silly.

which IMHO is uncalled for.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I did it for you...

Thank you.

 

[Desdichado]

You're wrong. You're just adding stuff into the movie that isn't there, oversimplifying various aspects of the movie, and blatantly forgetting very important parts of the movie.

Um.... No, no... and no.

Thanks for trying!