on PolicyMic
Juan Pablo Laso I think we're all a little crazy when it comes to sports, but that's part of the beauty of it, no?
Juan Pablo Laso Thanks...now I understand hockey better.
Juan Pablo Laso Maybe thinking of it as beer you can spread on toast helps? Maybe that just makes it worse, however...hmm.
Juan Pablo Laso Thank you! Perhaps the demographic changes in America (i.e. the increasing number of hispanics) will elicit a surge in popularity for soccer at the professional level...it's probably something that has happened already to some degree. Over the past twenty years, the quality of soccer in America has risen, and I'm sure this has something to do with the sport's popularity at the youth level. It's not unreasonable to think the US will do better and better at the international level. Nevertheless, despite the sport's slow progress, you're right in wondering whether it will ever truly take off.
Juan Pablo Laso You gotta have limits when it comes to vegemite.
Juan Pablo Laso I don't partake in either all that regularly though.
Juan Pablo Laso To each his own indeed. Maybe you can answer this: when were fights institutionalized in hockey? Was it always like that? At first I thought it was unsportsmanlike that this was the case, that they were so integrated in the game, but it's probably the most practical way to deal with something people want to see anyway.
Juan Pablo Laso thank you! I must be some sort of internationalist, because not only do I like American football, but I also enjoy vegemite.
Juan Pablo Laso Yeah you do. You're just not that good at it so you pretend like you don't care about it. Actually, American women are fantastic at soccer, but then the dirty little truth that emerges is that people don't watch or support women's sports all that much.
Juan Pablo Laso thank you Susan! I'm sorry to hear you missed most of it. No justice indeed.
Juan Pablo Laso Do I need to be writing against something or someone? I did not know this.
Juan Pablo Laso thank you!
Juan Pablo Laso Regarding soccer (and I'm not one to get into the fuzz that it should be referred to as football, although it should), if you're at all interested in it, you should watch FC Barcelona play, paying particular attention to Lionel Messi. Barcelona is quite possibly the greatest team ever and Messi the greatest player ever. They've managed to elevate the sport to performance art, and they commonly manage to score more than one or two goals per game. Now, something I didn't bring up in the article: a game of American football averages 11 minutes of play time (see here: http://on.wsj.com/8hCzWL). It turns out American football is mostly big guys standing around. Of course, when they're not standing around, it's really exciting.
Juan Pablo Laso damn straight.
Juan Pablo Laso We're just acknowledging how hard you try to make us like you. :)
Juan Pablo Laso Thank you for reading Benjamin!
Juan Pablo Laso Hear, hear! Continuing to operate within an utterly unjustifiable "post-truth" context threatens not only the US, but the world at large. Part of the blame goes to the notion of cultural relativism, which might have been a peccadillo of liberals in the past, but now is what allows so much conservative bullshit to have any legitimacy at all. Part of the reason conservatives can trample on liberals is the liberal tendency to view the world from the relativist's perspective. Not just liberals, but anyone who aims to behave ethically needs to call out bullshit when it's there, bravely and unequivocally, or there can be no hope. Good luck today!
Juan Pablo Laso Interesting...do you think there might there be a better prospect in the future? by the way, that Obamney or Robama profile pic is great.
Juan Pablo Laso Thank you for reading and commenting. I'm curious to know: coming from a libertarian perspective, do you consider any president to have lived up to libertarian ideals? You mention Reagan and less emphatically Clinton, but, if I gather correctly, they were merely preferable to others when viewed from the libertarian perspective. Both seem to me more pragmatic than libertarian, and perhaps their best claim to economic freedom was their association to Greenspan and his monetary policy. In terms of social freedom, I can't imagine they did much, did they? Do you think libertarianism as a political platform is something we are only now coming to envisage with the likes of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson? I tend to see it this way.
Juan Pablo Laso I wholeheartedly appreciate your candor. To begin, I do not believe Romney is a fundamentalist. I very much agree with Ezra Klein's recent assessment of him (http://bloom.bg/PTrvtu) which portrays him as a highly competent manager, but ultimately a characterless politician. Additionally, I'd ascribe to him a number of daddy issues, but that's beyond the point. It's the party that I think has taken to fundamentalism, which began right after it was discovered that appealing to the religious masses in America was oh, so politically expedient. You may be right in your grounds for rejection of democratic socialism, but it's impossible to really say. I wonder if America has chosen dogmatism over the common good, though; lots to debate there.
Juan Pablo Laso Yes, I've read Nietzsche. I don't just fish out quotes of his from the internet; knowing that he meant for his entire corpus to be read in order to be understood (self-referential as he was and even going as far as reviewing himself in Ecce Homo), I would never do him that injustice.
Juan Pablo Laso And how exactly does commercial success figure philosophically, literarily or politically? It is certainly relevant, but it is not the sole criterion by which to judge a work, nor the most important, in my mind.
Juan Pablo Laso I don't claim to be authoritative; what little I have experienced from Rand was enough to lead me to think she was worth writing about, particularly given the current political juncture in America. You'll be the judge of whether my admittedly nascent impressions of Rand have any value. In any case, I appreciate your readership.
Juan Pablo Laso ...and how Nietzsche relates to modern culture is indeed fascinating. I'm not sure if I'd understand it in the way that you do, but there's a fascinating conversation to be had taking into consideration what you've mentioned.
Juan Pablo Laso In my reading, I've found that Nietzsche never claimed to say how we all should live. Relevant to Rand, he was critical of such claims (for example, judeo-christian morality), saying how such systems of morality are deleterious to the development and realization of higher men (like Goethe, Beethoven, and, of course, Nietzsche himself). Regarding power and how it relates to truth, I think it'd be fair to say that he believed that higher men are those who create values (which brings you closer to truth); this does not mean that everyone should or could create values. Higher men are governed by ideas of "good and bad" in accordance to their creation and the masses are governed by "good and evil", obeying to prescribed notions of value.
on PolicyMic
Juan Pablo Laso I think we're all a little crazy when it comes to sports, but that's part of the beauty of it, no?
Juan Pablo Laso Thanks...now I understand hockey better.
Juan Pablo Laso Maybe thinking of it as beer you can spread on toast helps? Maybe that just makes it worse, however...hmm.
Juan Pablo Laso Thank you! Perhaps the demographic changes in America (i.e. the increasing number of hispanics) will elicit a surge in popularity for soccer at the professional level...it's probably something that has happened already to some degree. Over the past twenty years, the quality of soccer in America has risen, and I'm sure this has something to do with the sport's popularity at the youth level. It's not unreasonable to think the US will do better and better at the international level. Nevertheless, despite the sport's slow progress, you're right in wondering whether it will ever truly take off.
Juan Pablo Laso You gotta have limits when it comes to vegemite.
Juan Pablo Laso I don't partake in either all that regularly though.
Juan Pablo Laso To each his own indeed. Maybe you can answer this: when were fights institutionalized in hockey? Was it always like that? At first I thought it was unsportsmanlike that this was the case, that they were so integrated in the game, but it's probably the most practical way to deal with something people want to see anyway.
Juan Pablo Laso thank you! I must be some sort of internationalist, because not only do I like American football, but I also enjoy vegemite.
Juan Pablo Laso Yeah you do. You're just not that good at it so you pretend like you don't care about it. Actually, American women are fantastic at soccer, but then the dirty little truth that emerges is that people don't watch or support women's sports all that much.
Juan Pablo Laso thank you Susan! I'm sorry to hear you missed most of it. No justice indeed.
Juan Pablo Laso Do I need to be writing against something or someone? I did not know this.
Juan Pablo Laso thank you!
Juan Pablo Laso Regarding soccer (and I'm not one to get into the fuzz that it should be referred to as football, although it should), if you're at all interested in it, you should watch FC Barcelona play, paying particular attention to Lionel Messi. Barcelona is quite possibly the greatest team ever and Messi the greatest player ever. They've managed to elevate the sport to performance art, and they commonly manage to score more than one or two goals per game. Now, something I didn't bring up in the article: a game of American football averages 11 minutes of play time (see here: http://on.wsj.com/8hCzWL). It turns out American football is mostly big guys standing around. Of course, when they're not standing around, it's really exciting.
Juan Pablo Laso damn straight.
Juan Pablo Laso We're just acknowledging how hard you try to make us like you. :)
Juan Pablo Laso Thank you for reading Benjamin!
Juan Pablo Laso Hear, hear! Continuing to operate within an utterly unjustifiable "post-truth" context threatens not only the US, but the world at large. Part of the blame goes to the notion of cultural relativism, which might have been a peccadillo of liberals in the past, but now is what allows so much conservative bullshit to have any legitimacy at all. Part of the reason conservatives can trample on liberals is the liberal tendency to view the world from the relativist's perspective. Not just liberals, but anyone who aims to behave ethically needs to call out bullshit when it's there, bravely and unequivocally, or there can be no hope. Good luck today!
Juan Pablo Laso Interesting...do you think there might there be a better prospect in the future? by the way, that Obamney or Robama profile pic is great.
Juan Pablo Laso Thank you for reading and commenting. I'm curious to know: coming from a libertarian perspective, do you consider any president to have lived up to libertarian ideals? You mention Reagan and less emphatically Clinton, but, if I gather correctly, they were merely preferable to others when viewed from the libertarian perspective. Both seem to me more pragmatic than libertarian, and perhaps their best claim to economic freedom was their association to Greenspan and his monetary policy. In terms of social freedom, I can't imagine they did much, did they? Do you think libertarianism as a political platform is something we are only now coming to envisage with the likes of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson? I tend to see it this way.
Juan Pablo Laso I wholeheartedly appreciate your candor. To begin, I do not believe Romney is a fundamentalist. I very much agree with Ezra Klein's recent assessment of him (http://bloom.bg/PTrvtu) which portrays him as a highly competent manager, but ultimately a characterless politician. Additionally, I'd ascribe to him a number of daddy issues, but that's beyond the point. It's the party that I think has taken to fundamentalism, which began right after it was discovered that appealing to the religious masses in America was oh, so politically expedient. You may be right in your grounds for rejection of democratic socialism, but it's impossible to really say. I wonder if America has chosen dogmatism over the common good, though; lots to debate there.
Juan Pablo Laso Yes, I've read Nietzsche. I don't just fish out quotes of his from the internet; knowing that he meant for his entire corpus to be read in order to be understood (self-referential as he was and even going as far as reviewing himself in Ecce Homo), I would never do him that injustice.
Juan Pablo Laso And how exactly does commercial success figure philosophically, literarily or politically? It is certainly relevant, but it is not the sole criterion by which to judge a work, nor the most important, in my mind.
Juan Pablo Laso I don't claim to be authoritative; what little I have experienced from Rand was enough to lead me to think she was worth writing about, particularly given the current political juncture in America. You'll be the judge of whether my admittedly nascent impressions of Rand have any value. In any case, I appreciate your readership.
Juan Pablo Laso ...and how Nietzsche relates to modern culture is indeed fascinating. I'm not sure if I'd understand it in the way that you do, but there's a fascinating conversation to be had taking into consideration what you've mentioned.
Juan Pablo Laso In my reading, I've found that Nietzsche never claimed to say how we all should live. Relevant to Rand, he was critical of such claims (for example, judeo-christian morality), saying how such systems of morality are deleterious to the development and realization of higher men (like Goethe, Beethoven, and, of course, Nietzsche himself). Regarding power and how it relates to truth, I think it'd be fair to say that he believed that higher men are those who create values (which brings you closer to truth); this does not mean that everyone should or could create values. Higher men are governed by ideas of "good and bad" in accordance to their creation and the masses are governed by "good and evil", obeying to prescribed notions of value.