"My worry, to be blunt, is that what is now migrating from sports talk to political talk is the conspiracy theorizing." <-- it's the other way around! Conspiracy theories, of all kinds, increased dramatically in the wake of the 2020 election (thanks, Trump & GOP!). Or, go back a half-century (commies run the State Department!), or a half-century before that: "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", or, back into the Middle Ages about the Black Plague, and so forth.
While I agree that sometimes art and sports predate wider social phenomena/movements, I think, in the case, it's society in general that has embraced conspiracy since forever, and (society -- in the US at least) has really upped the ante with the rise of Trump, Q-Anon, and so forth.
Isn't it amazing that the same people who think the government is incapable of (say) counting election ballots is more than capable of creating vaccines that have mind controlling nanobots inside them, spreading a pandemic just bad enough to get millions to accept said vaccine, and of course covering up all that science.
I watch a lot of NFL football—it is very easy to get into field goal range in under a minute in the 4th quarter. In the modern game defenses are very tired in the 4th quarter and that helps the offense because they know which way they are running. If that call isn’t made Philly at least forces OT. Clock management is very important in the modern game because even a top defense is garbage in the final two minutes of the game. So running out the clock is the best defense if a team can do it.
I've feared the same on the UAPs for a few days now. I chastised a CNN report on it because it CLEARLY played on this kind of BS in order to get clicks (it highlighted the "surprising" and "conflicting" accounts of the smaller UAPs by the pilots who engaged them--SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME--knowing full well that such things instantly attract a significant percentage of people who are either 1) perpetually bored or 2) readily believe such things are, in fact, conspiratorial (cover-ups). In the segment, it was only several minutes into it that they interviewed a retired CIA official who put cold water on it meaning anything significant and gave a solid, rational explanation for much of what is happening. I asked, "why couldn't you LEAD with that or put THAT in your headline?" The answer is simple: conspiracies and BS "mysteries" get clicks. The media ARE NOT HELPING. We're punching the mirror and we don't even know it.
There have been conspiracy theories of this kind about umping/refereeing for decades, in relatively mainstream view (including watercooler/bar talk).
Some of them might even, now and again, be sort of true. Certainly there are famous cheating scandals that amount to conspiratorial action by the team that cheated but where others outside that circle were aware of the coordinated plans to cheat or were actually involved in them. Boxing in its long slow transition from being kind of honest to substantially rigged went through that in particular.
This is not a random occurrence. It shows how just a little bit of misinformation gets sucked into the information sphere and the minds of those who've been poisoned by conspiracy theories latch immediately on it to confirm their biases (in favor of believing false information).
Former running back Arian Foster gave an interview in which he claimed the NFL scripts its sport.
That's the big bang for the new sports conspiracies in the NFL.
"My worry, to be blunt, is that what is now migrating from sports talk to political talk is the conspiracy theorizing." <-- it's the other way around! Conspiracy theories, of all kinds, increased dramatically in the wake of the 2020 election (thanks, Trump & GOP!). Or, go back a half-century (commies run the State Department!), or a half-century before that: "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", or, back into the Middle Ages about the Black Plague, and so forth.
While I agree that sometimes art and sports predate wider social phenomena/movements, I think, in the case, it's society in general that has embraced conspiracy since forever, and (society -- in the US at least) has really upped the ante with the rise of Trump, Q-Anon, and so forth.
Isn't it amazing that the same people who think the government is incapable of (say) counting election ballots is more than capable of creating vaccines that have mind controlling nanobots inside them, spreading a pandemic just bad enough to get millions to accept said vaccine, and of course covering up all that science.
I watch a lot of NFL football—it is very easy to get into field goal range in under a minute in the 4th quarter. In the modern game defenses are very tired in the 4th quarter and that helps the offense because they know which way they are running. If that call isn’t made Philly at least forces OT. Clock management is very important in the modern game because even a top defense is garbage in the final two minutes of the game. So running out the clock is the best defense if a team can do it.
I've feared the same on the UAPs for a few days now. I chastised a CNN report on it because it CLEARLY played on this kind of BS in order to get clicks (it highlighted the "surprising" and "conflicting" accounts of the smaller UAPs by the pilots who engaged them--SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME--knowing full well that such things instantly attract a significant percentage of people who are either 1) perpetually bored or 2) readily believe such things are, in fact, conspiratorial (cover-ups). In the segment, it was only several minutes into it that they interviewed a retired CIA official who put cold water on it meaning anything significant and gave a solid, rational explanation for much of what is happening. I asked, "why couldn't you LEAD with that or put THAT in your headline?" The answer is simple: conspiracies and BS "mysteries" get clicks. The media ARE NOT HELPING. We're punching the mirror and we don't even know it.
There have been conspiracy theories of this kind about umping/refereeing for decades, in relatively mainstream view (including watercooler/bar talk).
Some of them might even, now and again, be sort of true. Certainly there are famous cheating scandals that amount to conspiratorial action by the team that cheated but where others outside that circle were aware of the coordinated plans to cheat or were actually involved in them. Boxing in its long slow transition from being kind of honest to substantially rigged went through that in particular.
This is not a random occurrence. It shows how just a little bit of misinformation gets sucked into the information sphere and the minds of those who've been poisoned by conspiracy theories latch immediately on it to confirm their biases (in favor of believing false information).
Former running back Arian Foster gave an interview in which he claimed the NFL scripts its sport.
That's the big bang for the new sports conspiracies in the NFL.
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/arian-foster-script-nfl-rigged-games/jrx7hledyrhroutyvagraflo