A lot of this seems somehow... backwards.
In a free society, people determine what activities benefit them according to whatever criteria they choose. In a tolerant society we let them. That is the essence of liberty. It's folly to assume that what you or I think is of no real benefit to us is also of no real benefit to others. Further, who are we to determine for another fellow what should or should not give him happiness? I hold that all things are permissible so long as they do not harm others or diminish their rights. We may not understand what others like. We may not like that they like or whatever it is that they do. We may even whine about it and use derisive language when discussing it. I am however, loath to prohibit it. Now even when applying this "criteria", I would tend to be careful. Take the case of "gas guzzling" race cars. Would it really be wise to restrict this due to costs of any sort? Who is really being damaged? How much?
It's a hell of an age we live in. Here in California, some folks are ready and eager to restrict the liberty of others at the drop of a hat.
Regards, Bob...
From: "D. Glenn Arthur Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Keith Whaley wrote:Being somewhat of a sceptic by nature, I want to see some benefit from an
activity like this before I feel like endorsing it. Sheer enjoyment from
mechanical things, I can get from stuff already in existence. The benefits
from present day drag racing seem to be wholly outweighed by environmental
and other concerns. I'm not too keen on giant jetliners, either 8-)
Benefits? People are entertained, all without harm to anybody else. What other "benefits" are you after? Entertainment must reap benefits in order to be acceptable to you? Never heard of such a thing...
Actually, I'd say that entertainment must reap _some_sort_ of benefits to justify whatever expenditure of resources goes into it.
If the entertainment in question costs nothing but time, then the enjoyment the _performers_ get out of it is justification enough.
If it costs more than that, sometimes purely intangible benefits ("making the world a more beautiful place", "making the world a more surreal place", "making people think", "making people smile") are enough. In fact, I'd say that those are sufficient pretty often.
What about when vast resources are expended (for whatever threshold value meets your definition of 'vast')? Construction costs of stadia[*], electric bills for night games, expensive race cars, consumption of "large" quantities of fuel, etc.?
They sell tickets to these events, right? I don't know what it costs to attend a sporting event or a race, so I'll pull a number out of my a^H... uh, hat, and toss out $20 as a convenient round number. If the intangible benefits of the entertainment are worth a _mere_$20_ to each person who wishes to attend, and there are _enough_ people to whom it's worth that much, then the value of the entertainment on _tangible_ grounds (money) is pretty [expletive]ing high to those who produce it, n'est-ce pas?
It reaps benefits. Before you even get around to looking at the R&D side effects, or the bread-and-circuses aspect, it reaps benefits. I live in a capitalist country, and under capitalism, "it makes money" is a justification.
Are there flaws with this? Oh yeah. Pollution was mentioned, along with (before it was pointed out that the cars in question run on alcohol) the suggestion of consumption of nonrenewable resources. So we look to whether a "tragedy of the commons" situation is present, and if so we elect a government willing to tinker with the rules (hey, we're capitalist, but not laissez-faire capitalist) to adjust the costs based on the things society as a whole wants to protect. So if motorsports wound up producing enough pollution to register against the backdrop of commuter traffic, we'd probably eventually put some sort of pollution tax on motorsport events to change the economics of the situation. (Perhaps I make this sound easy or automatic -- it's neither automatic, nor easy to figure out how to apply fairly. But the system does move in that direction.)
One of my personal bugaboos is how much professional athletes are paid compared to how little schoolteachers -- who directly influence our children and our future -- are paid. But looking at it as a capitalist, I have to say that the problem is not with the owners of the sports teams who are willing to pay so much, nor with the school systems who have so little to pay, but with my culture _in_general_ which _economically_values_ (i.e. "vote with our pocketbooks") professional sports more than teaching, no matter what we _say_ is more important. In a capitalist economy with our current values and spending habits, a football player objectively _is_ "worth more" (in salary) than a schoolteacher, because the football player produces more revenue for his employer than the schoolteacher does. The teacher may be _philosphically_ more valuable, but (INSHO unfortunately) is not _financially_ as valuable because our culture has this funny disconnect between what we say we value and what we act like we value -- what we _reward_.
If you want to measure "useful work done" as a justification for the fuel/pollution costs of race cars, jetliners, rail, passenger cars, bus systems, etc., you have to start with a definition of "useful work", and the numbers you get will directly reflect the inherent bias in your definition. In terms of "humans moved from point A to point B", the race has a net effect of zero. In terms of "dollars earned for the operators", the race has a value that depends on whether you're looking at the car owner or the track owner (in some cases the "usefulness" in financial terms is _negative_ for the car owner). If "usefulness" is determined in terms of effects on other parts of the economy, things get complicated but kind of interesting. In any case, you can't quantify your comparison until you first define your metric. And it's not clear (to me) that one metric is inherently the "correct" one; rather, it seems that each answers a different question and you have to know which question you really mean to ask.
And when you figure the intangibles into the value (which, since we're talking about people, *is* important to at least think about, though nearly impossible to _quantify_ meaningfully), not only do things get fuzzy, but you have to be careful not to impose your own aesthetic tastes on the entire field you're looking at. There are plenty of things that I don't like but must grudingly admit provide aesthetic and/or spiritual value to others.
I'm not a "value relativist" in most things, but neither am I a moral-absolutist in all things; questions like "are various entertianments 'worth it'?" are valid places to apply relativism.
-- Glenn
[*] The cost of building a stadium for professional sports is obviously "worth it" to someone; that doesn't mean I'm convinced that it's worth it to the _city_government_ who often winds up paying for a lot of it. (Obviously, there are reasonable people who disagree with me.)
