Two (Probably) Modest Olympic Proposals
In response to Jack's response to William Saletan below, I think his approach of judging Olympic swimming events on their artistic content would work well. I would further propose that you (1) make sure the judges are too old and/or politically motivated to be able to observe each performance fairly; (2) require the swimmers to compete in pairs; (3) freeze the pool and make them skate around on top of it; and (4) refer to it as "ice dancing".
As a second, contrasting proposal I suggest evaluating the outcome of each race as a kind of probability cloud, with a proportionately sized fractional medal assigned to each competitor based on the likelihood that they actually won. This approach probably won't sit well with the concepts of competition and fairness that most of us hold -- concepts, I must say, that give undue weight to the macroscopic, directly observable world that science only began to see beyond in the last century -- but note that the results will match those of most conventionally officiated sporting events to an infinitesimal tolerance. I like the nominally democratizing effect of this one, too, since arguably everyone in the world could have won any race with some vanishingly small probability. Granted, the odds that I medaled in this year's 100-meter butterfly are equivalent to the odds that Mickey Mouse exists and medaled too, but I ask you: Does that make the Olympic gold glitter any less brightly?
Reading Saletan's pieces, though, I don't believe he'd be at all satisfied with this, since his major concern is being utterly certain about the facts of the finish rather than creating a more equitable but still practical method of officiating. In this, sadly, I don't think he'll ever find satisfaction, because pretty soon his logical momentum will run him smack up against the same epistemological wall ("How can we truly be sure of anything?" "How can we be truly sure that we're truly sure?") that has impeded armchair philosophers ever since the start of this zany, global athletic competition called the human endeavor. Hopefully he at least hits that wall with the required 1.5 kilograms per cubic centimeter of force when he gets there.
All this is also related to the concept of a "quantum finish" described in an episode of Futurama, which counts as just about the geekiest joke about a horse race that I have ever heard of, though I will leave retelling it as an exercise to the reader.
As a second, contrasting proposal I suggest evaluating the outcome of each race as a kind of probability cloud, with a proportionately sized fractional medal assigned to each competitor based on the likelihood that they actually won. This approach probably won't sit well with the concepts of competition and fairness that most of us hold -- concepts, I must say, that give undue weight to the macroscopic, directly observable world that science only began to see beyond in the last century -- but note that the results will match those of most conventionally officiated sporting events to an infinitesimal tolerance. I like the nominally democratizing effect of this one, too, since arguably everyone in the world could have won any race with some vanishingly small probability. Granted, the odds that I medaled in this year's 100-meter butterfly are equivalent to the odds that Mickey Mouse exists and medaled too, but I ask you: Does that make the Olympic gold glitter any less brightly?
Reading Saletan's pieces, though, I don't believe he'd be at all satisfied with this, since his major concern is being utterly certain about the facts of the finish rather than creating a more equitable but still practical method of officiating. In this, sadly, I don't think he'll ever find satisfaction, because pretty soon his logical momentum will run him smack up against the same epistemological wall ("How can we truly be sure of anything?" "How can we be truly sure that we're truly sure?") that has impeded armchair philosophers ever since the start of this zany, global athletic competition called the human endeavor. Hopefully he at least hits that wall with the required 1.5 kilograms per cubic centimeter of force when he gets there.
All this is also related to the concept of a "quantum finish" described in an episode of Futurama, which counts as just about the geekiest joke about a horse race that I have ever heard of, though I will leave retelling it as an exercise to the reader.
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