According to records from ancient times to the present there has existed a persistent element in human psychology delighting in both masochistic and sadistic violence and a willingness in participate in and encourage acts in this area by a significant percentage of the population. As long as this type of activity is restricted to enthusiasts amongst themselves, there should be no objection, but unfortunately in a large percentage of the time, people who would prefer to be left alone to pursue productive and peaceful lives fall victim as, according to the current phrase, collateral damage. The most spectacular recent examples of this, of course, has been the recent terrorist bombings, suicide and otherwise, in several countries and the brutalities of the wars in Iraq, Burma, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, etc. which serve only to prolong the meaningless butcheries which seem to serve little if any reasonable purpose and cause untold miseries.
Evidently this destructive psychological streak is ineradicable in, at least, a reasonable portion of humanity as witnessed by the popularity of action films and violent contact sports. What seems to be needed is a creative way to harness this activity which will restrict the violence to willing participants and leave the rest of us out of the actual action, although film rights to the more spectacular and creative events will surely create a fertile subsidiary market for advertisers.
In order to achieve this a portion of the Earth’s surface with no economic or environmental significance must be set aside for this activity field and participants must be screened to prevent immature people or curable neurotics or psychotics from entering to damage themselves. And the events can be scheduled and classified to prevent the people with unrelated motivations from getting entangled. They should be prepared to pay for their own equipment although the nastiest characters might qualify for a scholarship to pay for their weapons and perhaps act as demonstrators for new vicious devices for manufacturers. Gun club enthusiasts obviously could gain financial support from their groups and sponsorship from arms manufacturers. Probably it would be necessary to have some regulation to disallow unfair advantages and in all likelihood, atomic and biological weapons should be discouraged if not forbidden.
People who foresee religious rewards for self destruction could be advised as to how to make their demise as spectacular as possible with, perhaps, skyrockets. sparklers and roman candles to supplement the basic explosion that sends them to glory.
There are also other moral and economic advantages which should be kept in mind. Unreformable criminals condemned to capital punishment could be sent to the zone with no guilt feelings by the people now employed as executioners.
Since some destructive people demand victims, pseudo-victims could be devised by Japanese robot manufacturers to mimic the horror of innocents dying and probably do it in a rather convincing manner.
I agree
No opinion
I disagree
Add your comment
Attorneys should be excluded from entering to keep these games from leading to nasty litigation proceedings from sore losers.
I didn't think anyone would take this suggestion seriously. It's more a wry comment on human nature. But if it comes to be with a kind of death Olympics to eliminate the lethal elements in society losers will more likely to be dead than sore.
I didn't take your idea seriously. Nor should the suggestion of excluding attorneys be taken seriously. Attorneys can NEVER be excluded --they have the market on whatever can be litigously lucrative at the moment.
Constructive criticism: If you feel strongly about an issue and you choose to post a sarcastic idea about it, perhaps you might save us the intellectual dissonance and make your idea more accessible for feedback.
If the idea could be carried out of sequestering the violent element of humanity in a free fire zone, it might be useful. I just doubt it could be accomplished. I fail to see how I have limited feedback.
Your quote... "I didn't think anyone would take my idea seriously" ...would limit feedback. Am I missing something here?
I detailed a sustained human problem and offered an idea that I didn't believe any administration could put into action. That my solution was not politically viable did not destroy the validity of the problem. This is a forum open to ideas by (hopefully) creative people concerned about how the world currently operates and there is nothing in my original post to prevent open discussion of the problem or to generate more practical approaches to a solution. If you are inhibited by my attempt at a solution or my confession of the unliklihood of the success of my solution, perhaps the problem seems intractable to you but nevertheless there is no reason that others exploring the difficulties might be able to discover a more successful pragmatic approach.
With this two way conversation, can I interrupt? People have two outlets already that are only halfway usually but still: video games, the more realistic, once we see virtual reality and feedback suits that should satisfy anyone without a death wish, and martial arts both eastern and western. What is boxing, isn't it attempting to knock out your opponent? The VR will be the best outlet without litigation from concerned family members but that is sometime in the future and I say just sit on your aggressions, learn to put your energy into more productive areas, or learn a physical contact (knockout) sport.