Random Thought Of The Day #581

Day 581

This is really fucking late today.

I've spent the last half hour in an argument with a friend over a headshot ban in hockey. I'm still against a headshot ban. And I won't change my mind. Because it's a "let's try to fix this symptom of this other problem" approach without actually tackling the other problem. And I'll argue until I'm blue in the face that a headshot ban will cause players to skate with their heads down all the god damn time. This time there's no Darius Kasparaitis to kill Eric Lindros for doing it. I fucking HATE watching guys skate with their head down until they get killed in center ice for doing it. They're asking for it... but I digress...

The problem is the same in Football as it is in Hockey. Fucking ARMOR on these guys.

About 15 years ago, when Carbon Fiber started getting cheap and reasonable to use, it started getting put into pads for athletes in contact sports. Between Carbon Fiber and plastics, the padding became secondary in construction. It was there for the wearer and on top of that, the plastic and carbon fiber was attached. It added that hard layer to the outside.It created a solid layer. But the padding remained... but now, not to dampen the hard muscle & bone on muscle & bone impact of 2 bodies colliding the way that the padding had. Now it was to only protect the wearer and diffuse the shock that went back into the wearer's body when the outside layer of solid material made contact with another solid object.



Gratuitous half naked girls in a pillow fight. You're welcome.

 It's like strapping pillows on you and diving on top of someone like when you were 6 and wrestling in your basement with your friends. You didn't hurt each other that much. The pillows were pads. They prevented injury.

But then, how about you glue a bunch of plastic plates on top of those same pillows. And try doing that. Now, only 1 person is protected when you hit an unpadded area.

Think about the difference. Hit someone in the chin or head with a pillow covered fist. And then hit someone with a pillow covered fist with a plastic plate on it. Hmm... I wonder which one will create a more damaging impact?



Don't think about it too hard.

 But what I think this brings up a good topic. Reactionary decision making. And how everyone seems to just see a symptom, say "we gotta fix this!" and then instead of finding out what causes it, deciding on how to deal with the result by just saying "this shouldn't be allowed to happen".

I mean, maybe I'm alone here, but logic would dictate that if you don't like the outcome of something, you'd figure out how to prevent that outcome rather than simply dictating that that outcome is unacceptable. It's this retro-prohibition-lite thought process. Where "hey, alcohol makes people drunk and do stupid shit so we should ban alcohol" instead of thinking "so why are so many people drinking to excess and making this a problem?"



This guy? He's doing it wrong.



But hey... logic apparently went out the window a long time ago. It's all about the soundbytes and the quick fixes and all the other inane shit that doesn't work but makes you feel like you did something about a problem while still causing 10 other problems or not even fixing this one.

Hey, the country is broke, so let's print more money so we can pay debt! Or we can just spend our way out of debt... don't think too much about that. It makes sense. Trust me.

Hey, I'm fat... let's go on the all pizza hut diet!

Makes about as much sense.

Shortsighted, quick fixes with a feel good story on how it'll fix all these problems that were caused by these other things but we won't talk about them cause we don't know how to fix them or don't like the options on how to fix them but this thing will fix this problem right here that we're worried about right now.

Exactly. And people don't understand why I hate everyone. Because everyone is either stupid or crazy. Cause only stupid or crazy could come up with this thought process and think it actually works for longer than it takes to get the words out and feel good about how everything is better now.

Or maybe I'm the crazy one for not jumping on the reactionary bandwagon.

Now I really do need a prescription from Doctor Whiskey.

He's a very good doctor.