I'm gonna give partial credit to the comments for pointing out that rugby/football, boxing, MMA, and violent video games all already exist and are generally available throughout rich democracies. However, I will only award full credit for a refutation of the idea that competitive violence is innate to men.

[–] HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Top comment nails it

Counterpoint: while the "death" element is removed, the vast majority of videogames and virtually all of sports are some sublimation or simulation of this. Men have access to all manner of simulated warfare, up to and including actual violent combat such as boxing, kickboxing, wrestling and MMA. And of course, there are all sorts of actual wars across the globe, many of which make a reasonable use of volunteers or mercenaries. So if there really was this vast, widespread impulse to toss away one's life for honour, why aren't fighting leagues and gyms absolutely crowded with men brimming with this barely suppressed primal urge? Why isn't every able-bodied male in the west rushing to Ukraine?

Answer: because to actually do it is scary, and painful, and honestly a whole lot of fucking work. You gotta, like, train and shit. And there's still a fair chance of meeting lots of people who are just Better Than You and will kick your ass on the regular, and accepting that takes humility and a sense of proportion. Plus, a non zero risk of physical injury and/or death.

Revealed preferences tell the actual story here. Men don't want to fight. They want to win. And since not everyone can win, and winning is work, many men simply fold back to living boring peaceful lives, pretending that it's society that is depriving them of their God-given right to die a glorious death in battle with its dastardly emasculating ways; then they keep seeking their glory fix vicariously. If they're sane, usually they do so by rooting for this or that sports team, or playing videogames, and nothing else. If they're not so sane, they support demented warmongering policies and raging strongmen and then send their own sons into the meatgrinder, since they're now too old for it. But if they were younger, oh, they'd be there on the front lines, pinky swear!

If you reintroduced the Coliseum, it'd be people desperate for money and the occasional guy with the actual agency to live out his dream fighting in it, and the aforementioned vast crowd of whiners with no self-awareness would be watching it on TV all the same, while ranting about how incompetent those gladiators are, and that they'd be much better, if only not for [insert convenient excuse here].

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 years ago

Revealed preferences tell the actual story here. Men don't want to fight. They want to win

Dangerously close to self burn, as rats don't want to debate or even be correct, they want that smug sense of superiority that comes from feeling right

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 10 points 2 years ago

However, I will only award full credit for a refutation of the idea that competitive violence is innate to men

roller derby (as popular in the last decade and a bit) is the first (albeit not only[0]) thing that comes to mind

[0] - over here in ZA, women's rugby teams (and in other sports) are plentiful, and they do not fuck around

[–] volodymyr@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Analogs of Colloseum in MMA and video games exist, but they are not "real" enough for some people. In fact, the Colloseum is not big enough for some people, they want a bigger fight and glory. Like a war.

So while the article raises interesting points it's really proposing only half measures.

Of course, big conventional war is destructive, self-defeating, and cruel so it's no good.

So what I propose is to direct the drive for adventure into facing the "real" of learning and creating the way technology and science does it. I wish I learned how to communicate the heroic nature of this quest .