Monday, November 21, 2022

Can we please stop hosting sporting events in regressive countries?

 So...I don't care much about sports, but this World cup in Qatar seems to be a disaster. I mean, between the de facto slaves dying to construct it, to the slapshod construction itself, to the fact that they're imposing regressive islamic policies on the spectators and athletes who attend, I really have to wonder...why even have it there? I don't get why these event planners decide to have these events in the crappiest locations possible. Reminds me of the Olympics, which has been bad over the years. Remember the Russian Olympics in Sochi? What about the olympics in Brazil basically having swimmers compete in raw sewage? Or what about the mess that were the olympics in Beijing earlier this year? I swear, every time these events are held in regressive countries, it turns into a crapshow. Literally in Brazil's case, more figuratively in the others.

In the world cup's case, and I expect this is the case for the olympics as well, the decision is justified under the veneer of wokeism.  FIFA president Gianni Infantino basically started going on about the sins of the European countries over time and how we need to keep apologizing and feeling sorry for the actions of colonialism, as if this implies that first world nations don't have a right to criticize the living conditions and governmental policies of other, more regressive countries. 

GIVE ME A BREAK!

I mean, this is another reason why I hate wokeism. I know, as a "humanist", I tend to not believe in objective morality, let me explain that. Yes. I reject divine command theory. I believe that there is no moral code imposed on humans and that we are all free to act as we want. Still, that doesnt mean all morality is necessarily equal. Morality should, at its core, seek to improve human well being, whatever that may be. It needs to have a progressive lens toward improving things over the state of nature. Because if morality isn't superior to the state of nature, maybe that morality sucks and is unjust. To justify a particular legal code or standard of morality, it has to improve one's lives more than some other standard, or lack thereof. 

And I'm sorry, but a lot of these third world nations DON'T have their crap together on that front. Russia and China are authoritarian states. Qatar is too, basically being a muslim theocracy with de facto slavery. Brazil isn't as bad in this sense, but still, raw sewage and questionable living conditions? Come on, man. The fact is, if a country can't provide a certain standard of living, both in terms of actual material conditions, but also in terms of rights, then they shouldn't host international sporting events, period. And I know this is gonna piss off the wokies, but yes, I believe that in general, "the west" are the most advanced nations on the planet. Both morally and materially. We can discuss the exact differences between countries, and I'm not above criticizing my home country of the United States, either. We are very regressive in many ways, even if we are arguably around the 90th percentile of countries overall (20th out of 200 doesn't sound too out of place). 

As far as colonialism goes, while I know that the state of many countries is directly the result of past european actions, uh, it's been around 75 years since the end of WWII when the west divested itself from most of their overseas colonies, get over it. Just about anyone living has lived under a post colonial world at this point. If you were born in 1945 when WWII ended, you are now 77. These people had an entire lifetime to get their crap together, and if they didn't, yeah, that is their problem to some extent. Not saying it totally is, as systems can be hard to change, but deflecting from the issue by going on about "but the Europeans" just rings hollow for me right now. Those generations did NOT fix their living situations, and perpetuated past problems. Yeah, I will blame them for being regressive.

Here's some ideas, maybe we shouldn't host sporting events in third world countries, authoritarian states, or Islamic theocracies. Ya know? I'd never want to travel to these countries to attend. Why would I wanna go somewhere I would get arrested? Why would I want to spend top dollar to stay in some hastily constructed village? I mean, have you seen the kinds of accommodations Qatar is offering here? We're talking literal tent cities. Is this supposed to be a posh accommodation or the Arizona prison system? WTF people?

Yeah, let's host most stuff in North America, Europe, and maybe a few other places that meet standards. I refuse to give third world countries a chance simply because ermahgerd they're poor and it's our fault and blah blah blah. They don't have their crap together, and this seems to be an issue that perpetuates itself again and again, in multiple different events.

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