Obviously, the Olympics as it currently exists has a lot of problems - building stadiums over poor neighbourhoods, using slave labor (or close to it), promoting nationalism, etc.
But do you think the concept of “People from different countries (or regions or whatever once borders are removed) around the world compete to see who can run the fastest, throw things the furthest, jump the highest, and so on, and win some kind of prize based on their performance” is a fundamentally good one or not?
And if it is good, how do you think it would be different to the regular Olympics?
years ago, when streaming was in its infancy, I was watching China’s sports channel CCTV5 on sopcast. A very interesting event was taking place, it was like the opening of the Olympics, in which athletes would walk out led by a person holding up various flags. These flags were obviously not Nation flags, so I translated the title of the event and it was something like The National Proletarian Games. It turns out that State Factories would compete against each other in different sporting events. Probably a holdout form the Maoist period, wondering if they still take place? I think the USSR held a similar event?
This used to be more common than you think. At least in Europe. Soccer teams have started as company teams until the leagues became so big that it’s now about making money. PSV, Wolfsburg and Bayer Leverkusen were all teams formed by workers. Then you got teams like Crystal Palace, Real Madrid and all clubs from Belgium have monarchist beginnings. Which is why I hate these clubs.
