Soccer is the manifestation of despair. Lots of people play soccer. Worse, many encourage their children to do so. Parents feel good about getting their children involved in soccer. Affinity groups emerge around soccer, and all children’s organized sports. Usually, such groups do little actual harm, but all tend to keep participants from doing as much for their own real good as they otherwise might.
The saddest thing about soccer is the brain damage caused by heading the soccer ball. While no parent would put their computer on the ground and drop a soccer ball onto it from three stories in the air, they will encourage their children to hit the same hard, heavy, fast-moving soccer ball that imparts similar amounts of shock to their heads and all within.
When told about this, and the permanent, unavoidable damage to their children’s brains, eyes, and ears, many will become angry. That anger is a perfect illustration of the human to value social status more than avoiding harm.
One may see that encouraging children to engage in an activity proven to cause brain damage shows that parents have given up on the idea that intellectual ability is worthwhile. The same peoples whose ancestors invented every single modern convenience have now condemned their children to a lifetime of intellectual mediocrity.
“What is the point of being able to think as well as possible?”, they ask with that decision. Few things indicate the despair that leads to extinction as well as fields full of young soccer players.
