Monday, July 17, 2023

The Problem: The Outrage Machine

Probably the biggest problem with politics is the outrage machine. It has killed conservatism and liberalism and replaced it with irrelevant outrage, a mob mentality, rumor acting as fact and conspiracy acting as wisdom. How did this happen? Well, interestingly, sports explains it.

I don't know how many of you follow sports, but it provides some fascinating parallels to politics. This is one instance. If you look back at the sports media (writers, newscasters, game announcers) from a couple decades ago, what you would find is people who learned the craft of sports analysis. That involved gaining a solid understanding of the sports which they covered and then applying that knowledge to what happened on the field. But that's no longer true. Today, sports analysis is a wasteland of hate, rumor and idiocy.

What happened is that with the advent of talk radio, ratings became the biggest driver of analysis. The meant the value of shock and hype rose and the value of thoughtful analysis fell. After all, it's a lot easier to get ratings when you say obnoxious things that play on people's negative emotional needs than it is to entertain people with a treatise-like discussion of formations and skills. "If it bleeds, it leads," they used to say; today they just say "scream it."

Naturally, those who could shock better did better, whether they knew anything about the sport or not, and those who could not shock floundered. Making this worse, shock is like an addiction: it requires constant feeding to maintain its appeal and it requires greater shocks every time for the same effect. Thus, things devolved to the point everyone is just spending the day trying to shock people with the most outrageous opinions and going off the deep end about rumors. Actual analysis no longer matters. Basically, they replaced the sports William F. Buckleys with drunks arguing at the bar.

The media, acting rationally in the pursuit of ratings, started giving bigger contracts to the shockiest, whether they knew anything or not -- in fact, it's better if they didn't because facts usually get in the way of outrage. So they slowly dropped the guys who knew what they were talking about because people weren't listening to them anymore and they replaced them with the loudest hate-mongers they could find. And the most successful were promoted from radio to television, given their own shows, and moved up to sports shows like ESPN Sports Center. Soon, they were all that was left.

The perfect example of this is Skip Bayless. Bayless is a human turd who specializes in sports talk. He got famous suggesting that Dallas Hall of Fame Quarterback Troy Aikman was a homosexual. He was essentially a rumor monger. This drew a huge audience, so eventually Fox (which employed Aikman at the time) actually hired him to bring his garbage to their television. Once there, he got show after show, started appearing on sports recap shows, and was soon considered one of the top sports analysts. The joke is, he doesn't know anything about sports. He just knows how to attack people! A team lost? Well, it wasn't because of a bad strategy, it was because the coach is a moron who needs to be fired because he "lost the locker room!" The quarterback is too told! The running back is after a new contract! Etc. His most recent "outrage" is that LeBron James is switching to No. 23. He literally used the word outrage. Nevermind that LeBron has switched between 6 and 23 several times before. This time, "it's an outrage!"

Guys like Bayless and Stephen A. Smith and a dozen others turned sports into a hate-filled world of sheer idiocy. All they know is anger. And that has filtered down to all levels. You no longer need to know sports to write about it, you just need to know how to gossip and scream.

How bad is it? Let me give you an example. As I watched the NBA finals, the Miami Heat made a decision in one of the games to shoot three point shots instead of twos. I recognized this because I saw the pattern where they managed to easily get the ball to a player under the net over and over, but he never tapped the ball in - an easy 2 point shot. He forswore the easy two point shot and instead passed it out to the three point line. Based on that, I knew they would lose. Why? Because the odds of shooting threes is so much lower that they could not compete with the Nuggest who were simply putting in two point shots every time (around 40% versus 90+%). Thus, I realized that the Nuggets would score 4 points on every two possessions (shooting 2 of 2) whereas Miami would score only 3 points on their two possessions (shooting 1 of 2). The Nuggets knew this too and moved their guys away from the net to try to block the three point shots, basically leaving the player under the net free to score if he wanted... because they knew he didn't want to. The result was that Miami got killed and had to change strategies at halftime.

That's really good analysis (sorry for the lack of modesty). It was predictive of play after play, it explained what each team's strategy was and why Miami's wasn't working, and the final result. It even explained why certain players were acting the way they did.

Do you know what though? No one mentioned it. Not the announcers. Not the post-game analysts. None of the writers the next day. None of the talk radio guys. They all hammered away with tropes ("The Nuggets are too tall for the Heat!" or "the home crowd gave the Nuggets energy") and then went on the outrage bandwagon: Miami's Jimmy Butler "disappeared!" He's washed up! He was never good enough! Trade him for picks and start over!! They drafted wrong!!

Do you understand the problem here? These people are the people who tell the public what to think. None of them understood what had really happened. Miami chose a risky strategy and it failed. That was all. Miami knew it, they changed at the half. Denver knew it, they practically dared Miami to do it. But the paid announcers (the supposed cream of their crop of basketball knowledge) didn't recognize it. The half-time analysts, all former players and coaches, didn't recognize it. The talk radio guys who claim to live and breathe this stuff and talk for three hours a day about it didn't get it either. All we heard was personal attacks on coaches and players, conspiracy theories about the refs, and pie in the sky garbage about fantasy player swaps and messiah-like demands for draft picks ("he's the next LeBron").

Think about that. That is why sports analysis is utter garbage today. It offers zero actual analysis. Instead, it involves outrage, hyperbole, misdirection to gossip all hidden under the thin veneer of meaningless statistics to make opinion sound supported. They've even invented a conspiracy-theory style of thinking called the "hot take" to excuse being wrong time and time again and stepping over lines: "That was just a 'hot take', you can't hold that against me!"

Politics has gone the same route.

Talk radio learned that selling outrage, rumors and conspiracy is the key to getting listeners. It feeds people's anger and frustration, and that sells. So the same thing has happened. These people don't care about the ideology and wouldn't understand it if they did, all they know is that outrage sells... so sell outrage. This trickled out to places like Fox and MSNBC and then print and finally politicians themselves. The end result is that liberalism has gone from "problem solving through government" to hate-filled identity politics that borders on Nazism. Conservatism has gone from "encouraging the responsible use of freedom and the value of traditional values" to lunatic conspiracy and hating whatever they don't like.

Think about this sentence above:
All we heard was personal attacks on coaches and players, conspiracy theories about the refs, pie in the sky garbage about fantasy player swaps and messiah-like demands for draft picks ("he's the next LeBron").
Now ask yourself if that sounds familiar with a few changes
All we heard was personal attacks on political opponents, conspiracy theories about government and the powers that be, pie in the sky garbage about having sufficiently pure party leaders, and messiah-like demands for a political savior ("he's the next Reagan").
It's the same thing. This is what has happened. Talk radio, media and our politicians have destroyed conservatism and liberalism and replaced them with hate, rumor and conspiracy. Remember that the next time some "conservative" tries to whip you into a frenzy over some irrelevance like Biden not acknowledging his illegitimate grand daughter, or the government's up-coming attempt to take your riiiights, or he attacks an ally for lack of purity, or tells you that only the messiah can save conservatism, even as he represents nothing even close to conservatism. Liberals have the same problem, but it doesn't make it better. And sadly, there is nothing we can do about this. We are surrounded by idiots and suckers now and they are only getting worse. To borrow a quote, they are f-ing up fast and picking up speed. But you can at least keep your sanity by understanding this and learning to see through it.

15 comments:

  1. Hey Andrew! So very true. No discussion, no debate, only “if you aren’t with me, you’re against me” idiocy. Or unfortunately one can say that the movie “Idiocracy” was actually a documentary. I long for the days of Tim Russert questions and analysis.

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  2. Hi Bev! Great to hear from you! I hope you are well!

    So true. Idiocracy has come true in so many ways it's scary.

    On Russert, I never agreed with him and still don't, but I could respect him. He understood what he believed and he could explain it... and it wasn't about destroying people who didn't agree. I don't see that today. Everything today is rage and conspiracy.

    I've had a lot of talks with people I know lately who consider themselves conservatives and it's shocking the nonsense they've come to believe and how far it is from conservatism, and how much they've decided they want to see the world burn.

    On the other end, so many self-described liberals or progressives have become little cultists. They believe in dogma that is not true and they do it with a religious fervor that makes those who don't kowtow into heretics who need to be destroyed.

    There are very few people left with any rationality. And I think a huge part of this is that the media and the political class have done what I describe above. They've learned it profits them to push hate and insanity, and as a result, they have split society, destroyed the world of ideas, and created a downward spiral of insanity.

    That's not the only problem we face right now -- far from it, but it is one of the biggest ones poisoning everything and it prevents people from fixing things.

    Andrew

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  3. Well, first..BEV! Where have you been? It's seems like it's been forever! Great to see you again!

    Andrew,

    I can't agree more on your comparison of the decline of sports media and politics. While reading your article, Bayless was the first example that came to mind. The man is a hack and best described as the "original Internet troll- before there was even an Internet." (A priest at my church in college would've referred to him as "someone who wasn't beaten up enough in school.")

    With the exception of Fox's college football show, I don't watch any more sports shows these. (At least those guys enjoy what they do. Heck, Urban Meyer and- Saint Woody forgive me for saying this- Charles Woodson do a great job ANALYZING strategies while doing friendly banter- not easy, given their respective schools)
    I quit ESPN in 2017. I only peaked that year and the year before to see how they would bash the Stanley Cup Finals. Not that I'm trying to match your above analysis (I rarely follow basketball), two notable examples:
    -2016, Game 2: The Pens scored the OT game winner off a faceoff. The following day, all ESPN- specifically the morons on 'Pardon the Interruption'- talked about was the referee giving Crosby too much leeway in the faceoff. This followed the Sharks player, Logan Couture, whining about that. Ignored was San Jose's terrible faceoff winning percentage or the Pens players talking about how Crosby had set up the play with his teammates before the faceoff. No. Just Sid-hate.
    -2017: Round 1, Game 3: Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski took a shot to the face from Phil Kessel and 'went down,' only for Jake Guentzel to score seconds later. ESPN spent the next day declaring the NHL's violence out of control and needed to be addressed, as play wasn't stopped to Werenski's injury. Except...NHL rules state that if a player is hurt, but can get back to the bench, play continues. Werenski himself went down, but quickly looked, calling for an uncalled penalty. He reached the bench only as the goal was scored and threw a fit. ESPN's goons only whined over the perceived acceptance of violence to Werenski (which was due to the puck traveling up his outstretched stick while trying to block Kessel's shot, i/e no penalty), and favoritism towards the Pens.
    So, as you said, outrage by morons focusing on garbage and who don't bother to know even the most basic of rules. (And ESPN's pettiness towards sports it doesn't- at the time- have broadcast rights to.)

    For you politics comparison, well, I have less to say because I think you nailed it. Both sides have become cults. The left, as you say, is now a perverted religion. The right is determined by fidelity to the Almighty Trump. What I really despise is that his worshippers are doing so only because he was indicted and it's mainly out of sympathy. I thought we were supposed to be the 'facts over feelings' group. The sheer inflexibility over this just gives me no hope for next year. There was an article at Townhall that summed it perfectly for me- in short, Trump's campaign is a preventable, slow-motion train wreck with plenty of people sounding the alarms and everybody on board ignoring them.

    ...

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  4. ...
    That being said, I'd like to get two things off my chest:
    First, I'm sick of Nolte over at Breitbart constantly referring to Biden as 'America's oldest 'Murder, She Wrote' fan. That is a terrible insult to the memory of the late Angela Lansbury. Lansbury- who i knew as Miss Price before she was Miss Potts- was an actress whose very presence had an aura of dignity and class- two things Biden wouldn't know about even if the wizard gave him a fully functional brain. The description is an insult to a true legend.
    And second, enough of the garbage sympathy for John Fetterman I see every time he's mentioned on conservative news sites. Almost every article I read seems to feel sorry for now-retarded Fetterman being used by others for purposes of power. I call bullshit. Anyone who's followed Fetterman's career knows that the pursuit of higher office (while excelling at little more than self-promotion), is best described as an addiction or
    disease for him. He wanted that Senate and I have no doubt that whatever faculties he has left would never have allowed him to drop out of the race last year. He's as power-hungry as his wife and cronies. As for his health, well, Andrew, I'm sure I don't need to describe the symptoms of heart issues to you. But he had swelling in his legs and refused to listen to his doctor for five years. His current health problems are strictly the result of his pathetic, lazy lifestyle. He's np pawn; he wanted this, he sold his soul, and he's likely to pay the price very soon. (Most people familiar with conditions like his have told me he's likely to die within two years.) And when he does, it will be solely his fault. A death that should warrant no mourning of any kind.

    Okay, I've wasted enough off-topic space here. Good to see you back in action, Andrew. Keep it up, man!

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  5. Rustbelt, Howdy! I have a couple of responses, but let me start with something you really nailed:

    "I thought we were supposed to be the 'facts over feelings' group."

    This is the very point I am trying to make. "Conservatives" have abandoned conservative values wholesale (and that is not hyperbole). These people now espouse meaningless outrage, false facts, political idolatry, and conspiracy. And the reason is this:

    They are getting their information and views from the political media on the right who no longer bother with conservatism and instead sell outrage.

    That is the very point I am trying to make.

    This has converted conservatism from the undeniable and undeniably popular beliefs of Ronald Reagan into a drunk mob of retards no sane voter would trust. It is so bad that I spend half my time debunking the latest lies people I know have been told and talking most of them down off the ledge. It's sickening.

    It's happened on the left too.

    I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage people to (1) stop listening to the radio and the internet, (2) they think through whether or not what they've heard makes any sense, (3) ask yourself if the teller has a reason to mislead you, and (4) ask yourself if it even matters.

    Andrew

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  6. Rustbelt, (Part 2)

    Sports offer a great analogy to much of what happens in this country because it mimics all aspects of it perfectly, especially politics. And what sports tells us about our country right now is not at all good.

    In terms of your examples, those are excellent examples. Outrage has become the thing. Spew tropes, add anger, try to be louder than the other guy. That is what has replaced the sports media. You see it in all sports. And think about how easy it is to generate outrage too:

    An employee of X corp does something bad. X corp investigates and punishes the employee with Y.

    Here's how you turn this into outrage:

    Pound table and claim...
    1. X corp should have fired employee sooner, they took too long. OR Or X corp rushed to judgment and acted too soon. or feel free to argue both at different times.
    2. The investigation wasn't enough.
    3. The investigation was mishandled.
    4. The investigation was biased
    5. The investigation was a cover up
    6. X corp should have known and never hired employee in the first place.
    7. The punishment is not enough
    8. The punishment is too much
    9. The punishment doesn't help the victim

    You can run with all of that on any scandal you want -- sports, employment, politics. And that's before you even factor in the specialized dog whistles:

    If liberal: It's racist/sexist (applies to investigation, lack of investigation, corporation by virtue of employee actions, punishment, lack of punishment)

    If "conservative": That's woke!

    Faking outrage is the easiest thing in the world for these people because they are not bounded by truth, facts or an aversion to hypocrisy. And the public eats this up because they are kept at an irrational, emotional fervor by the outrage factor which keeps them from thinking for themselves.

    Andrew

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  7. Rustbelt, Finally, to add to your examples of people who don't know the rules, I've seen NFL announcers who did not know that NFL games could end in ties, one who didn't know there could be overtime, few understand that where the flags are thrown tells you what player the penalty was on, that if the refs allow the play to continue it cannot have been a false start penalty, or any number of rules. They know nothing of how offensive and defensive lines work but criticize players without understanding who had what responsibilities.

    But they sure know how to throw blame. What's more, they've invented all kinds of ways to enhance their ability to throw blame. Most "conventional wisdom" in sports is wrong, but they repeat it mindlessly and then mock people who don't repeat it. When you do instant replay at a frame every two seconds, it looks like the guy should have been able to do anything... ("why didn't he just punch the ball out of his hand?!") even though the reality is the whole segment happened faster than the reaction time for human nerves. When they talk about drafts, they scream about teams not getting the right value even though it's impossible to move around the draft board like they claim should be done. They assign failing and passing grades to draft classes without any idea if any of these picks will work out. Then they excuse their own terrible track records by trying to disclaim their analysis as knowingly 'too early' but they don't offer the same excuse to others. They created the hot take to be able to say anything without being held accountable. and when they want to go after someone they spin the facts however they want -- like above: too soon, not soon enough, too much, not enough, or ephemeral ad-hominem stuff like "lack of heart" "just not trying" "over the hill" "lost the locker room" "contract year." Etc.

    Did you see the most recent example of this? A video emerged from the NBA Summer league which appeared to show two Dallas rookies scoring in the wrong basket. The sports media lit these guys up as the biggest morons ever. Only, it wasn't true. The refs handed the ball to the wrong team making the camera angle look backwards. The players did the right thing, right hoop and scored two points. Not only did no one in the media apologize to the players for wrongly mocking them (they had moved on to attacking the refs) but for days, the morons on Twitter kept attacking the players even after this whole thing had been debunked.

    That's how Fox News got in trouble under Tucker Carlson.

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  8. Andrew,

    I didn't see that story. It's a combination of me avoiding most sports sites these days because of stories like that. (I tend to focus only on sites for teams that I follow.) Plus, I don't really follow the NBA. (The last full game I saw was a Fijnals game between the Bulls and Suns in '92.)
    But it seems like just the kind of stupidity I've come to expect from today's commentary. They do such a good job of mocking the intelligence of the audience that it's actually quite painful to watch. I value my sanity and dignity too much.
    You're right about the outrage. It's just pandering to the lowest common denominator. And don't get me started on conspiracy theorists! Honestly, they really scare me- just not in the way they want to. What scares me is how many people take their word for gospel by proclaiming themselves to be the lone voice crying out in the wilderness. Conspiracists aren't held to a standard, made to prove their points, or properly vetted. We demand this of government, as we should, but not of these self-proclaimed bearers of truth. It’s a sad comment on society.
    Well, I’ve followed your advice of not listening to the radio- just not the Internet. Yet. One out of two isn’t too bad so far. Lately, I’ve been escaping by watching lots of classic comedy- Rodney Dangerfield, 1990s Who Line is It Anyway?, Dean Martin Roasts, Al Bundy insults, etc. I’ve also taken to watching reaction videos. It’s amazing how many young people find this stuff funny. ‘Give the people quality entertainment and they’ll enjoy it.’
    Hm? I wonder if that formula can still be applied to today’s sports and politics? Offer pundits who aren’t scumbags and maybe people will want to see them and get quality insight in return. (Fox Big Noon Saturday seems to be doing that.) Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure.

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  9. Hey Andrew, great to see you writing again. This is Jed. A very interesting analysis. Yes, I recall the rise of talk radio with Rush Limbaugh for certain. I am not as certain sports reporting necessarily started all of this. We started with most sports reporting, be it print, radio, or television being local. As the society became more affluent, there was much more time and money spent on recreation including entertainment. This fueled the rise of a monster like ESPN. As early as Howard
    Cosell, we saw sports talking “important” matters such as racial inequities etc. on the three networks, sure the same 93% of the business was Democratic Party, but they still tried to be professionals and submerge their personal feelings to be honest and objective. When there were only three networks, they could afford to do this and still be highly profitable. I mean what was the real difference between CBS and ABC in the overall profit margin. In the entertainment field, shock jock Howard Stearn drove most FM music jocks off the air. So the “root” cause, if you will, is not so much sports blathering, but the rise of competition. The proliferation of competition fueled the need to win the ratings game which, as you point out, sinks to the shock jock level be it politics or sports. As you point out (and Nixon once said) “once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it is impossible to put it back in”. It can’t get better. One other thing though. We have so many people in this country now, and are losing our sense of commonality. The educational institutions are failing, so I think our country is less educated. This makes us, as a nation, prone to the idiocracy. Perhaps the one hope is that throughout civilizations have crashed and burned and somehow raison from the ashes. If we don’t destroy ourselves in a nuclear war, maybe that can happen.

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  10. Hey Andrew and everyone,

    Ive been busy out in the shop, Just had a chance to read through your article & the comments.

    Andrew, you said this and it made me chuckle:

    Liberals= “That’s racist/sexists!”
    Conservatives= “That’s woke!”

    That pretty much sums up modern discourse lol.

    I can tell you this much: I feel much more mentally healthy by not engaging with certain content online and just flat avoiding the legacy media outlets on TV. Even the commercials on TV have become more obnoxious and transparent.

    And as you say, ask yourselves if the person spouting off outrage has a reason to mislead you. Nine times out of ten, they are just trying to lure you in to sell you something… or to push “The Message”.

    Idiocracy: One of my favorite comedies, and a truly prophetic one at that! Mike Judge has made some excellent films and TV shows over the years; a true legend in my mind (Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill, Office Space and quite a few others).

    Anyway, great article.

    -Kyle

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  11. Jed again…. The only sport I follow with any kind of regularity is golf. Although owned by NBC ( liberals become aroused by taking over what they perceive to be conservative entertainment and sports), Live From the Majors is great sport commentary. There are a few guys Instill enjoy reading or seeing Victor David Hansen who often comments on Laura Ingraham, and Steve Krakauer who has a blog or podcast and newsletter that calls out shitty reporting in the media. My first comment did not seem to appear, but While I agree, the media reporting of sports and politics has destroyed civil intelligent discourse, it was probably caused by the advent of cable t.v. and streaming. When there were only three networks, everybody made plenty of money even if you came in third. Now, with so many choices,shock jock talk shows are seen as the way to go. Whip up anger and passion. It is all vituperative and devoid of common decency..

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  12. Kyle,

    "I feel much more mentally healthy by not engaging with certain content online and just flat avoiding the legacy media outlets on TV. Even the commercials on TV have become more obnoxious and transparent."

    Right now the left's beliefs have truly gone into lunacy. They push victimization, hate as tolerance, paranoia, and forced adherence to false reality. Like I said, they are a cult. And they push this into everything they touch. I think that is causing genuine mental illness among a lot of people.

    Unfortunately, the 'conservative' response only makes this worse by offering its own victimization, misdirected rage, and paranoia.

    Tuning both out really has become essential for most people's mental health.

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  13. Hi Jed!

    I enjoy most sports to one degree or another, though I despise what I see in the sports media. It's a total fraud.

    On your point: "I am not as certain sports reporting necessarily started all of this"... let me clarify. I don't think sports radio caused political talk radio. I think it has fallen for the same sickness, so I use it to illustrate only.

    When Rush started talk radio was tame, audiences were still rational and broad. He did an excellent job of making solid political points while entertaining. (Ditto ESPN). But over time, these guys (left and right) figured out that they did better focusing on their fringes rather than a broad audiences and by playing to their worst instincts (victimization, hate and paranoia) rather than informing. And as they competed with each other for more listeners or viewers, they got further and further out there to get noticed and keep people coming back. It became a race to become the most shocking. At this point, everything is the end of America as we know it, the reintroduction of slavery for our side, impeach all opponents, find all the traitors, and huddle together in fear... left and right.

    Sports talk has gone the same route, only about sports. That's why I used the analogy. Tucker Carlson knows no more about politics than Skip Bayless knows about sports. He only knows how to bait his audience.

    I do agree with you that cable and streaming were vital to this as well. More are space to fill, the need to fill every second with heartpounding moments to keep people watching/listening, sped all of this up.

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  14. As an aside, golf is not in a similar place to other sports leagues. I would say the biggest reason is that people who watch golf also tend to play it, meaning a guy like Skip Bayless would sound like a fool once he starts talking. So he (and the podcasts) avoid it except when he can lob something like an attack on the PGA for surrendering to LIV. But there are no general managers, no trades and no instant replay he can use to smear people and talk fantasy about he would have done it better. None of the tools he uses to sell his "analysis" can be used in golf. It's one of the only sports that doesn't lend itself to the rancor these guys produce.

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