MAY 29, 2022 – (Cont.)“What’s another critical function of Vikings vs. Packers football?”
“It’s a good way for people to burn off emotions. The original Vikings were wild, seafaring Norseman from Old Scandinavia, mostly Danes and Norwegians (the Swedish Vikings were more into trade), who descended mostly upon the British Isles to wreak havoc wherever they decided it’d be fun and lucrative to do so. Lots of people got seriously hurt, enslaved, or died in the bloody, violent process. Modern Vikings and their opponents give each other twisted knees, broken limbs, and brain concussions, but rarely does anyone get killed on the field of battle. Likewise, millions of fans have something to yack and yell about with reckless but innocent vigor. This salubrious attribute of football is direct evidence of humanity’s enormous progress over the past 1,000 years.”
The alien grunted. I wasn’t sure if it was in judgment or a sign of skepticism.
“Anything else about this phenomenon of Vikings vs. Packers football?”
“There’s the money. Big sports equal big money.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It’s a complicated thing. Aaron Rodgers—the Packers’ star player—commands $150.8 million over a three-year contract. For him, that’s not a bad thing. For all the people and businesses—and behind every business are people—who sell stuff to him or because of him, his big money is a good thing. The same applies to all star players, team owners, and countless other financial beneficiaries of a form of human entertainment that captivates millions of people.
“From a macro perspective, ‘big money’ per se isn’t wealth but merely a medium of exchange. Wealth is the true measure of material prosperity—wealth being the sum total of labor, capital, brain power, band-width, raw materials, finished goods, spare parts that make up an economy. We consume large portions of wealth to sustain and gratify ourselves in the moment and invest other segments to generate future wealth. We have choices about how we allocate wealth. If we direct too much one way, we’ll have too little to dedicate to another need or desire. Too much wealth consumed by big sports, for example, leaves less for, say, public education, affordable housing, development of renewable energy sources, et cetera ad infinitum. Therefore, one can conclude, it’s a bad thing to allocate $150.8 million to a guy for throwing a football, when so many vital elements of society go underfunded—areas essential to our health, safety, prosperity.
“How are allocations decided?”
“First of all, every society, however rich or poor, grapples with the same challenge: its wealth is finite. Yet, depending on how allocations are made, the potential for additional wealth is infinite. How wealth is deployed depends on a host of factors, many common to all societies but many unique to each society. Despite millennia of effort, theoretical and practical, humans have yet to discover and implement a perfect system. There’s a reason we call economics ‘the dismal science.’”
The alien’s filaments pulsated but barely.
“The deeper answer to your question is at once rich in objective data and abundant in subjectivity. But there are two enormous challenges with any analysis of human activity.”
The filaments suddenly flashed. “You have my attention,” said the alien. “Proceed!”
“Data and data.”
“Huh?”
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
