[Fnoord]

If I, or virtually the vast majority of people who aren't among the ~0,01% richest in the world, didn't have to work one day in my life in order to sustain myself I could also focus on the Olympics.

Ergo; in the context we discuss, that's less of an achievement for rich American kids than for poor people.

Therefore not a good delimiter.

And certainly not inspiring. The circumstances for the vast majority of people on earth are different. To start with, their financial circumstances.

[edanm]

Are you seriously saying that competing in the Olympics is not impressive?

Less impressive because they're rich, sure, I'm with you. It makes it easier. But dismissing it as not a good delimiter and not inspiring is pretty ridiculous.

[Fnoord]

Whether you or I find it impressive or not is a personal value you or I have.

For me, it depends on the sport. Some sports are simply elitist. Cricket is an example, tennis is another, hockey yet another. There's many more. You could even see the very notion of sport is elitist. Poor people need to focus on the bacon alone.

Furthermore, when I learn about the circumstances of certain sports(wo)men I get touched. Lance Armstrong was an example of that because of his illness. Unfortunately he was a fraud, and I watched him win the Tour de France 7 times. We had Sochi as well, where so many Russians suddenly were winning while normally that isn't the case, now is it?

Then there's the stories of poor people winning in sports. Those move me as well, but they seem to be rather rare.

These 3 realizations destroyed a lot of the respect I had for Olympics or sports in general. Even though I am a hobbyist sporter myself (jogging), and have been a competing gamer in the past (the same is true there: if you got rich parents you're one step ahead). Its a personal value, YMMV.

[chrisbennet]

Accomplishing difficult things from a disadvantaged position is more impressive than those accomplished by someone without those disadvantages, but it doesn't mean the latter accomplishments are not impressive.

The world is full of people who want to tear down other peoples accomplishments - "Accomplishment X isn't that impressive because of starving people in country Y." Using that standard, nothing done by anyone who "won the ovarian lottery" by being born in a 1st world country would qualify as "impressive".

When faced with a beautiful sunset, you can say "Meh, I'm not impressed. The sunsets in Hawaii are much better." or you can appreciate the beautiful sunset for what it is. The latter approach is happier path in life I think.

[Fnoord]

> Accomplishing difficult things from a disadvantaged position is more impressive than those accomplished by someone without those disadvantages, but it doesn't mean the latter accomplishments are not impressive.

It means it gets lost like tears in the rain. At one point, one gets bored by the accomplishments and its about outliers within the winners. That's how an overstimulation of signal tends to work out.

> The world is full of people who want to tear down other peoples accomplishments - "Accomplishment X isn't that impressive because of starving people in country Y." Using that standard, nothing done by anyone who "won the ovarian lottery" by being born in a 1st world country would qualify as "impressive".

I'm arguing these [of the Winklevoss] are no accomplishments; they're expected. If something's expected of you, how is it an accomplishment if you reach that goal? You'd only be disappointed when you wouldn't reach the goal.

> When faced with a beautiful sunset, you can say "Meh, I'm not impressed. The sunsets in Hawaii are much better." or you can appreciate the beautiful sunset for what it is. The latter approach is happier path in life I think.

Moot comparison. At one point in your life, you've seen so many sunsets that it becomes pointless to care about them. You focus on different things, or on one of those sunsets which has something special. Such as that one time in Hawaii. Keeping caring about things which don't move you, seems like a one way ticket to endless depression.

Although everyone's free to enjoy sunsets, and I have no intention to take that liberty away from one, I am equally free to describe they're not that beautiful.

[edanm]

"I'm arguing these [of the Winklevoss] are no accomplishments; they're expected. If something's expected of you, how is it an accomplishment if you reach that goal? You'd only be disappointed when you wouldn't reach the goal."

I think you're just mistaken about the percentage of rich people who achieve something like participating in the Olympics. I don't think it's expected in the way you seem to think it is.

[Fnoord]

The term rich is relative, depending on the context, and we had various contexts throughout this thread's discussion. It seems you have a higher threshold for the term than I do.

[chrisbennet]

I suppose what you're describing might be something like the "hedonic treadmill" (or maybe just depression).