The Great Dane
First Grade
- Messages
- 7,798
I don't get why so many people are so surprised and upset by this stuff, or why they thought it wasn't happening in RL.
Even way back when I was kid we knew that footy and other contact sports f**ked with your brain, and that if you didn't know when to stop or if you were unlucky it could have permanent consequences. We'd say (and still say) that a person had taken to many knocks to the head, that they'd had their brain bashed, or that they were punch drunk, all of that was referencing this thing that we knew could happen to a persons brain but we didn't really understand.
So though we didn't know exactly what it was that f**ked your brain up, or the process of that thing/s and how it effected your brain, we knew that it was happening and that knocks to the head sustained while playing sports (or in combat) were the reason why it was happening. We knew that it could fundamentally and permanently change a person, that it could make them suicidal, and have all sorts of other negative effects on you, and that it could totally destroy not only your brain but your whole life.
Not that I'm suggesting that it's a good thing, but sometimes those changes could be sort of positive in a screwed up kind of way as well, it could make some people kind of like a happy drunk all the time as well.
Anyway, the point is that we knew this stuff was happening, and that it was happening regularly, so to me all the people coming out and saying stuff along the lines of "we didn't know the risks" and/or "somebody needs to be held accountable" are totally full of shit, the only difference between now and before is that now we knew how a person becomes punch drunk and that CTE is the cause of it, when before we knew what was happening but not what was the cause of it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we shouldn't do anything to lower the risk of CTE and mitigate the damage that CTE does, but really we've always known the risks and still people (including myself) chose to accept those risks to play anyway, and I see no reason why there won't still be a ton of people willing to take those risks going into the future.
Sorry, but I've needed to get that rant off my chest for sometime now.
Even way back when I was kid we knew that footy and other contact sports f**ked with your brain, and that if you didn't know when to stop or if you were unlucky it could have permanent consequences. We'd say (and still say) that a person had taken to many knocks to the head, that they'd had their brain bashed, or that they were punch drunk, all of that was referencing this thing that we knew could happen to a persons brain but we didn't really understand.
So though we didn't know exactly what it was that f**ked your brain up, or the process of that thing/s and how it effected your brain, we knew that it was happening and that knocks to the head sustained while playing sports (or in combat) were the reason why it was happening. We knew that it could fundamentally and permanently change a person, that it could make them suicidal, and have all sorts of other negative effects on you, and that it could totally destroy not only your brain but your whole life.
Not that I'm suggesting that it's a good thing, but sometimes those changes could be sort of positive in a screwed up kind of way as well, it could make some people kind of like a happy drunk all the time as well.
Anyway, the point is that we knew this stuff was happening, and that it was happening regularly, so to me all the people coming out and saying stuff along the lines of "we didn't know the risks" and/or "somebody needs to be held accountable" are totally full of shit, the only difference between now and before is that now we knew how a person becomes punch drunk and that CTE is the cause of it, when before we knew what was happening but not what was the cause of it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we shouldn't do anything to lower the risk of CTE and mitigate the damage that CTE does, but really we've always known the risks and still people (including myself) chose to accept those risks to play anyway, and I see no reason why there won't still be a ton of people willing to take those risks going into the future.
Sorry, but I've needed to get that rant off my chest for sometime now.
