Instant Replay, Google and the BCS
Fuzziness is what makes the world interesting. We seem have too many demands for precision, too much black and white. The fuzziness and gray area gives us something to talk about, something interesting, points for debate. Instant replays - why does every call have to be right? A referee missing or making the wrong call is part of the game. Just like a player dropping a pass or striking out. Stopping the game, waiting around for 5 minutes may be great for commercials but it is not any fun to watch. Plus kills the instant excuses of what might have been.
Could you imagine having instant replay in baseball? Or even worse the automated pitch detector to call balls and strikes, after a close pitch no one would get upset, there would be no “COME ON BLUE! Get your eyes checked!!”, it would be another case of shrugging and saying well that’s what the computer says. Which reminds me of a recent customer service call to United but I’ll save that for another day.
Google - the great organizer and provider of the world’s information is similar in many regard to instant replay. It seems whenever I find myself in a lively discussion with a group, someone, myself included, will always want to look up the “correct answer” on Google. This usually ends up killing the discussion.
B.C.S. - each bowl season everyone always seems to get up in arms about why we must have a college football playoffs. How can we possibly know who the National Champion is? The BCS tried to implement a national championship game against the top two teams, which isn’t enough. How do we know they really are the top two teams, we must have playoffs.
My thought on this is to get rid of the whole BCS and championship game format. It obviously can’t decide it anyways. Even if you have an eight team playoffs, the ninth team will feel slighted. Let the bowls go to how they were, which was good for 50+ years. And let people have lively debates on why Boise State should be the national champion or why USC is overrated.
Having a computer decide the answers to everything is just boring. The debate and differing view points and people being passionate now that’s interesting. Who cares if there is no right or wrong, I like the fuzziness.