As we go into this Olympic season we are again reminded of the
traditional nature of sports. All the games have had the optimal
strategies long since worked out, the athletes have honed all the
same skills to within a hairs breadth of perfection, all the competitors
in each event look alike, all doing the same tricks, etc.
Booooorrrrringggggg.
What we need now are new sports, where the optimal strategy
is still debatable. Consider the Survivor game, which you have
surely heard about. I didnt see any but the last half hour of the
last show, but I understand there were three remaining players
who participated in a challenge, the winner given the opportunity
to vote off one of the others. The last three included an unpopular
man, a moderately popular woman and a very popular man.
There is a strange loop here, for the unpopular man must have
realized that the only possible way he could win the prize is
to lose the challenge! Reasoning: if he won the challenge, then
he would face a vote by the last 7 contestants between himself
and either the moderately popular woman or the highly popular
man. So, he lost the challenge, which was won by the woman,
who acted in her own best interest in voting off the popular man
(to whom she would have lost in the final election) but in so doing,
she lost popularity with the jury of seven and so lost the final
election to the unpopular man!
Now thats a cool strange-loop.
In the spirit of survivor, I propose a new sport, the optimal
strategy of which is unclear. The game is to see who can
walk (or run) the greatest distance, assuming that the competitor
must carry *all* necessary supplies, food, water, whatever else
might be needed.
To make the competition end in a reasonable time, we would
make the competition in Death Valley in the early fall, so its not
so very hot, but is very dry. This means most of the payload
would be water. Again to speed the competition, the walk
ends if the competitor stops for more than 5 minutes. All the
competitors get a GPS receiver connected to a phone. If
that receiver gets the same number for 4.5 minutes, a warning
tone sounds, and if it hasnt changed 30 seconds later, the
pickup crew is called. This of course would preclude sleeping,
so the contest is unlikely to last more than about 30-40 hrs,
the winners having traveled perhaps 150 km.
Under those conditions, men and women could compete
equally, for it is unclear what advantage, if any, accrues to
the biggest. Also, there may be an advantage to the tall
skinny people, for they would cover more real estate with
each step, yet throw off access heat efficiently, thereby
making the best use of their water and food. For this
reason, it may be clear why I like this game.
Has anyone ideas or suggestions? spike
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