David Friedman recently posted an interesting entrepreneurial proposal regarding the importation of historical jewelry.
I thought of a possible improvement to the business plan:
It would be still more profitable, obviously, to have workers provide you with custom arts and crafts for free.
The guilt-free method of doing so would be to scam bait a conniving Nigerian (which is surprisingly easy given the likely 50 point average IQ difference) which, when done with sufficient skill, can generate very impressive artwork.
A team of five to ten such baiters could rake in the profits while simultaneously preventing thousands of crimes.
The linked-to bust is of the scam baiter "Shiver Metimbers". Getting free, customized busts made is the least of it.
I imagine a network of professional, Shiver Metimbers level scam baiters auctioning off custom busts and custom tattoos - "your face tattooed on a Nigerian scammer! e-mail history of bait included" - selecting the most gullible scammers by some sort of field-validated gullibility test.
On another note, I recently posted my description of a proposed variation of Islam, Neo-Muhammadanism, to IslamicBoard.com. The post was overwhelmingly voted up and received a comment, "good", which increases my confidence that Neo-Muhammadanism will quickly replace the obsolete version of Islam.
Also, since converting to Neo-Muhammadanism, debating progressives has become astonishingly easy. On page two of the posted thread I used Islamic debate tactics to immediately silence "VegetarianSoul", who had previously been impervious to all argument. Progressivism is completely submissive to Islam, and my variation is no exception.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Escaping the Decadence of Monotheism: Neo-Muhammadanism and the Cuckoo Strategy
This clip may call out some strange imagining; some distant vision of myriad worlds, bound to geodesics like notes to melodies; some starless vision of alien oceans. We see sea life orbit in liquid ellipses; a thousand lives swimming, floating, like space debris, or the sounds in an unwritten symphony; soft against faintly-curved gravity, governed in the finest grain of time, like planets and stars under glass, and indifferent.
Naturally, I expected to see appreciative comments for this video, and truly appreciative, at the very least, for offering a moment's escape from internet inanity. I was, then, quite surprised to see comments such as the following, which follow this clip wherever it's posted.
1) Mixed feelings ... As a Scuba Diver I want to do nothing but get in there , But as a Person all I want to do is to put them back in the Sea where they belong . They are so wonderfull. But it dose WOW me.
2) It's so beautiful, but at the same time its very sad to know that those animals are stuck in a box with no freedom to swim where they wish, being surrounded by people who watch them all the time. It's sort of like prison to me.
3) Or you can look at it as cages and the animals can't escape. These animals are meant to have HUGE areas to swim in and swim miles and miles. They need that. It is not our right to take them away from their natural homes, no matter how it educates us. We can be educated through video and lessons, not imprisoning other species.
Of course, we know that no one really gives a shit about fish. This is an affected piety to signal one’s commitment to Gaiaism, which is a perversion of a perversion of Christianity.
It's disgusting that Christianity, the foundation of Western culture, has been contorted into these sickening, hyper-feminine worldviews; it becomes more intense and irrational once limits set by tradition and command are stripped away. Its permutability allows for markets and scientific revolutions, but its more strongly imprinted traits inevitably evolve, in the absence of religious dogma, toward totalitarian ideologies.
Mencius Moldbug brilliantly describes the metamorphosis of "mainline progressive Protestantism", the dominant U.S. denomination, into "Universalism" here. TGGP originally noted that Islam seemed the best fit for Moldbug's system.
Naturally, I expected to see appreciative comments for this video, and truly appreciative, at the very least, for offering a moment's escape from internet inanity. I was, then, quite surprised to see comments such as the following, which follow this clip wherever it's posted.
1) Mixed feelings ... As a Scuba Diver I want to do nothing but get in there , But as a Person all I want to do is to put them back in the Sea where they belong . They are so wonderfull. But it dose WOW me.
2) It's so beautiful, but at the same time its very sad to know that those animals are stuck in a box with no freedom to swim where they wish, being surrounded by people who watch them all the time. It's sort of like prison to me.
3) Or you can look at it as cages and the animals can't escape. These animals are meant to have HUGE areas to swim in and swim miles and miles. They need that. It is not our right to take them away from their natural homes, no matter how it educates us. We can be educated through video and lessons, not imprisoning other species.
Of course, we know that no one really gives a shit about fish. This is an affected piety to signal one’s commitment to Gaiaism, which is a perversion of a perversion of Christianity.
It's disgusting that Christianity, the foundation of Western culture, has been contorted into these sickening, hyper-feminine worldviews; it becomes more intense and irrational once limits set by tradition and command are stripped away. Its permutability allows for markets and scientific revolutions, but its more strongly imprinted traits inevitably evolve, in the absence of religious dogma, toward totalitarian ideologies.
Mencius Moldbug brilliantly describes the metamorphosis of "mainline progressive Protestantism", the dominant U.S. denomination, into "Universalism" here. TGGP originally noted that Islam seemed the best fit for Moldbug's system.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
The Baddest Man on the Planet
Who is the baddest man on the planet? The man who, when locked in a cage, unarmed, with any other man on Earth, would come out victorious in single combat? Can you tell just by looking at him? See if you can make the correct choice:
Did you pick the guy in the snazzy sweater, Fedor Emelianenko? That’s right: the universally recognized, undefeated, number one ranked heavyweight of the mixed martial arts world is a chubby, bald Russian who dresses like Bill Cosby, except when he dresses like your four-year-old nephew:
Yes, Fedor likes cartoons. While virtually all other fighters cover themselves in tattoos and wear shirts with various combinations of skulls, flames, pit bulls, grim reapers, and more skulls, Fedor is drawing pictures like these:
Such a strange set of traits make Fedor one of the most fascinating characters in any combat sport.
And that’s just scratching the surface.
In a strange inversion of the Rocky IV plot, Fedor trains with a local team with no other top fighters, pounding tires with sledgehammers and chopping wood, while top American fighters train at state of the art gyms with dozens of top fighters, coaches, nutritionists, and personal trainers.
Fedor recently converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and brings his priest, father Andrei, to his fights. Father Andrei bears a disturbing resemblance to Rasputin and holds the gym record for pull ups.
Fedor has won millions in the course of his fight career, but lives in a small apartment with his family. Money seems unimportant to him, now that he has enough of it: he turned down a five million dollar a fight contract with the Ultimate Fighting Championships, offered by the foul-mouthed president, Dana White. Instead, he accepted a less lucrative contract with the little known Strikeforce.
Strikeforce also managed to obtain a network television contract. White failed to do so, likely because of his winning personality. The combination of Fedor and NBC offers a frightening challenge to the UFC: Fedor’s first fight in Strikeforce on Nov 8th, a second-round knockout of the much larger Brett Rogers, drew millions of viewers world wide.
If you’re curious as to how this unassuming fellow has managed to remain undefeated in over 30 fights for over 9 years, be sure to look up some of his fights (such as this highlight or even this vid of Fedor vs. six Koreans).
The transformation once he steps in the cage brings to mind Clark Kent stepping into a phone booth. His ferocious combination of speed and brute force recalls the days of Mike Tyson – and Fedor may just become that level of star.
And these sweaters will become all the rage.
Did you pick the guy in the snazzy sweater, Fedor Emelianenko? That’s right: the universally recognized, undefeated, number one ranked heavyweight of the mixed martial arts world is a chubby, bald Russian who dresses like Bill Cosby, except when he dresses like your four-year-old nephew:
Yes, Fedor likes cartoons. While virtually all other fighters cover themselves in tattoos and wear shirts with various combinations of skulls, flames, pit bulls, grim reapers, and more skulls, Fedor is drawing pictures like these:
Such a strange set of traits make Fedor one of the most fascinating characters in any combat sport.
And that’s just scratching the surface.
In a strange inversion of the Rocky IV plot, Fedor trains with a local team with no other top fighters, pounding tires with sledgehammers and chopping wood, while top American fighters train at state of the art gyms with dozens of top fighters, coaches, nutritionists, and personal trainers.
Fedor recently converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and brings his priest, father Andrei, to his fights. Father Andrei bears a disturbing resemblance to Rasputin and holds the gym record for pull ups.
Fedor has won millions in the course of his fight career, but lives in a small apartment with his family. Money seems unimportant to him, now that he has enough of it: he turned down a five million dollar a fight contract with the Ultimate Fighting Championships, offered by the foul-mouthed president, Dana White. Instead, he accepted a less lucrative contract with the little known Strikeforce.
Strikeforce also managed to obtain a network television contract. White failed to do so, likely because of his winning personality. The combination of Fedor and NBC offers a frightening challenge to the UFC: Fedor’s first fight in Strikeforce on Nov 8th, a second-round knockout of the much larger Brett Rogers, drew millions of viewers world wide.
If you’re curious as to how this unassuming fellow has managed to remain undefeated in over 30 fights for over 9 years, be sure to look up some of his fights (such as this highlight or even this vid of Fedor vs. six Koreans).
The transformation once he steps in the cage brings to mind Clark Kent stepping into a phone booth. His ferocious combination of speed and brute force recalls the days of Mike Tyson – and Fedor may just become that level of star.
And these sweaters will become all the rage.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Suicide: The Quantum Road to Wealth and Happiness
If the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, there should always be some universe in which a version of you survives. As you age, the odds of your death increase yearly, monthly, daily, but even when you reach one thousand years there will be an infinitesimal chance of surviving one more day, and thus there will exist a universe in which you will continue existing.
Still more interesting: what path does your consciousness follow? If the universe “splits” in two, one carrying your corpse, the other leaving you breathing, then it would seem your consciousness would have to proceed along the path in which you live. Since there will always be a universe in which you live, and your consciousness will always proceed to such a universe, your consciousness is essentially indestructible: you are quant-immortal.
How likely is the many worlds theory? More than you may think. Feynmann considered it the most likely model, as do many other physicists. So, let’s assume that there’s a five percent chance you’re quant-immortal. This gives you a five percent chance of becoming a millionaire.
Here’s how: rig up an error-proof device that fires a shotgun upon receiving lottery numbers not matching a given ticket. “Error-proof” is of course impossible – the machine must simply be an order of magnitude less likely to fail than for the numbers to miss.
Chain yourself up, forehead before the shotgun. If you are quant-immortal, and the device nearly error-proof, you will likely find your consciousness arriving in one of those happy universes in which the numbers happened to hit: you’ll have won the lottery. In various other universes your brains lie on the floor, but in various other universes you’re the King of Luxembourg. The other universes are irrelevant; the knowledge is the thing. With this knowledge in hand, you could use such a device, with sufficient creativity, to send your consciousness into whichever desired reality imagined – you would have hacked the universe.
Of course, a 95% or greater chance of death will likely dissuade you from our experiment, but the next time you’re standing on a ledge on a lonely night, come on down and set up a lottery-shotgun-rig. Your surrender may just be the first step towards godhood … or a most puzzling suicide-note.
Still more interesting: what path does your consciousness follow? If the universe “splits” in two, one carrying your corpse, the other leaving you breathing, then it would seem your consciousness would have to proceed along the path in which you live. Since there will always be a universe in which you live, and your consciousness will always proceed to such a universe, your consciousness is essentially indestructible: you are quant-immortal.
How likely is the many worlds theory? More than you may think. Feynmann considered it the most likely model, as do many other physicists. So, let’s assume that there’s a five percent chance you’re quant-immortal. This gives you a five percent chance of becoming a millionaire.
Here’s how: rig up an error-proof device that fires a shotgun upon receiving lottery numbers not matching a given ticket. “Error-proof” is of course impossible – the machine must simply be an order of magnitude less likely to fail than for the numbers to miss.
Chain yourself up, forehead before the shotgun. If you are quant-immortal, and the device nearly error-proof, you will likely find your consciousness arriving in one of those happy universes in which the numbers happened to hit: you’ll have won the lottery. In various other universes your brains lie on the floor, but in various other universes you’re the King of Luxembourg. The other universes are irrelevant; the knowledge is the thing. With this knowledge in hand, you could use such a device, with sufficient creativity, to send your consciousness into whichever desired reality imagined – you would have hacked the universe.
Of course, a 95% or greater chance of death will likely dissuade you from our experiment, but the next time you’re standing on a ledge on a lonely night, come on down and set up a lottery-shotgun-rig. Your surrender may just be the first step towards godhood … or a most puzzling suicide-note.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
NHB 2.0: The Rebirth of Vale Tudo
The original UFC was castrated by the boxing lobby; perverted, purchased, and repackaged as the UFC you see today. The current management destroyed the previous incarnation, rebuilt it with political power, and warped it with corruption. What we watch now is the incestuous union of sibling sports. Boxing’s rape of NHB begat the Zuffa UFC, its parentage apparent in its scoring system, rules, management, and corruption. The Zuffa UFC will soon fall, but all successors will be of its lineage.
We must have a fresh start, outside the Citadel. We will uncover our genesis like ruins; build upon its foundation, silently, until our beautiful slave clothes rip to shreds and a step pyramid of stone looms before us. A new business model; a new sport, towering over the rotting mass of the Citadel.
The sport is easy: Vale Tudo. Our rules: the standard Vale Tudo prohibitions, along with a ban on strikes to the back of the head and neck. If cuts become too great a problem, we will reluctantly prohibit headbutts.
Our ideal set of rules will likely be Pride’s rules + elbows, with gloves optional. Our judging system will be the Predict-Wager System.
We will then have, in our ideal combat sport, slightly modified Vale Tudo rules, an improved round system, and a judging system which rates the judges, referees, and fighters, paying them accordingly. NHB 2.0 is already superior to MMA.
Certain fighters will be attracted to such rules. Many will wish to test themselves. Frozen corpses litter Everest, yet men still climb K2. The perceived brutality is one advantage, the allowance of gis and freed hands another. Along with a scoring system which emphasizes finishes and longer rounds, such rules will be seen by jiu jitsu practitioners as ideal. Headbutts may rapidly change that impression.
Even with preferred rules, attracting top fighters will require money. Our most profitable innovation is the Predict-Wager System itself – it will be utilized by the judges themselves, true, but the profitability will come from the audience. They will be given the chance to risk their money at various terminals which litter the floor like slot machines. The fighters will be given a cut of all chips wagered on them to finish their opponent.
Our initial matchmaking will be the simplest and the oldest: the tournament. In this way, a fighter who proceeds through all rounds to the championship makes considerable money from accumulated wagers alone, plus win bonuses. A sandbagging A-level fighter could find such a tournament quite profitable, even in its infancy. NHB 2.0 is then further differentiated from MMA.
Allowing for our rules is trivial. In states with no commission, we can do as we please, and in states with a commission, we will promote on reservations. For perspective, consider that any small show you’ve seen in which a contestant wears a shirt or wrestling shoes is not strictly following the unified rules.
The events will be streamed over the internet, as Rio Heroes was. The profitability of the Rio Heroes model was proven, and the calls by the “MMA community” for its prohibition demonstrate just how different things have become. The Castrati, of course, did not join the chorus, but their voices faded before legions of Whiteshirts, as eager to prohibit NHB as their Zuffa heroes before.
It is the Castrati, now, who have the choice. If MMA is what you’d hoped it would become ten years ago, then sit quietly and enjoy your UFCs. If the ten-point must system satisfies you, or if you think it will be changed, then continue debating spoilers while awaiting the next TUF. If watching NHB prohibitionists such as Ratner profit from our dead sport doesn’t irk you, then simply continue supporting the UFC.
But if the notion of a sixteen-man Vale Tudo tournament fills you with nostalgia – memories of bare knuckles, size disadvantages, and fear; uncertainty, head butts, and style vs. style; that unmistakable Bloodsport quality – and if the state of the sport called MMA disgusts you, and you desire a return, then you must work to make it happen.
A Castrati promoter, or a business-savvy Castrato, will begin an NHB 2.0 promotion. There is an amateur Vale Tudo event called UCL in New York, and professional organizations are coming, as Rio Heroes came before. If you are a promoter, consider it: it may make you very wealthy. Transfer your support to this true version of MMA; divert your focus from the popularity of the UFC. The Castrati must form a new support network for NHB as passionate and unbreakable as pre-TUF MMA’s. The first and simplest step is the realization that they are entirely different sports.
We must have a fresh start, outside the Citadel. We will uncover our genesis like ruins; build upon its foundation, silently, until our beautiful slave clothes rip to shreds and a step pyramid of stone looms before us. A new business model; a new sport, towering over the rotting mass of the Citadel.
The sport is easy: Vale Tudo. Our rules: the standard Vale Tudo prohibitions, along with a ban on strikes to the back of the head and neck. If cuts become too great a problem, we will reluctantly prohibit headbutts.
Our ideal set of rules will likely be Pride’s rules + elbows, with gloves optional. Our judging system will be the Predict-Wager System.
We will then have, in our ideal combat sport, slightly modified Vale Tudo rules, an improved round system, and a judging system which rates the judges, referees, and fighters, paying them accordingly. NHB 2.0 is already superior to MMA.
Certain fighters will be attracted to such rules. Many will wish to test themselves. Frozen corpses litter Everest, yet men still climb K2. The perceived brutality is one advantage, the allowance of gis and freed hands another. Along with a scoring system which emphasizes finishes and longer rounds, such rules will be seen by jiu jitsu practitioners as ideal. Headbutts may rapidly change that impression.
Even with preferred rules, attracting top fighters will require money. Our most profitable innovation is the Predict-Wager System itself – it will be utilized by the judges themselves, true, but the profitability will come from the audience. They will be given the chance to risk their money at various terminals which litter the floor like slot machines. The fighters will be given a cut of all chips wagered on them to finish their opponent.
Our initial matchmaking will be the simplest and the oldest: the tournament. In this way, a fighter who proceeds through all rounds to the championship makes considerable money from accumulated wagers alone, plus win bonuses. A sandbagging A-level fighter could find such a tournament quite profitable, even in its infancy. NHB 2.0 is then further differentiated from MMA.
Allowing for our rules is trivial. In states with no commission, we can do as we please, and in states with a commission, we will promote on reservations. For perspective, consider that any small show you’ve seen in which a contestant wears a shirt or wrestling shoes is not strictly following the unified rules.
The events will be streamed over the internet, as Rio Heroes was. The profitability of the Rio Heroes model was proven, and the calls by the “MMA community” for its prohibition demonstrate just how different things have become. The Castrati, of course, did not join the chorus, but their voices faded before legions of Whiteshirts, as eager to prohibit NHB as their Zuffa heroes before.
It is the Castrati, now, who have the choice. If MMA is what you’d hoped it would become ten years ago, then sit quietly and enjoy your UFCs. If the ten-point must system satisfies you, or if you think it will be changed, then continue debating spoilers while awaiting the next TUF. If watching NHB prohibitionists such as Ratner profit from our dead sport doesn’t irk you, then simply continue supporting the UFC.
But if the notion of a sixteen-man Vale Tudo tournament fills you with nostalgia – memories of bare knuckles, size disadvantages, and fear; uncertainty, head butts, and style vs. style; that unmistakable Bloodsport quality – and if the state of the sport called MMA disgusts you, and you desire a return, then you must work to make it happen.
A Castrati promoter, or a business-savvy Castrato, will begin an NHB 2.0 promotion. There is an amateur Vale Tudo event called UCL in New York, and professional organizations are coming, as Rio Heroes came before. If you are a promoter, consider it: it may make you very wealthy. Transfer your support to this true version of MMA; divert your focus from the popularity of the UFC. The Castrati must form a new support network for NHB as passionate and unbreakable as pre-TUF MMA’s. The first and simplest step is the realization that they are entirely different sports.
The Predict-Wager Judging System
The ten-point must system is designed for boxing. It is implemented by boxing commissions, utilized by boxing judges, and produces, when applied to a mixed combat sport, absurd decisions, even when applied correctly. It fails to incentivize proper judging; it incentivizes wins by decision (witness Guida’s transformation). Its one redeeming quality (for those who choose the system) is that it hides corruption and incompetence in its ambiguity.
Admittedly, it’s easy to point out problems. Maybe the ten-point must system is simply the best available. If not, we should stop whining until we offer an alternative. The test, then, is in designing a better system.
But one has already been designed: Pride’s judging system. Pride’s system, however, still produced its share of bad decisions and boring fights. We should consider both as design flaws of any system, and we must design a system that excludes the possibility of such flaws.
Our system will be engineered specifically for mixed combat sports. It will be greatly simplified, due to the simple nature of these sports’ objective: finish the opponent. It will incentivize good judging and legitimate efforts to finish the opponent.
With these objectives in mind, consider the “Predict-Wager System”. A revised description (from Decline and Fall 2):
“’The judge shall be paid in accordance to his return on real-time wagers on the fight. The judge will bet on the likelihood of fighter A finishing fighter B by placing a wager, weighted by his estimation of the likelihood of a finish by fighter A of fighter B. The value of the wager drops (after a calibrated grace period) as time passes, and the value of the chips used in wagering drops as more total chips are wagered. To encourage betting, increasing odds are offered on a fighter during increasing periods in which other judges have not bet on that fighter.
If there is no finish, the judge will be recorded as voting for the fighter on which he bet the most total chips, the fighter who receives the most votes shall win the decision, and the judges shall be paid a fixed rate.’
A judge, witnessing a knockdown, would bet strongly, as he would upon seeing a close armbar attempt. He would bet weakly on takedowns, depending on the perceived danger (or lack thereof) to the bottom fighter. He would bet very little on a fighter like Sherk. Accumulating “points” via lay and pray, or Tim Sylvia style strategies, would become obsolete. The “Fight of the Night” would be easy to calculate, based on total chips bet and their distribution between the fighters.
Skilled judges would be quantitatively identified simply by being those who make the most money – those who saw danger and predicted it without having devalued their chips. Unskilled judges would then be dismissed, or would quit due to low pay. With three judges betting very heavily that a fighter is about to be finished, referees who stop the fight at the correct moment can be easily identified. To greatly increase the action and risk taking of the sport, we would make the fighter’s pay in large part determined by the amount of chips bet on him to finish the fight.
We thus change the incentives: previously having little incentive to judge correctly, the judge is now paid directly in accordance with how well he can predict finishes in MMA, and thus how well he understands the sport. Knowledgeable people then have a strong incentive to become judges; Peoples would lose his incentive to remain one. And fighters would have to be capable of finishing, or at least threatening to do so, and would have a strong incentive to go for the finish, where previously their incentive was to hold down the opponent and not take risks.”
Such a system would require computers, which is likely the only reason it was not previously designed. The number of virtual “chips” is unlimited, but their value declines with every chip bet. The proper numbers for the decline, the grace period, the increasing odds, and the payouts will be determined initially by an economist, and calibrated by experiment, to ensure the judges and the fighters are incentivized in the most efficient way.
To make this all concrete, I will give an example of how to score a fight using the Predict-Wager System, based on a fight I have not previously seen. The value in chips bet, listed in dollars, is simply convention; the quantity represents my estimation of the probability of a finish. “I wager $90 worth of chips,” simply means I believe there’s a 90% chance of a finish (ignoring any betting strategies I may use).
Here’s a quick use of the Predict-Wager System to evaluate Sadollah-Baroni:
Round 1, Minute 1: Baroni comes out strong, swinging wildly. It’s not extremely threatening, but punches are landing hard and one may find its mark. I wager $20 on Baroni.
For the rest of the round, nothing threatening occurs.
Round 2, Minute 3: Sadalloh is opening up on a gassed Baroni with knees, elbows, and kicks; the end seems near. I wager $30 on Sadollah.
Round 3: Baroni seems ready to go at various moments throughout this round: I wager, at different periods, in succession, $40, $50, and $30.
The fight ends. I have wagered a total of $150 on Sadollah and only $20 on Baroni. My vote goes to Sadollah, as do those of the other judges.
Sadollah, however, would likely have finished the fight if he’d had the greater incentives to do so that the Predict-Wager System provides. He was certainly capable of doing so.
In addition to eliminating poor judging and boring fights, the Predict-Wager System will also provide another means of extreme profit: gambling. Judging under the Predict-Wager System becomes a skill-based game of chance, more skill-based than hold ‘em, more entertaining than horse racing. Casinos will hold Predict-Wager tournaments on the nights of fights, and champions will become eligible for a judging spot in the big show.
Unfortunately, the current big show will never use such a system. It is regulated by a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies have two characteristics: 1) they are resistant to change and 2) they abhor accountability. The Predict-Wager System would allow instant evaluation of the competence of the judges. Worse still, it would allow instant evaluation of the competence the one who selects them (Kizer).
Any promoter who does realize the profitability of the Predict-Wager System may contact me for clarification of details or the initial code for the wagering software (contact details in profile).
But in the end, the Rebirth requires far more than simply a new judging system. The Predict-Wager System is but a small part of an entirely new strategy; a business plan and a sport as distinct from the UFC as muay thai is from kickboxing.
This plan will be fully described in my next post.
Admittedly, it’s easy to point out problems. Maybe the ten-point must system is simply the best available. If not, we should stop whining until we offer an alternative. The test, then, is in designing a better system.
But one has already been designed: Pride’s judging system. Pride’s system, however, still produced its share of bad decisions and boring fights. We should consider both as design flaws of any system, and we must design a system that excludes the possibility of such flaws.
Our system will be engineered specifically for mixed combat sports. It will be greatly simplified, due to the simple nature of these sports’ objective: finish the opponent. It will incentivize good judging and legitimate efforts to finish the opponent.
With these objectives in mind, consider the “Predict-Wager System”. A revised description (from Decline and Fall 2):
“’The judge shall be paid in accordance to his return on real-time wagers on the fight. The judge will bet on the likelihood of fighter A finishing fighter B by placing a wager, weighted by his estimation of the likelihood of a finish by fighter A of fighter B. The value of the wager drops (after a calibrated grace period) as time passes, and the value of the chips used in wagering drops as more total chips are wagered. To encourage betting, increasing odds are offered on a fighter during increasing periods in which other judges have not bet on that fighter.
If there is no finish, the judge will be recorded as voting for the fighter on which he bet the most total chips, the fighter who receives the most votes shall win the decision, and the judges shall be paid a fixed rate.’
A judge, witnessing a knockdown, would bet strongly, as he would upon seeing a close armbar attempt. He would bet weakly on takedowns, depending on the perceived danger (or lack thereof) to the bottom fighter. He would bet very little on a fighter like Sherk. Accumulating “points” via lay and pray, or Tim Sylvia style strategies, would become obsolete. The “Fight of the Night” would be easy to calculate, based on total chips bet and their distribution between the fighters.
Skilled judges would be quantitatively identified simply by being those who make the most money – those who saw danger and predicted it without having devalued their chips. Unskilled judges would then be dismissed, or would quit due to low pay. With three judges betting very heavily that a fighter is about to be finished, referees who stop the fight at the correct moment can be easily identified. To greatly increase the action and risk taking of the sport, we would make the fighter’s pay in large part determined by the amount of chips bet on him to finish the fight.
We thus change the incentives: previously having little incentive to judge correctly, the judge is now paid directly in accordance with how well he can predict finishes in MMA, and thus how well he understands the sport. Knowledgeable people then have a strong incentive to become judges; Peoples would lose his incentive to remain one. And fighters would have to be capable of finishing, or at least threatening to do so, and would have a strong incentive to go for the finish, where previously their incentive was to hold down the opponent and not take risks.”
Such a system would require computers, which is likely the only reason it was not previously designed. The number of virtual “chips” is unlimited, but their value declines with every chip bet. The proper numbers for the decline, the grace period, the increasing odds, and the payouts will be determined initially by an economist, and calibrated by experiment, to ensure the judges and the fighters are incentivized in the most efficient way.
To make this all concrete, I will give an example of how to score a fight using the Predict-Wager System, based on a fight I have not previously seen. The value in chips bet, listed in dollars, is simply convention; the quantity represents my estimation of the probability of a finish. “I wager $90 worth of chips,” simply means I believe there’s a 90% chance of a finish (ignoring any betting strategies I may use).
Here’s a quick use of the Predict-Wager System to evaluate Sadollah-Baroni:
Round 1, Minute 1: Baroni comes out strong, swinging wildly. It’s not extremely threatening, but punches are landing hard and one may find its mark. I wager $20 on Baroni.
For the rest of the round, nothing threatening occurs.
Round 2, Minute 3: Sadalloh is opening up on a gassed Baroni with knees, elbows, and kicks; the end seems near. I wager $30 on Sadollah.
Round 3: Baroni seems ready to go at various moments throughout this round: I wager, at different periods, in succession, $40, $50, and $30.
The fight ends. I have wagered a total of $150 on Sadollah and only $20 on Baroni. My vote goes to Sadollah, as do those of the other judges.
Sadollah, however, would likely have finished the fight if he’d had the greater incentives to do so that the Predict-Wager System provides. He was certainly capable of doing so.
In addition to eliminating poor judging and boring fights, the Predict-Wager System will also provide another means of extreme profit: gambling. Judging under the Predict-Wager System becomes a skill-based game of chance, more skill-based than hold ‘em, more entertaining than horse racing. Casinos will hold Predict-Wager tournaments on the nights of fights, and champions will become eligible for a judging spot in the big show.
Unfortunately, the current big show will never use such a system. It is regulated by a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies have two characteristics: 1) they are resistant to change and 2) they abhor accountability. The Predict-Wager System would allow instant evaluation of the competence of the judges. Worse still, it would allow instant evaluation of the competence the one who selects them (Kizer).
Any promoter who does realize the profitability of the Predict-Wager System may contact me for clarification of details or the initial code for the wagering software (contact details in profile).
But in the end, the Rebirth requires far more than simply a new judging system. The Predict-Wager System is but a small part of an entirely new strategy; a business plan and a sport as distinct from the UFC as muay thai is from kickboxing.
This plan will be fully described in my next post.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Decline and Fall of the Fertitta Empire (pt 2)
Why Boxing Won
Many of Guatemala’s crimes are mundane: murder, kidnapping, robbery. Some are novel and disturbing, such as officials demanding thousand dollar bribes to release a newly adopted child. Some are otherworldly, a vigilante response to a worthless legal system. Lynchings. Mobs dousing corrupt cops with gasoline. Mobs lighting matches. Processions of civilians through streets in the night, flashlights and weapons in hand. And the weapons: axe handles, shovels, chains, knives … if lucky, you may see a pair of nunchaku.
But the most alien are simply prehistoric. Local rumors hold that foreigners steal children and kill them to sell their organs. Tetsuo Yamahiro and his busdriver, Edgar Castellanos, were beaten to death by a mob of 500 Maya due to suspicions raised by the tourist’s photography of children. Castellanos was also doused in gasoline. Someone in the mob had a light.
Strangely isolated, these Guatemalan Maya. Many do not speak Spanish. Their women wear brightly colored, woven dresses, which differ from tribe to tribe. In the Spanish schools they give seminars, often on their dress, aimed at preserving Maya identity, and occasionally they parade together in their dresses in a show of Maya solidarity.
From conversations I know that many of them, as in any group, are unaware of the roots of their tradition. They’re unaware that their tribe-based color scheme was a Spanish-implemented Maya filing system, or that their dresses are old world peasant garb. They certainly don’t learn so in the second-rate schools they’re sent to.
The poorest of them live, isolated, in their villages, struggling to learn Spanish as their languages die, practicing fascinating variations of Catholicism (one of which includes a department store mannequin as a god), farming coffee beans, weaving, and dying by governmental incompetence. Their only act of defiance, through decades of civil war, severe poverty, and systematic discrimination, is to hold tight to the beautiful slave uniforms of whose origin they’re unaware.
But their defiance should be a reaction, a casting off, a look back to their greatness. How many psilocybin mushrooms must I offer for them to see their true path to glory? Hasn’t it become obvious? They must shed their clothes, restore the Maya calendar, and build a step pyramid in Guatemala City.
For our purposes, let’s skip the shrooms and head straight to LSD. How do you feel about boxing?
UFC fan on boxing: Boxing is dying. It’s the sport of old men. The UFC is the future!
Two tabs of LSD later: Our perspectives change and we reexamine the UFC. We watch the pseudo-mobster president sitting in the crowd, his amateur boxing record stamped on his forehead. The roaring crowd behind him coordinates. He stands and throws rhythmic punches and they follow with poor form behind him, Nu Metal blasting out over them, the sweat pouring to the floor.
From somewhere we hear Don Frye’s distinctive voice – he’s in the ring, fighting, but looking directly at Dana.
“I'm starting to realize why your wife might want to give your son a sissy name."
We look in another direction and see the vice president. He’s wearing a sequined headband with the inscription: “Marc Ratner: Inductee, Boxing Hall of Fame”. Next to him sits John McCain, surrounded on this hot Las Vegas evening by boxing promoters fanning him with hundred dollar bills. Behind them sits Larry King, or a wax figure of him, and they speak gravely of human cockfighting. Lorenzo Fertitta’s not far away; we see him on a committee arguing persuasively against sanctioning.
Next to the judging box sits Keith Kizer. He looks jealously towards the Zuffa employees. Both of his positions in the commission were vacated by employees relocating to Zuffa, and he knows it’s his turn next – the internship is almost over. He gives a thumbs up to the judges.
There they sit: Adalaide Byrd, Cecil Peoples, and Patricia Morse Jarman. Rutten lands repeated leg kicks and knees to the body. The judges yawn. Frye secures the takedown. Byrd goes to the bathroom. Peoples dozes off. Jarman furrows her brow.
“What is he doing?” she asks Kizer.
He shrugs. “Good matchmaking creating tough, close fights that are hard to score. The judging criteria are posted on the NSAC’s official website: http://boxing.nv.gov/”
The next round begins. Rutten lands a beautiful four-punch combination. These boxing judges ooh and ah and scribble frantically with their pencils. We suddenly see the scoring criteria, and note, with disappointment, that they are little more than revisions of boxing’s. Our trip ends.
Our conclusion: boxing defeated the UFC years ago, castrated it, purchased it, and took over. The UFC is boxing marketed to the young – more permissive to appeal to youthful rebellion, but boxing all the same – right down to the reality show.
The supposed battle between boxing and the UFC is much the same as the choice between two political candidates who differ on irrelevant but divisive issues, with no ultimate plan to fix anything.
With the rise of the reality show, legions of fans in Zuffa-brand shirts laughed as the ratings rose and gloated as boxing’s fell. There was a strange animosity. It was as though they felt themselves part of some counter culture pitted against the boxing mainstream, and they attack boxing to this day. Perhaps we will see a Zuffa-shirted parade of solidarity against boxing. I’m sure that would make Ratner’s day.
A note on the reality show. The standard narrative is that the reality show increased the UFC’s popularity, which lead directly to greater fighter salaries. When looking at fighter salaries compared to revenue, however, the UFC actually reduced total fighter salaries compared to revenue for close to year. This was likely due to the watering down of cards allowed by reality show contestants. It was only after the emergence of several threatening organizations that salaries significantly climbed.
It is Strikeforce that has now become the most threatening. Dana White’s personality ruined the Fedor deal and a shot at NBC. Now Strikeforce has both. If you are a Whiteshirt, the following graph may disturb you:
The red line represents UFC searches, the yellow Lesnar, the blue, Fedor. Fedor alone captured more interest than the entire UFC. If you don’t believe that’s significant, name another such fighter. I know of only two: Carano and Kimbo. But Carano is gone and Kimbo’s a short-term investment. Fedor and network exposure are a frightening combination.
We can also examine Wikipedia page views:
Ultimate_Fighting_Championship has been viewed 115963 times in 200911.
Brock_Lesnar has been viewed 291713 times in 200911.
Fedor_Emelianenko has been viewed 520780 times in 200911.
Disturbing.
Kimbo, as stated, is a short-term investment. Oversaturation of weak cards in a recession is a short-term decision. Bad judging, which protects favored fighters but disillusions fans, is a short-term decision. And that explains everything.
The UFC is in debt. Remember Xyience? Xyience was, for a time, portrayed as a top-notch sponsor for the UFC for the purposes of securing a 325 million dollar loan. But Zuffa was funding Xyience, and Xyience was run by old Fertitta friends. Once the loan was secured, the company went bankrupt.
And what was the loan used for? To increase fighter pay? Advertising? No – it was used to purchase and destroy Pride.
And then Station Casinos went bankrupt. A Nov. 20 report from Rich Bergeron, discoverer of the Xyience debacle:
“A new report from Local 226 (see below), an unlikely source but nonetheless an appropriate voice, reveals how the Fertitta family and other insiders at Station allegedly turned a personal profit of over $1 billion on the back of the business.”
“Still, if the Fertittas continue to struggle and get bogged down and distracted because of the Station Casinos bankruptcy, they will not have as much of their own personal money to put toward getting the UFC out of debt. There is talk of selling an interest in the company, and it’s not as unlikely now to think about the whole thing going up for sale in time.”
This is consistent with the management’s recent treatment of the UFC as a short-term investment.
The Fertitta empire has declined and is nearing its ultimate fall. The black swan event of simultaneous main draw illnesses is a significant blow. Strikeforce will continue forcing the UFC to pay greater salaries to retain talent and buyrates will continue to fall with oversaturation of weak talent. The sponsorship bans will make Strikeforce contracts more profitable than a salary comparison would imply. Poor judging will disillusion fans. The UFC will be sold, White fired, and we will see a new equilibrium between fight organizations.
And none of it will matter.
The commissions will still be in place. Strikeforce, with its ban on elbows, is yet another step towards boxing. The judges will still be incompetent, the incentives towards corruption enticing, and the scoring system absurd. Regardless of what happens to the Fertittas and Dana White, the Citadel will still stand, and no true form of MMA shall pass through its gates.
Imagine what the Castrati, along with newer, non-Whiteshirt fans, the types who do not mock allusions to works such as “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, could invent to replace the sport of Nu Boxing. It is trivial to design a better sport. What are the sport’s three greatest problems? Poor judging, early/late stoppages, and boring fights.
All three can be eliminated by changing the scoring system from the “Ten Point Must” system to the “Predict – Wager” system. It is incredibly simple, eliminating the pages of criteria judges seem incapable of remembering.
The Predict – Wager System:
“The judge shall be paid in accordance to his return on real-time wagers on the fight. The judge will bet on the likelihood of fighter A finishing fighter B by placing a wager, weighted by his estimation of the likelihood of a finish. The value of the wager drops as time passes, and the value of the chips used in wagering drops as more total chips are wagered.
“If there is no finish, the judge will be recorded as voting for the fighter he bet most heavily on to finish the fight, the fighter who receives the most votes shall win the decision, and the judges shall be paid a fixed rate.”
A judge, witnessing a knockdown, would bet strongly, as he would upon seeing a close armbar attempt. He would bet weakly on takedowns, depending on the finishing ability of the fighter on top. He would bet very little on a fighter like Sherk. Racking up points would become obsolete. The FOTN would be easy to calculate, based on total chips bet. Skilled judges would be quantitatively identified simply by being those who make the most money – those who saw danger and predicted it without having devalued their chips. Unskilled judges would then be dismissed, or would quit due to low pay. With three judges betting very heavily that a fighter is about to be finished, the fight could be automatically stopped, and the referees who stop the fight at the correct moment can be easily identified. To greatly increase the action and risk taking of the sport, we would make the fighter’s pay in large part determined by the amount of chips bet.
We thus change the incentives: first having no incentive to judge correctly, the judge is now paid directly in accordance with how well he judges. People who know MMA then have a strong incentive to become judges; Peoples would quickly retire. And previously having little incentive to finish a tough but controllable opponent, a fighter now has every incentive to attempt to finish the fight at all times.
Such a system is far too efficient for the Citadel, but imagining alternate systems is marvelous escapism. And escape is exactly what we need. My next post will detail the escape from and defeat of the Citadel, the construction of the Step Pyramid, and the promised explanation of the role of the Castrati.
Many of Guatemala’s crimes are mundane: murder, kidnapping, robbery. Some are novel and disturbing, such as officials demanding thousand dollar bribes to release a newly adopted child. Some are otherworldly, a vigilante response to a worthless legal system. Lynchings. Mobs dousing corrupt cops with gasoline. Mobs lighting matches. Processions of civilians through streets in the night, flashlights and weapons in hand. And the weapons: axe handles, shovels, chains, knives … if lucky, you may see a pair of nunchaku.
But the most alien are simply prehistoric. Local rumors hold that foreigners steal children and kill them to sell their organs. Tetsuo Yamahiro and his busdriver, Edgar Castellanos, were beaten to death by a mob of 500 Maya due to suspicions raised by the tourist’s photography of children. Castellanos was also doused in gasoline. Someone in the mob had a light.
Strangely isolated, these Guatemalan Maya. Many do not speak Spanish. Their women wear brightly colored, woven dresses, which differ from tribe to tribe. In the Spanish schools they give seminars, often on their dress, aimed at preserving Maya identity, and occasionally they parade together in their dresses in a show of Maya solidarity.
From conversations I know that many of them, as in any group, are unaware of the roots of their tradition. They’re unaware that their tribe-based color scheme was a Spanish-implemented Maya filing system, or that their dresses are old world peasant garb. They certainly don’t learn so in the second-rate schools they’re sent to.
The poorest of them live, isolated, in their villages, struggling to learn Spanish as their languages die, practicing fascinating variations of Catholicism (one of which includes a department store mannequin as a god), farming coffee beans, weaving, and dying by governmental incompetence. Their only act of defiance, through decades of civil war, severe poverty, and systematic discrimination, is to hold tight to the beautiful slave uniforms of whose origin they’re unaware.
But their defiance should be a reaction, a casting off, a look back to their greatness. How many psilocybin mushrooms must I offer for them to see their true path to glory? Hasn’t it become obvious? They must shed their clothes, restore the Maya calendar, and build a step pyramid in Guatemala City.
For our purposes, let’s skip the shrooms and head straight to LSD. How do you feel about boxing?
UFC fan on boxing: Boxing is dying. It’s the sport of old men. The UFC is the future!
Two tabs of LSD later: Our perspectives change and we reexamine the UFC. We watch the pseudo-mobster president sitting in the crowd, his amateur boxing record stamped on his forehead. The roaring crowd behind him coordinates. He stands and throws rhythmic punches and they follow with poor form behind him, Nu Metal blasting out over them, the sweat pouring to the floor.
From somewhere we hear Don Frye’s distinctive voice – he’s in the ring, fighting, but looking directly at Dana.
“I'm starting to realize why your wife might want to give your son a sissy name."
We look in another direction and see the vice president. He’s wearing a sequined headband with the inscription: “Marc Ratner: Inductee, Boxing Hall of Fame”. Next to him sits John McCain, surrounded on this hot Las Vegas evening by boxing promoters fanning him with hundred dollar bills. Behind them sits Larry King, or a wax figure of him, and they speak gravely of human cockfighting. Lorenzo Fertitta’s not far away; we see him on a committee arguing persuasively against sanctioning.
Next to the judging box sits Keith Kizer. He looks jealously towards the Zuffa employees. Both of his positions in the commission were vacated by employees relocating to Zuffa, and he knows it’s his turn next – the internship is almost over. He gives a thumbs up to the judges.
There they sit: Adalaide Byrd, Cecil Peoples, and Patricia Morse Jarman. Rutten lands repeated leg kicks and knees to the body. The judges yawn. Frye secures the takedown. Byrd goes to the bathroom. Peoples dozes off. Jarman furrows her brow.
“What is he doing?” she asks Kizer.
He shrugs. “Good matchmaking creating tough, close fights that are hard to score. The judging criteria are posted on the NSAC’s official website: http://boxing.nv.gov/”
The next round begins. Rutten lands a beautiful four-punch combination. These boxing judges ooh and ah and scribble frantically with their pencils. We suddenly see the scoring criteria, and note, with disappointment, that they are little more than revisions of boxing’s. Our trip ends.
Our conclusion: boxing defeated the UFC years ago, castrated it, purchased it, and took over. The UFC is boxing marketed to the young – more permissive to appeal to youthful rebellion, but boxing all the same – right down to the reality show.
The supposed battle between boxing and the UFC is much the same as the choice between two political candidates who differ on irrelevant but divisive issues, with no ultimate plan to fix anything.
With the rise of the reality show, legions of fans in Zuffa-brand shirts laughed as the ratings rose and gloated as boxing’s fell. There was a strange animosity. It was as though they felt themselves part of some counter culture pitted against the boxing mainstream, and they attack boxing to this day. Perhaps we will see a Zuffa-shirted parade of solidarity against boxing. I’m sure that would make Ratner’s day.
A note on the reality show. The standard narrative is that the reality show increased the UFC’s popularity, which lead directly to greater fighter salaries. When looking at fighter salaries compared to revenue, however, the UFC actually reduced total fighter salaries compared to revenue for close to year. This was likely due to the watering down of cards allowed by reality show contestants. It was only after the emergence of several threatening organizations that salaries significantly climbed.
It is Strikeforce that has now become the most threatening. Dana White’s personality ruined the Fedor deal and a shot at NBC. Now Strikeforce has both. If you are a Whiteshirt, the following graph may disturb you:
The red line represents UFC searches, the yellow Lesnar, the blue, Fedor. Fedor alone captured more interest than the entire UFC. If you don’t believe that’s significant, name another such fighter. I know of only two: Carano and Kimbo. But Carano is gone and Kimbo’s a short-term investment. Fedor and network exposure are a frightening combination.
We can also examine Wikipedia page views:
Ultimate_Fighting_Championship has been viewed 115963 times in 200911.
Brock_Lesnar has been viewed 291713 times in 200911.
Fedor_Emelianenko has been viewed 520780 times in 200911.
Disturbing.
Kimbo, as stated, is a short-term investment. Oversaturation of weak cards in a recession is a short-term decision. Bad judging, which protects favored fighters but disillusions fans, is a short-term decision. And that explains everything.
The UFC is in debt. Remember Xyience? Xyience was, for a time, portrayed as a top-notch sponsor for the UFC for the purposes of securing a 325 million dollar loan. But Zuffa was funding Xyience, and Xyience was run by old Fertitta friends. Once the loan was secured, the company went bankrupt.
And what was the loan used for? To increase fighter pay? Advertising? No – it was used to purchase and destroy Pride.
And then Station Casinos went bankrupt. A Nov. 20 report from Rich Bergeron, discoverer of the Xyience debacle:
“A new report from Local 226 (see below), an unlikely source but nonetheless an appropriate voice, reveals how the Fertitta family and other insiders at Station allegedly turned a personal profit of over $1 billion on the back of the business.”
“Still, if the Fertittas continue to struggle and get bogged down and distracted because of the Station Casinos bankruptcy, they will not have as much of their own personal money to put toward getting the UFC out of debt. There is talk of selling an interest in the company, and it’s not as unlikely now to think about the whole thing going up for sale in time.”
This is consistent with the management’s recent treatment of the UFC as a short-term investment.
The Fertitta empire has declined and is nearing its ultimate fall. The black swan event of simultaneous main draw illnesses is a significant blow. Strikeforce will continue forcing the UFC to pay greater salaries to retain talent and buyrates will continue to fall with oversaturation of weak talent. The sponsorship bans will make Strikeforce contracts more profitable than a salary comparison would imply. Poor judging will disillusion fans. The UFC will be sold, White fired, and we will see a new equilibrium between fight organizations.
And none of it will matter.
The commissions will still be in place. Strikeforce, with its ban on elbows, is yet another step towards boxing. The judges will still be incompetent, the incentives towards corruption enticing, and the scoring system absurd. Regardless of what happens to the Fertittas and Dana White, the Citadel will still stand, and no true form of MMA shall pass through its gates.
Imagine what the Castrati, along with newer, non-Whiteshirt fans, the types who do not mock allusions to works such as “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, could invent to replace the sport of Nu Boxing. It is trivial to design a better sport. What are the sport’s three greatest problems? Poor judging, early/late stoppages, and boring fights.
All three can be eliminated by changing the scoring system from the “Ten Point Must” system to the “Predict – Wager” system. It is incredibly simple, eliminating the pages of criteria judges seem incapable of remembering.
The Predict – Wager System:
“The judge shall be paid in accordance to his return on real-time wagers on the fight. The judge will bet on the likelihood of fighter A finishing fighter B by placing a wager, weighted by his estimation of the likelihood of a finish. The value of the wager drops as time passes, and the value of the chips used in wagering drops as more total chips are wagered.
“If there is no finish, the judge will be recorded as voting for the fighter he bet most heavily on to finish the fight, the fighter who receives the most votes shall win the decision, and the judges shall be paid a fixed rate.”
A judge, witnessing a knockdown, would bet strongly, as he would upon seeing a close armbar attempt. He would bet weakly on takedowns, depending on the finishing ability of the fighter on top. He would bet very little on a fighter like Sherk. Racking up points would become obsolete. The FOTN would be easy to calculate, based on total chips bet. Skilled judges would be quantitatively identified simply by being those who make the most money – those who saw danger and predicted it without having devalued their chips. Unskilled judges would then be dismissed, or would quit due to low pay. With three judges betting very heavily that a fighter is about to be finished, the fight could be automatically stopped, and the referees who stop the fight at the correct moment can be easily identified. To greatly increase the action and risk taking of the sport, we would make the fighter’s pay in large part determined by the amount of chips bet.
We thus change the incentives: first having no incentive to judge correctly, the judge is now paid directly in accordance with how well he judges. People who know MMA then have a strong incentive to become judges; Peoples would quickly retire. And previously having little incentive to finish a tough but controllable opponent, a fighter now has every incentive to attempt to finish the fight at all times.
Such a system is far too efficient for the Citadel, but imagining alternate systems is marvelous escapism. And escape is exactly what we need. My next post will detail the escape from and defeat of the Citadel, the construction of the Step Pyramid, and the promised explanation of the role of the Castrati.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Decline and Fall of the Fertitta Empire
Part 1: Castration, Collusion, Corruption
Once upon a time the UFC had its own set of rules, its own referees, and its own judges. The crowds cheered and stars were born, the management poor but the product pure. All too soon its popularity threatened the boxing establishment, the Luddite before the mechanized loom. The response was violent. The establishment used political influence, in the form of McCain and the athletic commissions, to castrate the virile, threatening sport in its youth.
With boxing promoter gratuities and battle cries of human cockfighting, McCain annihilated the cable revenue stream, leaving his gutted victim to wither away in obscurity, leaving establishment-approved combat sports nicely protected and taxed in this indestructible Citadel of corporatism.
Proud new owner of an enemy’s balls, shrunken though they were by the former lack of testing, the Citadel began to mold the UFC in its own image, imposing gloves, rounds, and weight classes; arbitrarily restricting techniques it disliked, including “pressure points”.
Though a eunuch may have a decided advantage in a human cockfight, the Citadel is all but invincible in total war. Our castrato could only plead, in his pleasant soprano voice, for sanctioning. He needed recognition by the Citadel – recognition that would allow him to breathe.
The Citadel simply waited, merciless and patient, for SEG to breathe its last. Then, for two million dollars, former Nevada State Athletic Commissioner Lorenzo Fertitta and his brother made the purchase. The NSAC immediately provided sanctioning, the pay per view contracts were restored. Business, now paying the required tribute, was booming. Former MMA-ban proponent, Executive Director of the NSAC, and boxing HoF member Marc Ratner eventually became Vice-President for Regulatory Affairs. The UFC had been assimilated. It was now part of the Citadel.
The CSAC, obviously, is within the walls. You need only read of its treatment of promotions in competition with the UFC/Citadel, most notably the difference in treatment of Diaz and Sanchez for identical crimes.
Sponsorships, pay per views, and finally, the infamous reality show on Spike, buoyed by a timeslot following pro-wrestling. Spike, reality TV, and pro-wrestling. Three apparent contradictions of the Flynn Effect.
The marketing of Dana White was one of the program’s most effective manipulations: pre-TUF fans observed what was once a cringing, middle-class, suit- wearing aerobics instructor, ever smirking forced congratulations and awkwardly awarding belts, transformed by the magic of editing and acting into a hard-talking, street-tough father figure, fair but firm. This image appealed to the young fans of the show, many of whom were likely fatherless bastards, and to this day, any post criticizing the UFC or White is met with a torrent of misspelled vitriol, stamped with post-04 join dates. These are the UFC’s unofficial soldiers, a sort of Dana White fanclub / paramilitary organization. They are most fittingly referred to as “Whiteshirts”.
The Whiteshirts, of course, now hold most of the power, and many eunuch-era fans have lost interest. Those impotent originals that remain, though having lost immediate influence to the castration, maintain the most extensive networks of contacts in the MMA community, and hold the majority of the knowledge. The elite twenty percent of the Pareto Principle. I will leave a small hint to these, the Castrati, as to their future role, which will be fully explained in a future installment.
Wiki:
“An important figure in the Ottoman court was the Chief Black Eunuch (Kızlar Ağası or Harem Ağası). In control of the Harem and a perfect net of spies in the Black Eunuchs, the Chief Eunuch was involved in almost every palace intrigue and could thereby gain power over either the sultan or one of his viziers, ministers or other court officials.”
“The Ultimate Fighter” itself is such an effective tool of manipulation, such an efficient popularizer of mediocrity, and so widely watched and well known that it must be considered as nothing less than the Citadel’s propaganda wing.
Returning to sanctioning: the Castrati were ecstatic, and, defending it, often wrote proudly of MMA being “a sanctioned sport”. This approval was, to my memory, unanimous. The benefits are obvious, and both the Castrati and the Whiteshirts approve of them. Oversight. Regulation. Prevention of corruption. These ideas are so widely believed and so little questioned that few would consider an alternative.
But we view reality with imperfect eyes. At times, it is helpful to alter our perception as the ancients and the mystics did: with drugs. A tiny tweak of your neurotransmitters to connect our points of view. I offer you a single psilocybin mushroom.
Common sense: Sanctioning reduces corruption by providing external oversight.
Psilocybin mushroom: Sanctioning increases corruption through displacement of blame. Consider boxing, which we all know to be corrupt, in which promoters wine and dine, or sometimes bribe, judges, and consider that those same judges now work the UFC. What is the standard Whiteshirt response to accusations of corruption after the results of absurd decisions? “The UFC doesn’t appoint the judges; the athletic commission does.” Any idea of boycott is quickly abandoned.
The UFC, then, and indeed, the Citadel itself, has little incentive to provide fair decisions, and in many cases, a large incentive to provide foul ones. If we accept that boxing judges are influenced by promoters, and thus that promoters have found ways to influence them, it becomes obvious that the UFC, as a quite profitable sub-department of the Citadel, could easily use such methods to influence Citadel judges.
There exists motive; there exist means. And the evidence? We will assume that it is profitable to the Citadel that the fighter with greater name-recognition wins. I have selected what I believe to be the most controversial decisions of post-assimilation UFC:
-Hammil-Bisping
-Jackson-Griffin
-Rua-Machida
-Couture-Vera
-Ortiz-Belfort
-Ortiz-Griffin 1
-Bonnar-Jardine
The decision in each of these fights went to the fighter who had greater name-recognition prior to the fight, with the sole exception of Jackson-Griffin (easily explainable by TUF vs. Pride implications). Verify on Google trends. I already have. If you have a counter-example – a very controversial decision in post-assimilation UFC in which the decision went the way of the fighter with lesser name-recognition – please let me know.
Motive, means, evidence. And what of unsanctioned MMA? What was widely considered the worst decision in UFC history prior to assimilation? Rutten-Randleman. In Pride? Jackson-Rua, perhaps. These may have been poor decisions, but they certainly can’t compete in terms of outrageousness with half of the sanction-enhanced list. Simply put: there were no Rua-Machida level robberies in MMA prior to sanctioning because the promotion would have borne the blame.
What, then, does sanctioning provide? The unified rules and judging criteria, which are nothing but a ludicrous permutation of boxing’s, created by boxing bureaucrats for boxing bureaucrats.
Pride, on the other hand, with no need to please such an out-of-touch group, designed rules and judging criteria specifically for MMA. When comparing Pride’s rules and criteria to the UFC’s, both Whiteshirts and Castrati agree, in most cases, that Pride’s were superior, with two exceptions: the ban on elbows and the ring.
It’s quite telling that the two main “problems” with the pride format are precisely those that descend from boxing. Importing boxing artefacts such as the 10 point must system, mandatory gloves, and overly short rounds is at best debatable and usually absurd.
What else, then, does sanctioning provide? Judges such as Peoples – the quintessence of sclerotic bureaucracy: utterly incompetent, corrupt, and immune to dismissal.
And lastly, sanctioning provides an extra tax, called a “licensing fee”:
“NRS 467.107 Additional fees for license of promoter; exemption; regulations.1. In addition to the payment of any other fees and money due under this chapter, every promoter, except as provided in subsection 2, shall pay a license fee of:(a) Four percent of the total gross receipts from admission fees to the live contest or exhibition of unarmed combat, exclusive of any federal tax or tax imposed by any political subdivision of this state; and(b) Three percent of the first $1,000,000, and 1 percent of the next $2,000,000, of the total gross receipts from the sale, lease or other exploitation of broadcasting, television and motion picture rights for that contest or exhibition, without any deductions for commissions, brokerage fees, distribution fees, advertising, contestants’ purses or any other expenses or charges.”
So for the service of decreasing the quality of the judging, rules, and integrity of a promotion, the NSAC feels entitled to charge a tax that must also decrease fighter’s salaries.
The entire Citadel – the UFC, the commissions, the boxing promoters, the casinos, the corporate sponsors, the lobbied politicians – is simply another iteration of the corporatist phenomenon, and the UFC-NSAC’s interchangeable personnel, shared financial interest, and collusive nature recall the relationship of Goldman Sachs to the Department of the Treasury. The protectionism of government bureaucracy coupled with corporate power breed the worst kind of arrogance – not the ambitious arrogance of a creative entrepreneur, but the passive, innate arrogance of a bored, entitled monarch. As John Derbyshire writes of a 30 year Goldman Sachs employee:
“For me the turning point in the drift toward paranoia was this summer when I listened to an interview with Charles Ellis, author of The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs. What disturbed and alarmed me was Ellis’ undisguised contempt for the radio host and the callers. Granted, it is generally frustrating for intelligent people to come on these shows where they are asked to hold forth for 30 minutes and engage with dull interlocutors. But Ellis’ own attitude to the whole affair suggested an angel come down from on high, he made no effort at all, and refused to hide his lack of effort. What he thought of everyone else was clear, mortals were beneath his consideration. When he did deign to speak Ellis calmly would assert that Goldman Sachs was insured and protected no matter what happened to the economy, specifically, even if AIG collapsed.”
Now who does that sound like? People who plead to Keith Kizer to fix the problems (invariably answered with bureaucratic condescension) are missing this key fact: Kizer is the problem. You’re asking the man who’s directly in charge of selecting the judges of all non-title fights for change. He neglected to watch Machida-Rua or Couture-Vera. He’s not worried about incompetent judges - he’s the one who selects them.
Boxing has had decades of sanctioning, and is filled with corruption and incompetence. It sucked the life from the sport. Now it begins in MMA. The UFC-NSAC hybrid has no oversight – but it also has no foresight. It will consume itself in its corruption and incompetence while another promotion emerges.
My next installment will explain exactly how, and how the Castrati will help.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)