h a l f b a k e r yA dish best served not.
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A variation of the idea to give a country an award for
having the highest per capita win rate, this would be
fairly
straight forward, cheap, easy and might add an
interesting
new area of competition to the Olympic games, which
country is best per capita.
Winners would all get their medals,
but at the final
Olympic ceremonies, they'd be given their official
ribbons
to have pictures taken with, the ribbons would be clearly
emblazoned with the country's flag and it's length would
reflect how good that country is at winning medals
eliminating the size of the population from the equation.
So the US and China with their large populations would
have their medals hanging around their navel, while a
country like New Zealand would wear them very high
right
under the neck.
This would add an interesting twist to the medal tally at
the end of the games, perhaps to some, even
representing
sort of the big event. Which country is best? Not biggest,
but best?
The best upshot of this is smaller countries getting more
into the physical fitness game with their youth which
would be a great byproduct of this.
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Annotation:
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"Comrade Chen, I have good and bad news."
"Ah so, comrade Chang?"
"The good news is that the glorious athletes of the
People's Republic have won a great many medals in
this year's olympics."
"That is indeed good news, comrade Chang. Tell
their families that executions will not be
necessary. And the bad news?"
"Our population is so large that our medal ribbons
will be the longest of all."
"In that case, comrade Chang..." |
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No no, his would be the longest being from China. |
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This might afford a bit of a psychological consolation prize
as well being able to say "Mine's longer". |
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That's not now "per capita" should work. Think,
"medals
per person, relative to the whole population". So, take
national population and divide by medal count. The
larger
*that* number, the *shorter* the ribbon. If someone
from
Vatican City won a medal (population of some
hundreds; I'll say 400 based on a graph in the Google
search-result page),
then 1-per-4-hundred is a better per-capita showing
than
the USA winning (just making up numbers here) 60
medals
out of a population of 300 million (1 per 5 million or so,
see?). Stated another way, think of each person in
Vatican City winning a 4-hundredth of a medal each,
while each American only wins a 5-millionth of a
medal. |
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Right, I think that's what I said no? |
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The country that wins the most medals with the smallest
population gets a higher ranking, therefore a shorter ribbon
so the medal hangs higher. |
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Vatican City gets a choker, China gets a waist decoration. |
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You have it backward; you have the countries with the
poorest performance getting the longest ribbons. Since
when is more of prize equal to a penalty? |
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Right, the countries with the poorest performance get the
longest ribbons, so their medals hang lower. |
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The better your country does, the shorter the ribbon and
the higher the medal rides on
your chest. |
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I like it but sublte. I know atheletes trip on their medals but not to the hospital. |
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You didn't answer my question. Since when is more of a
prize equal to a penalty? |
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You do understand that the "prize" is wearing a
medal at a higher location on your chest right? |
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On the off chance that you're not kidding, forget
the ribbon. The medals are pinned on. Countries
with a better percentage of winners pin their
medals high up on the chest, those with a lower
percentage of winners pin in on lower down. |
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I guess I could draw a diagram, but I'll assume
you're putting me on pretending to not understand
this. I've gotten caught by that trick before. |
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I think we can all agree that much of the Olympics is, for the competitors, about seeing who is the best. I don't think that this is healthy. It's the sort of exaltation of the exceptional that breeds discontent and would, if our respective governments had the vision and the gumption, be banned. The idea as proposed, with only minimal variation, could form a powerful tool against these tall poppies: the ribbon for the medals of the competitors of the most winnignnest nation (either in absolute or relative terms) should have a circumference 30% less than the average neck circumference of individuals in that nation. This may result in celebratory open-top bus tours gradually losing pep but morituri te salutant what. |
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A healthy competition with good nation ragging is a good thing. Breeds a bit of a thick skin and means people don't flex their arms so quickly. The more an adult nation can take the negatives the better off we all are. |
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