What's wrong with the Olympics

There is so much wrong with the Olympics that it's hard to know where to start.

When you think of the strife in Afghanistan and Syria, children starving in Africa (as usual) and even closer to home the tensions over the Euro in Europe and over terrorism and immigration in the UK wouldn't it be better if all the athletes held hands and all crossed the finish line at the same time?

The Olympics is a convenient political distraction to take our minds off the real world (hunger, poor housing, long working hours, under-educated children, greedy millionaires, damage to the planet, to mention just a few) and the failure of politicians and wealthy corporations and individuals to care about anything but their own well being.

Our complex brains are what separate us humans from all other species. Why then do we feast on an event that focuses only on our animal capabilities? - who can run fastest, jump highest, hit hardest! Why not physics, mathematics, chemistry or poetry?

Not only does the Olympics focus on our animal capabilities but it actually encourages the worst aspects of our animal nature - elitism, personal agression, self-obsession and tribalism all of which serve to separate people rather than unite them.

The Olympics also encourages the animal instinct to focus on now rather than the future. Give me all I need to win the race today rather than consuming judiciously and sharing for the long term benefit of all humans and all species.

These "selfish" capabilities make eminent sense for the survival of dumb animals with no control over their environment. But they must be curbed in humans because our intelligence enables us to be so destructive.

It can't be right to encourage young men and women to force their bodies to such excesses. How can we take enjoyment from other people's pain? When interviewed after the medals are awarded every athlete says they are sore from the effort (except the horses - who are never asked!).

It can't be right to provide large amounts of public money to finance athletes' training - effectively making them into professionals. The money could be much better spent developing children's brains - reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic - and providing a long-term quality of life rather than two weeks of TV every 4 years.

It can't be right to encourage children to emulate the elitism of the Olympics. It is a low trick to encourage children to imagine they could do the same when every politician in every country knows that no Government could afford the funding to give every child the financial support enjoyed by Olympic athletes. In any case very few children have the natural ability to be Olympic athletes.

The Olympics is about excessive exercise and has nothing to do with healthy exercise. Healthy exercise is free or cheap and does not need competition.

The people who benefit from the Olympics (sponsors, athletes, construction firms, journalists etc) all pretend that the Olympics is about winners. But its real purpose is to create lots of losers because that's the only way you can have a winner. And only a tiny percentage of the planet's population can even compete at the Olympics. Surely our efforts should be focused on ordinary people, not a few self-obsessed individuals whose only ambition is to beat the other guy.

When people in Africa are starving how can we justify spending so much money on a 2-week sports event? The billions spent on the Olympics by Britain alone would probably be sufficient to permanently solve hunger in Africa.

When people are being killed in places like Syria and Afghanistan how can we allow gun "sports" to be part of the Olympics? Guns were invented for one purpose only - killing!

If the Olympics is about peace and friendship how can we have "sports" that involve fighting? The only purpose of boxing, for example, is to see how much you can hurt the other person.

When we are concerned about human damage to the planet how can we condone the extravagant consumption that is part and parcel of the Olympics. Large corporations use the Olympics to enhance their profits by brainwashing us into buying expensive "sports" drinks, clothing, footwear etc. that we don't need and which provide no material benefits compared to cheaper or free (water) alternatives.

The whole ethos of the Olympics encourages those who already have more than everyone else to strive for even more - the complete antithesis of balance among humans and between humans and the planet.