Slashdot Mirror
Techie Fight Clubs Springing Up
Browncoat writes "USAToday reports a new phenomenon hitting some of the cubicles of Silicon Valley. It seems that engineers and developers previously confined to sitting in front of their computers are getting their anger out the healthy way: by pummeling each other. From the article 'Inspired by the 1999 film Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt and Ed Norton, underground bare-knuckle brawling clubs have sprung up across the country as a way for desk jockeys and disgruntled youths to vent their frustrations and prove themselves. "This is as close as you can get to a real fight, even though I've never been in one," the soft-spoken Siou said.'"
Aside from which, I loved how they worked in this:
Earlier this month in Arlington, Texas, a high school student who didn't want to participate was beaten so badly that he suffered a brain hemorrhage and broken vertebrae. Six teenagers were arrested after DVDs of the fight appeared for sale online.
So exactly when did "getting your ass kicked by a bunch of jerks" turn into being "an unwilling Fight Club participant"? I suppose next we'll be hearing about how Ken Lay and company were actually just repeating what they learned by watching "Wall Street" at the executive team-building offsite? Or how the well-abused Zonk and ScuttleMonkey voodoo dolls on my desk are actually just a result of my having seen part of "The Craft" one time on HBO?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Doesn't this article violate the first and second rules of fight club?
The teams I've been on have always handled stress by Quake/Unreal Tournament/etc. deathmatching. What's the appeal of brawling? Same thrill of victory, longer-lasting agony of defeat.
No one saw this coming. No one.
DO NOT post stories about Fight Club to Slashdot.
Men involved in fight clubs often carry bottled-up violent impulses learned in childhood from video games, cartoons and movies, said Michael Messner, a University of Southern California sociology and gender studies professor.
Is this fact, or just poor reporting?
Registered Linux user #421033
This doesn't worry me much... yet. I mean, transgressional fiction was bound to come true at some point. People tend to break out of the cube. What worries me is that this might be a trend in fiction influencing reality. If Patrick Batemans start cropping up all over the place then we have a problem.
The problem with this is that these things is that these guys don't know how to fight and as such could really get hurt. And the thing is, if you accidentally kill someone in an illegal fighting event, it is still manslaughter. Course, a few dead dorks might mean that new positions open up in the fields they're in. HEY!!! That's a great idea. I need a job, I could get it Klingon battlecruiser style.
Hitting someone with a frying pan? What fool would take that?
Using your fists on someone
But using a blunt object? If you're anything other than a spaz, you'll crush a few ribs the first time you connect. Then the fights over.
Men involved in fight clubs often carry bottled-up violent impulses learned in childhood from video games, cartoons and movies, said Michael Messner, a University of Southern California sociology and gender studies professor.
Dear Michael Messner,
Please accept this large steaming cup of shut the hell up.
Sincerely,
BigTanGringo
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
Anyway, my favorite part is the two professors eagerly spouting theories about "fight clubs" as though they'd ever heard of this before the USA Today reporter came calling.
No, my real favorite part is:
Fast forward to Marital Fight Club...What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
it's alot better to fight other nerds than get beat up in real life... At least that pocket protector will save you :)
They should try a moshing. At least you get to beat people to music.
Men involved in fight clubs often carry bottled-up violent impulses learned in childhood from video games, cartoons and movies, said Michael Messner, a University of Southern California sociology and gender studies professor.
Hopefully we can someday return to the world where none of thoseexisted, and men never fought each other.
Okay, I call shenanigans. This just sounds too ridiculous to be real.
How many times in the past have we see some tech story get reported on and posted on slashdot only to find out that it was all trumped up - like "toothing" - people in UK using bluetooth phones to look for sex partners? I say "nerd fight club" is the same thing.
Everyone knows that real dorks adverse to physical fitness - I mean, hey why go outside when you can spend more time in front of the computer? I'll exercise next week after I rebuild my second desktop system and finish upgrading my asterisk pbx...
Oh, and nerd *fighting*? Nerds are the last people who are going to want to blow off steam by real, painful, physical fighting... Everyone knows that. Nerds would invite others for a frag-fest, whomp on their mmorpg character, hack their coworker's/nemesis' home server, and fill their cubicle with styrofoam... but fight... and risk getting hurt?
If we liked to fight, we probably wouldn't have followed the path that made us nerds in the first place.
Step 1: Learn a martial art. See below. Step 2: Become a master Step 3: Step 3 depends on step one. See below. Akido-Laugh at people as they discover that their attacks are turned against them. Taekwondo- Laugh at people as you kick the living crap out of them. Wrestling- Laugh as you drop people on their head. Jui-Jitsu- Laugh as you break limbs. Judo- Laugh as you start throwing people over your hip. Kendo- Laugh as you teach those idiots in the article about how to use those sticks. In all seriousness, I've taken martial arts before and I think it's kind of pathetic. PS. Is this the first Slashdot article that actually mentions S&M .
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
His name is Linus Torvalds.
His name is Linus Torvalds.
Yes, buy things like the Fight Club DVD, you sheep. Some people, if worried about excessive consumerism, would stop buying shit.
Videogames. Always videogames. I'm surprised he hasn't blamed myspace.
"You get to be a superhero for a night," Klimanis said. "We have to go to work every day. We're constantly told to buy things we don't need, and just for a couple hours we have the freedom to do what we want to do."
And that is beating each other up? Idiots...
bash$
Look at the position of the leg with regards to the arm.
If it was a straight in kick, his leg would be tangled up with his opponent's hand.
If it was a side kick, his leg would be connecting with his opponent's shoulder. Look how his kicking foot is outside of both their bodies.
10 REM Nerd Fight Club
20 REM packetmon
30 FOR X=10 TO 1 STEP -1
40 PRINT X;"Oh yea";
50 IF X<>1 THEN PRINT "!";
60 PRINT "take that,";X;"jackass";
70 IF X<>1 THEN PRINT "!";
80 PRINT "give in!"
90 NEXT
Infiltrated dot Net
I am sick to death of Fight Club. People talking about it, [...]
I take it most people didn't pay attention when they were told the first and second rules.
If you got "the solution to our problems is kicking each other" from Fight Club the movie, then you must have only watched the 1st 1/2 of the movie.
Extremists misinterpreting literature for ideology is hardly new, though. These people are hitting each other with heavy metal objects, they are probably addicted to the body's painkillers or the feeling their brain makes while it is being made retarded.
Ok, as someone who *has* been in more than my fair share of fights, studied martial arts, etc, I'm confused by this to a certain degree. Not by the fight clubs, just the news story. I haven't had to use my martial arts skills in anger or self defense, because my insturctor taught self respect and that first rule: the best way to not get hurt by a punch is to not get hit by it. That means he focused on avoiding blows, not blocking them, but it also means he focused on avoiding fights in the first place. Anyway.
The reporter is making these folks out to sound like crazies.... They aren't. They are men frustrated by their daily lives. I can understand this desire to vent physical frustration in a very real way. I learned that I don't need to hit anyone in order to do that, just pratice the martial arts forms I have learned. That is either not something these guys have tried, or found to be satisfactory. That's fine, and as long as they all agree to what they are doing, have at.
He focuses on one guy at the end who is making... questionable choices, certainly from how they where presented. Married later in life (than social norms, mind, for all that's worth), choosing to go to this fight club instead of taking the time out to be with his wife, on their first anniversary, for a very important event in her life. Talking about how tough it makes him feel... sounds like he's got other issues to me. Sounds like the writer is trying to focus on that.
Oh, and the trying to link teen violence to this stuff, and childhood media exposure? That's just poor reporting, and poor taste.
I'm modding this story -3 troll.
I'd have to agree. Fight Club is easily one of my favorite movies and Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favorite authors. I liked the book/movie for a lot of reasons other then the actual "fight club". Even still when I was in college (RPI) as a freshmen one of my buddies told me one day that some guys in his dorm started a fight club... I didn't believe him till he took me down there and I watched two clumsy nerds slap each other for 5 minutes before getting tired and reaching for their inhalers. This was years ago now... 2000 I believe. Pretty stupid if you ask me, if you want to fight people take a boxing or martial arts class...
Collector's Edition
...is that the themes in the book / movie really hit home for a lot of people. Sitting back in your chair laughing at the idiots may be fun for the armchair warriors at large, but not everyone has really been tested and that was one of the core themes FC - how do you know what you've got if you never put it to the test? How do you know how you'll react to a fight when you've never been in one? How can you prove you've really pushed yourself to the limit without scars to show for it?
And talk about a way to find out - if it's either kick some tail or get yours kicked in for you, I think that almost everyone would go into a full on a$$ kicking mode. At that point, it's the better man that wins but either way you're gonna push yourself harder than posting comments on a web site.
For the office warrior who never got into a fight in his life, I can easily see this as thrilling beyond compare.
I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, and there should probably be some safeguards put into this as even the UFC has rounds and referees to stop fights when it's clear that 1 person is taking too much of a beating, but I get it.
I used to like Star Trek until I read about the ladies that are into this: http://www.thyla.com/fan-art.html
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Exclusive pictures from one of the fights.
Maybe not
I thought engineers and geeks appreciated efficiency. They should just stay home and stick their hands in a waffle iron periodically, then go back to coding.
E pluribus unum
I did the same thing years ago when working at IBM on a death march project before they were called that. Joined a local boxing club. Got very in shape and good at beating people up which I fortunately never unleashed outside of the boxing ring. My anger only grew. In the end, I only found peace by understanding that I had a problem with anger and that love was the answer. I've never looked back. I do as best I can to avoid things that I don't need that make me angry: the media, angry people, excess. I try to do as many things that bring peace: family, church, wholesome movies, healthy exercise like running and books.
-- Ignacio Valdes, MD, MS
-- Editor: Linux Medical News
-- http://www.linuxmednews.com/
http://www.LinuxMedNews.com Revolutionizing Medical Education and Practice.
...you do not talk about fight-like-a-girl club. For obvious reasons.
Procrastination Man strikes again!
Sorry to say it but these days most of the martial arts you mentioned are now either sports with rules protecting the combatants or have bugger all to do with common ways of being attacked. This includes stuff like UFC which rule out attacks on "vital points" like eyes, throat, groin.
Look, they generally start as powerful self defence techniques which can be used when attacked by untrained attackers but the instant you start competitions, add rules they become methods of fencing for points. The training and techniques change for the tournaments to the point that they are largely useless against the kind of wild untrained and violent attackers they were originally designed for.
You do what you train and if you're training for head height roundhouse kicks , as good as it looks, you will end up on your arse when you try to use one on the street.
So, if you're going to practice a martial art, make sure it's with a teacher who teaches the original self defence art, not watered down long distance tournament fencing techniques. This is the elusive "become a master" step. It has nothing to do with the particular art or style btw, they're all ways of manipulating the opponent through force. It's purely down to the instructor.
p.s. you don't take or know a martial art, you have to practice it.
Deleted
You are right that fist to skull contact is more likely to result in a broken hand. But orbital bones can certainly break under contact with elbow (as sometimes happens in basketball games).
The skull is NOT impenetrable. A properly swung baseball bat can easily penetrate it. More to the point, a properly swung staff or wooden sword can do the job as well. It can most certainly be accomplished with a hammer, but you'd have to be VERY skilled with a frying pan (though you could certainly kill with blunt force).
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/0
For the record, one punch can CERTAINLY kill if the person is hit in the correct way. The fact that you have not perished yet does not constitute evidence.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Sorry, "Fight Club" was about rebellion and self realization. Same thing with another movie of that time "American Beauty".
The protaginist (he has no name) is a bitch office worker who subconsciously develops an aggressive persona that manifests itself when he "sleeps". There was no homo-sexuality in the film. The only person who got fucked was Marla. The fact that men were hugging in a testicle cancer support group is meant to be farscicle.
Quit projecting.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
ok ok... s/hands/penis/ ...better?
And also the Prime Directive!
> ok ok... s/hands/penis/ ...better?
I took your advice and began coding with my penis instead of my hands. Everyone in my office is avoiding my cubicle now. On the plus side, I finally got other people to stop using my keyboard.
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
(The brain has no nerve endings, so I suspect you can suffer a lot of injuries there without being able to personally tell much. Actually, that WOULD explain why Silicon Valley has been turning out such crap recently - they're all brain-dead.)
Yes, frustrations are understandable and evidence of a sick, unhealthy work environment. A healthy work environment should have ways of avoiding stress building up (such as by ensuring employees aren't treated as raw meat - frozen until fried). That should be when tech employees (who are supposedly intelligent - WAY above average intelligence) figure out better ways to do things - and do them. Y'know, given the choice of kicking someone half to death in a bout of frustration, or setting up a startup that has none of the stress issues, gets twice as much done, and has devoted employees because their brains are intact... I know which I'd call the smarter.
These fight clubs are stupid and ultimately have to destroy their participants. The body can only absorb so much - it doesn't repair indefinitely and you don't get to regenerate. However, the corporate attitude that creates them is not merely stupid, inferior and inefficient, but as close to evil as a secular environment can get.
This is the kind of attitude that was featured in the ORIGINAL "Rollerball" - the craving for more and more violent outlets, because of pressure. Hell, this is the kind of attitude which created historic figures like Nero and Calligula. Never mind the pop psychology, we have real-world examples of what happens to a society when senseless self-destruction becomes the only meaningful outlet.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
ROTFLMAO
Y2k is not "years ago". It's not even "years ago" to my 8yo...
Nooo fool. He means "this was years ago now... 2000 years ago I believe". It's in the bible, look it up, book of Nerds 3:18.
M0571y H@rml355.
But it's all starting to make sense now, isn't it. The rivalry between Spock and McCoy for Kirk's affections. The older queen bitchiness of McCoy, who feels threatened by the younger Spock. (And now you start wondering about McCoy's nickname, "Bones".)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
This is new to you? When some of the books which contained fan-written stories which came out, it was said they were supposed to support this type of relationship - this would have been in the 70s - the same timeframe Spock Must Die! [1], etc. came out. (
I think this (The New Voyages) - fan written short stories is the one which started the buzz. I'd have to do some box digging in the garage. I've got all of the loose books which appeared on the shelves at that time (ca. '77-'80).
I think the others at that time which were interpreted to push this lifestyle (perhaps more) were the Phoenix books[2].
_________________________
I'll resort to ROT13 spoilers for those who are going to track them down on Amazon for $1-$2 and read them. BTW, your shipping will cost more.
[1] Gur Xyvatbaf ner trggvat bhg bs unaq naq vg gheaf bhg gurl'ir chg n sbepr svryq nebhaq Betnavn. Gur Ragrecevfr nggrzcgf gb fraq Fcbpx ivn irel ybat qvvfgnapr genafcbegre nf n gnpulba ornz juvpu vf obhaprq onpx, perngvat gjb Fcbpxf. Bar erny, gur bgure abg.
[2]n qhcyvpngrq, qryvpngr, znfphyngrq Xvex jub vf frag gb uvqr va gur Ebzhyna Rzcver nf n "cevapr" bs fbzr glcr. Fcbpx vf pbasebagrq jvgu gur snpg ur pna'g gryy bar Xvex sebz gur bgure naq arvgure pna gur Xvexf.
Is it me, or does your ROT13 look a lot like klingon?
I think i know what the universal translator does now. Its just ROT13!!
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
Here's the premise as I understand it:
A man find's his work and his life unsatisfying. He is unable to express his individuality and to have the sort of life he wants.
His proposed solution: to spend his nights with other losers punching them and trying to hurt them while they try to do the same to him.
How is this an improvement? To me it seems far worse.
It is quite apparant you know literally nothing about fighting, and I am not saying that as a bad thing or good thing, just a fact. I am 39 years old and train mixed martial arts 4 times a week, hard-spar on a semi-regular basis and train with a few MMA cage fighters. One thing is certain in a fight, whether sparring or street fighting, you WILL take a couple shots to your body. Taking shots does not mean you lost the fight, it means you are in one. I have only seen one or two fights where one of the fighters literally took no hits. Yeah, bodily damage is possible, it happens, I take damage from time to time, but nothing horrible, nothing that doesn't heal, and it does no more long term damage than other people give themselves living off McDonalds and Coca Cola. I have found my training to be a great divertion from the rest of my life, for a few hours a week I can go take out frustration on a heavy bag, thai pads or a classmate. We punch, kick and grapple, shake hands afterwards and enjoy it very much. Nobody is trying to live up to Chuck Norris idolization, we just enjoy learning the martial arts. My wife trains, my kids train...it's all good.
dB Masters
When these losers want to "feel something", they beat each other. When I want to "feel something" I go get a massage.
Want to guess which one of us gets the great job and the raise and which one gets his ass fired for calling sick all the time or coming to work beaten and stupid?
When growing up I used to wrestle with other kids. Frequently the match would end when someone scraped up an arm, or hit their head hard enough to make them dizzy, or one of the big guys rolled over the leg of one of the little guys. In college, we sparred quite a few times.
I always hated this. The idea of someone pawing and walloping me was never very appealing. Nonetheless, many, perhaps well meaning, individuals attempted to get me to "join in the fun". That's my bubble you're encroaching on, in a very intimate fashion. It wasn't pleasant. Sweaty palms abounded, and most of the instigators smelled quite poorly. I don't think most people find this prospect very appealing either.
Personally, I suspect that most of these people are closet homosexuals trying to cop a feel, then covering up by thumping the target of their affections. I think the rest are in some way trying to cop a feel too. And all that walking around naked in showers. Come on. Who are they trying to kid?
We live in a free society, but, there are bubbles ok. Some people have bubbles. Please respect that.
May the Maths Be with you!