Then we can play god long enough that we eventually fill the niche, and nobody will stop us.

What is the opposite of a cat, then?

If your answer is, “it doesn’t have one,” then I nominate dog.

Not in the slightest. At least for me. I’m somehow into either older chubby women with body hair or younger fit smooth men. Why? No idea, ask my dick.

If you can define style rigorously in terms of measurable properties, so that there can be no possibility of disagreement between two equally qualified judges of style, then I have no problem with style being used as a criterion of winning a sport.

If you can’t define style objectively, then whether you win or lose does not necessarily depend on how you performed. It depends, at least in part, on the arbitrary opinion of whichever judge happened to be in charge that day. You can try to learn what each judge likes and adapt accordingly, but a judge’s aesthetic preferences could change unpredictably, and even if they didn’t, the game has still become “predict what this judge will like” rather than “perform best within these parameters.”

That, to me, ruins the sport and takes the fun away. You can have all the beautiful displays of athletic artistry in a stadium you like, but if the difference between winning and losing is some guy’s vibes, then don’t call it a sport. It’s a pageant.

Everything you mentioned can be rigorously defined in terms of time, position, velocity, angle. If, in a certain race, the rules are poorly defined, or if the relevant information is not known to the judges with sufficient precision and accuracy, or if the judges are incompetent, then sure, subjectivity could be introduced into some particular race. But it is possible in theory to eliminate subjectivity from racing, if care is taken to do so. It is not conceivably possible to eliminate subjectivity from an aesthetic judgement about “style.”

Variation in objective race conditions does not equal subjectivity. People can have subjective preferences about what type of race would be best to run, but once decided, the outcome is objective. One person factually reaches the finish line first. They are objectively the winner.

According to an algorithm which could be expressed as a few lines of code. What is the algorithm to judge “style”?

Racing is pretty objective. Clocks don’t give opinions.

Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day

And his faithful sidekick, Boypussy.

Love Me, I’m a Liberal

Inspired by Phil Ochs, updated for 2023.