I might have to become a fan of the boxer, Mike Tyson. He has an ugly history, and now he’s going to be in a match with that jumped-up YouTube influencer, Jake Paul (it’s a fake match, with shortened rounds and padded gloves, but the prize money is real, tens of millions of dollars), and none of that is worthy of respect, but he had an interview with a young kid who asked him what his legacy would be. It sure won’t be boxing with Jake Paul, but this answer was excellent.
I don’t know. I don’t believe in the word ‘legacy.’ I just think that’s another word for ego. Legacy … means absolutely nothing to me. I’m just passing through.
…
I’m going to die, and it’s going to be over. Who cares about legacy after that? What a big ego. So I’m going to die — I want people to think that I’m this, I’m great? No, we’re nothing. We are dead. We’re dust. We’re absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing.Can you really imagine somebody saying, ‘I want my legacy to be this or that’? You’re dead. You really want them to think about you? What’s the audacity to think, ‘I want people to think about me when I’m gone’? Who the fuck cares about me when I’m gone? My kids, maybe, my grandkids. But who the fuck cares.
That is such a strong, honest reply, and I love it. It’s an anti-narcissist answer, and I wish more people would share it. I don’t know if Tyson is an atheist, but that kind of stoicism/nihilism is the kind of atheism I favor.
The interviewer was very good at her job, too.
Well, that recontextualizes the old NES game in my brain.
Apparently he’s a muslim.
“The Road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom.”
To the extent that I’m willing to entertain the idea of an afterlife, I don’t really, I often think of the idea that you have to wait in an area until that last person who knows who you were utters your name, then your released. I want to do good things, but spend as little time in that room as possible.
Yes!
We are all nothing but piss ants in time.
While he has a tendency to ramble, he makes a fine point here. Sadly, that “ugly history” keeps me from having an atom of respect for the man.
@onefly : We are many different things to many different other people and lifeforms we share the world with.
We leave ripples by our words and actions and everything.
We weave threads that link other threads in a tapestry vast as our planet. That we cannot see because we’re not that big. But we are part of it nevertheless.
Metaphorically speaking. So many metaphors.
Basically, we do our best and hope. Think and be kind.
Its hard to known and predict what our influence and impact might be in this world.. It might be small. For some It might be everything for others.
It isn’t nothing. What do we want it to be? What will we try to make it?
@3. submoron :
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Tyson#Political_views (Bolding mine.)
Umm, yeah? Wot? Huh?
I dunno but Tyson’s ;legacy but I most remember hs ear-biting bout and his cartoon with the pigeon, ghost of Marquis of Queensbury and others in a weird twist on the Scooby gang from what I saw. Also the Simpsons parody of him..
^ See Mike Tyson Mysteries Intro 30 secs length. One weird ole late night TV show.
I am more like the robot Bender in Futurama;
the optimum is to become ruler of a world and build a pyramid extending all the way out beyond the atmosphere while a recorded voice calls “Remember Me! Remember Me!”
@ ^ birgerjohansson : A certain poem springs to mind here ..
This one (2 mins 17 secs)
Persepolis, Karakoram, Illium and who knows how many others… Do we care today? ‘Bout Akhenaten, Ramses, Nechbuchadnezzar, the Snake Kings, prester John and the Queen of Sheba or Richard I?
StevoR @8
The butterfly effect guarantees all of us have some effect on the world even if it usually is impossible to define the difference we made.
I recall Granny Weatherwax explained the whole ‘trousers of time’ multiverse concept.
By feeding birds I might have contributed to spreading salmonella, and some student who would found a cure for cancer might have faliled a crucial course by falling sick.
However, no one can disprove that I – just by existing- has prevented the rise of Super-Hitler, a point I repeatedly make to the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committe.
The Moai* of Rapa Nui
Do we know their names today?
Do we care?
Thank you SteveoR. I was only pointing to out that he is probably not an atheist.
StevoR @12: “Do we care today?”
Yes. I know that because we (including you) read and quote poems/stories about all the people you mentioned. We do that because we know they all have powerful messages.
StevoR @8:
What we are to other lifeforms is destroyers, whether they know it or not. We don’t leave ripples. We leave tidal waves.
Seems to me some people confuse not caring about it with it not being a thing.
Making a difference is of course inevitable — one must interact with the environment — but caring about it is purely optional. Sometimes good (e.g. motivational) and sometimes bad (e.g. angst).
Exactly the same thing as imagining one needs a purpose in life (whether that’s intrinsic or extrinsic), or whether one knows about one’s ancestors and their traditions. And so many other things.
Too often do people imagine such subjective desires are universal.
Leads to intolerance and clags up one’s theory of mind
What we are to other lifeforms is part of the environment, just as they are to us.
By ‘we’, presumably you mean those who share that conceit, not everyone. Right?
John @20: What is the conceit you’re referring to?
Ah, sorry. You don’t think they are powerful messages. Forgot for a sec that you are John the tone-deaf.
In agreement with Akira, ‘Convicted rapist’ should always be prefixed to this particular Convicted rapist Mike Tyson whenever he is mentioned.
“You don’t think they are powerful messages. Forgot for a sec that you are John the tone-deaf.”
Exactly what I meant:
“Too often do people imagine such subjective desires are universal.
Leads to intolerance and clags up one’s theory of mind”.
You imagine that, because everyone must care about “tone”, to not care is to not perceive it.
Deaf to it, as you perceive it, because I don’t get all soppy about it.
John @24: I almost admire your ability to turn a shortcoming into a virtue. You can carry on (as is your wont), but I’m in no mood for playing silly buggers à la Morales. Probably not for a few (four?) years.
Oh, right, Rob. Not a sufficiently powerful message, and not in the welcoming and friendly tone you yourself employ towards me.
(Did I harsh your mellow? Cheer up, I got that “we” excludes me, in your assertions, though you were less than explicit about it)
Here’s one I think is about right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_too_shall_pass
I’m far from mellow with or without your input, and I wasn’t thinking about you with my ‘we’. I’d say ‘get over yourself, John’, but you never will.
I like this one too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam#The_Moving_Finger_quatrain
I’m kinda torn about whether to watch this spectacle (in the Debordian sense). I had long lost interest in boxing and I’m not sure this will be that. I recall Iron Mike’s heyday before his downfalls. He was a force of nature. My impression was Cus’s death foreshadowed the downfalls as he lost his structurer, but getting involved with King sealed the deal. There were so many blights, including stuff mentioned above. In the midst of all that one of the best things he did IMO was attack Don King who had it coming. He retrospectively expressed contrition for that. Why? I dunno.
Holyfield’s ear. Wanting to eat Lennox Lewis’s kids:
That’s a small part of his troubled legacy. Kinda amusing in a way I guess. He says that while praising Allah. Wow!
He has been through a lot. I feel for him on the tragedy of his daughter. Nobody should suffer that!
As pointed out above he has identified as a Muslim, but the quote PZ provides seems less invested in an afterlife than one would expect. I don’t know if it is a stoic view. Nihilistic maybe. Hopefully after the stuff he’s seen and done he’s accumulated some old-timer wisdom. He’s surely struggled with daemons.
One thing that had struck me was his life-long devotion to pigeon fancying. Kinda reminds me of Ghost Dog (or vice versa) in a way though the latter had a far stricter warrior code. And a RZA soundtrack.
Anyway fighting some Youtube influencer seems a step down from days of yore when his ring approach would make most opponents crap themselves out of fear. His cat-like bob and weave and ferociously devastating KO punches…legendary!
Aside from all that I must say this was one of the coolest things I’ve seen Tyson do, though from what I recall there was a ton of personal drama in the episode not captured in this glorious snippet:
Depends what you mean by legacy.
I hope I leave my daughter happy and healthy with memories that lift her up.
I would like that some of the improvements I made to live on, even if I’m not remembered.
Hrm … makes one wonder. Is human ear cartilage halal?
On the butterfly effect: you may as well ignore it, for moral purposes. It’s as likely your choice of route to work caused or prevented that twister. The link between cause and effect is encrypted there. You can only be held responsible for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of your choices (including unintended-but-reasonably-foreseeable ones, of course). Everything else is no more your fault than an ill-timed earthquake.
Just try to leave the world at least a little bit better than you found it, or at least than it would have been without you.
@ ^ Bekenstein Bound : ” Is human ear cartilage halal?”
Nope, Unless the person is already dead and even then only according to certain Islamic schools.
Source : https://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/77460/is-it-halal-to-eat-meat-of-dead-human-being-if-there-is-nothing-to-eat-in-islam
See also : https://aboutislam.net/counseling/ask-the-scholar/food-slaughter/islam-allow-cannibalism/
So if you’re in a plane crash in the Andes or stranded at sea without supplies – only other passengers / crew / corpses – you want any Muslims with you to be of the Malikis, Hanbalis or Shafi schools.
Not that it doesn’t happen – anyone else recall that Daésh canibal in their short-lived Khaliphate?
(See : https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23190533 )
[StevoR, Bekenstein Bound was attempting to insinuate that Tyson was hypocritical]
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One might, did one care to, draw conclusions about the way that serving a prison sentence tends to encourage inmates in the USA to claim they have acquired religion. They’ve seen the light!
Of course on Oprah but Tyson apologized to Holyfield:
I recall my respect before all that for Holyfield moving up in weight class and having technique. This guy trained him:
Mr O Lee Haney. Read the comments on that video for insinuations. Hmmm…
https://www.essentiallysports.com/boxing-news-revealed-the-truth-behind-the-evander-holyfield-steroid-allegations/
I hope the answer was no.
OTOH don’t meet your heroes. Tyson epitomized that edict.
Um, you just insinuated about Holyfield whom you allegedly respected, but the supposed hero at hand in your example is Tyson?
Surely your last line should have read “OTOH don’t meet your heroes. Holyfield epitomized that edict.”
(Tyson was never heroic, rather he was formidable and brutal)
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I notice these things, Hemidactylus.
Oh Jesus Christ they have Dallas Cowboys dirtbag owner Jerry Jones as interviewee between fights? Fuck that guy! And I’m not a huge fan of Michael “My Brother’s Pipe” Irvin. That animosity goes back to Noles v Canes but extends to Bills v Cowboys.
It ain’t my network. Netflix seems to have piping issues. So that was a quick try.
John Morales: I said what I said. If you bend over backwards to parse it like a pedantic prick would that ain’t my problem. Try again or piss off.
As you wish.
1: I recall my respect before all that for Holyfield moving up in weight class and having technique
[but]
2: boxing-news-revealed-the-truth-behind-the-evander-holyfield-steroid-allegations
[therefore]
3: OTOH don’t meet your heroes. Tyson epitomized that edict.
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Direct quotations. Copy-paste stuff.
So, you respected Holyfield moving up in weight class, but then insinuations about Holyfield taking steroids occurred, and your take on that was to not meet your heroes, and you specifically chose Tyson over Holyfield as the illustrative hero.
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cf. #29
Master Parser Jerk:
“I hope the answer was no.”- me ignored by you
If you didn’t grasp that I don’t know what to tell you. I mean I could include bodybuilder Haney in the mix in worst case. Draw what you will from that. Haney was a hero to for would be bodybuilders in the late 80s. As was Tom Platz and others.
Yet the part you don’t grasp is I am being kinder to Holyfield though I included the side-eye to be fair. Tyson did so much more criticizable shit. Holyfield punched above his initial weight class. I included the insinuations because they do exist. I also included Tyson’s apology to him which you excluded in order to play with straw.
Tyson was familiar to me way before Holyfield was on my radar. Given Tyson’s many failings he epitomizes not meeting heroes. How much relative wrong did Holyfield do?:
Ughh! BK slop. Arnold slung BK slop too:
I didn’t even mention how Razor Ruddock was a hero for how he stood up to Tyson twice, once with his jaw broke through a good part of the fight. Parse that word chopper.
@16. Rob Grigjanis :
Fair point I guess. Depends on the individual and whether a “message” is subjectively powerful or simply whether these people are part of history and not much concerned about by most in contemporary times. I don’t knowe that there’s always or even often a particular “message” (literatuire classics aside) and how powerfully people feel it varies greatly but okay.
@17. Rob Grigjanis
Collectively as Humanity as a whole? Yeah. Individually not so much much. I am a packmate and provider of food, exercise and love and care for my dog and cat. I am someone who shifts insects and spiders out of danger, waters and fertilises and carefully plants and cares for trees and bushes and forbs and grasses. I am not alone in this as an individual knowing many that do likewise and some folks who do wildlife rescue. There are plenty of good people in the world doing what they can although, collectively, yeah, what you wrote.
I know you intended to mean “Parse that, word chopper.”
But no. I shan’t parse that explicitly.
(Cruelty is not the point!)
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Um, excluding me, specifically: “I wasn’t thinking about you with my ‘we’”.
So, unless both of you exclude me as part of Humanity (gotta love the capitalisation), it can’t mean “Humanity as a whole”.
(Word-chopper chopping right there!)
[Humanity as a hole? Maybe]
Bowie is famous.