<![CDATA[THINKS I'VE THUNK

<![CDATA[THINKS I'VE THUNK - Thunks]]>Thu, 09 Apr 2026 04:27:55 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Plan to End Tanking in the NBA]]>Wed, 08 Apr 2026 22:01:47 GMThttp://thinksivethunk.weebly.com/thunks/plan-to-end-tanking-in-the-nba New Anti-Tanking Draft Rules

The 4 Play-in losers automotatically get picks 11-14
4 2nd round losers automatically get picks 7-10
8 First round losers and 10 non-playoff teams go into the lottery and draw the top 6 picks. The remaining 12 teams will pick 15-26
Conference finals teams automatically get picks 27-30

Teams in each of the picks brackets after the top 6 lottery picks are in order of best record, instead of inverse order as now. So every game of the season does count for something.

You can’t win a top 6 pick in the lottery 3 years in a row. (The Spurs rule)

So the obvious concern with this system would be that a team playing in the 2nd round might throw the series for a top 10 draft pick. So let’s say this year the Spurs are playing the Nuggets in the 2-3 matchup. Denver is trying to win while Jokic is in his prime. But the Spurs could say, we have Wemby and a young core, our championship window is 10 years, let’s bow out now for one more high draft pick. I think that only happens if Wemby is injuried. Of course if Wemby is injured, then the Spurs would be expected to lose, so it might not make a difference. The issue would be if Jokic and Wemby both went down and neither team wanted to face the Thunder in the conference finals with out their best player, so they both try and throw the series. That would be bad. Like a horrendously ugly blight on the league. I can’t over state how bad that would be be. But I would say it is unlikely for 3 reasons.

Players and coaches don’t think of tanking the way organizations or fans do. So it is unlikely that players would play bad on purpose. Winning matters to their legacies and bank accounts. They won’t purposely throw a games for future draft picks when their is no guarantee they will even be on this team next year. They will try to win while they can.
Tanking in the regular season works because there are so many random games that the scrutiny is not there all the time, I mean somebody has got to lose every game right? In the playoffs the intense scrutiny of every play and every coaching decision should prevent any concerted effort to throw a game.
And the Commissioner could always penalize a team suspected of throwing a series by confiscating their draft picks. So that removes any incentive to try and throw a 2nd round series.

One more provision to help a team that makes the playoffs but has no lottery luck is to give them the hope to buy more talent……
If you have picked outside the top 10, and not advanced out of the first round in 3 consecutive years, and are a receiving team in revenue sharing, and you have the cap space, you can petition the commissioner for a waiver that allows you to offer a Supermax contract to a free angent.
This is actually the more dangerous idea because teams absolutely would long term plan to be mediocre for 3 years until a certain free agent is scheduled to come the market]]><![CDATA[For the Love of Ed O'bannon...]]>Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:06:16 GMThttp://thinksivethunk.weebly.com/thunks/for-the-love-of-ed-obannonAs we are all filling out our NCAA Basketball Tournament Brackets amidst all the marketing and promotion of DraftKings, FanDuel, and Kalshi Prediction markets, I have to wonder:

In this new modern age of NIL and the transfer portal, and player empowerment, do NCAA players get a cut of all of the money that is now being legally bet on them?

I mean surely having a prop bet on a player constitutes the “Name” in NIL. I mean wasn’t that the spirit of the antitrust lawsuit? The NCAA, its member schools, and all of its corporate sponsors are making billions off of these young athletes and those athletes  are entitled to seek reasonable compensation. From a free market standpoint  shouldn’t the players get a piece of the action of every bet being made on them?  I mean when sports betting is illegal it’s not even  a valid  question. But sports betting has been legalized and expanded rather quickly and I believe this has lead to a colossal oversight, due to people on all sides ignoring the issue because so much potential money was at stake. So I would argue that any legal sports betting on college sports is violating antitrust law, and cite the NIL decision as precedent.

You could never  sell a T-shirt with a schools name on it without the proper licensing rights. And now thanks to the  NIL ruling, you can’t use an athlete's Name, Image or Likeness on that  T-shirt either without entering into a contract with that athlete.
So why can sports books take bets on stats and performance of a named player at any time?
Even if the sports book doesn’t name the player in its offer, the better is naming the player in their bet and the sports book is taking money on that player.
Shouldn't the player be entitled to money made off of their name being used to entice the bet?
Has this been challenged legally or is no one wanting to be the guy that stops the sports betting gravy train?

You can argue that at the professional level the players Union gets to negotiate the rights to the NIL of their member athletes for all the video games and officially licensed products of the respective professional leagues, which might theoretically include sports betting.  But college athletes have no collective bargaining. Did the NCAA and its member schools really sell out all of its athletes to sports betting in the fine print of its promotional relationships with these sports book companies?

Legall means you are doing things with the promper permissions. Just like when states legalize mariajuana that means businesses that deal in marijuana have to obtain the proper permits, registration, etc, and have to obtain their product from appraoved sources. The same with a liquor license, or firearms sales. None of these legal businesses get to sell weed from their basement, moonshine from their bathtub, or pistols they traded car stereo parts for off the coast of Nicaragua.
Why do sports books have access to take bets on athletes that have not consented through contractual negotiations?

Don't hollywood Studios have to get the rights to books inorder to make movies of them? hell, don't I technically need permission from the photographer beofre I post a picture to this blog?. And technically shoudln't that photographer have obtained consent from the subject before taking the picture?
In any other context legalizing something means you have to obtain proper rights and permissions to the product in question. Why is sports gambling any different?

Do sports betting companies have some kind of “public domain” analogous to the parody standard that allows Saturday Night Live to imitate and make fun of any Public Figure?

I don’t know the answer to all of these questions. Regardless of the answers, to me it just makes sense that legal sports books should have to have to obtain the rights to the things they take wagers on, especially athletes. And that means giving athletes a piece of all the action wagered on them. Doing so promotes the integrty of all parties involved.

If college and professional athletes make money off of every bet made for or against them, they are much less incentivized to throw games or leak information.
Why risk a consistent check for a onetime pay day and then be banned? If you think about it, letting the sports books pay the players, would have been part of a good global solution to the NIL debacle that Nick Saban was just talking to the president about a few weeks ago.
But I bet any  forthcoming executive order says nothing about sports books having to license the right to take bets on individual players when it is being written by a Casino owner.

]]><![CDATA[Pay Us What You Owe Us]]>Sat, 14 Mar 2026 16:58:01 GMThttp://thinksivethunk.weebly.com/thunks/pay-us-what-you-owe-us“tied to revenue in a meaningful way" is the WNBA Players Union party line to say they want a cut of Gross and not Net revenue, because they don’t trust the WNBA is being honest about expenses. And the sticking point is expansion fees. The WNBAPA keeps making proposals that factor in Expansion fees as Revenue. The league’s proposals do not include expansion fees as revenue. This seems to be the whole hold up to negotiations for months.

I think expansion fees are like $250 million. And the plan is 2 expansion teams this year and I think a plan for 3 more in a couple years. The whole CBA negotiations are a fight over a Billion dollars in expansion fees. The league argues that because it is owners paying expansion fees to the other owners, its a neutral transaction and it doesn’t add to the sum value of the league and so it does not count as revenue. If that is rationale has any legitimate Precedent in economics then the players really have no leg to stand on. I don’t know if I fully buy that, because the existing teams are getting money even though the expansion teams are not. But even if you consider expansion fees as revenue , the players need to recognize that expansion fees are a 1 time windfall and not sustainable revenue upon which to base year over year player salaries. It would have to mean a 1 year balloon payment for players and then salaries would fall back to standard projections. It’s the percentage of year to year revenue that the CBA has to be concerned with.

“Pay us what you owe us” is the slogan the WNBA player wore on their shirts at last season’s all star game July 19th 2025. The Announcement of 3 new expansion teams came out on June 30th, 2025. The slogan on the shirts seems to be a direct response to the Expansion fees. I do agree the league should share the proceeds of expansion due to the increased popularity of the league with players, but that is kind of a operate issue from the CBA and they are putting the season at risk by refusing to recognize that.
It seems to me maybe Expansion fees should be put into a trust to fund players pensions or something like that. Seems like with the expansion fees out of the way they would just be haggling over the final percentages.
But that is not how this is going to go. From the beginning this has always been a war of respect vs authority. The players Union is fighting for respect, and the League is fighting to maintain it’s authority. Neither feels it can give an inch. The league is growing and these are the inevitable growing pains. My understanding is that they are negotiating day and night over everything but the revenue split as that is a deadlocked issue on the expansion fees.

It was always kind of suspicious that in all of ESPN’s coverage of the issue , they never reported the owners rationale for why the expansion fees are not revenue. I don’t know if that is because it’s a perfectly reasonable rationale that has been widely accepted in other leagues and therefore mentioning it makes the players Union look foolish or greedy, or if it is a flimsy rationale and they are saving face of the owners by not reporting it. I actually think it is both and reporting it makes the entire enterprise seem petty.

To be honest this Expansion fee issue sounds like a lawsuit is coming, and I predict a judge will ultimately decide the matter. The question is will we have to wait for that judge’s decision before we see another WNBA basketball game??
The expansion fees increasing 5x over 2 years is the kind of growth in value that should be fairly attributed to both the players and the owners. If that is the sticking point, and both sides claim to want to save the season, then I would encourage both sides to agree to put the division of expansion fees aside as a separate issue to be negotiated outside the CBA, by writing a provision for such into the CBA they are negotiating right now. Then they can determine revenue percentages based on non-contested revenue, and play the full season like everyone wants. But I suspect that what has happened is the league has actually said privately that Expansion fees are not revenue period, and we will lock out over it, but they are just playing chicken with he WNBAPA hoping they strike first over the issue and then the public blame for the loss of games is on the Union

]]><![CDATA[Why I hate Country Music]]>Mon, 27 Oct 2025 16:43:04 GMThttp://thinksivethunk.weebly.com/thunks/why-i-hate-country-music-41925I think rap is about arrogance in the face of oppression and that appeals to the angsty teenage outcast in me.
But I Categorically hate country music. So what is country music about that would be such an affront to me (besides the whiney twang and the horrible southern accents)?

I think country music is all about entitlement. American entitlement. Entitled to land and space and the open road, and liberty and freedom. All entitled by being one nation under God. Country music is American aggrandizing religion in its very nature, and yet country music mostly celebrates drinking and getting lucky, which is mostly what hip hop and pop, and rock and roll celebrate as well. But I find the entitled religious undertones to be hypocritical to the general message. It’s similar to why I reject Christian Rock on principle, rock music is not designed to give glory to God, it doesn’t evoke that all, quite the opposite really. Rock is shameless self promotion. So you can’t just slap some Jesus lyrics into it and make it all good. Rock is about sticking it to the man. Ultimately “the man” is God. You can’t praise God and stick it to God at the same time. That is a total contradiction.

So I guess country music in a way basically solves the Christian rock conundrum by being all about God enabling and entitling us Americans to get drunk and chase some ass. It’s wrapped up in nationalistic notions of the USA being the “Promised Land.”

Even if the sound of it didn’t make me nauseated, I don’t love the premise. I don’t take pride and joy in an entitlement I don’t think actually exists, and I do fault people who think it does. Even the sad slow depressing my wife left me, my dog died and I done spilled my beer country songs are essentially lamenting “I shouldn’t have to deal with this because I’m entitled.” The faux injustice of country music is sickening. In contrast I find the the voice of sadness and oppression hip hop or the blues to be much more honest, genuine, and sincere ugly emotion. And call me crazy but I think the music it’s self embodies that. By the same token I think Country music it’s self is a farce of European Aristocrtic entitlement that had been embodied by classical music for 800 going back to minstrels and Bards. Country music is classical ballads being bastardized by “cowboy string” instruments and ultimately done in envy of Rock and Roll but with a moral superiority born of its entitlement essence.

OMG that’s why Disney’s Robin Hood works so fucking well!!
They take the medieval minstrel genre which is the precursor to classical music as it progresss through the high Middle Ages and the resnassiance to become Wagner in Vienna. And it is that Viennese Aristocratic establishment conveyed through classical music that country music is copying. And so replacing the medieval bard with its future bastardized counterfeit of country music in perfectly parallel in structure to a Disney children’s movie that is clearly reducing the epic legendarium of Robin Hood down to a talking animal cartoon. The change in music exactly matches the change in story.

It’s an SAT analogy question:

Medieval Robin Hood Ballads are to Walt Disney’s Robin Hood, as Classical music is to……
A Country Music,
B Reggae,
C Mongolian Throat Singing,
D Kpop.

]]><![CDATA[SuperSonics Fandom]]>Wed, 10 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://thinksivethunk.weebly.com/thunks/supersonics-fandom-4102024

At this point I think I am just going to have to be a die hard Seattle SuperSonics fan, and root for them to the exclusion of any other professional sports team, even though they don’t currently exist.

]]><![CDATA[Addiction is Generational Trauma]]>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://thinksivethunk.weebly.com/thunks/addiction-is-generational-traumaAddiction is a generational trauma perpetuated through eons by humanity.
Any drug use really is a learned behavior passed down from generation to generation. It gets tricky because a lot of ancient drug use was for mystic or religious purposes but the idea of alcohol and drugs being a means to help people cope with the harsh realities of life can be identified in any time period.

And in a lot of cases it was basically state sponsored:

Sailors got a rum ration from the crown. The Egyptians gave their slaves beer. Why? First it was to calm their nerves so they wouldn't abandon battle post too early. Secondly it was allow them to party and forget abotu the attrocities and suffering of their lives. And if you are a slave or a sailer, what are you going to do refuse the Rum and Beer? What other options are you turning to? Possibly religinon, which might embrace sunstance use it's self for it's own purposes. Substances are a major piece of society controling the masses.

In fact, the rise of agriculture, and the develo[ment of civic communities and government, and the use mass production and proliferation of substances all evolved together to give use civilization. Food, Power, and Drugs are the three legs of the agrarian revolution.

Civilization has always leaned on (if not fully relied on) using alcohol and drugs to take the edge off the trauma it was inflicting on society. Naturally some groups and communities adopted and incorporated such practices into their familial and cultural identities.

Obviously bad things can come of drug and alchol use. Once a person or a family takes on substance use as a means to cope, they have to justify the ongoing use as the only means of surviving their considerable suffering. Most of all they have to justify this to their children. And so the learned beahvior of substance abuse is handed down as a necessity due to the conditions of the world. Political, economic, or ethnic discrimination only solidifies this conclusion.

Of course embracing this conclusion that drugs and alcohol are a required and deserved means of coping means that the problems they cause are repeated and perpetuated generation to generation as well. The tide of this generational trauma goes back as far as family history can recall. That is a massive counter weight against any type of rehab or substance abuse prevention program. It essentially means only those that no longer identify with their families and communities can have reasonable hope of overcoming drug abuse. And even when they cut family ties, the loss of beleonging and support only strengthens the necessity and deserving of substances to cope.

If that is the case then we need to end the generational trauma that civilization has wrought upon society to help future generations break the cycle, not just shame people for using irresponsibly, when they are only using the ways to cope that civilization orginally intended.

]]><![CDATA[Predicting the Future]]>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://thinksivethunk.weebly.com/thunks/predicting-the-future-3272024I think there has to be some kind of primal human instinct towards the god- like ability to predict the future, that explains our obsession with the illogicality of Gambling.

We currently like to talk of gambling as if it is a chemical addiction to the excitement or thrill of winning. But there is almost a spiritual reverence for the ability to predict the future. We don’t just feel like winners. We don’t just feel lucky. We feel powerful and omnipotent in a sphere.

In a way the forces that act upon us to make prop betts are the same forces that led to the development of shamanism or even religion its self. That’s why religion helps addicts and gamblers and sinners. It gives them the same thing they are seeking in a bottle or a needle or at the craps table:
An experience of power beyond the might of human potential.
A higher power.

AA recognizes this long ago and seized on it to give people what they are looking for. In a more and more secular world on high alert for looming natural disaster, gambling and the mythic power over nature that it mimics will become an increasing temptation. ]]><![CDATA[Social Media Rant]]>Fri, 26 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMThttp://thinksivethunk.weebly.com/thunks/social-media-rant-1262024So I went on Facebook just to change my password after I got an alert someone was trying to hack my account and I immediately felt overwhelmed and disgusted.

I used to think that feeling was just kind of an introversion thing, and I likened it to being at some crowded event where there is just a lot of chaos and noise and everyone is shouting to be heard over each other. I used to think of it as a party or convention like atmosphere. But the more I think about it, it’s more like a crowded market or shopping mall on Black Friday, and there are all these Santa’s ringing bells and charities hitting you up for donations, to say nothing of the panhandlers on the street.

The internet was supposed to take us away from that to shop online in our PJs. But social media replicates it in 2D. If you have a specific gift Item you want to get and can only get it there, braving the crowd is worth it. But otherwise, it’s completely unappealing. I have nothing to shop for on Facebook these days. I have nothing to sell either. I don’t even have any interest in browsing. Maybe I’m just too broke to be on social media.

The funny thing here is that I am kind of trying to talk myself into wanting to go on social media. Like I should have FOMO but I don’t. Personally I despise social media. But I recognize the need for it professionally.

I recognize that general isolationism is a big probelm in the world for a lot of people. But despite it's iitial respresentation, social media is more and more the the problem and not the solution.

]]><![CDATA[Is Autism on the Rise]]>Wed, 10 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMThttp://thinksivethunk.weebly.com/thunks/is-autism-on-the-riseIs Autism becoming more common?

In the past, severe autism was probably looked at as retardation or demonic possession. More mild was probably less of a concern in a world of strict manual labor. I think many aloof aristocrats were probably autistic. A lot of Cowboys (lanky-wiry fellows) may have been autistic.
Autistic soldiers throughout history may have thrived under the strict regime of military discipline. An autistic person may have thrived in a craftsman or artisan role.
So it is only in the last 100 years of standardized educational standards that we would even really notice autism as atypical.
And so for a while autistic people may have had a hard time forming relationships and having families. But then in the 20th century when society is trying make everyone fit in to it the social issues associated with autism are a more obvious problem.
Woman (more approaptirately school aged girls) are supposedly diagnosed with autism at a rate 4 times lower than men. I suspect that a quiet shy autistic woman was considered an ideal wife for much of history.
Of course society would probably lament that these woman didn’t have more social grace to help them find a husband, but as the 20th century progressed an autistic woman could fill reasonably well enough a lot of traditional woman’s roles; Secretaey, nurse, teacher.
They might have been the more strict variety of school teacher, the real stickler for the rules, the type you didn’t worry would make the kids soft. And in todays world where more women than men are going to college, the ranks of “girl bosses” that will take over the world over the next century likely are full of woman on the ASD.

]]><![CDATA[Does Mating strategy define the political Divide?]]>Wed, 23 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMThttp://thinksivethunk.weebly.com/thunks/does-mating-strategy-define-the-political-divideSo the political divide being divided by mating strategy comes down to feminists vs antifeminists on the women’s side and a compel vs persuade strategy on the men’s side. Men with a compel strategy align with antifeminists on the right, and persuading males align with feminists on the left.

The Right wing is a society based on manipulating men’s sexual entitlement. The women are compelled to participate in the system by being bought with security and luxuries, otherwise they are kicked out of society altogether as whores ( not because trading sex for profit is bad, but because they are deflating the market and under cutting the system). So both men and women are given “an offer they can’t refuse,” and they agree t go along cutting themselves the best deal possible.

Just think of all the sexual morality associated with Abrahamic faiths. The emphasis doesn’t have to be on sexual morality, it could be a love thy neighbor, or forgiveness, or giving to the poor. But sexual morality has dominated moreas the world has become more and more populated by “free men.” Slaves and lower classes were already controlled through other means and frankly they were free to fuck each other all they wanted in their time off. Their offspring would just be future generations of free labor. But in a society of fee men and upward mobility, conservatism (regulating sexual entitlement) become more and more of a means to organize society. And the increasing emphasis on sexual morality was to hold that system together. And as long as people act in their self interest the system should hold up. Men get guaranteed sex, women get security.

The Left wing rejects sexual entitlement in favor of free choice. The ideal is men and women freely choosing to consent together with no power differential to affect leverage, which would be hostile to choice and equality. But in order to maintain free choice they have to artificially regulate the sexual “market” to keep it open. So women can’t be dependent on men, men can’t be entitled to women. Heterosexual sex can’t be considered better than homosexual sex or the maket might crash. So government regulation of society becomes key.

In a world where everyone’s unique sexuality is valued and honored, everyone will find a partner somewhere. Competition and scarcity for sexual access are significantly reduced. This destroys the very foundation of right wing society.

On the left wing though the organizing principle is not surprisingly diversity equity and inclusion. But as in any other circumstance all options only remain possible while a choice is not yet made. Once you chose then you lose options. You can’t choose everything all the time. This quickly leads to competition and infighting amongst certain segments. And as we are talking about sex and sexual partners the concept of commitment can become threatening to the system. This leads to concepts like “it takes a village to raise a child,” and that leads to communal living concepts, which ultimately beget communistic concepts, and then you have governmental control of the populous you have to account for, and suddenly the idea of hierarchical structure seems useful to compel people to work together looks pretty good.
Of course on the right wing the idea of choice and option always holds novel appeal.

Neither system is inherently better than the other. They exist in kind of a yin /yang dynamic. Each has flaws the other appears uniquely equipped to solve. Both have been successfully deployed in small scale. Expecting either to win out over the entirety of a large society of millions is ridiculous.

So conservative ideology is about guaranteeing sexual access. Liberal ideology is all about having a chance to get the sex you really want.
Security vs Liberty; which sounds a lot like the founding fathers debate.

And people must like guns because having a gun seems to give you both security and liberty, but at the expense of the security and liberty of those that live in fear of gun violence. Likewise abortion gives women security and liberty at the expense of the security and life of a fetus.

What matters most to you?

I originally heard this argument and it was framed more in terms of liberals seek out education to better themselves and their lot and then decide to have fewer children later in life with more of a quality strategy, while conservatives marry earlier and have more children with kind of a quantity strategy. It was a mating strategy in evolutionary terms of propagation of genetic material. And that was interesting but didn’t quite land right with me.
In this explanation I am eschewing genetic propagation as a motive and just going with less purposeful but more basic “access to sex” motive. You could still see quantity vs quality trade offs, but it’s about how society should be structured to facilitate sex, not about how people choose to reproduce.

Somewhat ironically, the left wing doesn’t count on Libido to be the galvanizing force of society, the left wing does. So liberals with their polyamorous relationships and apparent rejection of “family values” are genuinely shocked and hurt to be accused of being home-wreckers and perverts

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