Always wanted to take that parachute jump from the airplane, but never dared to? Why not try an indoor sky dive? Less interesting view, but more floating time. You can jump in here, here, or here. I admit jumping in a vertical wind tunnel feels less natural than an outdoor skydiving, but... wait.. did I say 'natural' there? Clearly there is nothing natural in jumping from an airplane, so how can outdoor skydiving feel more natural than indoor skydiving?
We usually don't realize that sports like skydiving, snowboarding, golf, tennis and football in fact aren't 'natural' activities. They don't play badminton in old nature. Sport = hyperreality; a substitute for the numbed physicality in our everyday lives. Now then, if sport is already hyperreal, how should we call the indoor ski slopes, beaches and skydiving tunnels that merely fake the hyperreal activity sport already is? Hyper-hyper-reality?
Whatthe?
Sport is hyper-real because it's not in nature? So what do you call getting in your big-assed SUV, driving to work in an office, having a starbucks and a big mac, driving home, watching TV or hitting the PS3/XBox, ordering a pizza and going to your king-sized bed with a fluffy duck-down quilt...Natural? Get real - there is nothing 'natural' about life anymore.
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Hendrik-Jan
I do live in a rough and cold environment. I do need a break. I want my mammoth!
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=A=
Still I think hunting for mammoths lies closer to the 'natural' behaviour of man than experiencing the adrenaline of sports, because the food-hunt 60.000 years ago was born of a necessity to survive in cold and rough environments. (That is where we come from and why we have eyebrows). If indoor-skydiving is referring to such conditions, then that is just hyperreal indeed. As for the new sport you are proposing: Managers play that game every day on a large scale. It is called 'financial takeover'. Stocks are the mammoths of today! :)
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Hendrik-Jan
Jumping from airplanes might not be "natural", but who ever said hunting mammoths was? Is there any historical or arceological man hunted these animals just for fun? I think mankind has always needed thrills, the only thing is that the options have broadened a bit. The essence here for me lies in the act of simulation of so-called authentic expieriences. Why has nobody invented mammoth-hunting for managers yet?
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=A=
Hyper as things might be right now, consider that the 'numbed physicality' you speak of has a history as well: Where prehistoric humans had to hunt for – and gather their food; modern people search for compensation in a world where this behaviour is no longer necessary due to farming and barter. Hunting mammoths results in jogging, javelin throwing and tennis; fighting each other for the most fertile female becomes boxing, wrestling and athletics; and all other sports are derivatives from these for one and the same reason: man needs the adrenaline [perhaps no longer solely to survive, but at least 'feel alive', flex those muscles and stay in touch with nostalgic prehistoric habits].
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