XCTC wrote:
There are also practical contributions. I have studied the training and techniques of elite athletes my whole life in order to improve my own running and to improve my coaching of others. That is a fairly direct contribtion that those athletes who have pursued their path (and shared their findings, whether it is through coaches, or writing or whatever) have made to my life and to the life of others, on however small a scale. In an affluent society with a high level of communication, the ripple effect is enhanced considerably. For instance, I only knew the outline of Mark Nenow's career and training back when he was competing, but thanks to a recent interview/podcast, I feel that I have a much more intimate understanding of his approach.
Oh geez whiz, you have successly used over 100 words and have said absolutely nothing. The question was "What do elite athletes contribute to society?". Your answer, to paraphrase, is "When I heard a Mark Nenow interview, I came aways with something". Now this is an interesting situation, because, of course, it was you that "took" something from Nenow's spoken words. Interestingly enough, Nenow is no longer considered an elite athlete, and the information you feel was his contribution to society wasn't contributed in the role of elite athlete. While Nenow was an elite athlete, he wasn't doing interviews outlining his training regiment.
I know I'm being a stick in the eye over semantics, but I am trying to find someone, anyone, who can answer this question honestly and come up with something besides "elite athletes contribute to nothing to society?", whereas the nothing can be more accurately described as "nothing tangible". Any "contributions to society" are incidental, accidental and non-intentional, and these contributions are not common to all elite athletes.
So let's say I ask "What has XCTC contributed to society?". You will reply "I have contributed a cure for cancer, 25 hours of community service, and I pick up dog poop in my neighborhood". As a specific person, you can more easily quantify exactly what you have done. However, if you change XCTC to a specific group acting in a specific role, i.e., elite athlete, you need to come up with contributions performed by the entire sub-group. Since not all elite athletes have a single contribution in common, then the answer must be nothing.
As the question was posed, probably as some other poster indicated, as some type of homework assignement, it looks like a question that was assinged for someone to debate. Having had those nifty debate classes in the past, I can easily recall coming up with pat answers such as "inspiration" and then having the teacher ask something like " and exactly how has OJ Simpson inspired you?". You then realize that a question like this is not easily answered without defining parameters, which in turn changes the question from its original form.