I think paying or encouraging someone to do things that cause severe injury should be a crime. This shit and boxing and American football should not exist.
I am very, very reluctanct to ban anything like that, my default being to err on the side of freedom for consenting adults to do whatever they please.
I'm just surprised that so many people seem to like MMA so much.
(I know it's not the same, I know there are a few important differences, but) it feels to me like bullfighting: I can't understand how someone could enjoy watching _that_.
>" am very, very reluctanct to ban anything like that, my default being to err on the side of freedom for consenting adults to do whatever they please."
Not long ago, I had that exact same position. Let people make their own choices. But I've begun to evolve that position.
If someone with better information, experience, or intelligence knowingly leads someone else to harm themselves, then they are responsible for that harm.
E.g., there is a glass of Koolaid on the table and I know that a third party has put poison in the Koolaid. Another person walks in and I tell them, "Here's some Koolaid for you, drink up."
That's a crime. Many of these situations are like that. They may even disclose that there is poison in the Koolaid, but then dismiss the danger and show many other people drinking it and gaining fame and fortune or whatever, or using other psychological techniques to get them to drink it anyway.
Case #2: Drugs. Everyone knows that smoking tobacco will harm you. Yet millions of people around the world still smoke their first cigarette each year. Why? Because other people with more experience, knowledge and skill use a combination of psychological techniques to trick those naive people into harming themselves.
There are many other analogies along the lines of someone with superior information or experience who can lead others into harming themselves.
I think that the laws and social norms we have guard against most of that.
eg, talking about people involved in MMA, either as participants or as spectators: only adults, consenting explicitly to that, and “in full possession of their mental faculties”.
Someone tricking you into taking poison is committing murder.
When problems get hairy, we implement more guards: higher minimum age (eg, those below 21 can't drink, those with less than two year's experience riding motorbikes can't ride the most powerful ones), mandatory delays (eg, being forced to wait X days before euthanasia, abortion, gender reassignment).
