Nice post!

Of course, in part, with high irony, that
horizon ideal point of the C. P. Snow humanities
culture, wrong as in your self contradictory:

> > These are the most boring people on the planet.

> Yes, we are.

Nope! Instead, you wrote a significantly non-boring
post!

The best of the Internet is terrific stuff -- curiously
in a novel sense: For any interest X, if that is
your interest, then there's likely some just
terrific stuff for X on the Internet. So, net,
the net can be terrific for nearly everyone.

Revising a little we get

> magical cloud of human potential

Well, my college sophomore English prof
(I was thinking about math, physics, and
the pretty girls) kept saying things like
that, and I didn't believe him then
or something like the OP now!

For

> These are the most boring people on the planet.

sorry, OP, I long ago concluded that description
applied to the journalism community
with their message tightly
harnessed by the medium as in
the McLuhan "the medium is the message".

Data? Okay, finally, after several years of
refusing to connect a TV to my free
(with phone and Internet, get TV for free)
cable TV service, for the 2015 Superbowl
I did connect and, maybe for the first time
ever, did like the game. Why? Data! What
data? Sure, NBC had how many dozen cameras,
with a lot of zoom lenses and fast
video editing and after a big play could
show what the heck had happened, to the
pass rush, the pass patterns, the pass
defense, the blocking on the runs, etc.

So, finally, with all that extra data,
I began to see what the heck was going
on. Terrific.

So, Brady saw that
the Hawks were good at defending the long
pass so went for very quick, about
3 seconds from the snap, short passes.
And he saw that sometimes a Hawk
lineman became a pass defender and
used that data. So, in the last quarter,
Brady was able to make two long drives,
down by down, bang, bang, bang.

Good
to see -- finally, with the extra data,
begin to see something about
how the game really works!

With more irony, finally, with all the
new data, a big sporting event on TV
is changing to reality from what it
was. And what was it? Sorry, sports
fans, really largely want it was
was drama as in formula fiction.
How? Have characters can identify
with and get interested in and
then follow to the conclusion --
while staying around for the ads.

So, it was taking a sporting event
and turning it into drama. As
in pro wrestling or some fantasy
story, reality didn't matter -- only
the elements of drama mattered.

Why? Because TV was, from producers,
directors, camera operators, video
editors, etc., all from the Hollywood
drama culture. They knew drama
so treated sports as drama.

Well, a good coach and quarterback
who want to win have no such luxury
and, instead, have to understand the
game. And, that's what I want:
To understand the game, the actual
game, the real game, as it actually
is, and to heck with the drama
or identifying with a team.

Identify? Not a chance! Heck
until just a day or so before the
game, I didn't even know what teams
were playing, and I had never even
heard of the Seahawks! So, no way
would I identify. Instead, I just
wanted to see some good football
tactics and strategy, and, thanks
to the extra data, did.