I also don't think boxing is especially 'violent' but people do get hurt. I used to box competitively on a college team (NCBA) and almost every fighter on the team above ~140lbs had had at least one concussion, with the frequency of concussion increasing with the weight of the fighter. The coaches took every precaution with headgear and sparring only with 20oz gloves, and official fights had doctors ringside, but the rate of concussions was still insane. The personality changes can be drastic in the short/long term and several teammates mentioned failing exams days after their fight. I really miss it but won't ever compete again because I'm afraid of the long-term risks. The ironic thing is, getting hit in the body always hurt less for me than a head-shot.

Headgear makes head trauma more likely by increasing the size of the target

That's true. I've also heard that it increases trauma by making a hit hurt less, because the fighter is able to keep going instead of being bothered by more superficial issues (e.g. cuts/bleeding).

That is essentially why boxers wear gloves. In no-gloves boxing, the head is rarely a target because it hurts the hands so bad. But the audience likes to see knockouts, sp gloves come on. I find it distasteful to design a sport around giving a person a knock on the head hard enough that their brain releases control over their body for a while.

Doesn't hurt that much if you punch correctly (and they don't teach that in boxing classes because you always wear gloves), but very dangerous if you don't punch correctly (as in broken wrist, meaning the fight is over for you - not a good idea in a real fight - and anyway you will be handicapped for several weeks).

But then, open-palm strikes are very effective and virtually riskless for the attacker. If you are good at it, you can at the same time strike the opponent's chin and put your fingers in his eyes, but here we are obviously way out of sport's territory and way into aggressive self-defense / violent street fight.

Isn't thai-boxing like Karate or fencing where you stop before you actually hurt the opponent, having shown that you could do it? Whereas in boxing there is no such conception of stopping before you actually hit.

Does boxing cause brain damage? This article says: "Almost certainly": https://www.livescience.com/1519-boxing-brain-damage.html

No, Thai boxing or Muay Thai is not a point fighting sport. There are knock outs. Kicks, knees, and elbows are allowed.

There's also forms of karate that allow full contact.

I boxed twice as an amateur, and got stopped in my second fight after my eye closed up (southpaw got a thumb in my eye is my excuse).

But I look at Thai Boxing matches with flying knees, elbows, etc and that recent video where a fighter footswept someone and then kneed them in the head on the way down and I think "Fuck that."

While muay thai does have point scoring, it is more like boxing where you score points for landing a damaging technique and do not stop on a point being scored. Funnily enough punches often do not score unless they cause considerable movement of the opponent as they are seen as less damaging than a kick, knee or elbow.

One area that is different to a lot of other sports is that fights aren't stopped for bleeding often as it is very common for thai style elbows to open gashes on the face. A lot of experienced fighters will have scarring around the eyes from getting cut with elbows.

That said in the west fights are split into 3 classes (4 if you include novice fights) C which has no elbows or knees to the head, B which has no elbows to the head and A which uses All legal thai techniques

For avoiding unnecessary brain damage, Turing's run-around-the-house chess sounds like a better idea to me, though I'm not sure whether many people have played it or what the rules really are. (Is there also a clock?)