Slashdot Mirror
Permormance-Enhancing Contact Lenses
coastal984 writes "With all the allegations, criticisms, congressional hearings, and suspensions concerning performance-enchancing steroids and supplements in sports, namely Major League Baseball, Nike has now introduced performance-enhancing contact lenses. These new lenses, which give players wearing them a scary orange/amber tint to their eyes, block out useless blue tones and make colors such as red (i.e. the seams on a baseball, vital to batters) easier to see. They also block out sun rays and help ease shadows, as well as improve overall vision. There are also versions for golfers and other sports, and soon to be versions for night contests as well."
i'd be interested in these if they're available for prescription focal adjustments.
i'm almost blind in my right eye due to near-sightedness, and don't wear glasses, but i'd wear these contacts if i can get them for correcting my own vision.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
If there are no negative health effects, then what's the big deal? I can't understand why making ourselves better in these kinds of ways is in any way bad. . This anti-human-improvement sentiment that goes around whenever anything like this is announced reminds me of Vonnegut's Story about 2081 where everyone is finally equal.
IMHO, I see it as a deeper cultural trend that originally started with Frankenstein. With every technological improvement, especially if it is augmenting human capability people are expecting some sort of Daedalus ironic ending. It's in a lot of sci-fi movies. Think Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain, Terminator, The Matrix.
do you want to see competition based on the hard work of the athlete or the hard work of his doctors and technicians?
if everyone is using performance enhancing contacts/gatorade/drugs then the edge they provide is negated. it's all relative, and whatever personal motivation or smarts an athlete has will be the deciding factor. I'd use examples of athletically gifted people who failed to compare to more experienced but lesser talented atheletes, but they'd probably be lost on the slashdot crowd and we can all think of times when someone superior on paper simply doesn't live up the intangible qualities, such as leadership or motivation, of a lesser-talented individual.
there are a lot of fine lines I'm not even going to attempt to place, but my point is that if everyone is enhanced then the enhancements cease to be deciding factors.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
It would depend on what was being decided. The rules are often linked to the tools, which implicitly includes peoples bodies. Change the bodies you have changed the rules.
So which rules can you change and still be playing the same game played 100 years ago?
It doesnt even touch on the fact that not everyone is going to want or be able to benefit from the same advancements.
I mod everyone down who says "I'll get modded down for this." I hate to disappoint.
Steriods are not always dangerous though , only if abused . ,safely .
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It is quite possible to take steriod treatments to improve your health and boost your fittness
Multiple diffrent steroid treatments are used to aid many many phyisical injuries or diseases. So they are not always dangerous even if someone at the peak of their physical prowess takes them in safe doses they could improve abilitys slightly without negative effects on the health
But i see your point , as most people taking anabolic steriods are doing so without competent medical care and are probably OD'ing and at severe risk.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
We are a species that, naked, dies from cold or sun. Our clothes are our skin. So are contact lenses our eyes, and cars our feet?
If anything this and similar are gradually working to deconstruct the idea of the natural born human as a standalone unit. Rather, all humans are necessarily "cyborgs". Creating and integrating with tools to extend the self is the true species specialty.
Vision around and beyond 20/20 isn't always possible w/ lasik or anything else for that matter.
THere is a notion of maximum correctible vision. When I had my lasik done I ended up at 20/20 and 20/15. The doctor explained to me that it becomes less a problem of focusing the light than one of your brain processing the imagery. Each person has a different threshhold that their brain can process and I believe it is fairly rare for it to be much beyond 20/20, 20/15.