Slashdot Mirror
Swedish Athletes Back GPS Implants to Combat Drug Use
paulraps writes "Swedish athletes Carolina Klüft and Stefan Holm have proposed a radical technological measure to stop top level competitors from taking performance-enhancing drugs. Klüft and Holm, reigning Olympic champions in the heptathlon and high-jump events, argue that competitors at the highest level should either have computer chips implanted into their skin or GPS transmitters attached to their training bags so that the authorities can keep tabs on them at all times."
How would having a position tracking device prevent athletes from doping?
Sharper than the edge of Ockham's Razor.
How is that going to stop anyone?
Man, when are those stupid Scientists going to come up with a technological substitute for honor?
-Peter
Sport truely is dead if that is what is required to keep it even somewhat honest. It is fairly obvious that level of competition is nowhere close to being honest anyways.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I guess they never heard of a delivery boy for drugs
Who cares about drug use anymore? They're allowed to consume 4000 grams of concentrated whey protein, creatine monohydrate, all sorts of pill-form vitamin supplements, and work out in million dollar, highly specialized, un-natural gyms to hone their ability to perform this physical task.
But we're resorting to GPS tracking to prevent the slight possibility they might use a hormone? Pissing in a cup should be "good enough," given the importance of the physical task.
Stop this crazyness! No amount of olimpic gold medals worth loosing freedom. Stop offering being slave in order to be eligible to collect some reward.
Why are people so eager to go back to voluntary slavery?
Slavery is forbidden for good. Stop dreaming about it.
I've got a better idea. If an athlete at that level is caught taking performance-enhancing medications, the other athletes in that sport get to take turns shitting in the offender's mouth. For most people, that would be a great incentive not to cheat.
And if the offending athlete is a poo fetishist, the other athletes will instead just shit into a toilet like normal, and the fetishist will be forced to watch the pristine, tasty shit get flushed away.
Ok, so we know that if some athletes get to take steroids, all the others might have to just to keep up. And that would be contrary to human flourishing. So we don't want any of them to take steroids.
But this plan is even more contrary to human flourishing.
Why not create a "modified division" for those who take performance enhancing substances?
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
GPS-style monitoring is just silly, there are many ways to continue doping in spite of being monitored in that fashion. It won't be effective unless the device could detect and monitor levels of dope in the bloodstream, in real time.
Governments actually use tax dollars to subsidize parasites whose amazing contribution to humanity is to jump over a f**king pole. Outstanding.
A few years out we're going to be watching athletic events that *highlight* the mods. ("Fred Bloggs is using corpuscles engineered at Georgia Tech that guarantee his ability to sprint for 15 minutes without having to take a breath.")
This whole bias against tech augmentation is getting me down. The sooner we embrace it, and the more we embrace it, the longer we'll live, and with higher quality of life.
Hell, we ought to be giving awards to people who volunteer to test exotic human enhancement technologies right now.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Might as well go to All Drug Olympics.
The Experts SAY that drugs don't work so let us find out.
I wouldn't mind, so long as it was a temporary thing, and it had a few rules attached.
-GPS and data are encrypted for no fussing.
-All data is logged and downloaded via cable rather than transmitted.
-the data couldn't be collected by any news agency and if it was collected by unapproved methods it cannot be used without paying the athlete 100k up front with no less than 2 days notice. Only 10k with 30 days notice.
-Data would only be accessible only by key people on the olympic comittee and a few handpicked people,
- They would be under strict rules not to release data on the whereabouts of any athlete without unless it was absolutely necessary for proving conviction. If proven in giving out data without following rules. Fines of up to 10k per day of data given will be assessed.
All fines cannot be erased by bankruptcy and can be embellished from your check. The only way to bypass fines is if you get unamious pardoning from olympic comitte.
Then, I could see the possibility of having a GPS in my gym bag.
I've always figured professional sports should be like auto racing. Whereas they have separate stock car, modified and Formula 1 categories, the sports world should have separate substance-free and substance-allowed events.
This sig is umop apisdn.
I hear that other atheletes support maturity and trust to combat drug abuse.
Thank you Sweden for increasing the police state.
This is a really bad idea. This is where it starts - with Star athletes. Then people wonder about dangerous criminals (ie after they have completed their sentences). Then it moves to children (to keep them safe). Very soon it no longer is a 'choice'. You can't keep your job without it. And eventually it becomes mandated by law. When some private company knows where you are 24/7 it's certain that if the government wants to know, it will easily be able to find out (especially now due to the patriot act). Imagine - no more cops using radar to give out tickets. They can do it from a central computer.
Then the chip might be able to monitor a bit more about you. What level of hormone x or y, diseases or how oxygenated your blood is. They could figure out your mood. What's next? Perhaps a feedback loop. If hormone x is too high get the chip to release an electric signal. You insurance company might drop you if they don't like your lifestyle as measured by the chip. Child custody dispute...go look at the data from the chip. Then I am betting some people who remove their chips be criminalized for doing so.
Beyond or the legal uses will be the illegal ones. People hacking into the database to plan the perfect robbery or the perfect blackmailing.. Or the FBI abusing its powers to snoop anyway.
The worst part about it is that it is so unnecessary. Some athletes do drugs. Big deal. They are hurting themselves. Perhaps hurting professional sports. Are we going to sacrifice personal liberty to ensure the integrity of professional sports. And please don't give me 'its for the children'. If we followed that excuse every time we would end up with a police state and no freedom.
...because I bet all Olympic athletes carry their gym bags everywhere they go. Why not just require more drug tests? Its not like people getting steroids are going to a place with a big sign saying steroid clinic. They are getting this stuff at home or where they train hence no unusual patterns for getting the injections. I find it sad that we are talking about implanting tracking chips in people to make sure they don't lie.
How long do you think it will take for the media to learn how to get that data? Do you really want to read in the next sports news how your training plan looks like, down to the question how often and for how long you sit on the pot, and how many times you had sex last night (and with how many partners)?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
who came to the games with another country's team.
that'll take care of alerting if the athlete dopes up.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
after Athletes
Kids in school?
People in prisons?
Any one who does not vote the way the TPTB want them to.
Cops?
People in the army?
If the athletes and the athlete's union want to cover 100% of those consequences then so be it, but I should not have to pay for Barry Bond's liver problems caused by steroid abuse.
Compare the modern cheating athletes to good old Babe.
He made all his home runs, etc. while drinking and whoring, and looking like a fat pig.
Most of his home runs had to have been made while he was dealing with a massive hang over.
Now Barry Bonds has to lower the pitcher's mound, shoot up, and use mechanical assists to score as much as Babe.
Put an asterisk next to Barry's name and move on.
What a stupid, stupid idea.
Current Oly athletes (and prospects) need to keep WADA abreasts of *where* they are in advance so WADA officials can show up from time to time to get a random test done.
So let us not take technology lessons from 'jocks,' k?
In Soviet Russia, performance enhancing drugs find you!!
Tracking the athletes with GPS won't do diddly squat with couriers, and the post delivering them to their homes.
"Performance enchancing drugs? When have I had the time to buy that, between the 8 hours of training I do a day in the gym and the 8 hours of ebaying I do at night!"
There is no need to go all tinfoil hat regarding implants, just go with real news that suggests there may be a cancer issue.
"Earlier this month, it was reported that some lab animals implanted with chips developed cancer and sarcoma. Other possible adverse effects include tissue reactions, migration of the implanted chip, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) incompatibility, electrical hazards, infection and even compromised information security."
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=30061
Remember that Uday Hussein (Saddam's son) put the Iraq Olympic runners in a wood chipper (feet first) because they under performed at the Olympics.
Seeing how much you can damage your liver through competitive drug use?
[posting from my new OLPC! Woohoo!]
More music, fewer hits
We can't actually build a small implantable GPS yet. Passive RFID tags, yes; GPS receiver with uplink, no.
Well, in theory you could build a pacemaker-sized device powered by a nuclear battery, but that would take major surgery to install, and approval from the FDA and DOE.
Trust me on this.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Why not keep them locked in their training camps between events and transport them to and from the shows^H^H^H^H^Hcompetitions under armed guard?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Parent is a lying myMiniCity Troll - link is wrong.
That link is dwarfurl to myMiniCity - wikipedia is a lie.
mod them to negative a zillion, please.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
The question a human being needs to ask is whether the glory and rewards of competing fairly in a sport is worth the special treatment as a caged animal. You could argue that even now professional athletes are not owners of themselves and their image, but this would seal the deal wouldn't it?
The *really* stupid idea was even posting this on Slashdot.
This is a story that should be totally ignored.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
What is this "Sports" thing I keep hearing about? Is it some new FPS?
I am sure drug dealers do delivery.
Sport = Entertainment Doped up Athletes performing extraodinary feats of endurance, skill and precision without getting caught = Entertainment Athletes getting caught = Entertainment Who cares if they are doping? There are 60 Gazillion Business Men and Woman who go to work each day doped up. Noone wants to put GPS on them, and these are the people looking after business - not athletes.
So, athletes will be supervised via GPS to see whether they go to a steroids lab or not. Big deal: athletes will not go to the labs to get the cream or the clear any longer, but they will now get doped from the comfort of their own homes. The GPS transmitter won't know whether they are watching TV or watching a needle being stuck into their arm...
Obvious point first: knowing where someone is doesn't tell you what they're doing. They could be watching TV in their basement, or they could be watching TV while getting a blood transfusion. And so on. (And the training bags? Easy enough to have someone else transport them around while the owner is elsewhere.)
And using such a technique could open up vulnerabilities, as in "Hmmm.... Johann is not in his assigned room in the team dorm at the Pan-Am Games, so this would be a good time to plant the syringes there." I'm sure some creative thought will reveal other possibilities.
More generally though -- and I speak as someone who's competed at the national level and served on my sport's national board of directors -- everyone (including the IOC) knows that there's no way to stop anyone from doping if they're sufficiently careful and sufficiently clever. The tests just can't keep up with newly-developed methods, and the boundaries between legitimate medications (e.g., anti-sting kits for those who risk anaphylactic shock if stung by an insect) and performance-enhancing drugs are often blurred.
The best clues are often available to coaches and other team staff, who have detailed performance data on all athletes and should be able to spot anomalies. However, they don't have much motivation to share these observations -- with anyone. Which is why one of the things that needs to happen is that the governing bodies for each sport need to emphasize doping detection by coaches as much (or possibly more) as they do results production...and that means "put it in their contracts".
And those of us who watch sports need to do something as well: we need to lose our winning-is-everything, second-place-means-losing mentality. (That includes the media, by the way.) That attitude fuels a number of unpleasant trends in sports, not just doping. We need to keep in mind that the reason athletes go to events like the Olympics is not to win -- but to participate. When we show the same respect and admiration for the effort of the last-place finisher in the 10K, or the basketball team that loses by 50, or the skier who falls, as we do for the gold medal winners, then we'll have done our part to remove part of the motivation/temptation that drives doping.
First, this wrong. I think doping is wrong, but this is worse.
Second, this is technically infeasible. Even if there were such a thing as an implantable GPS chip, it still, generally, wouldn't work indoors, in tunnels, underground, in really bad weather, etc.
Third, even if you did know where they were all the time, that wouldn't mean anything. They could get their drugs delivered to a friend, who would hand them off in social situations, and the drugs could be used in public restrooms or similar locations. Everyone has to pee.
Quite simply, this is a terrible idea.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
i don't care what anybody says. I think this is the most best idea ever, and I can't think of anything wrong with this idea at all and it will work perfectly and no sportspeople will ever use drugs everagain and BarryBonds will never hit another homerun for the baseball team. And I will be able to login to a website - probably www.wherearetheathletes.com (and you bet it will be dot com and not dot org because only the gay people use dot org and it is not okay to put gps in them.... yet) and watch where all of my favorite squashball players are not buying drugs superimposed on google (tm, evilcorp dot com) maps!!
Pedro! where the fuck are you?! come refill my crack-pipe!
ôó
These people are free to choose to restrict their own freedoms. If they want to do this, who are we to try to stop them?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
No, these athletes may be fast and strong, but they're not that smart. We don't need Big Brother stopping every athlete from doing drugs, or anything else unscheduled. What we need is an Extra Special Olympics, with mandatory drug tests to qualify for admission. To pass, the tests must come up positive.
Drugs, hormones, electroshock, implants/transplants/bionics. Death row inmates offered freedom for victory, so long as they've got artificial enhancements.
That league will have the highest scores, the most exciting competitions, the most blood and ripped off limbs left on the playing fields. And so the most viewers, and therefore the most advertising revenue.
All the athletes willing at all to take drugs (or maybe just cheat) will be drawn off into the Extra Special Olympics.
And the straight ones, who are in a different game entirely - measuring the raw power of homo sapiens talent pushed by the will to win into training within a hair of their lives - will have the traditional leagues all to themselves. It will be totally fair. And a lot more entertaining.
Let the games begin!
--
make install -not war
After all, if anyone should be ordered to live in a Big Brother world, it should be high-level politicos.
On second thought, let's just scrap this idea altogether before it gains any traction.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Some parolees and probationers have been on GPS for years. Some parents monitor their kids via GPS cell phones. Ditto employers and employees. Possibly the same in the military. Some police cars are probably GPS'd but I doubt many individual officers are.
This is the wrong solution anyways. Drug testing is much more logical.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
There seems to be a lot of talk about things such as EPO, HGH, and just "Steroids" in general.
The fact of the matter is, these are just more tools in the medical toolbox to improve an athlete. There are drugs and procedures that are totally legal now in sports, that go beyond what is illegal.
Example, Andy Pettitte is getting heat for being in the Mitchell Report for taking HGH to recover from an injury. How is this exactly wrong? Is it better to just take a enough pain killers to come back early that you become addicted to them(Brett Favre)? I'd think overall, the HGH is the safer of the two.
And if you want to talk about just modding the body itself, look at baseball and pitchers with "Tommy John" surgery. What used to be a procedure to just get a pitcher pitching again, is being done in pitchers to improve performance. More young pitchers are getting it now more than ever. Why? Because although there's at least a year of recovery time, it can improve your pitching. There's also not 100% recovery rate on this, so it does have risks. But nothing in medicine is 100%. But it's enough of a risk for a drafted pitcher that it's worth it to land on a major league roster.
Tiger Woods had lasik eye surgery to improve his vision. This improved judging distance, and reading putting greens. If a golfer doesn't want to risk blindness to improve his game, that puts TW at an advantage over them. Not like he's not head and shoulders above everyone as it is, but it's just another example of a totally legal improvement to the body. Would someone consider this a 'natural' improvement to eyesight? I do not.
The things that now are currently illegal would be a lot safer to use, if they were used in the open, under the guidance of a licensed physician, and not just some guy who has an idea how they work and does a guess on what dosage a player needs. People may want to talk about how this is upsets the game, but the reality is modern medicine and training have already pushed the athletes WAY past what they were even 15 years ago.
This is why more than ever, you see a lot of ligament injuries. You can build all the muscle you want. But there's not much you can do to build you knee or elbow. The joints were just not designed to handle the shear mass that gets put on them by modern techniques(both legal and illegal). Proper supervision on things such as HGH and steroids such as Winstrol, would probably lessen injuries to joints as well.
Even if the devices could transmit their location anywhere in the world, what's to stop their dealer from meeting them at a location that the athlete frequents. Say, their home for instance. Ridiculous story.
i also support implantable rfid to combat global warming (how does that work?)
and i support artificial breast implants to combat third world hunger (how does that work?)
how the HELL does GPS, nevermind implantable, combat drug use in sports?
i think the particular athletes who came up with this lame brain idea should do more running and weight lifting and less thinking, it doesn't suit them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm sorry, but from human emotion? Other than some quick modern redefinition, the idea of "honour" was mostly what it is on WoW. I can think of at least one time and place off the top of my head, where they actually had honour points for killing enemies. Ok, not everyone was that organized, but mostly it was about warfare and your duty to go die for your king, just because kings are so awesome and have a divine right.
So, I'm sorry, but exactly which fundamental human emotion was at work there? Do we have that fundamental an instinct to kill each other? Or what?
It and the closely related notion of "chivalry" was also warped to fit the current interests of the rich and powerful, and included such quirks as:
- while you were supposed to afford chivalry and honour to the enemy nobles and knights, because they could be ransomed for good money, it was perfectly ok to kill prisoners if they're pesants and mercenary. (Before Agincourt, for example, Henry V told his troops that while the nobles would be captured and held for ransome, everyone else damn better fight for their lives. And just to illustrate that he _was_ right, when the French managed to capture the undefended English baggage train, they did kill the unarmed attendants and page boys, mostly children.)
- same about your fucking _own_ troops, if they're of low birth. (E.g., at Crecy, the French knights rode over their own Genoese crossbowmen mercenaries, who were retreating after taking heavy losses from the English crossbowmen. Apparently precisely _because_ of such a fucked up idea of honour: the knights were apparently disgusted that the mercenary cowards wouldn't stand there and die gladly for the king.)
- but it's ok to kill the captured nobles too, if you can't hold on to them or it's otherwise too inconvenient. (E.g., Henry V at Agincourt again.)
- and those rules of chivalry only applied if you weren't outnumbered or something (See, the Black Prince.)
- and while chest-thumping about honour and chivalry in battle, it was ok to loot the peasants' grain for your troops and horses along your way. Both enemy peasants and your own.
- the same knights who'd be all chivalrous to other knights, had no problem with beating their wives _literally_ senseless. (There are "manuals" for knights who recommended exactly that. Oh, and at least one recommended breaking the wife's nose, so other guys won't find her pretty while you're away.)
Etc, etc, etc.
And just so I'm not so euro-centric, the Japanese atrocities in WW2 were almost all motivated by a fucked-up feudal idea of "honour" too.
The massacre of Nanking, for example, was because the oh-so-honourable Japanese warriors were disgusted at the idea that an enemy soldier would do something as dishonourable as throwing away their uniform and hiding among the civilians instead of surrendering. So, you know, going on a rape and massacre rampage was the proper way to punish that dishonour.
Or their atrocious treatment of prisoners was motivated, or at least rationalized, by some fucked up idea that a properly honourable warrior dies, but never surrenders. So obviously the enemies that surrendered were so dishonoured, as to not even qualify as humans any more.
To make things funny, some of those exaggerated ideas of Samurai honour and valour, stemmed from an era where Japan had no wars for hundreds of years. So they wrote a lot about being fearless and stuff, without having actually seen a battlefield in their lives, and knowing that they probably never will. And each author tried to sound even more completely fearless than the previous generation... on paper.
Etc.
So, heh, human emotion? The history of "honour" is just a codified justification for being an arsehole. It was part indoctrination so some dolts would go die for you, and part rationalization of why you're an arsehole and it's good to be one. The only good aspects of it, were the ones where you stood to make a personal gain. E.g., yeah, you were supposed to be honourable and hospitable with captured nobles, because they could be ransomed, but that didn't extend to anyone who couldn't be ransomed.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You'd think that a gold medal achieved by cheating would feel a bit tinny, but I guess the prestige,pressure and potential $$proffits$$ from endorsements etc do motivate people to cheat.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
All this cheating is the obvious end result of our endless pursuit of the "ultimate". I remember souring on the Olympics in my teens. In a world of six billion people it's patently absurd to worry who is the single best at something. Most of the "victories" at this point are either cheats, or they're unrepeatable anomalies. But still we're looking to prove that some single person is the "ultimate". I wish we could just get over that obsession and accept that there's a lot of people who are really great what they do. As far as I'm concerned there is no "best", only many "greats".
Cheers.
Why not just keep them chained to a post?
Huh. I must be the only person whose reaction was "why are athletes taking combat drugs?"
Have another Olympic/pro sports competition where competitors are allowed to use any and every drug they want - that way we can see 3 minute miles, guys bench pressing 500 KG, 130 MPH fastballs, 80 homeruns in a season. I want to see guys on so much steroids that they are permanently sweating like Giambi, from the Yankees (did I say that?), and have weird rashes on their bodies from all the metabolites being exuded through their skin. And for the regular Olympics - any positive drug test ever, and you are permanently banned from the non-enhanced Olympics.
Same goes for pro-sports. - Maybe have them under lock and key for a month, check body muscle levels, muscle force, and blood chemistries, and compare it to other times to see if it radically changes. There are ways to see if a person is faking if they are not fully exerting themselves. Any significant variation = permanent ban, and two years salary fine.
..........FULL STOP.
Just legalize performance enhancing drugs. I mean, why not? These athletes are already wrecking their bodies through sports, what difference does it make if they take drugs as well? Major sports are a freak show.
If you like sports, participate yourself, don't sit in front of the TV cheering on these guys.
That is just plain social control !!!
The athletes don't have to go the drug dealers. The drug dealers can make house calls.
Hmm, the article doesn't mention anything about tracking chips. Just chips... So maybe they talking chips which track "drug" use and report to a computer now and then.
Well, the positivelympics would be fair in the "may the best lab win" sense. The problem is that it isn't very ethical to fool people into ruining their health in hope of huge money prices should they win. The doping rules are there to protect the athletes from their own greed.
Talk about "community" and whatnot, is good and fine, but it never was that much of a "collectivist" thing since... oh, the early stone age or so. It was some self-appointed leaders and there were the guys who served them. Whether as formalized as slavery or serfdom, or just tribal shamans/chieftains/etc exploiting everyone else, the difference isn't that massive.
Whether you lived or died, or whether you were a nobody, very rarely had to do with what everyone else really thought. It had to do with what said noble/chieftain/shaman told them to think.
And you rarely had a choice about pledging to such a leader. You were pledged de facto or even de jure by just being born there. You were held to notions of duty, honour, obedience to your liege (or tribal equivalent) whether you wanted it or not.
And if you wanted to move up the social pyramid at all, it invariably required some such pledge too. If you moved to (or even were born into) the warrior class, you'd have to pledge your life to the warlord. If you moved to the city, you pledged your life and sword arm to whatever demagogue weaseled his way into being "community leader" there. Etc.
I'm sorry, but in any modern interpretation, a pledge under duress would be considered null and void from the start. If your choices are between (A) pledge, and (B) die one way or another, that's blackmail. And honour was invariably twisted into just pretending to be totally devoted to whoever blackmailed you there.
And, yeah, sometimes it was disguised as duty "to the community", "to the country", "to God", and other such fine double-speak. Guess what? It invariably meant doing what that leader wanted done. It rarely had anything to do with the desires or aspirations of any other individual in that community.
So the medieval version isn't that far off from what it meant in ancient times too. In fact, it was just a continuation. In ancient Greece or Rome you'd be just as automatically pledged to be a soldier of whatever tyrant ruled your city state, and judged "honourable" or "dishonourable" by whether you bought a shield and spear and joined in their silly wars. That is, if you were born high enough to qualify as such. If not, it was your duty to stay and work the fields like a good slave.
In Rome, since you mention antiquity... well, go look the Cursus Honorum up some day. It was just a codified way to gain any political power, and started with ten years of military duty. (Although nepotism was considered normal, so a lot just followed a general relative around as an aide.) That's ancient age, you know.
If using the expression "fucked up" a couple of times offends you so much, I wonder... can you even manage to watch a movie, what with all that cursing and stuff?
Well, yes, bingo. We need more scholarship and less... uninformed idealists trying to rewrite human history to fit their utopian ideals. The fact is, history isn't nice at all. And I don't see what's to gain by pretending that it was a rose-tinted time with honourable warriors, rosy-cheeked peasants, and prosperous healthy craftsmen, all shiny-happy collectivist and honest too.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I mean, when the athletes are competing they're probably to be found on the court/track whatever, right?
When they're not competing, they're either preparing/training or taking some time off. If they're doing stuff (drugs) during that time that affects their performance, it has to be tracable during the following event if it has any effect. Otherwise we have to ban milk during childhood because it helps build stronger bones which will benefit athletic performance later in life - and so on. Completely stupid. If a substance isn't measurable just before, during or after an event, it should be legal and thus it's irrelevant where the athletes are.
Tracking athletes between events is stupid, bordering on insane. Next thing they must be locked up in special houses between events just to be sure we know exactly where they are, 24/7... and next only people raised since infancy in such houses can be allowed to compete... It's taking the anti-doping thing way, way, way, way too far - but it's right around the corner if this idea is allowed.
If it was up to me anyway, just allow all forms of doping and let the athletes decide how far they want to go in their quest to win. It's equal access for all.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Anyone who signs up to this no longer counts as a human being in my estimation. I rather hope that sport ends up doing this and it puts so many people off it that it becomes history.
Even today the whole dope testing for 'performance enhancing' drugs thing makes sport a huge joke. When you cannot take a headache pill but can perform pissed out of your head it has rather become a performing dog show.
Maybe we should keep athletes in a designated building where we can monitor them 24/7 with specially trained enforcement staff to prevent them taking drugs. Oh sorry we already have that, its called prison and the place is rife with smack and charlie.
No, sorry, the drug creators will always be one step ahead of the authorities and almost all individual sports events will be won by cheats in future. The only thing keeping the whole charade going is the money made by the advertisers off the back of the activity. They have to keep the illusion that sport is drug free so they wont become tainted by the sordidness of the whole thing.
Maybe we should start allowing the use of some performance enhancing drugs (we already do that to some extent by allowing them to eat any kind of food - at least we don't specify the number of calories they are allowed to take on board each day unlike motor racing where you only get a certain amount of fuel) Certain drugs which have been shown to be relatively safe should be legalized and the trick would be for the athlete to find the right combination of the different things to get the best performance.
Hopefully if they are already doped up to the eyeballs there wont be any incentive to test some wonder drug made in a dirty sink by a backstreet criminal organization. I feel sorry for athletes and what the progress of our society has done to them. Sadly they have become history, like so many other things that I used to enjoy in my life before progress and the safety brigade banned and outlawed them.
This is all part of an insidious trend that is taking away most of the fun in life. I hope to be dead before the safety lobby enforce computer controlled vehicles. I'm betting that some of you reading this, will one day, remember fondly your youth where you were allowed to drive a car yourself.
Athletics is history, move on folks, nothing to see here.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Never before in my life it became so obvious excessive exercise and high-performance sports damage the brain.
they may run faster and throw stuff farther than any other human beings, but it's clear their brains became overly specialized in coordinating body movements.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
For chuff's sake, you're solving the wrong problem already!
First, accept that there are always going to be some athletes who take drugs. Only then can you deal with it properly.
I suggest splitting the competition. Create an athlete's championship and a pharmacist's championship (as in Formula One, where there are separate prizes for the drivers and constructors). Then either do some sort of handicapping, or simply have separate drugged and non-drugged events.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
why not just allow steroids? just let them do their best, screw natural limitations - all we want is entertainment anyway
Deleted
Set your phasers on "funky"!
There is so much money in professional sports that there is an inherent incentive to use sophisticated performance-enhancing drugs that non-professional competitors would not be able to afford. After all, if someone is not doping themselves, they will have a huge disadvantage and will therefore not attract sponsor money. They might not even make it into professional sports due to lacking performance.
The solution is simple: Kill professional sports, or allow doping. Since doping is harmful to the athletes on the long term, we should kill professional sports.
Disclaimer: I think professional sports is a travesty. Grow the hell up, nobody should make their livelihood doing unproductive play. (No, standup comedians do not fall under this category, neither to artists. The arts as a whole contribute positively to society, while watching sports is empty entertainment)
Stop the brainwash
Recent baseball news should help confirm that, as well as the Tour de France scandals of late. The use of steroids by some "raises the bar" and so forces others into using it so they can keep their job so to speak.
I don't think anyone is trying to fool anyone, except maybe the athletes are trying to fool us.
..........FULL STOP.
Whatever it is, it is certainly persistent
http://michaelsmith.id.au
So a dot on the radar screen is going to stop drug use? Give me a break. People like Carolina Klüft and Stefan Holm should just stay in their hamster wheels and stop attempting to talking about the real world.
won't somebody think of the children!!!
or the terrorists?
or the athletes?
perfect! that's it: won't somebody think of the terrorist athletic children????
done. now wait for the next opportunity to demand even more fascist laws and regulations.
I wonder what drugs they are on to come up with that idea!
$> cd
$> more beer
athletes are not known for their brainpower. Whenever they open their mouth you wonder why we even bother to interview these people. What they think is about as interesting as say your average movie star. Oh, wait, Schwarzenegger... now I get it...
MP3 Search Engine
No, we need to be aware of retards like this. I mean seriously, does it matter THAT MUCH that athletes need to be watch at all times? I really don't care if they are taking drugs.. let them.
I'm glad that "The Authorities" have nothing better to do than keep tabs on people who are ultimately of little consequence in the overall course of things. Yes, tax dollars at work.
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
Thank you!
This was exactly what I was thinking. I've been thinking this since the recent US senate investigations into steroid use in US Major League Baseball. I mean, is this REALLY important enough to be devoting time and money towards, rather than other pressing needs within our country? I don't care that much about sports, but, I do know many people enjoy them, but, c'mon, it is JUST A GAME.....ENTERTAINMENT.
The drugs are illegal, if they get caught, let the court system deal with them. Personally, I think we need to legalize things so that any person, can sniff, snort, smoke and even inject if desired what they want to in their bodies....as long as they take full personal responsibility for their actions. If these athletes want to risk their bodies for short term gain, go ahead....if the leagues want to keep that out, then test for it, and ban people for life if they're caught, pretty simple.
People whine about "oh, but, they should be stopped at all costs, my little Timmy thinks of Superstar X as a role model."
People, if you're kids all think sports figures, rock stars or movie/tv stars are their role models, then you have some serious parenting problems. YOU should be their role models, and there are plenty of good people doing good works out in the world to be role models too. How about promoting learned people as role models for your kids and make being 'smart' the cool thing to strive to achieve?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
First off, any implanted chip would essentially be an RFID system. I personally wear a proximity-card picture badge around my neck all day at work, and the system only knows where I am to within a few hundred feet -- and then only when I've personally badged into whatever door I'm behind. If I've tailgated behind someone, then the system could think I'm still a quarter-mile away (it's a large complex).
Second, FFS, the only GPS *transmitters* that I'm aware of are orbiting the earth. I really wish people would get that through their heads.
Driving on public roads isn't supposed to be "fun", it's supposed to get you from point A to point B safely. I would want computer controlled cars on public roads as soon as the technology is ready. I'm sick of these assholes endangering others by driving like idiots just so they can feel like they're 'beating' everyone else to get to work in the morning.
Public roads are not for playing games. If you want to drive for fun, do it on private property.
Nice way of implying that athletes are stupid. Not true of course. Athletes have a range of intelligence just like any other large group and I'll wager you would have a hard time proving that range to be any different than the population at large. Some athletes are extremely bright, some are morons, and most are somewhere in the middle. Some are really nice people, some are jack-asses and most fall somewhere in the middle. Being interested in sport as a pastime doesn't make you smart or dumb. It's just something fun to do with a lot of health benefits on the side.
Perhaps you are confusing brainpower with population overlap? Relatively few people are very bright and relatively few people are very good athletes. Simple statistics will tell you that the population size of people who are both smart and good athletes is necessarily smaller just like the population of people who are both smart and, say, talented artistically to pick a random example.
This tracking "proposal" is stupid and should rightly be ignored because it is stupid. But let's not take the stupidity a step further and use that to imply that all athletes are stupid shall we?
Disclosure: I was a division 1 college athlete as well as an engineering major at a top tier university which actually takes the notion of a student athlete quite seriously. (see Patriot League) I'll be happy to introduce you to some very bright current/former college athletes. I'll also be happy to discuss how completely hypocritical the NCAA is when it comes to promoting the concept of a student athlete as well as the problems, challenges, and shortcomings of groups like the World Anti Doping Agency.
After looking at many of the comments it's clear to me that most of the folks here aren't Track and Field fans. What Kluft and Holm are suggesting is really not all that radical. Currently all elite T&F athletes must inform doping officials of their whereabouts at all times to allow for surprise out of competition drug testing. If the testers can't find an athlete it can count as a failed drug test (under the assumption that they may be hiding from the testers). The GPS would simply allow the testers to find the athletes at any time with ease, something that they are already supposed to be able to do. There have been several high profile cases of athletes getting banned because they weren't where they were supposed to be. The GPS just makes it so that dirty athletes trying to hide have no excuse (oh, I just forgot to tell officials that I was changing my training site) and clean athletes who legitimately forgot don't get banned for their forgetfulness.
Read the summary like this: "Two people who are famous for running and jumping very fast and very high, have done some thinking despite that not being what they are famous and have made a conclusion based on their limited knowledge of all facts involved."
Pro-athletes are nothing more then overpaid manual labor that is very good in their one particular field. Only there are no sponsors out there for guys digging ditches.
Should someone whose life statistics so far can be compared to those of a racing horse, and who is going to retire at 30 - should someone like that really be considered as a valid opinion maker on something like "branding all humans that compete"? Or 24 hours a day surveillance of humans through implants.
Oh.. and do take a look at TFA and the photo attached while thinking about that.
Doesn't really say "look at my big and smart brain", does it?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I have long felt that in countries that provide monetary support, such as Canada where I live, there is an easier solution.
Make Athletes sign a code of ethics that lays out conditions of employment (essentially). Among those may be performance metrics and other stuff, but make a clause that says their funding is based on meeting a standard with regard to performance enhancing substances. Either make it a pee in a bottle for your cheque system, or regular payments and regular tests and should you fail a test, you owe back money to the last "clean" test. I would also propose an extremely limited number of allowed "enhanced" test through the course of their career . My preference would be for 0 "failed" tests, but I believe there are some legitimate reasons for fails, and as such maybe 1 or 2 failed tests" may be OK, I am not a bio-chemist, so I'll leave that argument to the experts.
If you make it so there is a clear path of "clean" defined for the athletes, there is no excuse for pleading ignorant.
Cheers
.-.-.-.
If the World Federation of Whatever begins to require GPS on athletes competing in their events, then if you wish to compete in a World Federaton of Whatever sanctioned event, you submit to the GPS.
If sufficient numbers of athletes consider this to be evil and rude, that's no problem, either, as there will soon be an International Federation of Whatever to compete with the World Federation of Whatever to make a few Euros off those athletes, as well.
That said, it seems like it'd be easier to simply do drug testing...
You're right, it is entertainment but professional sports also is a big business as well as, like it or not, a public stage. Cheating in sports has a lot of negative effects which can and do affect the society at large.
From a business perspective there are demonstrable negative effects to that business if it is perceived by the customers (i.e. the sports watching public) as being corrupt or fixed. Sponsors bail out because they don't want to be associated with illegal activity. Since illegal drugs are in the equation law enforcement gets involved which no business ever wants. The athletes themselves are put at very significant health risk. (For example, some blood doping techniques can pack your system so full of red cells that your blood gets too thick to move efficiently) Fans (read customers) lose interest because, let's face it, an unfair sporting event just isn't very interesting to watch. And there is the fact that how we approach the ethics of cheating in sports says a lot about us as a society. If it's ok to cheat in sport, why not in business or on your taxes?
I won't get into the whole role model debate other than to say that there is nothing inherently wrong with looking up to an athlete who shows good character. We all pick different professions. The people I respect are probably not the same people you respect and that is ok. What's important is that we respect those people not just because they happen to be in the public eye but because they stand for something worth respecting. The fact that they might happen to be athletes, teachers, scientists or whatever is not the important bit.
I feel sorry for you then...if you think that way. But, then again, that's why some people buy Camry, and others buy Vette's and Porsche's.
I've only owned one car in my life that had more than 2 seats, and that was the 911 turbo. When I get in my car, EVERY time, I fire up the engine, and I'm ready for fun. I get a thrill every time I get out...and when roads are clear, and it is safe, I like to really open it up, hit some twisty curvy roads, etc.
But to each his own, but, to me...a rumbling, torque-y engine, or a whining turbo...or the growl of a good motorcycle, are part of getting out and feeling alive. They also happen to get me from point A to point B, but, it is never boring.
Life is too short for that...I try to put pleasure into every waking minute.
But, I guess things like that make me think of a W.C. Fields saying, something to the effect "I feel sorry for people that don't drink, when they wake up in the morning, that is the best they're gonna FEEL all day..."
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
OOps...looks like that quote was from "The Chairman", Frank Sinatra.
Sorry about that....hit send too soon.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Hopefully if they are already doped up to the eyeballs there wont be any incentive to test some wonder drug made in a dirty sink by a backstreet criminal organization. I feel sorry for athletes and what the progress of our society has done to them. They knew very well what they were doing when they went into competition. They're *all* pumped full of drugs.
IMO doping should be allowed with no exception, including body modifications, genetic enhancements, etc. Not only would it rationalise the ridiculous amounts top athletes are paid for running around but it would also be beneficial to the medical field and the population at large.
And the athletes would at least presumably be with proper doctors instead of quacks.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
...but they might be the wrong kind.
Like the Steroid Olympics on SNL where a guy tries to clean & jerk 1800 lbs and ends up tearing his arms off in the attempt.
First they came to chip the pro athletes, and we applauded their moral code.
Then they came to chip the college athletes, and we wiped away a tear of joy.
Then they came to chip the school kids, and we couldn't believe it was all provided free, gratis.
Then they came and chip our sorry butts, and we became what sheep can only dream of being.
The End.
I come here for the love
"There is no need to go all tinfoil hat regarding implants, just go with real news that suggests there may be a cancer issue."
Yes there is. When I was in the military there were people that said the Posse Comitatus Act would never go away. Well, that is gone and its because people like you keep saying it can't happen to us. Wake the hell up! People like you need to be physically shaken!
So far, most commenters have, understandably, dismissed this as an idea by a couple of stupid jocks.
/. to seriously consider the technological merit in this idea, rather than dismiss it out of hand because a sporty came up with it. Dont assume Stefan has a stupid implementation in mind (for example, an implantable rfid tag could send a set of hashes to be verified by the nearby gps, ensuring that the right person is at the same place as the gps unit...think a little, eh?) nor that he doesnt know enough about the industry to understand just what types of doping (the kind that require visit
It might therefore come as a surprise, as it did for me, to learn that Stefan Holm (one of the athletes behind the proposal) is in fact a very, very smart guy. Far from the stereotypical jock, he is a deeply theoretical thinker with a profound interest in the theory behind athletic training - and he uses himself as his research subject. Apparently his theories are working out well in practice.
So I urge all geeks on
s to centers with equipment) that would be foiled (so please stop repeatingg how drug dealers would do house calls)
I understand the tinfoil hats, who dont like popularization of these technologies, though...but the posters who just assume this is a hare-brained idea may want to think again...
I'd bet that they are just about average on the IQ thing. When media interviews people, the normal folks are boring so they go after the nut jobs to increase ratings.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Welcome to the world of yesterday! This has been standard practice for quite some time now.
Why are people allowed to have performance enhancing genes but not performance enhancing drugs?
There is a HUGE difference between training a skillset and being of "sub-average brainpower". (your words not mine) You are correct that all other things being equal (which they never are), someone who specializes in a given activity should progress further in that activity than someone who did not focus on the same activity. But the same thing holds true for focusing on english instead of math, or medicine instead of economics. To use your example, focusing on athletics doesn't make you better at interviews but neither does earning a PhD in mathematics. Those are specific skills that require development.
Knowing more about a subject doesn't make you smarter, it just makes you more educated on that subject. Besides I don't have to be absolutely better than you at something to make training in it a worthwhile use of my time. Have you ever heard of comparative advantage? I've chosen a specific set of skills professionally. Just because I didn't choose the same set as you doesn't make me stupid. I'm just interested in different things. I can introduce you to people who competed at the highest levels of athletics and have also earned doctoral degrees. Will you seriously argue that they are stupid because they happened to play sports very successfully as a pastime?
Furthermore you are neglecting a lot of important factors. Almost no one, not even the best athletes, spends their entire day doing athletics just like no math student spends every spare moment solving equations. It's quite possible to learn more than one thing and do it well. I competed at the top level in college athletics and we only trained 2-3 hours a day with the occasional special training day, meet or travel day. The sport was too demanding physically do do more even if you wanted to. Not to say it didn't take up a lot of my time but I certainly wasn't kept away from my studies either. My "spare time" was spent training instead of playing on my computer. Also being more fit has a demonstrably beneficial effect on anyone's ability to focus their mind. There are countless medical studies establishing a positive causative relationship between exercise and academic performance. Not saying sports makes you smarter but it definitely can help one to maximize potential.
Everyone specializes in some way and people who are at the top in any activity will inevitably be specialists. But specializing for an activity doesn't make you smarter it just makes you better at that activity. There also is no reason a person can't master more than one skill. Find me someone who is only good at one thing and I'll show you a very dysfunctional individual.
Force all athletes to install PunkBuster. Any athletes who modded themseleves or are not running PunkBuster will be automatically kicked from the competition.
-------------------------------------------
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
-- Dr. Seuss
Hell's Angles
And there we have it, the unthinking assumption that it will be safer if someone else were to take responsibility for moving traffic from A to B. What makes you think that the software is going to make it any safer? I'm happier with sensors that detect poor driving and warn you and maybe in extremis take corrective action, airbags have saved plenty of lives and safe distance detection could save more. Just remember that airbags also kill a few people.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
They might not take their training back with them when they go to buy illicit drugs.
Or... they might have someone else buy the drugs for them!
Or... they might be getting the drugs from someone at their regular training venues!
You cannot shoot GPS at a problem and make it go away.
You cannot shoot AJAX at a problem and make it go away.
You cannot shoot XML at a problem and make it go away.
You cannot shoot nanotechnology at a problem and make it go away.
You cannot shoot RFID at a problem and make it go away.
Technology is a tool, not a solution.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
I did say "as soon as the technology is ready". I think aviation has shown the safety benefits of computer control pretty clearly.
Besides, why are you bristling at the idea of a computer controlled car? Is it the last bastion of control you still have in your life?
This sounds like a lame excuse to start implanting people with GPS trackers.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
People like this worry me. A LOT.
,"You are fined one credit for violation of the verbal-morality statute."
The answer to problems with society is not more regulation by monitoring people. That really really worries me.
I have a newsflash for those 2 Swedes..... Government is made up of PEOPLE. It's not sugar and spice and everything nice. It's not mystery ingredient X. People make up a government.
On the whole, human history has shown us that people are not, and never have been, responsible when they possess information. They gossip, they judge, they nitpick, and they use it as leverage against others to achieve their goals. Whether or not it is a simple as some intern taking a peek at George Clooney's medical records and sharing it, to say... The SS using records to identify people during World II, it leads to the same problem.
We have to be VERY careful about what information corporations and governments have on citizens. Systems that could allow the monitoring of where you are 24 hours a day, what you wear, what you read, what you BELIEVE, even WHAT YOU THINK, should SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF YOU. Any monitoring starts us on a slippery slope. I don't believe there are shades of gray on this one. It has to be absolute. We can't give one inch into surveillance of this type. We already accept too much surveillance in public. We cannot accept ANY surveillance of our personal lives.
My father, whom I love dearly, frustrates the hell out of me when he says, "Let them look. I got nothing to hide. I'm Innocent". The Jews were innocent in World War II and I am sure it was not very comforting when the doors locked behind them and they were looking at other innocent Jews when the gas started pouring in.
Maybe this post is just a little bit too heavy for some, but when I see ordinary people campaigning for round the clock monitoring of others who merely MAY do something wrong in the future, it should greatly concern us all, regardless of nationality, race, religion, etc.
I am sure somebody will make the argument, "They made a choice to play in professional sports". Yeah. I also made a choice to work to feed my family, shelter them from the cold, and provide for their future. Why should I have to sacrifice that to somebody else merely because I may do something in the future they find immoral.
P.S - On a lighter note, it does remind me of the automatic citation device in Demolition Man that kept giving Stallone those tickets and saying
How exactly does GPS monitoring prove anything at all? Where you are has very little to do with what you consume. And if the idea is to make sure they don't go "somewhere" to get illegal substances the next step is to tag their coaches. And the assistants. And the relatives. And the organizers. And the people selling the stuff. And... none of that still proves anything.
My point is that a computer controlled motor vehicle (unlikely to be available before the oil runs out and we all have to use public transport) is another example of the safety first control freak brigade at work. Just like the athletes who want to set up a surveillance system for fellow athletes the solution is seen to be the removal of personal responsibility by the imposition of technological monitoring and control. This universal trend to seek a solution which involves supervision of the individual by the output of a committee of experts (or bigots) is anathema to me. I can give you a very long list of things that have been banned or tightly regulated in the last few years that I was able to do 30 years ago. I guess I'm a dinosaur in this wimpish society we live in today, "its not my fault sir, somebody should have told me what to do / been watching me."
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
If I want to get outside and feel alive, I take my bicycle. How can it be so exciting or vitalizing to travel in a device that doesn't even make you sweat while you drive it? Burning fossilized hydrocarbons is overrated.
We think we are great at driving but we are actually rubbish. You could hardly have chosen a worst example to make your point.
Driving is perhaps the most dangerous activity we are allowed to perform, in many circumstances in situations for which we clearly are not prepared to act as responsible adults.
I fail to see how people whose relatives have been killed by negligence in the road will look back with fondness to the nonsense to is to allow to everybody to use a lethal vehicle with minimal controls.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Why should we tolerate people that get on a high by endangering others? ( yeah, the world has plenty of assholes that thought it was safe to take an extra risk that cost somebody else, or themselves, dearly).
Get on a racing track for goodness sakes, plenty of curves for you, there all danger is consensually shared between adrenaline junkies.
What an idiot.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Because I can't go over 100mph on a bicycle.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yeah you can. Just strap a JATO to it and you'll have the most exciting time of your life.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
First of all, that surveillance system for athletes is ridiculous. We could argue about whether it's right to spy on people to keep them honest IF there was any chance such a system would actually work. Of course it could never work and it's a terrible idea.
Computer controlled cars are a lot more plausible. The fact is that people are on average pretty terrible drivers, 40,000 people die on the road every year in the US. Even if computers only took over for emergency maneuvers I think that number could be greatly reduced.
Finally, it's not like anyone is suggesting that you should never be able to drive a car manually. When the horse was obsoleted as a mode of transportation, did people who ride for fun have to stop? No. So I don't see why you assume this would mean the end of driving for fun. I'm all for personal responsibility, and I'm all for keeping government control OUT of people's private property. But highways are NOT private property. They're paid for by federal taxes. Even local roads are built with government money, they're not yours and you can't expect to have the freedom to do as you please on them. Besides you have to admit, there's tons of stuff people used to do manually that you yourself probably are completely dependent on machines to do. Do you wash clothes with a washboard? Do you do keep track of finances with paper and pencil? Do you cook your food over a wood flame? Of course not. Time marches on. When the time comes you'll have to just let it go or become one of those crazy old coots still not trusting them new-fangled "horseless carriages".