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An Olympic Games For Enhanced Athletes?
ananyo writes "With the Olympics due to kick off on 27 July in London, Nature has taken a look at how far science would be able to push human athletic abilities if all restrictions on doping were lifted. The article mentions anabolic steroids (up to 38% increase in strength), IGF-1 (4% increase in sprinting capacity), EPO/blood doping (34% increase in stamina), gene doping and various drugs and supplements, as well as more 'extreme' measures such as surgery and prosthesis. Hugh Herr, a biomechanical engineer at MIT, says performance-enhancing technologies will one day demand an Olympics all their own. But is that time already upon us?"
Mad Magazine had this a long time ago. Pretty funny.
I'd love to watch this! :3
The point of sport is exercising your body for the fun and health benefits. What is the point to kill yourself with drugs and supplements?
I've wondered what F1 would be like without all the restrictions. Modifying humans to this extreme is probably going to have unforeseen consequences in the long term. However with F1, if you were to take out the human element and have AI or remote control, you needn't worry about human safety and could lift all sorts of restrictions, allowing R+D budgets to be spent on whole new automotive areas.
We can already make a "Robot's Olympics". Isn't auto racing just enhanced human racing?
Some people would tune in to see the products that are being advertised. If the "Runalong 6000" leg prosthetic beats the "Leapfrog 200", I might be interested if I'm in the market for my own enhancement.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
It's their choice, not yours, and certainly not government's. If the NFL decided to allow doping, there's nothing wrong or immoral about it. If the fans don't appreciate it, they will suffer the consequences. What's immoral is when government steps in with coercion and attacks voluntary association (i.e. what happens in the absence of government).
Poor Little Tink Tink
linky...
Maybe not an Olympics, but competition with lower drug standard - almost guaranteed at some point ... like WWE, bodybuilding or MMA all have a niche
But just like Boxing still has a prestige in the world of MMA/UFC, the Olympics will always have a place. I see 2 scenarios:
1. we are probably better placed in drug testing than at any time in the last 40 years so we continue to go down that path
2. the drugs out-perform the testing and some events become farcical (eg 100m sprint is getting there!) whilst other events grow in prestige (eg 400m where never strength nor endurance alone is enough and it is likely to stay cleaner)
I can't watch this at work, but is this the "All Drugs Olympics"? Where the weightlifter's arms fall off while going for a world record?
When I was a kid back in the '80s, I made a fake newspaper with geoPublish, a desktop publishing program on the C64. It was about cyborgs demanding their own Olympics... I just re-read it and it's cringe inducingly awful, but I like to think I thought of this first!
Mostly random stuff.
And then we won't have athletes representing countries any more, but drug companies.
"Well, GlaxoSmithKline are looking great, taking home four gold medals, two silvers and five bronzes so far. This is sure to push their stock price up substantially for the coming year."
Did not RTFA.
as well as more 'extreme' measures such as surgery and prosthesis.
Id just bring a fucking motorbike to the race.
Freakshows with a lifespan of 30 years wouldn't be the best way to do that.
Unless they want to die at 35 of a cancer or something, I wouldn't advise it.
One of the reason those kind of things are banned is because they are dangerous
But its for the glory! And quite a few people on here have said that they would take 1 way rides to Mars for the glory of it, no matter what the risk.
There are always going to be people who will prioritize "glory" over anything else. In fact Olympic athletes are already doing that as a 9-5 job is a hell of a lot east to do than olympic training.
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... Just like major league baseball.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Unless they want to die at 35 of a cancer or something, I wouldn't advise it. One of the reason those kind of things are banned is because they are dangerous
On the other hand, the present regulatory state(where even using the ones that are legal by prescription can get you tossed right out of the sport) has unfortunate side effects of its own: since development of assays for novel drugs tends to lag behind, but not too far behind, development of novel drugs, there is a strong incentive for people to move away from drugs with the most testing and data available and toward novel ones with poorly characterized risks, to avoid being caught. Also, because the doping is largely clandestine, society at large is denied a valuable source of information about the effects and risks of performance enhancing drugs.
The idea of athletic competition is to hone the mind and body to win. Yes, there are genetic aberrations, but this natural and normal.
But when you make the competition about the tech, there is no human element in the drama. The human does not even matter. Only the tech does.
Except for the fact that you are talking about horrible consequences for the human lab rat in the equation with any cutting edge biotech.
So you have:
1. no human drama. it's about the tech. race robots or cars or boats instead
2. destroyed human bodies. the price is too high
Are we going back to the gladiator days of Rome next? Why don't we do that? Because in modern civilization we are suppose to have some morality and decency about what we consider fair game for spectacle.
The Olympics is primarily entertainment. Nothing justifies a Hunger Games disregard for the health of the competitors in an effort to create diversion. To cram cutting edge biotech into the human body, with unknown consequences is a dystopian, amoral, and frankly, evil suggestion.
So we will simply have to safeguard against human biotech mods in normal Olympics competition forever. It won't be easy, there will be cheats that get through against all best possible effort. And this is as good as it can or should ever get.
To cross that threshold into accepting body mods is to accept destroyed human bodies for the sake of entertainment. Not going to happen in a moral world.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Olympia has long since ceased to be a sports event. This is entertainment delivered by modern day gladiators who sacrifice health and life in a quest for money and immoratility through fame.....
I can't wait for the one man three legged race.
As Bob Page says, "their... ethical inflexibility has allowed us to make progress in areas they refuse to consider." (a quote from the opening of Deus Ex that has stayed with me over the years). As a side note, the military has been using performance-enhancing drugs like dextroamphetamine for decades so in a way there is nothing new here. When it comes down to the crunch, humans will use any enhancement they can get their hands on. Competition driving technological development.
When we have the technology, we've the desire to test it out, see what it can do, see what its effects are. From a purely practical standpoint this would be the driving reason -why-. Much like how in racing, it isn't just skill, it's also the engineering that is being tested.
This may sound strangely immoral, and I agree the morals can be debated, but I don't think the answers will turn out to be as simple as 'doping is always wrong' (queue controversial studies about caffeine and athleticism) or alternately 'well the athletes are consenting' (when you factor in potential societal pressures, long term side effects and other things--for example fighting in hockey is always under debate, as it is an expectation from some of the fans, but is over time being documented as causing a lot of harm both physically and psychologically to the players, aka the hockey suicides over the past couple years).
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." George Bernard Shaw
and put them down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAXo3Wr_nYU
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Top-level elite athletes are already genetic outliers who have also benefitted from good fortune in early training and nutrition and, typically, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of targetted training.
It's not just a matter of will power or clever training schedules. It matters not how strong be my willpower, or how dedicated my training: I will never be an olympic-class athlete.
Bring on the drugs, and the treatments. It would make elite sport more equitable, and further, the medical risks taken by those with the burning desire to compete at any cost will allow the greater majority of people to benefit from enhancements with more safety.
If this idea is even slightly feasible, then the Olympics is not the starting grounds for it. Getting the countries of the world to agree on that? Non-prescription steroids are not even legal in a lot of countries. Let's try a small enhanced league in Amsterdam first.
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We probably won't have to make the choice ourselves.
Just maintain the status quo until JC Denton infiltrates the WADA HQ and, with superhuman precision, assassinates the entire Executive Committee and Foundation Board. At that point, we'll know that it's time to hand the Paralympic Games over to the unaugmented humans and leave the serious competition to the cyborgs....
Throw in some eugenics, mix in a few Nazi-type experiments and we are off to a brave new world. Aldous would be so proud.
Achilles's Choice by Larry Niven (of RingWorld's fame).
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Sportsmanship? Camaraderie? No, and no.
The Olympics is about making money. If letting artificially enhanced athletes on the field will sell more coca-cola and big macs, it will eventually be allowed.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
And so the birth of the Juicer beings :) ... they'll have to make sure they get hefty contracts as that eight-year life span (burn-out) can be a bitch and you want to make sure you party it up before you burn-out.
Now when does the Glitterboy get introduced?
"Curiouser and Curiouser...." -Alice
In the Ukraine, they have two weightlifting leagues: the standard one, where you're allowed to take steroids, and the natural league, where you're allowed to take the expensive steroids that don't show up during testing.
This could have a negative impact on high school and collegiate sports that have similar options in the Olympics (e.g. Swimming, Track & Field, etc). These athletes could chose to simply dope up in their teens then if they get caught/banned, they at least have a financial avenue which is these Super Olympics. The financial avenue would derive from endorsement contracts which could end up in the six or seven figures depending on televsion ratings, etc.
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I have been dreaming of a real rollerball/speedball circuit since I was a little child. Of course it should have steroids!
"A novel approach to enhancing athletic performance in an officially sanctioned, augmentation supported sporting event"
This year a runner using artificial "spring-type" running legs will be allowed to compete in the regular Olympics, against runners whose only artificial advantage over what mother nature gave them is their shoes.
While I have sympathy with athletes who have lost their legs, running with artificial legs is a qualitatively different sport than running with natural legs. We have no way of knowing if this athlete is at a disadvantage, at an advantage, or on par with the athlete that he would have been if he had natural legs and underwent comparably rigorous training. If we KNEW he was on par, then I can see letting him compete. If we KNEW he was at a disadvantage, I can see letting him "compete up." If we KNEW he had an advantage from the artificial legs, then he should not be allowed to compete in the regular races, but "natural-leg" athletes should be able to "compete up" in a race designed for people with legs like he has.
Since we don't - and probably can't - know for certain, any race that he medals in will be under a cloud, the other top-4 finishers will be wondering "what if he hadn't lost his legs, would he still have run as fast?"
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Wait, isn't that what the Special Olympics are for? I know a lot of those athletes are enhanced with an extra chromosome, and others are bionic.
Try "I Robot" by Isaac Asimov (1950). Some Science fiction writings dating back to the nineteenth century also covered robots however I am not sure they demanded their own Olympics, although some writers had them trying to take over the earth.
Precisely on the topic of technical enhancements for humans in sports is the novel "Limbo" by Bernard Wolfe from 1952. Well worth a read. It starts with small enhancements for small advantages in sport competitions. In the end of the novel, as far as I can recall, it was highly fashionable (even for couch potatoes) to replace every limb, and those who preferred to keep their bodies unchanged were so old-skool. I remember that it was quite disturbing when I read it.
I found the book in a drawer when they gave me a desk at the university. Thanks to the unknown donator.
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
The 2012 Tour de France
I like the Stock vs Open analogy. NASCAR, Indy, Formula1, NHRA have it right.
There are rules for different classes of racers (athletes). Stock is very strictly controlled where as Open allows for major modification.
The "professional" sports are really "professional athletic entertainment". Conversely the Olympics are the best "amateurs" - at least until the 1990s when they opened the sports up to the "Dream Team" professionals.
The Olympics can pretend all day long that they are serious about drug enhanced performance, but if they want to prove it then get ride of the professionals. Take away the money and you're left with those fighting for the podium, which there will continue to be cheaters, but at least you're getting rid of those who are making a living off of cheating.
These pros have their venues - and those who want to compete in a clean environment should have the Olympics.
-CF
It's already the case that one has to train roughly 7 days a week, 10+ hours per day for about 10 or more years to even be able to ENTER the Olympics, never mind winning a gold medal. The suggestion that a person might one day have to have surgery, drug injections, and so on just to compete in an international games festival is sickening to me. Yes, some Olympic athletes already do this--probably because they're short-sighted, excessively "driven," and/or stupid. That still doesn't make it "right."
I realize that it's technologically interesting (and hence /. news), but I REALLY hope this never truly comes to pass. Sports just aren't worth such abuse to a person's body (or the gajillions of dollars spent on the Olympics, for that matter...but that's another topic). I have trouble justifying such human abuses as the Games already cause to young athletes (resulting in such things as sterility in women, irregular bone growth, joint problems later in life, etc.). Why on Earth would we want to add to that?
I guess this is where we'll see how obsessed with technology and sports the world really is...
Like "unlimited" racing - nobody will care (take on Stinger missiles in the 1/4 mile, anyone?)
The auto racing that is popular is all rule bound, winning isn't about building the fastest car, it's about building and driving the fastest car within the rules.
Unless they want to die at 35 of a cancer or something, I wouldn't advise it. One of the reason those kind of things are banned is because they are dangerous
Hey, we'll have willing participants who understand and disregard the risks. Sounds like a great research study with no ethical problems, if you ask me.
Having to choose a sport based on a '70 sci-fi drama I like one not based on the six million dollar man and bionic woman, but one based on Knight Rider. It should be like DTM tournament but the circut must have a ramp and it's mandatory at least one ramp jumping during the race and a moving red light on the bonnet is mandatory. Winning cars should also be able to answer to interviews with witty comments.
As for the secrecy, I agree that athletes would likely continue to keep their secret sauce of choice a secret from their competitors. However, it would be my hope that, were it licit, they would be more likely to dope with the assistance of a doctor, who(while keeping their regimen confidential, as with any medical record) would be in a position to gather data in aggregate form, track adverse events, and so on. Given the relatively short careers of most pro athletes, and the fact that our current knowledge of a lot of these techniques is virtually nothing, even delayed, aggregated, or anonymized reporting somewhat along the lines of actual medical study would be an improvement.
As for risk, I certainly don't share the risk-tolerance of such athletes(and I have strong reservations about certain practices regarding child athletes and risk disclosure issues in some pro areas, as with the NBA/traumatic brain injury stuff); but I am, basically, OK with the idea that some people are downright enthusiastic about going out in a blaze of glory.
An adventurer taking a one-way trip to Mars could be making a contribution to advance society. When an athlete pushes his body to the breaking point and takes possibly dangerous performance enhancing drugs, just to attempt to break a record for a rule-based sport by a fraction of a percent, how does that advance our society?
Anabolic steriods, growth hormone, aramatase inhibitors, clenbuterol, and other drugs. At one time even caffeine was banned (> 200 mg). What we really need is testing with teeth in it and the public to embrace natural athletes. As a retired athlete, when I competed, people wanted more and if it meant taking drugs, so be it.
But don't Nike and Adidas already do this in the pro-sports world? How often is an athlete paid to imply on a TV commercial that x-brand shoes give him an edge in his sport?
An adventurer taking a one-way trip to Mars could be making a contribution to advance society. When an athlete pushes his body to the breaking point and takes possibly dangerous performance enhancing drugs, just to attempt to break a record for a rule-based sport by a fraction of a percent, how does that advance our society?
Playing devils advocate, assume some portion of these athletes manage to keep enough of their fortune at age 35 so that when they have all sorts of weird medical issues then can travel to Sweden for all sorts of weird expensive treatment. Lets go on to assume that some of this treatment works, and has application in the sorts of diseases that sometimes normal people get.
I'm not saying I'm necessarily for this, I'm just saying there could be positive unintended consequences.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
In running Florence Griffith Joyner pushed herself so hard, she died before age 40.
According to Wiki she died due to a congenital brain defect.
Let's start making genetically, superior humans. I'm sure absolutely no wrong could come of that. No way would some super jock snap his wife's neck like a twig when he finds her cheating on him with a cyber jock. I'm assuming in this retarded fantasy world of unethical stupidity they will be on rival teams.
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It's called the "Special Olympics".
No, seriously. Ever tried to run against an amputee with specialized running limbs? Sure, he can barely stand upright once the race is over, but you'll have a VERY hard time coming even close to his time. I dimly remember an article on /. a while (year?) ago where an athlete complained that he may not compete in the Olympics because he is "handicapped". The reason? He was too "advanced", his artificial limbs were actually BETTER suited to the sport he wanted to compete in than the real limbs.
We are at the point where some prosthetics are superior to our natural limbs for some very specialized applications.
The question is now, how badly do some people want to win? Would they replace healthy limbs with artificial counterparts if they are superior for the sport they want to win in if it was allowed? And if, should we actually support such a thing? Personally, I think some competitive sports are already damaging enough as it is. I mean, be honest, can lifting over 500 pounds above your head be healthy? Or getting hit in your face over and over?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'll presume that your response is not the actual troll, A.C., and give you the unearned dignity of a response. A man in a tin can is just another trip into orbit, fine, I can accept that, despite the dozens of scientific experiments that have piggybacked on just about every manned mission beyond the stratosphere. But the effort required to put a man or a group of people permanently on the Moon or Mars would require technology and research that does not yet exist, and there are potential alternative uses for that research that might not have ever been funded otherwise. Suppose there never was a space program; here are some of the things that may not have ever been seen in our lifetime:
remote sensing
GPS systems
satellite television
freeze-dried foods
The cordless drill
WD-40(water disbursement fromula 40)
KEVLAR
LEXAN (high impact plastic)
HEPA filtering
MEMORY FOAM that is used in making bed mattresses, etc.
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And the list goes on. Not to mention incredible improvements in weather forecasting, long distance communications, astronomy, earth sciences, and computing that were accelerated by financing the space program. For what it's worth I'd have to agree with some space program detractors that the program was NOT a complete success because we picked up some moon rocks and never went back. The ability to successfully and permanently settle regions beyond our planet would open many doors for human society. In the process of forcing ourselves to learn how to live sustainably with very limited resources we would also learn ways to improve how we can live sustainably on earth. There is potential to harvest rare minerals and potentially sources of energy from asteroids and other bodies. And while it may be fascinating to see what the Mars rovers can do, there is so much more that just one human can do on his own in the flesh.
Steroids have been around for a long time and comparatively speaking there is just less of a chance that research into ways to help one athlete recover from the damage caused by his performance enhancing drugs is going to spill over into other fields of medicine. Not to say that some research could be beneficial, but we're talking about a "broken-window" effect. If you don't understand, just look up the broken window theory of economics in Wikipedia for an explanation.
If someone wants to juice up or use other substances to make themselves bigger, stronger or faster, go for it. Hell, open up the Olympics to them. Steroids and HGH have severe hormonal effects and can kill the thyroid. The fast increase in muscle mass does irreversible long-term damage to the ligaments and tendons; it also damages the heart. The kidneys get shot from all the supplements which are filtered through them, as is the liver. Finally, if you jack up the metabolism too high, it's like running a car at high speed too long. It's gonna wear out faster.
Which is fine by me! True evolution is not the strongest surviving, but those who stay under the radar, have genetic diversity, and pass that diversity on. Hard to do that with testicles fried into non-existence or ovaries shot from "enhancement."
I want a piece of the bookmaking operations, betting on which of these "enhanced" athletes will die during competition.
This will be FAR better than professional rasslin'!