Let the Games Be Doped

Off Topic
21

[quote]rainjack wrote:
tedro wrote:
rainjack wrote:
And steroids allow for faster recovery to achieve the exact same thing - more efficiency.

As well as greater force production. Is the body able to exert more force with the steroids than it is without, on the given day that the quick recovery is needed? Yes, and equipment does not.

The equipment allows for better conversion of an input. You seem stuck on using the word “force”, so let’s go with that. If I can lean harder, push harder on a piece of equipment because of an increase in efficiency of energy transferance - that enhances performance.

It’s really simple. You are trying to draw a line between external enhancers and internal enhancers.

All Olympic sports have had records broken because of the use of improved technology. All of them. And you are going to sit there and tell me that the equipment isn’t the same thing as PED’s?

If you can’t see the hypocrisy in that, me explaining it further would be a waste of time.

I’ll let the late George Carlin explain my position better than I can:

[i] It annoys me when people complain about athletes taking steroids to improve athletic performance. It’s a phony argument, because over the years every single piece of sports equipment used by athletes has been improved many times over.

Golf balls and clubs; tennis balls, racquets; baseball gloves and bats; football pads and helmets and so on through every sport. Each time technology has found a way to improve equipment it has done so. So why shouldn’t a person treat his body the same way?

In the context of sports, the body is nothing more than one more piece of equipment, anyway. So why not improve it with new technology? Athletes use weights, why shouldn’t they use chemicals?

Consider the Greek Phidippides, a professional runner who, in 490 B.C., ran from Athens to Sparta and back (280 miles) to ask the Spartans for help against the Persians in an upcoming battle that threatened Athens. Don't you think his generals would have been happy to give him amphetamines if they had been available?

And a nice pair of New Balance high-performance running shoes while they were at it? Grow up, purists. The body is not a sacred vessel, it’s a tool.[/i]

[/quote]

There is a difference between wearing glasses and implanting a bionic eye so you can see better than a normal person.

22

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
There is a difference between wearing glasses and implanting a bionic eye so you can see better than a normal person.[/quote]

What the hell are you even talking about?

23

[quote]rainjack wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
There is a difference between wearing glasses and implanting a bionic eye so you can see better than a normal person.

What the hell are you even talking about?

[/quote]

Maybe he means that wearing glasses is cheating? I mean, it isn’t like they naturally had the ability to see clearly…therefore, it is cheating.

This argument makes no sense when people claim that all of the exercise strategies, nutrition techniques and clothing changes are NOT enhancement but taking something that allows you to train harder IS enhancement.

24

My point is that in one, case the natural body still does all the seeing.

I think that the best argument for allowing everything is a lack of ability to regulate it. All the people that have owned up to it and never got caught. Not to mention, I understand that you can get a lot of false positives with those tests. There have to be athletes who have tested positive and been shunned who were innocent and I think that’s worse than people using.

25

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
My point is that in one, case the natural body still does all the seeing.

I think that the best argument for allowing everything is a lack of ability to regulate it. All the people that have owned up to it and never got caught. Not to mention, I understand that you can get a lot of false positives with those tests.

There have to be athletes who have tested positive and been shunned who were innocent and I think that’s worse than people using.[/quote]

They don’t do all of the seeing. A person who needs glasses can NOT see clearly NATURALLY. In extreme cases, they are damn near blind without them. Therefore, by this sterilized definition of “cheating”, that is what they are doing if they even wear glasses. I mean, they were not born with the ability to see well.

What difference does it make whether they had surgery or wear contact lenses?

26

[quote]rainjack wrote:
The equipment allows for better conversion of an input. You seem stuck on using the word “force”, so let’s go with that. If I can lean harder, push harder on a piece of equipment because of an increase in efficiency of energy transferance - that enhances performance.
[/quote]

I acknowledged this in my first post in this thread. The equipment does not change the force that your body is applying, it only changes the force that is being applied to the medium. In other words, it diminishes the inefficiences found in more primitive equipment.

No, I’m drawing a line between enhancers that increase the actual force production of humans, beyond those that are inherent to sport, and enhancers that simply allow for better transfer of force.

My line stands.

I have pointed out the differences between improved technology and PED’s, and there are clear differences when they are truly examined. To a draw a line along those differences shows no hypocrisy.

Carlin’s argument is worse than yours.

Now he’s comparing PED’s to assist in warfare to PED’s in sports. That doesn’t make any sense at all.

[/quote]

27

Because the next step is swimmers surgically webbing their feet and hands. But hey, everyone can do it, so why not? Because now to compete, you have to sew your toes together.

Like I was trying to point out earlier, it’s a matter of where you draw the line. Surgery is fine for injury recovery, so why no? I just think you do have to draw a line somewhere or they’ll be doing bone extensions for volleyball, ect.

28

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Because the next step is swimmers surgically webbing their feet and hands. But hey, everyone can do it, so why not? Because now to compete, you have to sew your toes together.

Like I was trying to point out earlier, it’s a matter of where you draw the line. Surgery is fine for injury recovery, so why no? I just think you do have to draw a line somewhere or they’ll be doing bone extensions for volleyball, ect.
[/quote]

Not to sound too science fiction…but if you don’t see “physical enhancement” and even “body part replacement” as something humans will experience in the distant future as a normal and regular occurrence, you can’t think too far ahead.

I think this current trend to sound holier than thou will do nothing in the long run but hold back human progress and technology.

Instead of working to increase QUALITY OF LIFE, we get people focused only on keeping people alive for long periods of time no matter how many drugs it takes to do so.

Eventually, when we are more enlightened, they will see us as dumb barbarians on a power trip to keep people from ever jumping ahead too much.

29

[quote]throwloud wrote:
What I will never understand is how something like cortisone shots, which artificially allow an athlete to play when they ordinarily wouldn’t, are fine while other steroids are not.

Either make all performance enhancing substances illegal, or make them all legal. The completely arbitrary nature by which these decisions are made makes no sense[/quote]

cortisone ? hell, what about tape ?

30

The whole idea of making PEDs illegal is bunk. Even in tested and untested federations, there are always jackasses who pass the tests and compete in tested federations drugged up (whether on insulin, HGH, etc.).

People cheat. Period. We can sit here all day and complain, but at the end of the day, it is still going to happen.

Untested olympics would be interesting, but that still leaves those who want to compete in “natural” olympics screwed over because of cheaters. The line for PED’s and “regular supplements” is getting more and more faint as newer technology comes out, as well.

Not to mention that genetics STILL play a role in how the body uses AAS as well. How many logs have we seen in the steroid section show the inconsistencies of how people handle these drugs?

31

The main thing I don’t like about drugs in sports is that if EVERYONE is using, it gives those that choose NOT to use no chance of ever succeeding.

Like it or not, some people believe steroids are immoral. Letting everyone use forces people to use who otherwise wouldn’t.

32

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
Like it or not, some people believe steroids are immoral. Letting everyone use forces people to use who otherwise wouldn’t. [/quote]

Maybe if there wasn’t such a negative stigma attached to steroids, people wouldn’t think of them as immoral.

33

[quote]Professor X wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
My point is that in one, case the natural body still does all the seeing.

I think that the best argument for allowing everything is a lack of ability to regulate it. All the people that have owned up to it and never got caught. Not to mention, I understand that you can get a lot of false positives with those tests.

There have to be athletes who have tested positive and been shunned who were innocent and I think that’s worse than people using.

They don’t do all of the seeing. A person who needs glasses can NOT see clearly NATURALLY. In extreme cases, they are damn near blind without them. Therefore, by this sterilized definition of “cheating”, that is what they are doing if they even wear glasses. I mean, they were not born with the ability to see well.

What difference does it make whether they had surgery or wear contact lenses?[/quote]

But see, there’s a standard for that, and it’s to have 20/20 vision. Correcting someone to see 20/20 is different than making them see 20/15.

34

[quote]malonetd wrote:
LankyMofo wrote:
Like it or not, some people believe steroids are immoral. Letting everyone use forces people to use who otherwise wouldn’t.

Maybe if there wasn’t such a negative stigma attached to steroids, people wouldn’t think of them as immoral.[/quote]

I think it’s safe to say that those that are educated on steroids, yet are still against their use, would not use them regardless of the stigma the media and society places on them.

35

Yeah, but at least they’d have a reliable test for mechanical arms. (this is a joke)

And yes, maybe I am a little backward and old fashioned (I a 25 year old kid, so that�??s funny too). I really love baseball because despite all the years the stats are still comparable.

And yes, there is a real flaw in that logic. It is enjoyable to watch a close back and forth game in baseball with different teams each progressive year. It is not enjoyable to watch Olympic lifting where the same weight gets lifted every year.

But I think, for me, the question becomes less favorable when perfectly healthy people have to start compromising health, or having unnecessary surgeries to compete.

If your kid is in school wanting to play a sport where he would have to take a drug that was questionable for his health and development (not trying to demonize the impact of steroids here), would you let him do it? On the other hand, football is dangerous anyway right? (I have no kids so you can laugh at this too)

I�??ve really been saying I don�??t know. If you can see it in black and white, fine, I don�??t, we disagree.

36

[quote]malonetd wrote:
LankyMofo wrote:
Like it or not, some people believe steroids are immoral. Letting everyone use forces people to use who otherwise wouldn’t.

Maybe if there wasn’t such a negative stigma attached to steroids, people wouldn’t think of them as immoral.[/quote]

what about from a health perspective? I’m not saying they’re unhealthy. But maybe somebody wouldn’t want to risk it just to be able to compete.

Then one could say, well it’s up to them at that point if they want to succeed or not. But, why should they be punished if they choose to do it naturally. Not picking a side, just food for thought.

regardless, I think the article was very good.

37

[quote]tedro wrote:
malonetd wrote:
LankyMofo wrote:
Like it or not, some people believe steroids are immoral. Letting everyone use forces people to use who otherwise wouldn’t.

Maybe if there wasn’t such a negative stigma attached to steroids, people wouldn’t think of them as immoral.

I think it’s safe to say that those that are educated on steroids, yet are still against their use, would not use them regardless of the stigma the media and society places on them.[/quote]

Exactly, there will always be people on both sides of the fence.

38

Prof.,

What is your opinion of synthol (sp?) in BBing?

39

[quote]tedro wrote:
Carlin’s argument is worse than yours.
[/quote]

No, it makes total sense. Science is used to advance all aspects of sports. Everything is advanced. Even instant replay is an advancement that MLB looks like it’s going to make. If every other aspect of a sport is advanced in every possible way, why stop at the body? Someone please explain that to me, because I just can’t wrap my head around it.

Equipment is made to offer even the tiniest, sometimes negligible improvement. Why is it taboo, then, to improve the body through science?

I want to see the best damn athletes competing at the highest levels. Why do people not want this?

I thought sports were about being the best. I thought once we pot past elementary school tee ball, sports were about winning and playing at a high level, not participation and feelings. If someone doesn’t want to juice, then that person doesn’t have what it takes to be the best. It’s a simple as that.

Again, someone please tell me, why do some people want to prevent athletes from being and doing the best they can?

40

[quote]tedro wrote:
malonetd wrote:
LankyMofo wrote:
Like it or not, some people believe steroids are immoral. Letting everyone use forces people to use who otherwise wouldn’t.

Maybe if there wasn’t such a negative stigma attached to steroids, people wouldn’t think of them as immoral.

I think it’s safe to say that those that are educated on steroids, yet are still against their use, would not use them regardless of the stigma the media and society places on them.[/quote]

Well then they don’t want to be the best, do they?