[ExI] the myth of the US "liberal media"

[Kelly Anderson]

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 19 July 2011 16:45, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>> So what you're saying is that if you sneak notes into a Physics final,
>> and don't get caught, then that's not cheating? I'm sorry, that
>> doesn't meet with my definition of ethical.
>
> No, I am saying that if you are doing something that nobody has ever
> thought (yet) to forbid or to test for you are in a different league
> from the sportman who takes some cocaine during a marathon and keeps
> his fingers crossed not to be randomly picked for testing.

Wouldn't the fact that the East Germans kept their use of drugs
secret, even from their athletes, be just a little clue that they knew
they were breaking the rules?

>From the Secrets of the dead show:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
NARRATOR: But then came a setback for the East Germans. 20-year
old-shot putter Ilona Slupianek, failed a drug test.

The doping program was plunged into crisis.

Standard GDR protocol required that doping be curtailed two weeks
prior to competition—enough time for the athletes’ bodies to eliminate
all traces of the drugs. But driven by the need to churn out winners,
coaches had been handing out pills until the very last minute.

In East Berlin, it was decreed that from then on, athletes would be
prescreened before they left for international events.

Better they be discovered at home, than on the world stage…

Urine samples were sent to a lab near Dresden. If their tests came
back positive, athletes would be scratched from the upcoming
competition.

The athletes were told that the pre-screening would protect them from
false accusations by jealous competitors.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"Failed a drug test" would indicate that they were trying to test for
just these drugs AND that using them was against the rules. They just
didn't have a test good enough to find the cheaters if they stopped
two weeks ahead of time.

>> Motor sports is a little different in that the rules authorize you to
>> experiment with your machine to a certain extent and within certain
>> parameters. Part of the point of motor sports is to push the science
>> of motor cars forward... always has been. You can make improvements to
>> your equipment, and next year everyone has the improved equipment.
>> That's the way the sport moves forward.
>> Same with the America's Cup sailing race...
>
> Yes. So, what's the difference? Improving yourself and/or your
> equipment has been typical of us fyborgs for a few centuries now...
> :-)

If an improvement is within the rules, then great. If you are trying
to get away with breaking the rules in a way that can't be detected, I
call that cheating.

>>> Moreover, do you seriously propose that transexuals should not be
>>> allowed to compete? Even though, in fact, I suspect that men becoming
>>> women and competing with women have always had more of an edge than
>>> women becoming men and competing with the latter, as you suggest...
>>
>> You didn't get the point... This poor East German girl (a real,
>> specific girl, named Heidi Krieger) was treated with so many steroids
>> that she essentially became a man. Later, twenty years later, she
>> underwent surgery to complete her transformation to being a man. It
>> was the only way she could survive in a society that saw her as a man
>> because of her facial hair, adam's apple, and so forth. She didn't
>> choose to become a transexual, she was abused by the state sports
>> doctors, without her knowledge, and was turned into a man.
>
> All this is based on the assumption that she did not and would not
> have accepted the unintended consequences, something which most of her
> rivals probably would happily have, but the evil doctors chose to
> impose her out of sheer malice. Any factual ground for this?

Did you read the transcript of the show? Seemed pretty well researched to me.

>> Men becoming women, and then
>> competing in strength sports seems a little bit like cheating to me...
>
> Speaking of arbitrary restrictions, we might require people to compete
> not on the basis of their phenotype, but of their chromosomic gender.
> But the same rationale might be invoked to refuse public recognition
> of changes of sex in any other context, even though surgery and
> hormones might well remain legal per se.

Red Herring. Each sport can have it's own rules as far as I'm concerned.

>> They were
>> given no choice except to quit being an athlete.
>
> Same as I am given no choice except quitting being a corporate lawyer
> if I am not willing to work long hours? Gosh... :-)

There were other opportunities for these kids, not good ones of
course... but if they had known it would kill or maim them, then
perhaps some of them would have made a different choice.

My point is that because they were living under a form of government
that supported and officially encouraged this behavior to its own
benefit, that this particular form of government has some pretty
significant down sides. That is pretty much the whole point I was
making.

-Kelly