[ExI] "Olympics on steroids" takes a high-tech, F1-style angle on athletics

[Kelly Anderson]

I find this topic interesting. I waffle back and forth on the idea
that this is dangerous to the athletes' long term health and a more
libertarian thought of let them do what they want to do to achieve
what they want to achieve. But there is the arms race that seems like
it will always end with needing to take the biggest chances in order
to have the best chance of winning. Consider an alcoholic's olympics
where you are trying to drink other people under the table. Is that OK
because people should be allowed to do what they want? Or is
glorifying it as a spectator sport making it worse? We've always had
our gladiators, and today at least there is some concept of consent,
so we've gotten past the Roman state of the art there.

I do think that there is a middle ground available where people can
agree to different competitions with different sets of rules. Sort of
like cable, then YouTube blew up the three networks... perhaps a more
fractured approach to sports is needed. Then you won't have trans
women competing in the NCAA because they'll have their own place to
compete. And you won't have those who use the most dangerous chemicals
that could kill you today competing against simple anabolic steroids
that just make you impotent and give you cancer later.

We already have the octagon for people for whom boxing doesn't seem
competitive enough. The olympics have gone from 9 sports in the 1896
olympics to 40 today (including winter olympics). I believe this count
takes running as one sport despite the length, but don't quote me on
that. They said there are more events than sports... so I'm guessing
as to what constitutes an event vs a sport.

Anyways, a more fractured sporting world is a world where more people
get to participate meaningfully. I'm glad there is a record for
marathons run by a 90 year old. But even the Guiness people, who are
pretty irresponsible in many fields, have stopped taking new entries
on the record for "longest time without sleep" and probably other
things as well. There's enthusiasm, and then there's downright
self-destructive. It's a hard line to draw in a world of extreme
sports, but maybe this is a way forward. The Catholic church exploding
into thousands of brands of Christianity shows that schism is the way
with people... and why wouldn't it be that way with sports too? The
big powerful organizations like the Olympic committee, the NBA, the
PGA, the NCAA and all the rest are going to lose power in this world
of fractured sporting, but they really can't stop that from happening
now, can they?

-Kelly

On Wed, Feb 7, 2024 at 4:26 AM BillK via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> "Olympics on steroids" takes a high-tech, F1-style angle on athletics
> By Loz Blain   February 07, 2024
>
> <https://newatlas.com/sports/enhanced-games-olympics-steroids/>
> Quotes:
> It seems the Enhanced Games are on like Donkey Kong, with
> multi-million dollar investments from Peter Thiel and other
> high-profile VCs. Performance-enhancing drugs are welcome – indeed,
> this could become an early preview of a transhuman Olympics.
>
> You could argue the Tour de France beat them to it – or indeed the
> regular Olympics themselves; of the top six fastest men ever to run
> the 100-meter sprint, only Usain Bolt has never tested positive for
> banned substances.
>
> And maybe we're being too precious about the sanctity of the human
> body, in an age where bionics, brain chips, AI, gene editing and all
> manner of transhumanist technologies are coming within reach. If this
> stuff can make us better, maybe we should let it, and maybe the
> Enhanced Games are a symbolic step in that direction.
> ------------------
>
> BillK
>
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