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[Mindmaker]

I really don't care about sports. They are overrated and overpaid.

There has been a doping scandal here in Austria some time ago.
The women in question presented herself as weak willed, saying that she had no choice and her manager forced her to take it, resulting in her bcoming addicted.
Lucky for her that our legal system still believes in stereotypes. She just got a ban for several years, while her manager went to jail.
Having earned millions and not needing to work another day in here life, she now engages in family planning with her husband.
I doubt a male athlete would be able to pull this off. Talk about justice...

Oh, I'm so going to get spanked for this...

[Max White]

I am all for doping, on the basis that I don't enjoy most sports, and more so those that doping is common in, as such it athletes dope themselves into being sterile, then over time the 'sporting' gene will be bred out of the human race, and we can get on with doing things that are more fun and productive, like physics.


Side note for anybody that understands genetics: Shut up! I can dream can't I!!!

[Darvi]

Andrei Berzin, greatest effing athlete alive, would like to have a word with ya.

[Max White]

Well I shall gladdy talk with him. Over the internet. The internet that was made through intellectual ability rather then athletic ability.

[mainiac]

The point of the slippery slope argument isn't to say "Hey, this slope is really slippery, let's ride it all the way to the bottom, WHEEEE!"

[Darvi]

The point of the slippery slope argument isn't to say "Hey, this slope is really slippery, let's ride it all the way to the bottom, WHEEEE!"

But why not? D:

Well I shall gladdy talk with him. Over the internet. The internet that was made through intellectual ability rather then athletic ability.

Good. He's over at the LP subforum.

[Leafsnail]

Sorry, I've done the bad habit of breaking up the OPs post.  But I feel like there's quite a few different points to address there.

Spoiler: Response to OP (click to show/hide)

All projects involve some sort of sacrifice, you might as well argue some people don't want to do all that hard work yet still compete in the top ranks. It is important to separate that they want to compete in the top ranks, and screwing up their bodies in the process. Wherein, screwing up their bodies in the process is a side effect of competing in the top ranks, just as spending all your time running and training is a sacrifice that's needed to compete in the top ranks now.

Except running and jumping and the like don't screw up your body in the same way that pumping it full of drugs does.  You might be a bit worn out when you're older, sure, but your lifespan won't be significantly shortened.

Remember: noone will benefit from allowing drugs except the people who make the drugs, and all top level atheletes will experience a serious hit to their health.

Look, there are many dangerous sports that we don't object to even when they shorten their participant's lifespans. Combative sports for example, though it doesn't significantly shorten a person's life relative to heavy chemical therapy, the quality of life seriously diminishes after one too many hits to the head. Top rank racing is another one. There's a very real chance that there will be an accident on the track. Killing the drivers is not the real motive behind the sport, but neither is an Olympics where doping is allowed aiming to kill the participants either.

So we do our best to minimize these risks.  We make boxers wear gloves and have a referee to stop it if one of the fighters is taking too much damage.  We put in stringent safety regulations in racing (heck, in most of the horrible F1 accidents you see the driver just walks out unscathed).  We ban use of destructive drugs.

And regarding everyone using the drugs and evening the playing field shortening everyone's lives and generally not changing anything, I argue that it's already a part of Olympics already, extensive training isn't exactly ideal for a person in their lives, socializing and being with family is arguably far more valuable. People are already decreasing their standard of living to be able to compete on the top ranks.

Not really, because you can assume an athelete enjoys training, competing and trying to be the best.  I'm not sure you can say the same about pumping yourself full of drugs.

What we should focus on, is probably living standards, I think it's justified for a person to increase the quality of his/her life by doing what they want to do, even at the cost of shortening their life spans.
I think there is merit in the claim that people should have to break themselves to compete with each other, but this point is not consistent with the current levels of how much people allow others to train or practice even when they'd be doing other things instead to compete at the top level.

Living standards?  Ok, how about we start by banning drugs that mess up your gender, can cause fits of rage and depression and other nasty side effects?  I don't think there's any merit to that claim AT ALL.  You shouldn't have to "break" yourself in order to participate in an otherwise completely safe sport.

Really... I just don't see any benefit to it at all (unless you just generally hate atheletes), and lots and lots of problems.

[Eagleon]

I like the idea. If we're going to spend billions of dollars on completely irrelevant chest-beating and advertisements for Viagra and Bud Lite, we might as well glean some useful medical research from it.

[Phmcw]

I hate those "sports" but doping is already widespread. I ... don't care much for the sport, but I'd say those substance should be forbidden in competition, to avoid even more damage to the athlete health. Now if you want to do it at home, you... are as much an idiot that someone who does cocaine, and the argument for or against their legalization are pretty much the same.

[Urist is dead tome]

I'm willing to bet that we would have the same people breaking the same records without the doping.

[Levi]

Sports would be way more awesome to watch if everybody was doping.

[Urist is dead tome]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M13EBl_jF0

If this guy isn't on steroids then I want to see what he'd do with the steroids.

[Earthquake Damage]

I am all for doping, on the basis that I don't enjoy most sports, and more so those that doping is common in, as such it athletes dope themselves into being sterile, then over time the 'sporting' gene will be bred out of the human race, and we can get on with doing things that are more fun and productive, like physics.

Well I shall gladdy talk with him. Over the internet. The internet that was made through intellectual ability rather then athletic ability.

I like how your pastimes are superior to others', so much so that they should be the only pastimes.

[Eagleon]

I like how your pastimes are superior to others', so much so that they should be the only pastimes.

I don't think anyone's saying athletics shouldn't be a passtime. Just that it should be a passtime, rather than a multi-billion dollar money and time-sink. If you want to improve the world, the way to do it isn't to spend decades in a system devoted to consumption and advertisement building your body to be, on the cosmic scale (or even on the cheetah-scale), slightly less pathetic but still insignificant. But by all means, feel free to think that will help, it's just an opinion and not objective reality. Arts, music, and science can wait, any old animal can do those things. FOOTBAWL is where the money should be.

Yes, this is a bitter subject for me. Oh well.

[Earthquake Damage]

I don't think anyone's saying athletics shouldn't be a passtime. Just that it should be a passtime, rather than a multi-billion dollar money and time-sink. If you want to improve the world, the way to do it isn't to spend decades in a system devoted to consumption and advertisement snip

Couldn't the same be said of most sectors of the entertainment industry?  Or idle pursuits in general?

Arts, music, and science can wait, any old animal can do those things. FOOTBAWL is where the money should be.

I don't see how those other interests are somehow superior to "FOOTBAWL".  Also, if your whole point is "we're uniquely able to do X, therefore we should limit our resources to X", we'll simply have to disagree.