The Enhanced Olympics: Drugs Welcome!

At last, a chance to watch elite athletes openly taking advantage of modern science.

"Why not solve the future problem of gene doping and the current problem of steroid use in professional sports by creating two kinds of sports leagues?" I asked way back in 2005. "One would be free of genetic and pharmacologic enhancements—call them the Natural Leagues. The other would allow players to use gene fixes and other enhancements—call them the Enhanced Leagues."

Welcome, finally, to the Enhanced Games! The basic idea: sports without drug testing.

"We believe that science is real and has an important place in supporting human flourishing. There is no better way to highlight the centrality of science in our modern world than in elite sports," said Aron D'Souza, the president of the Enhanced Games. Planned for 2024, the Enhanced Games aims to be the first international sports event that fully supports performance enhancements. Consequently, the Enhanced Games will not adhere to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules with respect to track and field, swimming, weightlifting, gymnastics, and combat sports competitions. As the event plan states, "Athletes will not be tested for performance enhancements, and are under no obligation to declare their enhanced status in order to compete."

D'Souza, an Australian entrepreneur and Oxford-educated lawyer, among other things, led tech investor Peter Thiel's successful invasion-of-privacy litigation against Gawker Media. The Enhanced Games Athletes Advisory Commission consists of elite athletes including Cayman Islands Olympic swimmer Brett Fraser, Canadian Olympic bobsleigher Christina Smith, and South African Olympic swimmer Roland Schoeman. The Scientific and Ethical Advisory Commission includes Harvard biomedical researcher George Church and biotech entrepreneur Julia Cooney.

Proponents of the Enhanced Games say that they embrace liberty, arguing that "adults, with free and informed consent, have full autonomy over their bodies and minds." In addition, they reject the current model of "not-for-profit" international sports competition as "corrupt." Funded privately, the Enhanced Games will cost taxpayers nothing and will use already-built sporting facilities. Proponents point out that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) generates billions in revenue while many of the world's best athletes, under the IOC's rules, are barely able to eke out their livings. "We embrace capitalism as central to everything we do and strive to be maximally efficient in our operations," declares its value statement. "Excellence, particularly athletic excellence, deserves to be rewarded."

As an inclusive competition, the Enhanced Games will be open to both natural and enhanced athletes. "We want natural and we welcome enhanced athletes," D'Souza told the Associated Press. "And I hope that the bold, natural athlete shows up to the games and says, 'Hey guys I'm natural, I'm still WADA compliant and I'm going to beat all you guys' - that is going to be great television." It would be, indeed.

As I wrote back in 2005, "Let fans decide which play they prefer."

Comments

[Eeyore]

Is this where trans athletes will go to compete?

[Johnathan Galt]

Well, strictly speaking Transgenders are degraded, not enhanced. But if it's an "unlimited class," they would certainly be welcome to compete.

[MT-Man]

What about female to male - why is steriods there ok but not for all?

[Eeyore]

Theoretically removing the dick and balls saves on weight. For events very sensitive to weight a few ounces for the win.

And yes, male hormones for EVERYONE.

[Liberty Lover]

How about "Estrogen" doping? Will that be allowed?

[mad.casual]

^Assumes the "base model" to be constructed without genitals.

There is no event *that* sensitive to weight. The human body isn't that precise a machine. Even if it were (again, assuming prior design constraints), the additional benefits of a few mm of bone length, tendon attachment and a few mL of extra blood volume and the ability to pump it far outweigh the need to degrade the original "design".

[Eeyore]

I would expect Track cycling where a few oz are important or a sport with weight classes like wrestling or boxing to have at least someone think about it.

[Eeyore]

Are just drugs ok or can a runner cut thier legs off and replace them with robotics?

[BillyG]

I support prothstetics being part of the Ehanced Olympics. What we need to decide is if battery/hydraulic/gasoline powered enhancements are permitted.

[mad.casual]

Hydraulics? Gasoline? Steel rails and nitrate/perchlorate solid-fuels have been the standard for heavily-modified prosthetic racers since the 50s.

[Eeyore]

If a non powered prosthetic is superior in an event to legs is voluntary amputation ok?

[jimc5499]

Nuclear.

[Public Entelectual]

Will George Church referee the cloned Zuck-Musk Tag Team Pancration?

[Johnathan Galt]

"We can rebuild him. Make him better than before." - The Six Million Dollar Man (note - $2.4 billion, adjusted for inflation)

[Eeyore]

Worth it. The maintenance alone is probably around 6m a year with inflation.

[Liberty Lover]

Can one just" identify" as a gold medal winner?

[Lord Blastington]

As long as they don't shoot their Girlfriend

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Proponents of the Enhanced Games say that they embrace liberty, arguing that "adults, with free and informed consent, have full autonomy over their bodies and minds." In

Do they require everyone be vaccinated to participate?

[Eeyore]

Yes. Max boosters. The more shots, the more drugs, the better.

There should be a competition class with a minimum number of drugs required.

[Liberty Lover]

The new Olympics:
Paid professional athletes
Drug enhanced performances
Surgically altered men competing as women.
I wonder why less people are watching the Olympics every year?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

The Scientific and Ethical Advisory Commission includes Harvard biomedical researcher George Church and biotech entrepreneur Julia Cooney.

Oh, and just speaking for myself, I'm a little off on "Biotech Entrepreneurs" as of late.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Do they gender-expression segregate the sports?

[mad.casual]

Again, yes. "Male" and all the other loser genders.

[Public Entelectual]

George has acknowledged steroid abuse as a problem in reviving Olympic Woolly Mammoth Polo,

[Stuck in California]

Dude, you sound more like Hank every day.

[mad.casual]

To be clear:

Braasch was then 31 years old and still smoked a pack of cigarettes per day (which may explain why he hasn’t won a five-set match in his life). Already eliminated from both the singles and doubles at the Grand Slam, he was hanging around the office of the ATP when the two Williams sisters asked whether a boy in the Top 200 was available for them to prove what they had been saying for a while. Braasch took on the challenge. After all, he was ranked 203rd in the world. Scheduled on the first Sunday of the Australian Open, the match was postponed due to rain. On the Monday, Serena (who lost against her elder sibling in the 2nd round) was the first to enter court 17 of Melbourne Park. Her opponent was prepared to meet her his way: “I’ve just had a few cocktails and a round of golf.” Confident, Braasch began with an additional handicap: he only allowed himself one serve. Despite this, the German gave a tennis lesson to the 16 year-old, claiming a one-sided 6-1 victory. Accustomed to fast passing, Serena didn’t understand the anachronistic tennis of her opponent. How to return his chopped forehands? How to overpower him? She was unable to find a solution. “It was very hard, I didn’t think it would be so hard,” she sighed after the game. “I hit shots which would have been winners on the WTA Tour, but he caught them easily”. So easily that Braasch lit a cigarette during a change of side.

Venus then arrived to avenge her kin. At the time, the eldest of the family was established inside the WTA top 20 and seemed better prepared to resist. However, the result would be almost identical - a 6-2 defeat. According to witnesses of these two matches, Braasch almost seemed to hold his punches. The applicant confirmed, with a mocking laugh: “I don't think that they can ever beat a player in the top 500, because today I played like a guy ranked 600th”. Nevertheless, the executioner recognized qualities in both of his unfortunate opponents. “Both played very well and hit the ball really well” he said a few years later to the Guardian. “In the end, it was me who won, but neither they nor I really took this game seriously. It was just a good laugh”. After digesting these defeats, the Williams sisters announced that they were now looking to play against another player, but this time ranked above 350th. With a lot of humour, Braasch asked them to wait a bit, “I told Serena and Venus that the following week, I would lose ATP points from a tournament from the previous season and that I should then not be too far from the 350th place.”

[Eeyore]

Yes. Every single imaginary gender gets its own competition. Gold medals for everyone.

I identify as ihxoyxoys55cp5vjpvjdy gendered. Wtf is that? Fk off and let me live my truth.

[Nobartium]

Why stop there?

Let's have a sports league with death as an acceptable outcome.

[BillyG]

There's gotta be a list somewhere of NFL players who died from injuries.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Damar Hamlin was dead on the field last year. Then they raised him.

Some folks say they shocked his heart back to rhythm, other suspect voodoo.

[MatthewSlyfield]

You do?

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Do what?

+1

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

The power of the babe!

[mad.casual]

Let’s have a sports league with death as an acceptable outcome.

NASCAR is happening on the streets of downtown Chicago this weekend. Death has always been an acceptable outcome of any given (Sun)day in Chicago.

[Public Entelectual]

Gentlemen, start your defibrillators!

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Defibrillator combat? I'd watch that.

[Me, Myself and I]

Unfortunately, in most countries, causing someone else's death is illegal, regardless of whether the dead person consented.

[Eeyore]

How about the only outcome? War reenactments with live rounds.

Saber fighting with sharp swords and no pads. A classic.

[Honest Economics]

For sound economic perspective go to https://honesteconomics.substack.com/

[Libertariantranslator]

It's a trap. Go to libertrans.blogspot instead--or after you see it's a pig-in-a-poke hustle

[Dillinger]

one of my better soccer games was after a coke all-nighter

[Eeyore]

A little birdy told me, soccer on shrooms is where it is at.

[Dillinger]

you know they're sticking those in chocolate bars now ... had some passed to me @Dead & Co. in nyc last week

[Eeyore]

That seems so much more difficult than putting the oil from weed into food. I guess where there is a will - there is a way.

[Mickey Rat]

And in ten to twenty years they get their asses sued off by athletes who wrecked themselves on performance enhancing cocktails.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

They'll signa a waiver.

[Mickey Rat]

That will surely hold up to a sob story,the attraction of deep pockets and a sympathetic jury.

[Libertariantranslator]

The whole idea of using deadly force to make sure nobody can make comparisons is so that nobody can expose the official lies. It's why scheduling drugs and paying foreign looter state politicos to sign off on censorship is important enough for them to kill for. LSD, mescaline and marijuana have killed zero people. Widespread undertanding of this fact could retask the weaponized coercion system to instead target tobacco, alcohol and Big Pharma. No looter kleptocracy will consider leaving people to their own preferences, hence the "them or us" mentality.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

That's about 35 years too late for East Germany.

[Johnathan Galt]

LOL - you're giving away your age...

[Social Justice is neither]

By being able to read a history book?

[Benitacanova]

Read? Books? Them's geezer words.

[SRG]

Well, the East Germans did compete and succeed at the top level, and took steroids, like the Czechs, the Soviets, Flo-Jo and the rest of the Bob Kersee/Al Joyner crew, etc. So they were fine with the regime before 1989 when out-of-competition testing was implemented.

[cabaccum]

The history of the Olympics is rich with significance and uniqueness. Every four years, athletes from around the world gather to compete in various sports, fostering camaraderie and understanding among diverse nations. I track every Olympic Games in my life. Also in my office there is a colored map https://enjoythewood.com/collections/3d-luminous-colored-wooden-world-map where I mark where the Olympic Games were held in different years. The Olympic Games also serve as a platform for promoting peace and diplomacy through sport. That's why it's important to me

[Iwanna Newname]

Are you AI?

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

AS. Artificial Stupidity.

[kevrob]

SNL got there a long time ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAdG-iTilWU&ab_channel=SaturdayNightLive

[Jerryskids]

Jeez it took a long time to get here. First thing I thought of when I read the headline.

[Iwanna Newname]

If Rodney King and Saint George Floyd were still with us, this souped up duo would surely dominate the combat sports category.

[Iwanna Newname]

Have they never heard of WWE?

[Iwanna Newname]

Hey, Barry Bonds is laughing his way to the bank.

[SRG]

It is argued that the reason that MLB tolerated steroid use for so long was that they thought the public wanted more 98mph pitchers and more home runs. I don't know whether that's true in the case of baseball. But in the case of track and field, I am not sure. I think that the majority of true athletics fans want to see clean athletes performing superbly. When, say, Ryan Crouser does an impression of a siege mortar with the shot, I like thinking that he's clean.

And what is also overlooked by the "legalise them all" brigade is that it forces athletes who wish to compete at the topmost commercial level to decide whether to juice or not to compete at all. I don't see compelling this choice as a great win for liberty.

I admit a personal antipathy towards drug-taking in sports. Last Saturday I was at Carl Icahn stadium watching the Anglo-Jamaican sprinter Zharnel Hughes - skinny and clean-looking - smash one of the US's top drug cheats - Chris Coleman - in the 100m. Coleman had been suspended for whereabouts violations (if you're juicing and you fear a test, you simply don't show up where you said you would be - that way you don't test positive and you can always claim it's merely a technical violation, you don't get the same stigma so you retain your sponsors and your fans)_. Coleman had lost some muscle so he was probably off the sauce now. But good to see him lose.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

Ooooh, I remember reading this cyberpunk novel!

[Stuck in California]

OK, I want to see the endurance races with all athletes tripping balls. Like, drop two tabs then run the marathon, or the decathalon -- I'd love to see someone try to pole vault when they're seeing halos and flashes!

Probably not the Biathalon, though. Better if they aren't armed.

[Jerry B.]

Of course, many “enhancements” lead to later physical problems and early death, but “their body, their choice.”

[Stuck in California]

I don't give a shit anymore. My empathy has been completely sapped.

Make them be adults, sign waivers, look at the pictures on the side of a Canadian package of cigarettes, whatever it takes so they aren't allowed to sue, then go for it.

As long as I don't have to pay their medical bills, they can take enough steroids their testicles shrink up to the size of raisons and they burst into a rage if their protein shake doesn't come with a bendy straw, doesn't affect me one iota. I kind of feel the same way about folks shooting up in the streets. The faster they OD the better for society.

[Zeb]

And many don't. As with most drugs, there are good and bad uses. It seems like judicious use of things like HGH or testosterone can be quite beneficial.

[Lord Blastington]

Something happened on Twitter the other week that is sorta related.

It was announced by a certain celebrity that he is starting a Podcast talking about the Issue of Transgenders in Women Sports and Fairness, a Topic that is bound to get Controversy by itself. But things get really interesting because this celebrity is Lance Armstrong. Not Joking.

Anyhow, got me thinking. Like the main reason what Armstrong did was cheating is because Blood Doping was directly against the rules of Tour De France, but hypothetically if the rules allow the use of Drugs then what Armstrong did wasn't really cheating and if other competitors had easy access to the same drugs then technically it would be fair. And with that in mind, that is one difference between Armstrong's Blood Doping and Lia Thomas competing in Women's Swimming, one goes directly against the rules set by people organizing the event while the other the organizers simply decided to allow them to compete. It's sorta like the Gay Wedding Cake issue, a Private Organization have the right to set their own policies and who to associate with, as well as the right to choose how to responded to any preserve violation of those policies