Venture capitalists are putting on their own Olympics—with steroids allowed

How is doping “dishonest” if it’s not against the rules and everybody knows that going in?

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That’s what they are arguing, but they celebrate athletes like Lance Armstrong who lied about “embracing science” and using “performance therapy”. Armstrong even sued a journalist who revealed that he had become an “enhanced athlete”.

Branding science-embracing athletes as ‘cheats’ is malicious and discriminatory. Language was weaponized in this way by sports federations to silence the voices of early pioneer like Tim Montgomery, Conor Dwyer, Maria Sharapova and Lance Armstrong. Embracing science to unlock the true human potential is not ‘cheating’; it is heroic.

P.S. The Wikimedia Foundation will be very interested in their plan to rewrite Wikipedia’s coverage of athletics in accordance with their beliefs.

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‘Backed by Peter Thiel’

Of course it is.

It takes some seriously broken thinking to want to excise words such as ‘cheating’ from Wikipedia when taking drugs was breaking the rules of the game they signed up for - an act otherwise known as ‘cheating’.

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The entire page reads like someone is trying to write a bleak satire of our current moment. Pharma billionaires promoting an uber-capitalist spectacle of athletes doped to the eyeballs, hoping to escape any blowback by shaming people for not embracing “inclusive language” is just so on point for 2020s idiocy.

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I’m not an athlete, probably not even a spectator, but sure go for it. I’m sure this is just going to be a big spectacle and not actually something sciencey, but it would be interesting to have actual medical professionals actively involved to monitor and verify what is being taken. And then follow these athletes long term, because that’s the data I really want to see. We all know taking these various drugs can make you bigger, faster, and stronger…but what happens 20, 40, 60 years down the road?

Let them.

It’s a rare moment of honesty from both the vc and sports world. Let it become a race to the bottom. From the ashes the esports world (which rarely has doping drama and when it does, it’s nowhere near as bad as the sports world) can stand to profit from their downfall.

I think they are trying to put up yet another reality show.

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One: Why was I immediately not surprised that the arsehole Thiel was involved?

Two: So the fastest man in the world’ thinks he is “battling for bodily freedom”? Listen, sunshine, you are free to put whatever shit you like in your body - you REALLY do not need to “battle” for that. But have you ever heard of this thing called the ‘level playing field’. What you are doing is trying to remove the freedom of clean athletes to compete.

Three: Umm - “We can show the world that science is real” - wait, what? Who is arguing science is not real? And WTF has that got to do with what you are promoting?

The guy’s a fuckwit. Maybe it’s a side-effect of anabolic steroids.

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Given that comment and your comments here, I’m beginning to wonder if you’re one of those “just asking questions” guys.

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Except that nobody from the sports world is openly supporting them.

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No, they’ll attract the athletes who believe themselves to be the greatest in their field, but never really did well, because they actually are not that great at their sport. It’ll attract right wing grifters who believe that they’re being held down by woke ideologies that’s hurting “real people” like them…

Jinx, @GagHalfrunt!

coca cola coke GIF

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openly

Okay you got me on that one. Much like how the WWE used to push back about the open discussion of kayfabe

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I don’t follow esports but I’ve still heard a few news stories about how adderall and similar drugs are very commonly abused by esports athletes.

Then of course you’ve got completely unregulated, legal substances like energy drinks and caffeine that are ubiquitous among gamers, but probably not very good for long term health when consumed in large quantities.

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I was talking about Adderall use overall and there’s very little proof of it actually having an measurable affect on performance along with even weaker claims surrounding nootropics. It’s nowhere near as bad as steroids and hgh.

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Heard about this last night. Sounds like an absolutely awful idea but one that I’m sad to say I would probably watch at least once.

If the companies invest their gains carefully, it will continue to pay well down the road.

The test subjects athletes? The lawyers drafted iron-clad liability limitations, so that’s all good.

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Came here for this.

:: cracks knuckles ::
From what I was told by my doctors when I got back on the ADHD meds, adderal has a calming effect on my flavor of neurochemistry. ( hence my statement of ‘I am practically a different person when I am off it.’) caffeine has a similar, but weaker effect. on a neurotypical brain, I expect that since it’s a stumulant, it revs up the brain’s ability to react, which is pretty key for competitive FPS games.

My experience with energy drinks (specifically the “5 hour energy shots”) is that while it does WONDERS, once it wears off, you are somehow short of the normal energy that you should have had. A webcomic equivlent might be the shots of Moveit #6 from Girl Genius.

I also know that my hard limit of the stuff is TWO in a given 24 hour period along with my normal pharmacological load, and the post effects are like getting hit with a mack truck.

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There are so many things about this that reek of an elaborate joke, or someone itching to use right wing talking points and populist leverage to promote a personal vendetta. The site reads like a SF dystopian movie preview.

B&W heroically posed pictures of the founding team. Lots of muscular athletic bodies to gawk at. A whole section devoted to taking down the IOC. Trying to rally populism to overwhelm Wikipedia with propaganda. A way to anonymously “leak” information to them about people they don’t like. Twisting standard words and meanings to imply the opposite. This is stuff out of a RW playbook. I keep wondering if it’s an experiment in harnessing fascist methods outside the normal political realm.

And with all that gloss, there’s nothing of substance there, that explains how anything will work, if there are any rules, how it will be judged, etc. It’s primarily defining itself as just being anti- establishment rules and norms.

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