Why winners become cheaters | Hacker News Reader

Why winners become cheaters

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100 pointsrkda73 comments

Armstrong was a true champion. It's the public that wasn't made aware of what the real game was. All the cyclists knew it as did the organization and everyone professionally close to pro cycling. It was a doping game. And out of all that doped, Armstrong won 7 years in a row. He was a true champion.

The more accurate statement here is "cheaters become winners" and not the other way around. Cheating implies rules, and most rules are stupid, especially in sports. Doping of course changes the "sport" in many ways, and is illegal for good reason, but in a true competition of life and death, of success and failure, of rags to riches, of maintaining a family legacy, or of simply "winning" in today's "winner's society", the upside of cheating easily surpasses the downside. And for those who figure out how to cheat, it becomes easy, and part of the game. Then as they see everyone else cheat, the moral and ethical burden is easily nullified.

Rules in society are also pretty stupid. Drug dealers know this. Wall Street for sure knows this. And the smartest people who win, most often than not, do so by cheating, because it's all just a game. And it's okay to cheat in a game as long as you don't get caught. "Play dirty" is the western mantra that embodies this sentiment nicely, and it's a positive sentiment. It's antiestablishmentarianism, it's rock n' roll, it's Bruce Willis in Die Hard.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of Lance Armstrong, you have to hand it to the guy. He certainly made the most out of his cheating win streak through one of the greatest charities of all time. Cheating in sports is one thing. His true legacy was doing whatever he could to help others cheat death as he did.

Devils don't save lives (people do).

Spot on. I have heard it explained like this ( by Smeets, a Dutch reporter, whom I dislike ) :

My recollection:

"The riders define 'doping' as going over the limit of detection. They all use 'forbidden' substances but below the limits. That is why they can say with a straight face on TV they are 'absolutely clean'. And two weeks later be caught because of a dosing mistake."

Lance is a great athlete but he also took doping to the next level with many blood transfusions and pressure on his teammates to dope as well.

I am not defending Lance here, I have no opinion on athletes in general.

But you are missing the point: their point of view becomes quite reasonable when you are considering naturally occurring differences like oxygen levels or what not.

> Rules in society are also pretty stupid.

I believe the contrary: the rules (do not kill, do not steal, pay your taxes etc.) are the thing that prevents society from breaking down. There are examples of states which were too weak to enforce these rules and consequently got eradicated from the map.

You talked about the breakdown of society in your first sentence, and then the collapse of states in the second. Of course it's in the interests of states to conflate the two. But as states rise and fall, the people suffer and endure, and wherever there is disorder, there are still people, and wherever there is discontinuity of rulership, there is continuity of family, culture, and tradition. Revolutions and conquest can sweep time and time again over the people, but they persist. There are still folk cultural beliefs in places like Iraq, where the people have been conquered and reconquered time and time again, states failing, states rising like waves, that have a murky line of continuity back to Babylon and before.

It is true that a state cannot exist without asserting its exclusive right to violent means, but it is pure propaganda that society fails without a state. It is certainly true that wherever states fail, others come like vultures to pick apart the corpse. States, being supremely violent entities with the assent of billions behind them, make their own reality true. It is not the absence of a state that brings the breakdown of society, but the competition between states to fill power vacuums: would be warlords who would aim to be the next state. It is a ransom: submit to a ruler or we will inflict suffering on you. Choose one oppressor, or be sieged by many.

> (...)it is pure propaganda that society fails without a state. It is certainly true that wherever states fail, others come like vultures to pick apart the corpse.

I basically agree with that, with the caveat that there will always be organisations which try to live off other people's work, and you could do FAR worse than modern western states.

On one hand, yes, I think you can say that to be a winner, you had to dope. But if you took all of the dopers out, we would still have a winner.

Consider Cadel Evans. In my opinion, I don't think he doped. He was always in the conversation with Vinokourav, Ullrich, and the other top guys. For years.

He eventually won, but the sport was much cleaner by then.

I was a huge Armstrong fan. When I heard that Hincapie admitted to doping, I knew it was over. Over because Hincapie was always Lance's right-hand man, and also over because Armstrong wouldn't go after Hincapie.

I think Armstrong was one of the best cyclists ever, but he is tarnished now just like the others. It's a cruel sport.

Relevant: https://xkcd.com/1173/

You can get better a lot of ways in sport. Why is performance-enhancing drugs the way that is singled out as not acceptable?

It's not. Using a motor on your bicycle, a little propeller tied to your back while swimming, and a mechanically telescoping pole to vault with are also disallowed. So using mechanical assistance is also in the list of disallowed things. An unfortunate loss for the inventive sportsman.

Other disallowed things:

* having spectators strategically fall in the path of your competitors. Unfortunate for the cunning sportsman.

* adjusting the physical conditions of your part of the field (no ultra-bouncy start mat for when you are going to make the long jump). A pity, the inventive sportsman misses out again

* using a separate biological aid. No horses for the sprinter, or palanquins for the long distance runner, no team of people boosting you over the high jump bar. A tragic loss for the sportsman who can recruit nature's finest.

Just to be clear on what is considered doping, the WADA considers any substance (or method) to be on the prohibited list if it meets two of the following 3 criteria[1]:

- It has the potential to enhance or enhances sport performance - It represents an actual or potential health risk to the athlete - It violates the spirit of sport

So, in theory, the distinction of acceptable and non-acceptable is not drawn (only) in performance-enhancing drugs.

Another thing to consider is that (pre-BALCO) you are not always charged on taking performance-enhancing drugs but in either having some synthetic drugs on your organism detected or having some measurements over what is considered "normal" in humans. For example, T/E higher than 4:1 ratio. This means that the ratio Testosterone/Epitestosterone can be 4:1. If an athlete has a 1:1 level (which is normal), doping himself with testosterone won't be considered positive as long as it's kept below 4:1. All assuming that exogenous testosterone cannot be detected.

As far as I know, BALCO was the first time than some athletes were sanctioned without testing positive.

[1] http://www.usada.org/substances/prohibited-list/ [2] http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/steroid-doping-questio...

Because we don't want a world in which athletes have to destroy their bodies in order to be competitive.

ETA: And let's be clear, that's exactly where it leads. People will feel compelled to start doping younger and younger, when they can do more and more damage to themselves (like giving themselves testicular cancer) -- young people also have poorer judgment about these things.

We've already seen all this happen.

I don't know a ton about this stuff, but:

Isn't it because things like steroids are dangerous and have serious adverse effects, and athletes shouldn't have to endanger themselves in that way, just to stay relevant.

There are thousands of rules in any sport, anti-doping is just on of them. Anyone trying to get around the rules is just cheating, so why should doping be excused?

> Anyone trying to get around the rules is just cheating, so why should doping be excused?

Perhaps a better question is: why are there rules against doping in the first place? As the xkcd notes, 'some performance enhancements are ok, some are bad', and the line is rather arbitrary at this point.

Sports/games rules are inherently arbitrary. This is like asking why you can move while dribbling but not while just holding the ball in basketball. There is no why. There only is.

Can you move while tossing the ball in the air repeatedly (dribbling against the sky)?

No.

Wait why? It's just like dribbling except upside down.

It's just the rule.

It's just the rule, man. The rules are what define the game. Why can't I start the bishop where the queen is? It's just the rule. Why can't I have an under inflated ball? Just the rule. Why can't I use a cricket bat in soccer? Just the rule.

In American Football, can you throw a forward pass? Or in Basketball, can you shoot three point shots? Both were not originally in those respective games, and were added. The rules of all sports are evolving, and will continue to do so.

I'm not aware of any sport that restricts your diet, or the amount of exercise or training you can perform. Yet some chemical substances are arbitrarily banned. It is anti-science!

I see very practical reasons: first of all, uncontrolled use of substances can endanger the life of participants. Why should someone add a sporting rule that can endanger people?

> Why should someone add a sporting rule that can endanger people?

Completely agree. The purpose of sport (in our modern day) is well-being. We should not force anyone to (within reason) be expected to hurt themselves.

However, it strikes me that we are failing to use science in a way that could contribute to sport or human advancement in general. The vast majority of modern doping has no negative health outcomes. The steroid era of the 80s are gone. Many of the most pervasive forms of doping, such as blood doping, EPO, etc. naturally occur in your body.

It has gotten so bad that the NCAA does not permit excessive coffee drinking, as it is considered a form of doping. Furthermore, if you permitted these forms of doping, then the marginal advantage of other more dangerous drugs would be reduced.

I even agree that there should be some acknowledgement about this issue. But when it comes to the Armstrong discussion, this is a mute point. Even if doping were allowed from now on, it doesn't change the status of this practice in the past (i.e., cheating).

Ridiculous non-sense. Every sport has rules, cycling is not different. Doping is against the rules, that's why they have anti-doping tests. If LA was doping he was clearly cheating, not playing the game. It doesn't matter how many people are doing that, the only reasonable thing to do would be to report the abuse, instead of repeating it.

Also, what good has he made to the world of sports if now he is a well known cheater, who lost all his ill-gotten titles?

Sports have written rules and unwritten rules. Cycling during the LA era was a cheater's game and the people in charge of it were unwilling to even attempt to clean it up. It's unlikely that any rider in the top 30 of the TdF was clean and the authorities knew it and were complicit. They were getting ratings like never before. Armstrong was bringing the massive US market to the sport and Europeans were watching in record numbers because his success made them angry. There was a game within the game that was all but sanctioned by the unwillingness to address the doping problem. That was the game, one played by the unwritten rules of the sport, that Armstrong played better than anyone else.

> what good has he made to the world of sports if now he is a well known cheater

Beyond the fact that he didn't have to give back any of the money, inspired a ton of cancer patients and cancer donors and had a damned funny cameo in Dodgeball? He brought exposure to an amazing sport to the US. I count myself among the millions of people that would likely never have gotten into cycling without Armstrong. And, cheater or not, my ride up the Tourmalet was a highlight of my trip to France and something I'll remember the rest of my life. If you don't dope, cycling is an amazing exercise that's makes you a healthier person. How many other millions were inspired to get on a bike by Armstrong? Sure, if you take the myopic view that the world of sports is limited to professionals, Armstrong may have destroyed most of what he created. But when you take a wider view, his cheating created a lot of amazing effects that survived the scandal.

Also, what good has he made to the world of sports if now he is a well known cheater, who lost all his ill-gotten titles?

Asking the question reveals your opinion, but I'll say that I am not bothered by what Lance did. He won those races (both in my mind and in actual reality) no matter what anybody says officially.

No one is disputing whether or not he crossed the finish line first, here. Doping didn't make it easy for him to win, but it surely made it much easier. That in itself is unsportsmanlike and deserving of the ire he's received.

Also, what good has he made to the world of sports

I couldn't care less about the world of sports - and I was a champion cyclist in college (RMCCC Silver medal 2006). Look what livestrong and the LA foundation did for cancer research and support.

Clearly beneficial.

This is another example of the "ends justify the means". The charity work does not change a iota of what he did in the sports arena. If that was possible, then for example a thief could take a good portion of his gains and invest on charity to undo other wrongs. In fact, in retrospect his charities can be easily seen as a tentative to buy favorable public opinion.

This is another example of the "ends justify the means".

Okay. So what's the problem? Consequentialism is a valid philosophical outlook.

> Consequentialism is a valid philosophical outlook.

It is also a sign of lack of character.

That's completely ridiculous and is extremely arrogant. I suggest you look into the writings of Iain King.

I think what your trying to say can be more abstractly put as "the ends justify the means".

> Rules in society are also pretty stupid.

If you mean laws than no.. they are not stupid. Killing people and getting away with it is bad. And some of the "rules" in wall street if broken can have an equally horrific impact.

And that comes back to the question do the ends justify the means? Sometimes it does for sure. For Armstrong it could be argued it did.

The other side of the question is this: should society respect people who believe that the end justify the means? I believe the answer to that should be clearly no. So, yes, sometimes you can get what you want by cheating. Should I understand or even respect this? Of course not. Society should be willing to go against anyone who believes and acts on this kind of ideas.

By "stupid" I mean unintelligent, premature, arbitrary, and weak. Rules such as "don't kill thy neighbor" are pretty obvious and don't need to be law for most people to get it. But being imprisoned for smoking weed when alcohol is legal is almost as "stupid" as a moving pick or doping. Those who get away with it have an advantage. Those that don't get pulled over by a man in stripes blowing a whistle. Then rules change, as they should, but that doesn't reverse the "stupid" past.

Not killing comes naturally. Referees are not very natural, but we need them to uphold rules that don't come naturally. Rules don't have to be bad to be stupid or somewhat arbitrary, and they do shape the game/society. But cycling definitely was a stupid game knowing what we all know now. Almost as stupid as pro-wrestling, but at least they don't hide it, which makes them far more respectable than cycling ever was. Armstrong could only do what he did with the higher-ups knowing, and with the leverage he had against them and the entire sport. No one idolizes the International Cycling Union[1] as one does an athlete, but they made the beast that was Lance Armstrong.

The takeaway is that it's wrong to look just at the players. When cheating is a prerequisite to success, it's often the game that is already rigged.

--- [1] http://www.foxsports.com/cycling/story/investigation-interna...

Strongly disagree that rules are stupid. Wrote about that here: https://medium.com/@Exolymph/power-is-necessary-5e35e6ac7817...

Your point about whether doping is inherent in cycling is a good discussion point, but the research that the article describes shows how "Winners turn to cheating" even in cases where drugs aren't part of the equation.

That's a really neat way to say "It's alright because everyone is doing it".

People like you are why companies like Enron happen.

Great post. Unsure why all the responses to this seem to equate cheating in a sport with murder, tax evasion or other rules that are far more fundamental to the proper operation of society.

I see what uber is doing as far more ethically questionable than ubiquitous doping in a sport.

If we didn't view people like Armstrong as role models there wouldn't be much of a problem. But as long as we tell children to view people like him as role models then they better behave ethically. Unless you want to raise a generation of psychopaths.

If you are not cheating, you are not trying. That is pretty much motto of all competitive sports.

Pure, unmitigated bullshit. 'Everyone knew it' is the first defense of a cheater (and of quite a few criminals) but rather than being a true defense that's just an admission of participation in a systematic fraud. There only needs to be one cyclist (in this context) who is racing without doping in accordance with the rules to invalidate your entire thesis; the reality is that people are invited to view and participate in an athletic competition, and that insofar as it is a doping game once you get inside professional cycling, everyone else should be getting prosecuted for perpetuating a fraud upon the public, as Adam Smith recognized centuries ago in The Wealth of Nations when advising governments to be wary of trusting industry associations: 'People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.'

Or so he says. Of course it's rather difficult to assess the opportunity cost here, since sports-affiliated charities engaged in medical research are now inevitably tainted by association. A look at the Livestrong Foundation's Form 990 suggests the organization spent almost as much on compensating its executive staff and lobbyists as it did on grant issuance, and the amount it has disbursed, while substantial (at least $100m over its lifetime, I estimate) is not so large in absolute terms, such that I question your accolade of 'one of the greatest charities of all time.'

I don't have anything for or against Lance Armstrong; I am not very interested in cycling, and I don't think doping in sport represents some sort of moral nadir, but is merely shabby. But I have a big problem with your uncritical acceptance of the fact that because 'everyone knows' there's an inner game that has little to do with the outer game - a phenomenon which seems to exist in almost every sphere of life - that that's OK. It's fraud perpetuated on the general public, which is educated to both respect and fear the moral code of self-restraint inherent in the social contract, and which (importantly) is the most effective governor of interpersonal relations at the individual level. Even many animals have standards of fairness, and to actively undermine those in an organized fashion is, well, cancerous to civilization and our collective wellbeing. Paradoxically, I've become rather fond of 'pharmabro' Martin Shkreli because while he operated his businesses in extremely anti-social fashion, he is pretty up-front about about the fact that he is doing so for pure economic advantage, in contrast to the blatant hypocrisy of all the other people doing likewise while striking postures of humility.

"Faster, Higher, Stronger" book showed a study where athletes were asked what they would give up for an Olympic gold medal and from what I remember a good portion would give up their lives in 5 years for that (or some other crazy time), the pressure and willing to win for professional and aspiring professional athletes is incredible.

Might explain why winners of free market capitalism want to institute measures (laws, regulations) to keep others from achieving the same level of winning.

> Might explain why winners of free market capitalism want to institute measures (laws, regulations) to keep others from achieving the same level of winning.

I don't think that's an accurate description of reality. My take is that everybody wants to institute measures that benefit them and hinder others... but the "winners" (i.e. the rich) have comparatively more political power and thus also more success forcing these measures through.

My take is that everybody wants to institute measures that benefit them and hinder others

How convenient for you! What would your response be towards a verifiable counter-example?

Discussion, I guess. I'd love to hear some counter-examples.

My only rhetoricism in the comment was that "everybody" was probably an exaggeration; more accurate would be "most people".

Yeah, I knew you were being a bit hyperbolic but this is a bit of a touchy issue for me (see other comments on this thread) so I apologize for my sharp tone.

Obvious examples would be people like aid workers, religious clergy and others who ostensibly hew to some unselfish non-discriminatory ethical code, but as well know such activities often sacrifice material wealth in exchange for significant social currency, plus there's a disappointingly high proportion of predatory types to be found among those ostensibly caring for the most vulnerable. I don't have the paper to hand now and can't remember enough to look it up but I was surprised last year to discover that people with sadistic tendencies (as measured by clinical instruments) are over-represented in the paramedic profession, for example.

One group that I am inclined to think is extraordinarily concerned with maintaining a level playing field even at their own personal expense is the community of economic theorists, although this claim might seem pretty counter-intuitive at first glance. It also gives rise to a weakness at the heart of the profession; economists are so concerned with discovering objective criteria for efficient outcomes that they don't have a don't have a good model for greedy or altruistic behavior, and until fairly recently have relied instead on the conceit of everyone being rational utility maximizers, much as you did in your grandparent comment. This implicit assumption has led to the discipline being long labeled as 'the dismal science,' notwithstanding the majority of its practitioners' positive rather than normative aims.

Re: aid workers; I agree that they don't seem very selfish, but we might simply be hitting the bottom of the power continuum - because they know that they couldn't succeed/gain influence in any other endeavour, they opt at least for good feelings (that one gets when one is altruistic/ethical); or as you said, they benefit in other ways. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - there are definitely worse ways to satisfy one's emotional needs; just that it doesn't mean they wouldn't fuck people over if given a chance.

Re: clergy - what is this, I can't even... I guess this simply wasn't the best example, but I can't even begin to consider members/representatives of one of the most corrupt, deceitful, greediest institutions in the past 2000 years - the longest-running scam - to be anywhere near selfless.

Re: economists - I'm afraid my opinion of them weights heavily towards them being completely delusional; economics is such a vague "science" and everything is completely unprovable, so having a theory (which isn't correct - no theory is) is infinitely more valuable than being intellectually honest and admitting that you basically know nothing. This is apparent both in theorists (academia encourages this), as with practitioners (LTCM: win Nobel => crash the market; or the past few presidents of US FED - each "fixing" the market only to make it crash even harder). Sure, they might be well-meaning, but so were middle-age "doctors" who made leeches suck their patients blood...

I'm too tired now to address the whole thing but just to clarify that when I said clergy I didn't mean Christians in particular.

My take is that everybody wants to institute measures that benefit them and hinder others

Maybe I'm not living in the real world, but I sincerely doubt that most people would like to hinder others.

Most people probably don't think of the things they support as "hindering others" - they think of it as "making the market take externalities into account" or "preserving the character of the neighbourhood" or "ensuring safety for customers of our industry" or "bringing our short-term incentives in line with our long-term incentives"

Taking externalities into account isn't hindering others, since the externality is by definition an unwanted imposition pf costs on a third party that didn't exist prior to the economic activity that generated it. I fail to see how this is different from an unpaid bill, and Nobel laureate Ronald Coase has rather convincingly argued* that the costs of mitigation in advance or in arrears ends up being the same, but that the transaction costs of enforcing property rights against externalities are a sufficient barrier to many pollutees that polluters are often willing to gamble on others' inability to adequately enforce their rights and pocket the resulting savings.

* in The Problem of Social Cost, an unusually readable essay for the field of economics.

"protecting American jobs"

It's rational when the hindrance means fulfilling self interests.

I've been in competitive workplaces where people would try to get your project shot down because it could compete for resources with their own.

Measures that benefit a group of people implicitly hinder all the rest.

Part of the same psychology. Like Lance Armstrong, they begin by rationalizing "I just want to level the playing field". Then they take acts to elevate themselves well above the field.

Joe Rogan interviewed Lance Armstrong in depth and Armstrong talks in detail about how he got to the point of justifying "juicing" to himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEfSdPz1WtA

Rogan was way too nice with Armstrong IMO.

Most of the winners have won through illegal actions or government collusion. That's not free market capitalism.

This is why we need strong labor protections like unions.

Does someone know if this research has been published and is freely accessible? The difference of the losers of -0.5 compared to the expected value gives me the feeling N is not pretty high...

Yes, the article links to the study, from where you can download the PDF.

Thanks, reading it more carefully I see I missed more info... Anyway, 86 participants, divided in two equal groups. Let's say the 43 participants in the loser group all threw the dice once you'll end up with a ~9% chance of the groups average to be below 6.5. So that might well be possible. The winners group throwing on average above 9 is highly unlikely purely by chance. Quite interesting.

The paper was also discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11065661.

Very interesting article. Makes me think this is a tendency that we should all look for in ourselves since it could be we start pushing harder to maintain our new 'status' of winning.

It also seems a bit sad that we tend to get so wrapped up in our successes that we will start cheating to maintain our new self identity.

There is a very interesting interview with Lance where he talks about the whole cheating thing and living with a lie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEfSdPz1WtA

Stories like this greatly depress me. I've been aware of the phenomenon since a young age, when my identically-aged first cousin and I were assigned to count yellow cars in the street in exchange for a small cash reward for each one we identified so as to temporarily relieve the adults of our company at the time. My cousin (whose parents are pretty jolly and easygoing) professed to detect three times as many yellow cars as I did. I'm pathologically honest (probably because I grew up in an abusive environment where even a small transgression was liable to result in a severe beating) and I was simply astonished at my cousin's willingness to maximize his reward at what seemed to me to be an insanely high level of risk. I learned much later in life that my father had bullied my uncle growing up and that the uncle's response was to develop peer-teaming strategies while my father went on to a successful but rather lonely and extremely competitive executive career.

To this day I have a very hard time dealing with any sort of economic activity that has more than a whiff of subjective advantage and am deeply uncomfortable accepting any sort of unexpected windfall, to the point of refusing well-earned and freely-offered promotions and having great difficulty enjoying gifts. I have literally gone hungry and been late on my rent because of an unwillingness to deposit a check (in payment for work) for an amount greater than I had expected to receive. Needless to say, this has had a pretty dire and cumulative effect on my career, material wellbeing etc. :-/

I forgot to add that the one context where this does pay off for me, although I rarely indulge in it, is playing Poker - since elaborate bluffing and systematic dishonesty is actually a legitimate play strategy in that game I'm able to manufacture tells and run a 'slow loser' strategy with ease and frequently walk off with the entire pot. I've never had the resources or risk tolerance to try it against professionals, though.

> When Lance Armstrong was found guilty of doping a few years ago, the sports world was aghast. For almost a decade, he had dominated cycling so thoroughly that the thought of anyone else winning bordered on ridiculous. Few had guessed that he had done it by cheating, and many found it hard to believe, even after Armstrong himself owned up to his dishonesty.

Huh. I was just barely a young adult when Armstrong began his period of dominance, and this doesn't match my recollection. Most people I spoke with who had any familiarity with cycling were utterly convinced he was cheating. Maybe this wasn't true outside the bubble of my peers?

Driving Uber; its pretty predictable that wealthier people are less likely to rate you well.

so...best strategy is to cheat.

I wonder how much of the first experiment described is not due to causation, but is instead from certain kinds of people being both more likely to win and to cheat.

Some of the other ones do point to causation, but it would be interesting to see an experiment where people thought it was skill, but the actual winners were chosen randomly (e.g. you get points, and they tell you who wins at the end, but you don't see the actual calculation, so you won't be suspicious.)

The first game was designed so that cheating was impossible.

That doesn't have anything to do with my point above, which is that the alternative hypothesis "people with some property X are better at game Y, and separately, people with property X are more likely to cheat" is not ruled out by experiment 1 as described.

Edit: you could also differentiate between "winning->cheating" and the confounder possibility by having the cheatable game first.

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