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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

the point of disallowing it is to level the playing field so the athletic competition becomes a test of human effort and will.

Allowing it has the exact opposite effect, the athlete herself is worthless and it becomes a competition of who has the better drug cocktail or is more willing to sacrifice their health. There's nothing arbitrary about this, it destroys the very essence of what athleticism is about. It's as if we allowed chess engines at chess tournaments.

The actual point of this has of course nothing to do with sports:

"He said that the data would be “very useful to determining compounds and therapies to extending human life.”"

It's yet another typical Thiel supervillain-esque attempt to turn himself into Leto II.

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Physical aspects still very much play a role in the competition regardless of any drugs that help them. You can make a race Honda and a race Lamborghini and the Honda will still have a lot of catching up to do even if you put better parts on it. The starting point matters, when building race cars and when two people compete. All the steroids in the world won’t help someone who’s already at a disadvantage against a more fit and/or skilled opponent, who’s also on steroids.

> the athlete herself is worthless and it becomes a competition of who has the better drug cocktail or is more willing to sacrifice their health.

Everyone would be bigger, faster, stronger and the best athletes would come out on top. There’s an argument to be made that it’s a more level playing field than what you have now where most winners are using PED’s and you’re at a disadvantage and unlikely to win if you don’t.

It's not human effort and will. Some people have genetics that give them an advantage. The idea that the only difference between the 1st and 2nd place is effort is so naive it's childish.

Or do you think that in swimming, it's all the 6'5 guys with broad shoulders that have all the effort and will, but in the marathon it's all the 70kg guys that have the effort and will?

I'm sure that's the desired intention, but the reality is that many elite level athletes are probably illegally doping (we don't test enough), most assuredly taking all legal enhancements (drugs or not), and the line between illegal and legal enhancements is arbitrary and dynamic.

Why not create a subcategory in Olympics for doped sportsman. They compete against eachother and not against the 'natural' athletes.

Scores of doped up athletes should not compare to regular athletes.

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