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Somehow this part of the article bothered me: "But isn’t that cheating? What’s the difference between Progivil for students and steroids for athletes?" Is it c
by te_platt 18y ago
Somehow this part of the article bothered me:
"But isn’t that cheating? What’s the difference between Progivil for students and steroids for athletes?"
Is it cheating for tall people to play basketball? Should smart people take a drug to make them stupid for a test - to make things "fair"? If provigil really doesn't have long term negative effects it seems to me like it should be welcomed.
Using technology to change our natural abilities seems to evoke a certain amount of fear. More so than is explained by fear of potential negative long term effects. Why should that be?
- edw519 18y agoThe cheating angle has nothing to do with "fairness". It has everything to do with "safety". Linemen in the National Football League are good examples. Performance enhancing substances (especially steroids) give such significant advantages over opponents, at one time you had to take them to compete and keep your job. Twenty years later your health failed, partially from your occupation but mainly from the drugs. Many great linemen from the 70's and 80's are dead now. No one should ever have that dilemma, therefore the ban.
- te_platt 18y agoRight. I understand that part. Same reason why professional cyclists wear helmets. Helmets slow you down a bit but everyone would rather wear one for safety even if they wouldn't because they would take the risk for a better chance of winning. Still thats not quite my question. Getting braces for your teeth seems to be ok. Some people are uncomfortable with breast implants while others think they're great (insert your own joke here). What about surgery to make you smarter? In my gut that seems wrong but I'm not sure why.
- noonespecial 18y agoIt doesn't seem wrong to me. Surgery to give you 20/20 vision = OK, Surgery to give you 145 IQ = not ok?? Why? How about an expensive piece of optical machinery the rich can wear on their faces to give them good vision? All of the arguments I can come up with for not allowing the smart surgery/drugs (like it will benefit only the rich, wouldn't be fair etc,) fail on the "Lasik test". I take this to mean that its simply a cultural taboo now and will soon be seen as a curious, archaic belief from the distant past.
- keating 18y ago> Surgery to give you 20/20 vision = OK, Surgery to give you 145 IQ = not ok?? Why? In my case, both would be downgrades.
- noonespecial 18y agoSurgery to implant a modicum of tact, humility, and social grace?
- keating 18y agoSurgery to implant a sense of humor?
- jonnytran 18y ago> Surgery to give you 20/20 vision = OK, Surgery to give you 145 IQ = not ok?? I think the main difference here is that we understand (for the most part) how the eye works, but we don't understand the brain. It's orders of magnitude more complicated, so we don't understand all the effects.
- roundbrackets 18y ago"Right. I understand that part. Same reason why professional cyclists wear helmets." But this is simply not true. As a person who follows the sport of cycling I know that many professional cyclists will use helmets only during races (because they are required to), during training they won't.
- keating 18y agoIt has nothing to do with safety, it has to do with PR for the so-called war on drugs. If they were legal it would be easy to find a doctor to supervise your enhancement regimen, making it safer. As it is, people still take them, without medical supervision. And sports profit from that. How many millions did Baseball make off McGwire and Bonds breaking the home run record? Fan interest went way up. And NFL players are plenty juiced. There are numerous types of steroids, with different side-effects and levels of safety. Then there are banned substances like HGH, which is extremely beneficial with no significant side-effects for most people in reasonable dosages. Further proof it's a PR stunt and not about safety: Weed is banned. It's about a million times safer than getting sacked by one of those linebackers. If they care about safety they should switch to Flag Football.
- mickt 18y agoReminds me of a scifi short story I read years ago, I forgot the author's name. But, the story was set in a future US where all people were create equal and should be equal and people who were really good at something had to have some hindrance to make them averagely equal. One line I remember was: "the ballerina must have been exceptionally beautiful and gifted good due to mask and the number of weights weighting her down"