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> they can just run as fast as they want as long as they don’t take shortcuts In fact that is not how marathon running works. If you take certain drugs that is

> they can just run as fast as they want as long as they don’t take shortcuts In fact that is not how marathon running works. If you take certain drugs that is frowned uppon, even if you are honest about it. Similarly you can’t break the legs of the competitors. That is heavily frowned uppon even if you are honest about it. These are not obvious. There could be a full-doping version of marathon running but there isn’t. There could be a combined martial art&marathon running competition where you try to hurt your opponent without getting hurt while running a marathon distance but there isn’t.

dahart 2y ago
Frowned upon? Not obvious? What are you talking about? This is straw man. Doping is against marathon rules and assault is both against the rules and also straight up illegal. Maybe you should read some marathon rules https://www.baa.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/Boston_Marathon_Rules_and_Policies_08_2021.pdf https://www.baa.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/Boston_Marat... There could be a doping-allowed marathon, indeed, if anyone actually wanted that. And that still wouldn’t demonstrate any unique community norms or change my point at all.
- cgriswald 2y ago
  As a disinterested third party I’m not sure what your point is. Honesty isn’t unique? I don’t think anyone is saying otherwise. You seem to be proving the other poster’s point that people interested in marathons landed on a class of rules that is specific and that nobody wants the alternatives. It’s the difference between that and the speed-running community’s “anything goes, we’ll just classify it” rules that people find are finding interesting.
  - dahart 2y ago
    I don’t see how you’ve arrived at marathons having any specific norms. No doping and no assault is pretty universal. Can you explain it better? The point was that speed runners are not operating with different ethics than any other competition, or society in general. “Anything goes” isn’t accurate as a description, and the top poster maybe didn’t realize that suggesting that exploiting game glitches somehow represented flexible ethics might be a bit presumptuous and patronizing, and also incorrect. It’s interesting to me that people would assume otherwise.
    - cgriswald 2y ago
      > I don’t see how you’ve arrived at marathons having any specific norms. No doping and no assault is pretty universal. Can you explain it better? Sure. First, I'm going to leave 'assault' because I think it sort of changes the mapping between marathon running and speedrunning in an analogy-breaking way and adds ethical concerns that aren't really relevant to the point and practically don't exist for speedrunning anyway. I understood what the poster was saying, but I think it's not a great example. Second, I'm going to suggest that like speedrunning, a marathon run is really against the clock. This isn't strictly true, but it's true enough for the analogy to work. With all that in place, the apparent universality of 'no doping' is half the point. There are no marathons where you can choose to dope or not dope and they simply categorize you that way. Doping has a fair chance of ruining a career and disqualifying the participant from future marathons. The other half of the point is that it doesn't have to be this way. We could have separate marathons for dopers, allow them to race together with non-dopers but categorize them differently, or even have specified paths to run but no organized marathon and allow people to get creative in speedrunning them. We could allow people to find shortcuts on trails to improve their time and then categorize them differently from those who follow the proscribed path. Yet we don't do any of it. In contrast, speedrunning does allow this sort of activity. Tools are okay, but now you're categorized as TAS. You don't have to 100% the game, but now you're doing an Any% run. This does not exist in marathons. You can't take a short cut and get an "Any%" time, for instance. Simply put, if a speedrunner finds a shortcut it is celebrated, but if a marathon runner happens to find a path down a vine that saves him 10 minutes of running, he's a cheater. These are two different ethical systems. > The point was that speed runners are not operating with different ethics than any other competition, or society in general. As you can see above, I disagree with this statement. I haven't read all the sibling and cousin posts, but neither the poster you responded to nor the top poster said the ethical system was bad; in fact both found it interesting. Both the marathon system of ethics and the speedrunning system of ethics seem to have the same moral or ethical basis in fairness, but the approach is different and therefore is the ethical system. > “Anything goes” isn’t accurate as a description, and the top poster maybe didn’t realize that suggesting that exploiting game glitches somehow represented flexible ethics might be a bit presumptuous and patronizing, and also incorrect. This is not my interpretation of the top post and I think it's extremely ungenerous. He expressed surprised that a system designed to work around the rules still develops a system of ethical rules. His edit then points out that honesty is a core tenet of the ethics of the group.
- krisoft 2y ago
  > Doping is against marathon rules Yes. That is what I'm saying. Thank you for repeating it. > assault is both against the rules and also straight up illegal. This is coupled. What is or isn't assault depends on the rules of the sport. What is absolutely a-okay in boxing would be considered assault in other situations. If there would be thousands and thousands of people with long history who think it is just and right to do a kind of marathon where they stop occasionally and have a kickboxing match on the side of the road then it would not be considered assault to participate in it. > Maybe you should read some marathon rules Doesn't appear that we have a disagreement on marathon rules. So why would I? My point is that in marathons the people running and organising them have very specific ideas about what is or isn't a valid kind of marathon. "Doping-allowed marathon" is not a thing, even if all participants were honest about it. "boxing while distance running" events are not a thing. The norm "anything goes as long as you are honest about it" has two parts. Part 1 "anything goes". Part 2 "as long as you are honest about it". You think part 2 is the curious thing. What I'm pointing out is that Part 1 is the curious thing. In most kind of competitions people are a lot lot more picky about the circumstances which they feel "okay" to compete under. > There could be a doping-allowed marathon, indeed, if anyone actually wanted that. And that is my point. People don't want that. People are repulsed by the idea and feel a strong disdain towards others who would participate or organise a "doping-allowed marathon". If such an event were ever contemplated very likely there would be protest and pressure on the organisers to abandon the plan. Do you agree with that? In other words in long distance running they do not have a norm of "anything goes as long as you are honest about it". Not because they are not honest, or don't require honesty (part 2). But because they all agree to a sufficient degree that "anything does not go" (part 1). Therefore the curious thing is part 1 in speed running. That they celebrate, and consider to be appropriate, a much wider variation of circumstances than in other competitions.
  - dahart 2y ago
    This discussion is sloppy and failing to define or be careful with ethics and how ethics is distinct from competition rules. Let’s drop the word norms since it’s ambiguous, and be clear about ethics. My point from the top and throughout is that video game exploits don’t raise any ethical questions outside of competition. Your examples do raise some interesting ethical questions on their own, but that’s a different subject than speedrunning, and they don’t actually challenge what I was trying to say. Outside of fighting sports, assault is default illegal and considered unethical, and there are very few exceptions for it. Importantly, a sport’s rules must make an explicit exception for assault because it’s illegal, otherwise assault is not allowed. Marathon isn’t a fighting sport, and like any sport it does not need to state that assault is not allowed. Marathon’s ethics on assault match society’s ethics on assault, and therefore the marathon does not have unique ethics when it comes to assault. Boxing is an interesting example, one where the sport’s rules do bend social ethics. Speedrunning is not an interesting example, as glitch exploits and tool assisted speedruns aren’t considered unethical outside of competition - they don’t harm anybody. The only ethical question anyone’s raised so far about speedrunning is whether the speedrunners have followed the competition rules, or whether they’ve cheated. There is chess boxing, which is perhaps similar to your idea of a boxing while distance running event. People have suggested doping-allowed sports https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/30/sport/enhanced-games-olympics-doping-spt-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/30/sport/enhanced-games-olympics... Looks like the people in the article objecting are people who make a living doing sports, so perhaps unsurprising. The primary objection to doping is that it’s unfair to competitors. I’m not sure the general public would be repulsed. Whether doping is generally unethical is debatable since outside of competition, the main harm a doper does is to themselves. Some ethicists consider self-harm a type of social harm, but it’s different than directly harming others, and challenging the right to self-harm may raise ethical questions about freedom of choice. But, if you’re right about people considering doping to be generally unethical, then that means it’s in the same bucket as assault, and so does not help support the idea that speedrunning represents unique or flexible ethics. Anyway, there are no competitions where anything goes, they all have rules. Most of the rules aren’t based on ethics, they’re just rules. When rules do bend society’s ethics, I agree it can be interesting. When rules don’t bend normal ethics, then we’re only talking about a different competition and not a case of flexible ethics. I think video game speed running falls in that latter group, and I haven’t yet seen any examples or reasoning here that demonstrate otherwise.

dahart 2y ago

Frowned upon? Not obvious? What are you talking about? This is straw man. Doping is against marathon rules and assault is both against the rules and also straight up illegal. Maybe you should read some marathon rules https://www.baa.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/Boston_Marathon_Rules_and_Policies_08_2021.pdf https://www.baa.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/Boston_Marat... There could be a doping-allowed marathon, indeed, if anyone actually wanted that. And that still wouldn’t demonstrate any unique community norms or change my point at all.

cgriswald 2y ago
As a disinterested third party I’m not sure what your point is. Honesty isn’t unique? I don’t think anyone is saying otherwise. You seem to be proving the other poster’s point that people interested in marathons landed on a class of rules that is specific and that nobody wants the alternatives. It’s the difference between that and the speed-running community’s “anything goes, we’ll just classify it” rules that people find are finding interesting.
- dahart 2y ago
  I don’t see how you’ve arrived at marathons having any specific norms. No doping and no assault is pretty universal. Can you explain it better? The point was that speed runners are not operating with different ethics than any other competition, or society in general. “Anything goes” isn’t accurate as a description, and the top poster maybe didn’t realize that suggesting that exploiting game glitches somehow represented flexible ethics might be a bit presumptuous and patronizing, and also incorrect. It’s interesting to me that people would assume otherwise.
  - cgriswald 2y ago
    > I don’t see how you’ve arrived at marathons having any specific norms. No doping and no assault is pretty universal. Can you explain it better? Sure. First, I'm going to leave 'assault' because I think it sort of changes the mapping between marathon running and speedrunning in an analogy-breaking way and adds ethical concerns that aren't really relevant to the point and practically don't exist for speedrunning anyway. I understood what the poster was saying, but I think it's not a great example. Second, I'm going to suggest that like speedrunning, a marathon run is really against the clock. This isn't strictly true, but it's true enough for the analogy to work. With all that in place, the apparent universality of 'no doping' is half the point. There are no marathons where you can choose to dope or not dope and they simply categorize you that way. Doping has a fair chance of ruining a career and disqualifying the participant from future marathons. The other half of the point is that it doesn't have to be this way. We could have separate marathons for dopers, allow them to race together with non-dopers but categorize them differently, or even have specified paths to run but no organized marathon and allow people to get creative in speedrunning them. We could allow people to find shortcuts on trails to improve their time and then categorize them differently from those who follow the proscribed path. Yet we don't do any of it. In contrast, speedrunning does allow this sort of activity. Tools are okay, but now you're categorized as TAS. You don't have to 100% the game, but now you're doing an Any% run. This does not exist in marathons. You can't take a short cut and get an "Any%" time, for instance. Simply put, if a speedrunner finds a shortcut it is celebrated, but if a marathon runner happens to find a path down a vine that saves him 10 minutes of running, he's a cheater. These are two different ethical systems. > The point was that speed runners are not operating with different ethics than any other competition, or society in general. As you can see above, I disagree with this statement. I haven't read all the sibling and cousin posts, but neither the poster you responded to nor the top poster said the ethical system was bad; in fact both found it interesting. Both the marathon system of ethics and the speedrunning system of ethics seem to have the same moral or ethical basis in fairness, but the approach is different and therefore is the ethical system. > “Anything goes” isn’t accurate as a description, and the top poster maybe didn’t realize that suggesting that exploiting game glitches somehow represented flexible ethics might be a bit presumptuous and patronizing, and also incorrect. This is not my interpretation of the top post and I think it's extremely ungenerous. He expressed surprised that a system designed to work around the rules still develops a system of ethical rules. His edit then points out that honesty is a core tenet of the ethics of the group.
krisoft 2y ago
> Doping is against marathon rules Yes. That is what I'm saying. Thank you for repeating it. > assault is both against the rules and also straight up illegal. This is coupled. What is or isn't assault depends on the rules of the sport. What is absolutely a-okay in boxing would be considered assault in other situations. If there would be thousands and thousands of people with long history who think it is just and right to do a kind of marathon where they stop occasionally and have a kickboxing match on the side of the road then it would not be considered assault to participate in it. > Maybe you should read some marathon rules Doesn't appear that we have a disagreement on marathon rules. So why would I? My point is that in marathons the people running and organising them have very specific ideas about what is or isn't a valid kind of marathon. "Doping-allowed marathon" is not a thing, even if all participants were honest about it. "boxing while distance running" events are not a thing. The norm "anything goes as long as you are honest about it" has two parts. Part 1 "anything goes". Part 2 "as long as you are honest about it". You think part 2 is the curious thing. What I'm pointing out is that Part 1 is the curious thing. In most kind of competitions people are a lot lot more picky about the circumstances which they feel "okay" to compete under. > There could be a doping-allowed marathon, indeed, if anyone actually wanted that. And that is my point. People don't want that. People are repulsed by the idea and feel a strong disdain towards others who would participate or organise a "doping-allowed marathon". If such an event were ever contemplated very likely there would be protest and pressure on the organisers to abandon the plan. Do you agree with that? In other words in long distance running they do not have a norm of "anything goes as long as you are honest about it". Not because they are not honest, or don't require honesty (part 2). But because they all agree to a sufficient degree that "anything does not go" (part 1). Therefore the curious thing is part 1 in speed running. That they celebrate, and consider to be appropriate, a much wider variation of circumstances than in other competitions.
- dahart 2y ago
  This discussion is sloppy and failing to define or be careful with ethics and how ethics is distinct from competition rules. Let’s drop the word norms since it’s ambiguous, and be clear about ethics. My point from the top and throughout is that video game exploits don’t raise any ethical questions outside of competition. Your examples do raise some interesting ethical questions on their own, but that’s a different subject than speedrunning, and they don’t actually challenge what I was trying to say. Outside of fighting sports, assault is default illegal and considered unethical, and there are very few exceptions for it. Importantly, a sport’s rules must make an explicit exception for assault because it’s illegal, otherwise assault is not allowed. Marathon isn’t a fighting sport, and like any sport it does not need to state that assault is not allowed. Marathon’s ethics on assault match society’s ethics on assault, and therefore the marathon does not have unique ethics when it comes to assault. Boxing is an interesting example, one where the sport’s rules do bend social ethics. Speedrunning is not an interesting example, as glitch exploits and tool assisted speedruns aren’t considered unethical outside of competition - they don’t harm anybody. The only ethical question anyone’s raised so far about speedrunning is whether the speedrunners have followed the competition rules, or whether they’ve cheated. There is chess boxing, which is perhaps similar to your idea of a boxing while distance running event. People have suggested doping-allowed sports https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/30/sport/enhanced-games-olympics-doping-spt-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/30/sport/enhanced-games-olympics... Looks like the people in the article objecting are people who make a living doing sports, so perhaps unsurprising. The primary objection to doping is that it’s unfair to competitors. I’m not sure the general public would be repulsed. Whether doping is generally unethical is debatable since outside of competition, the main harm a doper does is to themselves. Some ethicists consider self-harm a type of social harm, but it’s different than directly harming others, and challenging the right to self-harm may raise ethical questions about freedom of choice. But, if you’re right about people considering doping to be generally unethical, then that means it’s in the same bucket as assault, and so does not help support the idea that speedrunning represents unique or flexible ethics. Anyway, there are no competitions where anything goes, they all have rules. Most of the rules aren’t based on ethics, they’re just rules. When rules do bend society’s ethics, I agree it can be interesting. When rules don’t bend normal ethics, then we’re only talking about a different competition and not a case of flexible ethics. I think video game speed running falls in that latter group, and I haven’t yet seen any examples or reasoning here that demonstrate otherwise.