This will go over well…
IAAF Suspends Russia From International Competitions
Competitive athletics: could I give a damn? If someone paid me to, I’m sure I could gin up some enthusiasm for a game of sportsball or whatever. But in general, watching millionaires run around playing kids games… meh. Still, the politics of sports can get entertaining. I actually used to watch the Olympics, back when it was a Titanic Struggles Against The Soviets. Looks like politics might come into sports again, now that the Russians have been booted out of things like track-and-field Olympic events because of their doping up their athletes.
Personally I think this is the wrong decision. I say: rather than booting out doped-up athletes… segregate them. Instead of holding back scientific experimentation… go with it! Divvy up, say, a marathon into *four* categories:
- Unaltered humans
- Humans on the latest pharmaceuticals
- Humans genetically modified
- Anything goes (mixes of drugs and genetics and cybernetics and magic and brainwashing and whatever)
Transhumanism *is* coming, in perhaps a whole range of ways. Might as well accept it and see what we can get. A lot of the tinkering, especially with genetics, will have problematic side effects… might as well test them out of athletes first. They will be well compensated for the risk, unlike regular schmoes who’ll get upgrades because they *need* them for medical reasons.
That would certainly make the Olympics more interesting. Not only for the pure spectacle, but because, at last, average people could watch Olympians and *honestly* think that, just maybe, *they* might be able to do that too.