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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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Yup. Primary reason the anti drug rules are important is because with them pros will ride the razor's edge of discoverability; without them they will ride the razor's edge of ODing or death.

A lot the drugs athletes take under PED bans right now are just testosterone but re-synthesized to avoid detection. There's a lot of ways to get T levels up, and the safest ways to do it are also the most studied and easiest to detect. In this way, PED bans actually incentivize athletes to take riskier drugs.

People like the narrative idea of a Faustian bargain so much they assume it's always true that there's one on offer. But it's possible if under a scheme where PED's are allowed that the rational choice for athletes is sticking to basic steroid cycles and blood doping that gets them 95% of the way there and avoid the riskier experimental stuff that might not even help.

It's important because I find it unaesthetic to have athletes dying from ODs on PE drugs, and, more crucially, so do the people running the olympics.

that is an excellent point right up there with the thing where due to illegal drugs being illegal people will get them from street dealers, whose drugs are going to be massively more dangerous than a theoretical legal equivalent.

I'm not seeing an important part here?

If pros want to put dangerous substances into their body in pursuit of the limits of human achievement, that's their perogative. It is after all their body. And for a more noble and quixotic cause than most people put dangerous substances into their body.

It's important because I find it unaesthetic to have athletes dying from ODs on PE drugs, and, more crucially, so do the people running the olympics.

Only if they don't misrepresent to the fans that their achievements were achieved without drugs.

And even then, people act in stupid and self-destructive ways and having a drugs-allowed athletic competition is a magnet for people to kill themselves using drugs.

Only if they don't misrepresent to the fans that their achievements were achieved without drugs.

I hate is wen people do this. Probably because openly admitting drug use would open up possible consequences. Discussing steroid use on YouTube may mean demonization for that particular video.