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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   45549 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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A Death at BUDS, or How Anti-Science Ideologies Trickle Down to Harm Heroes

TLDR: Media bias against drugs leads to people ignoring obvious, medically supported interventions. This creates room for other people to cheat the system, which creates dangers. Kyle Mullen would probably be alive today were he on a medically supervised steroid cycle instead of buying a used car to store his illegal drugs in and learning how to use them from some mix of bros at the base and bros on the internet. I say bring on the Space Marines, or at least provide pure drugs at military expense, it’s only polite.

By any reasonable standard, Kyle Mullen was a Hero in the making, in the classical sense. A muscular 6’4 SEAL candidate, choosing to forego a career out of an Ivy League school to serve his country.

The 24-year-old arrived on the California coast in January for the SEALs’ punishing selection course in the best shape of his life — even better than when he was a state champion defensive end in high school or the captain of the football team at Yale.

He finished the toughest parts of SEAL training, and died on the beach afterward. NYT article here, all quotes are from that article. The NYT story was a real gut punch, expose and heartbreaker all rolled into one, I recommend reading the whole thing and now it’s circulating through the “Summarize a real journalist’s work, make two generic comments, and pass it off as your own” internet chain. Slate chimed in to probably say the whole thing is to be blamed on Toxic Masculinity, The National Review of course needs to Defend Tradition while blaming the drugs, even some Arab website hopped on to call it an example of American brutality, cheating, and drug culture.

What none of the think pieces suggested was the obvious solution: if steroids make you better at the things we want SEALs to be good at, give them steroids. Why are SEALs buying them independently and taking them secretly, when it would all go much better if the SEALs program offered an option to be put on a mild steroid cycle under doctor’s supervision? At the very least, that’s as upsetting as schoolteachers buying their own school supplies!

Sailors who enter the program bolstered by steroids and hormones can push harder, recover faster and probably beat out the sailors who are trying to become SEALs while clean, said one senior SEAL leader with multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. The inevitable effect, he said, is that a course designed to select the very best will end up selecting only the very best cheaters, and steadily fill the SEAL teams with war fighters who view rules as optional.

“No one can do everything the instructors ask, so you have to learn how to cheat to get through,” he said. “Everyone knows it happens. The point is to learn how to not get caught.”

Teaching trainee soldiers to cheat goes back to at least the Spartan Agoge, and I doubt Lycurgus was totally innovative on this one. But you can prevent trainees from going off the rails by providing reasonable rails. What killed Limewire et al (or at least made them less prominent), wasn’t suing some random college kids for downloading an album, it was creating a legal framework for listening to music online and paying for it. While testing is suggested as a solution, it hasn't worked in sports so I fail to see how we can be optimistic it will work here.

If cheating is easy and it works, then the only solution is to obviate the need for it by making it legal in a managed form.

The Dead Pool is a real phenomenon, steroids are nothing to play with. But those kinds of results come from out of control drug use without medical supervision by guys who are used to pushing their limits, and are OK with dying in the process. There is no question that overuse of steroids can have negative health impacts, but a light, managed cycle isn’t going to make it any more likely that anyone dies, it would probably reduce the odds of other injuries during BUDS if it were used to manage existing problems and lead to more medical supervision. Steroids are like anything else, they follow the 80/20 rule: the first extra push gets you most of the results, then you can keep adding more and more to get attenuated marginal gains. WADA isn’t going to test SEALs before they kick in doors and disqualify guys that don’t have clean piss. Putting all SEAL candidates who want it on a basic cycle would obviate the desire to go on more, level the playing field, and improve performance.

Instead, the Navy chooses to make the competition ever more fierce, and just hope that guys won't cheat or get themselves into trouble.

In the 1980s, about 40 percent of candidates graduated. Over the past 25 years, the average has dropped to 26 percent. In 2021, it was just 14 percent, and in Seaman Mullen’s class this year, less than 10 percent.

Like everything else in American life, the competition at the top is increasingly fierce. The bifurcation of American life into a Barbell Chart of winners and losers doesn’t stop anywhere. SEAL training is particularly brutal, consider this story of a man who was probably tougher and in better shape than anyone on theMotte:

Three weeks in, Seaman Caserta collapsed while carrying a boat. Instructors yelled at him to get up, and when he said he couldn’t, his father said, they made him quit the course. An X-ray later revealed a broken leg.

Candidates who don’t complete BUD/S often must serve out the remaining years of their enlistments in undesirable low-level Navy jobs. Seaman Caserta ended up manning a snack counter at a distant base.

Seriously, I don’t know the whole story, but in what universe is a guy 50/50 between commando and snack counter? There wasn’t a slightly more useful landing spot?

You’re asking these guys to take a gamble between doing their dream job being a certified superhero, with highly paid job opportunities galore in a variety of fields after they serve their country with honor, and obscurity behind the snack counter. Is it any wonder that they’ll do anything to win, especially when you already select for guys willing to risk death?

“What am I going to do with guys like that in a place like Afghanistan?” said the leader. “A guy who can do 100 pull-ups but can’t make an ethical decision?”

I’m really just putting this quote here as a laugh line. We ask SEALs to be elite, to be the best, to sacrifice their bodies, their lives, and often parts of their souls; but God forbid they break the rules by taking medicine that makes their lives easier.

Early aughts Rick Reilly really did a number on America, we’re still recovering from it and realizing just what Better Living Through Chemistry can do for us. But our sportswriters and their cousins in the hard news are the main way the public hears about steroids: I would bet that more NYT writers/editors know someone using Test to transition than using Test to hit a PR. They’re pulling their info from SI, not from T Nation. Much of the NYT commentariat and audience views male weightlifting and fitness with vague suspicion of wrong think. That combination gives us a public discourse about steroids soaked in myths about roid rage, tiny testicles, and ignoring all the scientific studies of the health benefits of testosterone supplementation. Much like a recent discussion of plastic surgery, if everyone keeps it a secret you only ever notice the bad work, not all the work that passes.

The result is that someone like Kyle, who should have been serving his country with distinction, or at least living the probably pleasant life of a former Yale football captain, instead chose to buy a used car to hide his drugs in, inject himself with God-only-knows-what, and died before he ever saw an enemy combatant. What a waste. Let’s at least consider the possibility that the problem wasn’t drug use as such, but using illegal drugs dosed by an amateur, with the obvious preventative being legal drugs dosed by medical professionals under regular observation for results. Recognize that bad results come from homebrew experimentation, not from the substance itself. Let's give Justice to Kyle, not by weakening SEAL training or introducing an ever expanding and expensive team of nannies to keep an eye on everyone, but by doing something that might actually have saved his life.

Ok, definitely not a SEAL here, but as one of the few in the forum with any pointy-end experience, here's my take:

1: I'm weakly against the ban on PEDs in the military. During my time in, steroids were by far the most popular illegal drug, people pissed hot for that shit constantly. Every unit is different, but we were hard up for bodies and infantry NCOs tend to be a practical bunch. I never wrote a soldier up for steroids unless he was also a shitbird. My opinion at the time and today is that if you're taking stuff to get better at your job, I'm not going to stand in the way.

2: When we talk about very specialized schools, we're talking about a very perverse set of conditions. Any special forces unit gets a lot more applicants than they have slots for, so they set up "weedout" programs. For Green Berets, it's Selection, for SEALS it's BUD/S. This is key, these are not training. These are shitshows intended to get gung-ho soldiers to quit. Exhaustion, sleep dep, pain, cold, heat, etc. The cadre will choose targets daily and focus their collective efforts on fucking with one soldier to see if they can get him to quit. The pressure is intense. What they're selecting for is the mental and physical ability to continue suffering indefinitely.

3: For those who are worried about rules not being followed, allow me to set your mind at ease. Rules are never followed, war is a free-for-all. You can do anything your balls and guns are big enough to handle. The idea that soldiers in combat give the tiniest of fucks about back-home moralizing about drugs is ridiculous on its face, and clearly denotes someone who has never met a real soldier.

4: Going out for special forces is a bit like going out for a pro sports team. There's a brutal and brutally efficient weeding-out portion, the vast majority of people do not make it. The collective pass rate for all the schools, training and selections required to become an actual special forces operator is a very small fraction of one percent. Maybe three to five out of every thousand who start will make it to the teams, and even fewer will be able to serve out a career there. We cannot think of these jobs as something that most people could or should be able to do.

Not looking for particular source talk (though, I wonder if that would be allowed here; better if not). But how do deployed soldiers typically source their gear? Hookups back home, or locally? Or do they time their cycles to avoid having to deal with those logistics?

TBH, I stayed well clear of all that stuff, so I don't know much about where guys got it. I presume just had it mailed in, lots of guys were on creatine, supplements etc., so that sort of thing wouldn't automatically look suspect. I know a lot of other contraband got in that way, or in care packages from your people back home. I think the Army cared more about pornography than they did drugs, at least back in '05.

I consume a lot of media generated by former SEALs, and have heard commentary both directly about this case and about training in selection in general.

The impression I get is that allowing PEDs would be akin to lowering the standard, and that's not okay. Lowering the standard means the guy next to you in combat is less likely to be able to pull his own weight and therefore more likely to get himself and others killed. Further, while the training is very physically demanding, the physical burden is a means to weed out individuals that are not able or willing to push themselves through the pain. PEDs would supposedly make for a lighter physical burden, which means a candidate could get through without needing to exert the same level of mental toughness.

In the 1980s, about 40 percent of candidates graduated. Over the past 25 years, the average has dropped to 26 percent. In 2021, it was just 14 percent, and in Seaman Mullen’s class this year, less than 10 percent.

From what I hear, the standards have changed very little. This stat is likely an artifact of far more people being given the chance to try. The Navy has expanded the SEAL pipeline by recruiting sailors directly into the occupation, rather than requiring recruits to select a non-spec-ops career first and then apply for SEAL training. They've also added training for the training, with a course that will prep you for BUD/S itself.

Three weeks in, Seaman Caserta collapsed while carrying a boat. Instructors yelled at him to get up, and when he said he couldn’t, his father said, they made him quit the course. An X-ray later revealed a broken leg.

To add to this, his mom tells a story that the instructors rang the bell on his behalf, and that his tibia was broken in two places.

From what I hear, this is bullshit. Quitting is voluntary. Instructors will badger and heckle you to quit, but they can't quit on your behalf. Even if they did ring the bell, in order to quit you have to sign paperwork asserting that you are quitting before you can be processed out.

If you end up with an injury that prevents you from completing the training you can try again after you heal.

I'm also wondering exactly what the X-ray showed. His mom says his tibia was broken in two places, but from everything I can find you would not be able to walk, much less run, with such an injury. You can't just grit your teeth and push through the pain, your leg will collapse. If the leg bending in the wrong spots isn't noticeable, the massive swelling from blood and bone marrow spilling out of the fractures would be.

The impression I get is that allowing PEDs would be akin to lowering the standard, and that's not okay.

Cute theory, but in any athletic endeavor, especially one where there is no testing, if someone is using, then all the winners are probably using. Some of the former seals whose content you consume are probably using, including some of the ones that are moralizing about it.

Further, while the training is very physically demanding, the physical burden is a means to weed out individuals that are not able or willing to push themselves through the pain. PEDs would supposedly make for a lighter physical burden, which means a candidate could get through without needing to exert the same level of mental toughness.

That doesn't make any sense. By that same logic, they should weed out athletic recruits, ban training before BUDS, and specifically pick recruits with sub-optimal builds for the course. PEDs only make for a lighter physical burden in the same way that being in good shape, or being the optimal size and build, or any number of other natural or trained advantages would make for a lighter physical burden.

Malcolm Gladwell, of all people, makes that argument really well here: [Largely quoting another work]

“Dope is not really a magical boost as much as it is a way to control against declines,” Hamilton writes. Doping meant that cyclists finally could train as hard as they wanted. It was the means by which pudgy underdogs could compete with natural wonders. “People think doping is for lazy people who want to avoid hard work,” Hamilton writes. For many riders, the opposite was true:

EPO granted the ability to suffer more; to push yourself farther and harder than you’d ever imagined, in both training and racing. It rewarded precisely what I was good at: having a great work ethic, pushing myself to the limit and past it. I felt almost giddy: this was a new landscape. I began to see races differently. They weren’t rolls of the genetic dice, or who happened to be on form that day. They didn’t depend on who you were. They depended on what you did—how hard you worked, how attentive and professional you were in your preparation.

[This] is a vision of sports in which the object of competition is to use science, intelligence, and sheer will to conquer natural difference. Hamilton and Armstrong may simply be athletes who regard this kind of achievement as worthier than the gold medals of a man with the dumb luck to be born with a random genetic mutation.

The recruit who uses PEDs is arguably showing a level of dedication far above that of the recruit who does not. He is showing skill at (often illegally) acquiring the tools he needs, he is showing diligence in dosing and cycling, he had to train hard to use these tools. At any rate, it's no more or less unfair than a million natural advantages between candidates.

I think you'd be able to walk unassisted with a hairline tibia fracture, even though it'd feel shitty and be a bad idea.

Not that I think we should take the story at face value.

Different PMC handing out big paydays.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)

I’m really just putting this quote here as a laugh line.

It is the bureaucracy waiting until after the fact to see how people have fucked themselves up trying to figure out the rules. And saying it was obvious what the rules were, you morons, you cheats, you scoundrels.

I've fought some amateur Mixed martial arts and I was on Testosterone, human growth hormone, Stanozolol, and Erythropoietin. My doctor was extremely tight with regulating my use of these substances and it was probably quite dangerous.

However when on them I felt superhuman, I could run for days without feeling any effect, I could lift weight I've never dreamed of lifting and I recovered from things at an inhuman rate. EPO made me able to run for hours on end, and the Stanozolol made my strength insane, the HGH apparently significantly improved my recovery, and I don't remember what the doctor said the test actually did. I was focused on maintaining discipline with taking some PED's rather than making sure I understood what it all did, my doctor had to make sure I wasn't gonna get hurt from that.

I straight up don't understand why anyone would expect any army division to consist of natty's. Isn't the whole idea of fighting a war the idea that you are going sacrifice young able bodied men for your country? I'm shocked at the idea that members of the US army are not cycling on Stanozolol/EPO at least, What kind of self-respecting army doesn't use wonder chemicals to turn its soldiers into super soldiers. I would have expected the army to have its own research division that researches new powerful PED's to feed soldiers. If athletes in the underground can make wonderdrugs that are this strong, imagine what a government research team can do to an Army. Unrestricted by things like "pissing hot" you could build Stanozolol that lets soldiers carry 200 pounds of armor/weapons to the battlefield, while running 8 miles on their new super EPO. Staying awake and alert for 45 hours thanks to their new modafanil.

Yeah these drugs probably will kill the health of soldiers long term, but by the time that happens they aren't in the army anymore. Having a bad time when you're 70 is much better than not living to see 35 due to dying to a Klashnikov.

Having a bad time when you're 70 is much better than not living to see 35 due to dying to a Klashnikov.

A drug that will make you invulnerable to bullets certainly would be a wonder drug. I don't care how superhuman you felt when mucking around with your body chemistry for an amateur sport, being blown sky-high by an IED won't be softened by any combination of steroids you can name.

Stanozolol can let you wear heavier armor which can protect your body from bullets.

Yeah, obviously certain things (missles mostly) can't really be defended by body armor, but the AK-47 can (even though scouring youtube for body armor hasn't found anything that worked).

Maybe in the future with super Stanozolol you become Master Chief from halo and wear insanely heavy body armor with heavy weapons. Infantry currently carry 120 pounds onto the battlefield, if they were carrying an extra 50 pounds who knows what they could do.

The steroids might prevent you from being near the IED when it goes off.

Our wars are discretionary, our military is a jobs program (see the endless obsession with diversity), and the implementation matches general federal bureaucracy. It has been a long, long time since the United States military has prioritized war readiness above its other goals.

If Google required every employee to take adderall, would it actually improve their productivity? Or would it just lead to the best candidates leaving google for an employer that wouldn’t force them to take adderall?

Google is an employer and has to stick to rules like "you can quit" which the US army is unconstrained by. Google also can't control the other medications its employees take .

The Google version would be closer to having a company doctor that prescribes most Software engineers with Adderall, telling them the exact dosage to take and how to use it.

In the military meanwhile they can do things like put the meds directly on your breakfast platter, and give intense physical training that basically mandates you take this stuff to survive them. Social conformity is a powerful thing, if people were encouraged to take such drugs to remain in the special forces I suspect most people who are dedicated enough to enlist in the first place would take them. If the Army doctor regulates your PED use then it is a heck of a lot less dangerous than the normal PED regimen that everyone in American Kickboxing Academy uses.

I think that's a great point, but the difference is that steroids are much more effective than adderall at their respective jobs. Steroids can essentially take people in the bottom quintile of muscle building potential and take them to the level of the top 0.1% natural athletes, and they take people in the top quintile and make them completely superhuman, they are freakishly effective. If something of this magnitude existed in the realm of productivity, it wouldn't matter that the best people left google, because the drug is doing so much of the work that those who take it become the best because of it.

Since loss of muscle mass is a major problem for the elderly, should people in their 50s take steroids to build up muscle mass?

Stanozolol can cause liver problems, also there is some evidence that it can cause heart problems, I would in general not reccomend PED's unless you have a doctor regulating your dosage, there's way too many variables that can fuck you over.

I'm not sure if that is supposed to be an argument against my position, but yes, elderly men in particular should definitely be taking TRT (I'm not a doctor, just my opinion), I think the overall quality of life calculation is completely unambiguous in favor of taking low to moderate doses of steroids.

I was asking to see if I should be taking steroids.

As a guy that did steroids, I gotta say you're overselling them. They will make you a better athlete, but they will not make a bad athlete into a good athlete. Not really.

I think adderall is more effective based on my own experiences with both.

I went from benching 260 to 230 after going off of stanozolol, and my 5k time went from 18 minutes to 20 after I was weaned off EPO. That's a pretty dramatic difference in strength/speed.

Steroids have unpredictable and dangerous longterm consequences not just on testosterone but on mood stability and risk-taking. If you’re a SEAL you’re not going to have “gear” in your gear on deployment. So while a lot of your points are interesting, I’m not persuaded by the main one; the SEALs have a legitimate longterm interest in ensuring applicants are not using steroids, just as they have an internet in ensuring applicants are not using amphetamines, eyeglasses, or pain relievers.

Steroids have unpredictable and dangerous longterm consequences not just on testosterone but on mood stability and risk-taking.

Perhaps, but how could you tell? Military life has the same consequences.

If you’re a SEAL you’re not going to have “gear” in your gear on deployment.

Why not? Regular infantrymen manage it, and SEALs get a lot more discretionary baggage.

just as they have an internet in ensuring applicants are not using amphetamines, eyeglasses, or pain relievers.

Oh boy. Your whole thing is just one wrong assumption. Everyone in the military is on painkillers. ADD meds are super popular, widely prescribed and even more widely used off-label. Plus virtually everyone is a raging alcoholic. The eyeglass thing is real, but easy to get exceptions to, and the military pays for LASIK anyway.

I think there are good reasons not to use PEDs, but none of the issues you raise are real.

There are reasons to oppose steroid use, but steroids mentally compromising soldiers isn't at the top of my list. I've been on steroids, they don't make you a different person. The number of people who are totally fine mentally without them but risk taking maniacs on them is very small

I think what /u/MediumIsMessage is saying is probably true for androgens but not PEDs more broadly. I'm basing this off my brother's encounter with T, which made him into a much more manic/alpha type of guy.

I don't think that's really true. I would give a listen to this video. There is an index in the description, the person to listen to is Dr. Mike Israetel. From what I've understood from him, if you keep the doses low you don't get most of the bad effects but you will see benefits.

People doing large amounts to look good on instagram is obviously terrible and deadly but that doesn't mean there is no proper way to use steroids. After all, we do use them for plenty of common medical applications.

PEDs should be allowed or even encouraged for infantry. If there is any application in which increased physical performance is desired, it's combat. That's how it was in the 40s when America needed to mobilize hundreds of thousands of young people in months, They took amphetamines to improve endurance and morale, https://allthatsinteresting.com/amphetamine-use-world-war-2

US Military culture is pretty toxic in a lot of ways, but adding steroids isn't going to fix anything. Won't the standards get even higher to match the better performance they get from steroids? It's like if you invented cheap weight-loss pills and gave them to models. They won't stop idealizing anorexia, it'll just be even easier for them to push themselves to an unhealthy limit.

Won't the standards get even higher to match the better performance they get from steroids?

For the specific case of selective schools like BUD/S, most likely yes. Thirty years ago, weightlifting wasn't really a thing in special forces, but they've raised their standards quite a bit as everyone has gotten buff.

Won't the standards get even higher to match the better performance they get from steroids?

Why? If the ideal SEAL can do X pull ups, run Y miles with a pack on, and swim Z miles in icy rough water; then that's the standard you need to hit whether we get 20 of them who pass or 2000. I don't really see the point of curving the test so it gets harder, just make more teams. God and the CIA only know how often we use them.

This misses the point of BUD/S, which is to weed out the (relatively) weak. You have to push people to the physical breaking point, so if they're all juiced, you have to move the standards.

A BUD/S class with an 85% pass rate isn't doing its job. The whole point is to cull the herd. If the herd gets stronger, you have to cull harder, or on different metrics.

Well it's not just about the standards to become a SEAL but the competitive culture. Hazing doesn't become less toxic even if everybody can meat SEAL standards.

Seaman Caserta ended up manning a snack counter at a distant base.

I'm going to assume there was a lot more going on than "broke his leg, was wrongfully washed out of the course, ended up on a snack counter since he washed out". I've been in a job on the other side of "tear-jerking story on the local radio station and local newspapers", and it's very easy for the people (Caserta, his dad in this case) to make claims about what happened, while the official response can't tell the full story due to privacy requirements, legal constraints, etc.

Our tear-jerking story sounded like a typical tale of heartless red-tape bureaucrats refusing to help a single mother struggling to give her kids a better life. If you knew the real facts of the case, it was very different, And I can't say more than that, due to still being bound by the confidentiality requirements even after leaving the job. So yeah, unless we get the other side of the story from the Navy or the SEAL training course, I'm going to suspend judgement that it happened exactly like that.

My two cents, you're probably right that there's more to it than that, but there also might not be. Thing about SEALs is, the Navy doesn't have a pile of land warfare units they can send washouts back down to. There is no navy "infantry". In the Army, people who wash out of special forces training just go back to their line units. They might not be Green Berets, but they can still be king shit of 2/502 or whatever. My uncle washed in Selection and wound up in the 82nd Airborne. Prospective SEALs are betting it all on making it into the teams, because there is no other job waiting for them. And that's a structural problem that stems from letting the Navy play on land with the real boys. The SEAL teams IMO should fall under the Marines, and then washouts could be sent down to Marine units. But politically, they had to give the Navy a special forces unit since no one makes movies about battleships anymore. Ultimately, whatever their usefulness, the SEALS are a PR ploy to butch up the Navy's public image. Hence all the movies, the book deals, the podcasts etc.

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you say there's no "Navy infantry"; what about like the people who man battleships

One the level of staffing, yes of course. That's the sort of jobs enlisted men do in the Navy, mechanics, cooks, gun crewmen etc. But those jobs are not the sort of fallback position someone who was trying out for the SEALs is likely to be all that happy with. Might be gunners mate, but might also be snack bar at the on post gym. My point was that the people who go out for these units want to fight. For whatever reason, they're trying to get as close as possible to being the guys who are actually kicking the doors and shooting the faces. Even in the military, this is a distinct minority of people. But, because the Navy doesn't really do that sort of fighting as part of its normal job, they don't have a junior varsity squad to send these prospective SEALs to if they wash out. In the Army or the Marines, you just drop down a level, there's a whole pyramid scheme of "hardercore" units from basic line grunts to airborne to rangers to green berets to whatever the fuck they're calling Delta these days. Wash out of Airborne? No problem, go to a line unit. Made airborne but washed in Selection? Why not try out for the Rangers?

So it would make sense from my point of view that the best of the best in the Navy would be attached to... the best of the best battleships.

There is a prestige thing with serving on certain ships, I think. The Navy gives it's best new toys to its top officers etc. But as I said above, being the top plumber's mate on the Navy's best ship isn't really the plan B guys going out for the SEALs are likely to be all that happy about.

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You're thinking Marines. They're the Amphibious assaulters, and by rights should be under the navy... Which they are, technically... the department of Navy which doesn't allow meaningful crossover between Marines and Navy.

Can’t say how the Navy works, but people who wash out from some Air Force specialties end up in jobs like postal worker or supply staff, and I suspect this might have to do with the time and budget allotted for training and what other technical school is located near the first training option. Postal was adjacent to my school, thus, washouts went right to postal.

“Running a snack bar” seems weird, since that’s usually a civilian position for local staff or military spouses/teen kids.

Definitely good to take any sob story with a whole shaker of salt, but it's more emblematic of a general problem than about a particular person (Success=SEAL, Failure=Nobody; even though BUDS failures are probably in the top 1% of human beings in fitness and fortitude), and that general problem is more about the mindset it creates in candidates than about the actual results of success/failure. Whether we believe it to be true, if candidates making decisions about whether to take steroids thought it was true than it served its purpose.

it would all go much better if the SEALs program offered an option to be put on a mild steroid cycle under doctor’s supervision?

It's very difficult to create a rule "allow mild use of steroids, but don't allow more extreme use of steroids". If the Navy could easily get away with giving SEALs steroids, they would be motivated to give them enough steroids to maximize performance, not to maximize performance subject to the constraint "... as long as they are mild and don't affect health much".

In fact, your own post shows this. You mention "mild" steroids, but then go on to point out that we ask SEALs to sacrifice their lives. Do you really think the Navy wouldn't also ask them to sacrifice their health?

What a waste.

Just like the proper amount of a crime that is costly to stop is non-zero, the proper amount of "SEALs killing themselves by violating the rules" is non-zero.

This is true, and yet PEDs are mostly legal (or have legal versions). Specific sports ban them for competitive reasons, but surely that runs exactly counter to the point of a military, which is to be as overpowered and uncompetitive* as possible. We allow civilians to take these for fun. Is there a good reason to ban soldiers from using them? We might find that "roid rage" is too dangerous when combined with grenade launchers, but I can't think of many other good ones.

*"If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck" - Vegetius (probably)

Just like the proper amount of a crime that is costly to stop is non-zero, the proper amount of "SEALs killing themselves by violating the rules" is non-zero.

Definitely true. I think every gym should have the Glassman quote framed or crosstitched or something:

"If you find the notion of falling off the rings and breaking your neck so foreign to you, then we don't want you in our ranks. CrossFit can kill you. I've always been completely honest about that."

If you're so paralyzed of hurting yourself that you don't try, you'll never achieve anything. But nonetheless, it's tragic to see extraordinary lives cut short, and we should be minimizing the damage. Such as by having a medical team directly monitor PED use. What's fun about it is, once the docs are monitoring things like bloodwork regularly to help you through your official cycle, it's super easy to spot if something else is being inserted off the books.

It's very difficult to create a rule "allow mild use of steroids, but don't allow more extreme use of steroids

This is true if "rule" means "lightly enforced law, for the general population". However, the navy could very easily (technically, idk about politically) run a "properly used steroid" program themselves, provide the drugs, ensure they're administered very safely, and still test for use of other drugs. If done well, this might reduce steroid use in general. (good idea? dunno. just a point about the power of a sovereign).

If they can run a "properly used steroid" program, they could also run a "dangerously used steroid" program (while still calling it "properly used", of course). The only significant forces that would stop them from doing that are forces that would stop them from having a steroid program at all.

technically, idk about politically

The main forces that would stop the Navy from any sort of program are political.

The only significant forces that would stop them from doing that are forces that would stop them from having a steroid program at all.

... huh? This is like saying that hospitals can't use fentanyl as an anaesthetic sometimes, because the only thing stopping them from doing that are what's stopping them from selling fentanyl on the street. And yet ... they do the former, and not the latter. Or ... the only thing stopping the military from conquering the US and starting a new regime are that they don't really want to (and a lot more about connections, power, socialization, etc, but w/e). And that's the same thing stopping them from doing anything else. Yet they can revise their regulations without risking a coup.

If they can run a "properly used steroid" program, they could also run a "dangerously used steroid" program (while still calling it "properly used", of course).

The navy could do many different things they don't do. They could simply choose to run a good program and not a bad one, like they do with every other thing they do.

This is like saying that hospitals can't use fentanyl as an anaesthetic sometimes, because the only thing stopping them from doing that are what's stopping them from selling fentanyl on the street.

I'm not making a generic argument about when you can do X. I'm making a fact-specific one. There could, logically speaking, be things that stop the Navy from using steroids to excess without stopping them from using steroids at all. I'm just not convinced that these logical possibilities exist in reality, for the actual Navy.

The mechanism the navy would use would be their ... organizational structure, discipline, hierarchy, higher-ups ordering lower-levels around. The same way they prevent crime, the same way they organize training, the same way they deploy people. If that was used to give people steroids in a performance-enhancing yet restrained physically nondamaging way - why isn't that possible?

Like, they wouldn't allow using steroids you purchase yourself any more than they do now, that'd still be tested for and not allowed. But there'd be a navy doctor that puts you on a navy steroid program, monitors your dose and progress and health, etc.

If that was used to give people steroids in a performance-enhancing yet restrained physically nondamaging way - why isn't that possible?

Because it's not in the Navy's interests to limit the dosages to nondamaging ones. It's in their interests to give SEALs dosages of steroids that maximize the immediate usefulness of SEALs to the Navy, even at the cost of bad long term effects. So that'll be what they do.

Is this intended to be a point about military culture specifically - that the people who run it wouldn't limit the doses? Or 'interests' generally? It's certainly possible to have a Navy that limits steroid doses despite those 'interests'. But it's very possible the current navy wouldn't.

Your assumption is that standards will stay the same after steroid use becomes common, and that guys like Kyle, who are always looking for an edge, will not use more steroids because the military is already giving him some. I doubt it. Let's reevaluate the standards, reduce the cost of failure, etc., before we start putting everyone on steroids.

  1. In my fantasy world where sanity reigns, there is no reason to increase standards, because it isn't really a competition. If we have 100 guys who can do SEAL stuff instead of 10 guys that can do SEAL stuff, that's awesome! Our SEAL stuff capacity has increased ten-fold! Given how the US has increasingly leaned on media-antiseptic Drones-and-Commandos warfare since the Obama years, we can use all the guys we can get, and we'll always find the funding.

Probably, in the real world, you're right, I concede. And you're definitely right that we need to address the cost of failure. Making SEAL training a life-changing all-or-nothing gamble is a waste of human resources in the literal sense.

  1. In general PEDs follow a Pareto rule. The first little boost is going to give a big change, dosing yourself with tons and tons is going to be marginally helpful at best. If you allowed a small boost, there would be much less incentive to cheat: the likelihood of getting caught when you're being monitored as part of your "official" cycle is high, and the payoff is lower. Not a steroid doctor, but if you're monitoring and dosing for Test level (among other things) and one guy shows up with a much-higher-than-intended level of Test in his system (because he's dosing on his own), then the natural next step would be lowering his "official" dose, making it a wash.

I agree with much of what you said and want to add an additional layer - everywhere outside of "performance enhancing drugs", Americans are obsessed with pharmaceutical intervention to make their lives easier. This is true from psychoactive drugs of questionable efficacy to spamming statins and diabetes medications on every sedentary middle-aged patient that could probably fix their metabolic health through non-pharmaceutical means. People take medications for all sorts of things and don't feel even the slightest bit of shame that they've damaged their minds and bodies to the point that they require daily chemical alteration to avoid falling apart.

But if I wanted EPO simply because I think it would be neat to ride my bike up hills faster? Nope! Somehow that is where we draw the line and decide that this isn't just a bad idea, but downright unethical. I won't make a penny doing it, I'd be happy to pay for the drug out of my pocket, but somehow we've decided that there are classes of drugs that are simply beyond the pale. The same goes for various steroids that would improve my fitness and strength, effectively making me a better version of myself.

Can you imagine the absolute shitfit that would be thrown if anyone in a position of power suggested that all people who require psych meds should be thrown out of the military?

Or the shit fit that was thrown when some people who take the same hormones were going to be disqualified from military service.

While this is true, saying "americans" suggests other modern countries are less so. China/asian countries do similar, although sometimes using different interventions. I'd guess europe is similar to america, although with less spending.

I don’t know about being thrown out of the military but being on many common phsyc meds (I.e. anti depressants) can make it difficult or impossible to enlist in the first place https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/military-recruiting-process-faqs.html/amp

(See section 9 on anti depressants)

Americans are obsessed with pharmaceutical intervention to make their lives easier.

Probably because they work. People have this notion that millennia ago people lives long heathy lives without modernity. I think this Romanized view ignores that people live and died of chronic pain and other conditions that today can be treated. Urinary tract infections and such.

But if I wanted EPO simply because I think it would be neat to ride my bike up hills faster?

agree but for drug tested competitions obviously it seems unfair taking drugs. I otherwise see no problem if athletes want to take drugs..their choice. But then you have to deal with the issue of externalities. If some of these people are getting sick and need healthcare for PED complications or develop chronic conditions later in life from use, this imposes a public cost.

Americans are obsessed with pharmaceutical intervention to make their lives easier.

And That's A Bad Thing because, in most cases, meds don't mend. Do you see this obsession with medication as a positive characteristic? Sure, it's arbitrary to draw the line an PEDs, but are you saying there shouldn't be a line?

I also see it as a bad thing, but think it's even worse that effective enhancements are seen as immoral while patching over bad behavior is seen as totally normal.

"Bad behavior" is a tricky thing. Never using your automobile for anything that isn't absolutely necessary reduces your chance of dying, but we don't say that it's immoral to treat someone for injuries suffered when they drive to visit their relatives for the holidays and get in an accident.

In other words, pretty much any "behavior" has an effect on your life expectancy. Claiming that we shouldn't treat people for medical problems related to their behavior is equivalent to saying that we shouldn't treat them for anything at all except a few edge cases.

The argument "they're imposing a public cost by their behavior" is really an argument against all publically funded medical treatments--that is, publically funded medical treatments are bad because they create incentives to restrict behavior, not the other way around.

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