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Swedish Athletes Back GPS Implants to Combat Drug Use
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Dec 19, 2007 09:55 PM
from the i-can't-be-trusted-with-my-freedoms-please-take-them dept.
from the i-can't-be-trusted-with-my-freedoms-please-take-them dept.
paulraps writes "Swedish athletes Carolina Klüft and Stefan Holm have proposed a radical technological measure to stop top level competitors from taking performance-enhancing drugs. Klüft and Holm, reigning Olympic champions in the heptathlon and high-jump events, argue that competitors at the highest level should either have computer chips implanted into their skin or GPS transmitters attached to their training bags so that the authorities can keep tabs on them at all times."
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Stupid Scientists (Score:2, Insightful)
-Peter
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, it's a hard job. How can they come up with a technological substitute for an idea that might have been completely illusory to begin with?
Human emotion? Heh. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I'm sorry, but exactly which fundamental human emotion was at work there? Do we have that fundamental an instinct to kill each other? Or what?
It and the closely related notion of "chivalry" was also warped to fit the current interests of the rich and powerful, and included such quirks as:
- while you were supposed to afford chivalry and honour to the enemy nobles and knights, because they could be ransomed for good money, it was perfectly ok to kill prisoners if they're pesants and mercenary. (Before Agincourt, for example, Henry V told his troops that while the nobles would be captured and held for ransome, everyone else damn better fight for their lives. And just to illustrate that he _was_ right, when the French managed to capture the undefended English baggage train, they did kill the unarmed attendants and page boys, mostly children.)
- same about your fucking _own_ troops, if they're of low birth. (E.g., at Crecy, the French knights rode over their own Genoese crossbowmen mercenaries, who were retreating after taking heavy losses from the English crossbowmen. Apparently precisely _because_ of such a fucked up idea of honour: the knights were apparently disgusted that the mercenary cowards wouldn't stand there and die gladly for the king.)
- but it's ok to kill the captured nobles too, if you can't hold on to them or it's otherwise too inconvenient. (E.g., Henry V at Agincourt again.)
- and those rules of chivalry only applied if you weren't outnumbered or something (See, the Black Prince.)
- and while chest-thumping about honour and chivalry in battle, it was ok to loot the peasants' grain for your troops and horses along your way. Both enemy peasants and your own.
- the same knights who'd be all chivalrous to other knights, had no problem with beating their wives _literally_ senseless. (There are "manuals" for knights who recommended exactly that. Oh, and at least one recommended breaking the wife's nose, so other guys won't find her pretty while you're away.)
Etc, etc, etc.
And just so I'm not so euro-centric, the Japanese atrocities in WW2 were almost all motivated by a fucked-up feudal idea of "honour" too.
The massacre of Nanking, for example, was because the oh-so-honourable Japanese warriors were disgusted at the idea that an enemy soldier would do something as dishonourable as throwing away their uniform and hiding among the civilians instead of surrendering. So, you know, going on a rape and massacre rampage was the proper way to punish that dishonour.
Or their atrocious treatment of prisoners was motivated, or at least rationalized, by some fucked up idea that a properly honourable warrior dies, but never surrenders. So obviously the enemies that surrendered were so dishonoured, as to not even qualify as humans any more.
To make things funny, some of those exaggerated ideas of Samurai honour and valour, stemmed from an era where Japan had no wars for hundreds of years. So they wrote a lot about being fearless and stuff, without having actually seen a battlefield in their lives, and knowing that they probably never will. And each author tried to sound even more completely fearless than the previous generation... on paper.
Etc.
So, heh, human emotion? The history of "honour" is just a codified justification for being an arsehole. It was part indoctrination so some dolts would go die for you, and part rationalization of why you're an arsehole and it's good to be one. The only good aspects of it, were the ones where you stood to make a personal gain. E.g., yeah, you were supposed to be honourable and hospitable with captured nobles, because they could be ransomed, but that didn't extend to anyone who couldn't be ransomed.
Parent
Re:Human emotion? Heh. (Score:5, Insightful)
In Swedish, there are two words that translate roughly to the English "honour", they are "heder" and "ära". "Ära" is closely related to "glory", but is not necessarily exactly the same, and is often translated as "honour".
So while what you were saying is true, it does not paint the whole picture due to the ambiguity of the English word "honour". Further, the germanic pre-christian notion of honour had nothing to do with being good to your king, but being true to ones word. If you made a pledge to the king, you were of course bound to that, but making that pledge were something you decided about and not something you had to do.
Parent
Re:Human emotion? Heh. (Score:4, Insightful)
E.g., even in English if you wanted to say "true to one's word", there are words like "honest", "truthful", and the like. Very unambiguous words, those.
That ambiguity however, is part of what the English word "honour" _is_. It's not two (or more) distinct words or meanings, which just happen to be pronounced that way. It's something which includes more meanings as an integral part of what it is. And the focus tended to always be more on the "duty" aspect, than on the "honesty" aspect.
There's not much point in debating what "honour" meant before literacy or the middle ages, because, you know, English as a language didn't exist before that point. But if we're to trace its origins through French to Latin, it never was the equivalent of "honest". The French medieval society wasn't that different from the English one later, seeing that the English culture largely evolved from what the Norman conquerors brought over.
Or if we're going to equate to "honour" any foreign word that gets (mis)translated as "honour", you end up including some pretty warped concepts too, not just "heder". You end up including, for example, the concept of female virginity as an integral part of her father's honour, and in some cultures the duty of a father to _murder_ his own daughter if she lost her virginity outside of marriage. (Even via rape.)
Or you end up trying to shoehorn such concepts as the asian concept of "face" into "honour", although the former too actually consists of two different things that get lumped together when translated as "honour" or "face". Only in that case it's more like "respect" someone gets, and "authority" he has. And it's very possible to cause someone a loss of respect, without undermining his authority, and viceversa.
More interestingly, neither of the two has anything to do with honesty. Telling a lie is, in fact, an accepted and _expected_ way to save "face" in either of the two senses. Being unable to achieve something, and admitting it, would actually cause a loss of face, but telling a lie to cover your arse does not.
So, there you go, a foreign couple of words that get translated sometimes as "honour" and really have nothing to do with being honest.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Terrible things have happened in the name of honor because it is egoistical in nature, and egos make people blind. Still: I am honorable
Minor distinction (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about "community" and whatnot, is good and fine, but it never was that much of a "collectivist" thing since... oh, the early stone age or so. It was some self-appointed leaders and there were the guys who served them. Whether as formalized as slavery or serfdom, or just tribal shamans/chieftains/etc exploiting everyone else, the difference isn't that massive.
Whether you lived or died, or whether you were a nobody, very rarely had to do with what everyone else really thought. It had to do with what said noble/chieftain/shaman told them to think.
And you rarely had a choice about pledging to such a leader. You were pledged de facto or even de jure by just being born there. You were held to notions of duty, honour, obedience to your liege (or tribal equivalent) whether you wanted it or not.
And if you wanted to move up the social pyramid at all, it invariably required some such pledge too. If you moved to (or even were born into) the warrior class, you'd have to pledge your life to the warlord. If you moved to the city, you pledged your life and sword arm to whatever demagogue weaseled his way into being "community leader" there. Etc.
I'm sorry, but in any modern interpretation, a pledge under duress would be considered null and void from the start. If your choices are between (A) pledge, and (B) die one way or another, that's blackmail. And honour was invariably twisted into just pretending to be totally devoted to whoever blackmailed you there.
And, yeah, sometimes it was disguised as duty "to the community", "to the country", "to God", and other such fine double-speak. Guess what? It invariably meant doing what that leader wanted done. It rarely had anything to do with the desires or aspirations of any other individual in that community.
So the medieval version isn't that far off from what it meant in ancient times too. In fact, it was just a continuation. In ancient Greece or Rome you'd be just as automatically pledged to be a soldier of whatever tyrant ruled your city state, and judged "honourable" or "dishonourable" by whether you bought a shield and spear and joined in their silly wars. That is, if you were born high enough to qualify as such. If not, it was your duty to stay and work the fields like a good slave.
In Rome, since you mention antiquity... well, go look the Cursus Honorum [wikipedia.org] up some day. It was just a codified way to gain any political power, and started with ten years of military duty. (Although nepotism was considered normal, so a lot just followed a general relative around as an aide.) That's ancient age, you know.
If using the expression "fucked up" a couple of times offends you so much, I wonder... can you even manage to watch a movie, what with all that cursing and stuff?
Well, yes, bingo. We need more scholarship and less... uninformed idealists trying to rewrite human history to fit their utopian ideals. The fact is, history isn't nice at all. And I don't see what's to gain by pretending that it was a rose-tinted time with honourable warriors, rosy-cheeked peasants, and prosperous healthy craftsmen, all shiny-happy collectivist and honest too.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm calling out the people who actually committed those atrocities, not their descendants. And trust me, I'll be the first to call out the various atrocities committed by Germans too, all the way to the crusades.
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That's all I'm saying. Learn from your ancestors' mistakes, or you might live to repeat them, and sometimes in the name of the same rationalizations.
On the othe
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
With steroids, everybody is equal and has a sporting chance, so anyone can have 165 IQ and be athletic. It really only comes down to the willpower and determination, not what set of genes you have. What's wrong with that?
Otherwise, activities such as bodybuilding would be impossible (without steroids) for most normal people, since their genes will not allow them to starve and build up muscles at the same time.
Re:Stupid Scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
Come up with performance enhancing drugs that don't have long term side-effects, then we can talk about allowing them in sports.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupid Scientists (Score:4, Insightful)
Which version of it ? A Japanese samurai following bushido and some cretin murdering his sister because she was raped are both being honorable, as far as themselves are concerned, but their behaviors aren't really compatible.
Parent
Sport is dead (Score:2, Insightful)
Compare to Babe Ruth (Score:3, Insightful)
He made all his home runs, etc. while drinking and whoring, and looking like a fat pig.
Most of his home runs had to have been made while he was dealing with a massive hang over.
Now Barry Bonds has to lower the pitcher's mound, shoot up, and use mechanical assists to score as much as Babe.
Put an asterisk next to Barry's name and move on.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Then you've got sports that measure style (diving, ice skating) and are just crying out to be biased. I won't even mention the scandals and corruption.
I love that athletes put such devotion into their sport, but the whole olymp
Why stop 'em? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why stop 'em? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Why stop 'em? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Monitoring. (Score:3, Insightful)
In Soviet Russia Analogy (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia, performance enhancing drugs find you!!
Tracking the athletes with GPS won't do diddly squat with couriers, and the post delivering them to their homes.
"Performance enchancing drugs? When have I had the time to buy that, between the 8 hours of training I do a day in the gym and the 8 hours of ebaying I do at night!"
Things will change. (Score:5, Interesting)
This whole bias against tech augmentation is getting me down. The sooner we embrace it, and the more we embrace it, the longer we'll live, and with higher quality of life.
Hell, we ought to be giving awards to people who volunteer to test exotic human enhancement technologies right now.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Things will change. (Score:5, Interesting)
This brings up a number of new problems:
1) Do we mix the cyborgs, mutants, and chemically-enhanced athletes together or have separate leagues?
2) Will there be a "research capital cap"?
3) If a player's arm lands in the stands, does someone get to keep it?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sitting for 8 hours a day isn't conductive to continued health either, but I don't see anyone trying to make office work illegal.
If I were an athlete (Score:2)
-GPS and data are encrypted for no fussing.
-All data is logged and downloaded via cable rather than transmitted.
-the data couldn't be collected by any news agency and if it was collected by unapproved methods it cannot be used without paying the athlete 100k up front with no less than 2 days notice. Only 10k with 30 days notice.
-Data would only be accessible only by key people on the olympic comittee and a few handpicked p
Juicer's Olympics (Score:2)
really bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Then the chip might be able to monitor a bit more about you. What level of hormone x or y, diseases or how oxygenated your blood is. They could figure out your mood. What's next? Perhaps a feedback loop. If hormone x is too high get the chip to release an electric signal. You insurance company might drop you if they don't like your lifestyle as measured by the chip. Child custody dispute...go look at the data from the chip. Then I am betting some people who remove their chips be criminalized for doing so.
Beyond or the legal uses will be the illegal ones. People hacking into the database to plan the perfect robbery or the perfect blackmailing.. Or the FBI abusing its powers to snoop anyway.
The worst part about it is that it is so unnecessary. Some athletes do drugs. Big deal. They are hurting themselves. Perhaps hurting professional sports. Are we going to sacrifice personal liberty to ensure the integrity of professional sports. And please don't give me 'its for the children'. If we followed that excuse every time we would end up with a police state and no freedom.
No need to go tinfoil hat ... just go with cancer. (Score:2)
"Earlier this month, it was reported that some lab animals implanted with chips developed cancer and sarcoma. Other possible adverse effects include tissue reactions, migration of the implanted chip, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) incompatibility, electrical hazards, infection and even compromised information security."
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=30061 [news-medical.net]
Maybe reconsider that idea (Score:2)
horse hockey. chain 'em to burly, nasty guards (Score:2)
that'll take care of alerting if the athlete dopes up.
Problem with modified athletes ... priorities (Score:2)
If the athletes and the athlete's union want to cover 100% of those consequences then so be it, but I should not have to pay for Barry Bond's liver problems caused by steroid abuse.
What's a heptathlon? (Score:2)
[posting from my new OLPC! Woohoo!]
Er, we can't actually do this yet. (Score:5, Informative)
We can't actually build a small implantable GPS yet. Passive RFID tags, yes; GPS receiver with uplink, no.
Well, in theory you could build a pacemaker-sized device powered by a nuclear battery [orau.org], but that would take major surgery to install, and approval from the FDA and DOE.
It won't work -- and could backfire (Score:4, Insightful)
Obvious point first: knowing where someone is doesn't tell you what they're doing. They could be watching TV in their basement, or they could be watching TV while getting a blood transfusion. And so on. (And the training bags? Easy enough to have someone else transport them around while the owner is elsewhere.)
And using such a technique could open up vulnerabilities, as in "Hmmm.... Johann is not in his assigned room in the team dorm at the Pan-Am Games, so this would be a good time to plant the syringes there." I'm sure some creative thought will reveal other possibilities.
More generally though -- and I speak as someone who's competed at the national level and served on my sport's national board of directors -- everyone (including the IOC) knows that there's no way to stop anyone from doping if they're sufficiently careful and sufficiently clever. The tests just can't keep up with newly-developed methods, and the boundaries between legitimate medications (e.g., anti-sting kits for those who risk anaphylactic shock if stung by an insect) and performance-enhancing drugs are often blurred.
The best clues are often available to coaches and other team staff, who have detailed performance data on all athletes and should be able to spot anomalies. However, they don't have much motivation to share these observations -- with anyone. Which is why one of the things that needs to happen is that the governing bodies for each sport need to emphasize doping detection by coaches as much (or possibly more) as they do results production...and that means "put it in their contracts".
And those of us who watch sports need to do something as well: we need to lose our winning-is-everything, second-place-means-losing mentality. (That includes the media, by the way.) That attitude fuels a number of unpleasant trends in sports, not just doping. We need to keep in mind that the reason athletes go to events like the Olympics is not to win -- but to participate. When we show the same respect and admiration for the effort of the last-place finisher in the 10K, or the basketball team that loses by 50, or the skier who falls, as we do for the gold medal winners, then we'll have done our part to remove part of the motivation/temptation that drives doping.
yes yes yes! (Score:3, Funny)
Pedro! where the fuck are you?! come refill my crack-pipe!
Libertarians Beware (Score:4, Interesting)
Just One Problem Swedes... (Score:3)
Professional sports is the cause (Score:3, Insightful)
The solution is simple: Kill professional sports, or allow doping. Since doping is harmful to the athletes on the long term, we should kill professional sports.
Disclaimer: I think professional sports is a travesty. Grow the hell up, nobody should make their livelihood doing unproductive play. (No, standup comedians do not fall under this category, neither to artists. The arts as a whole contribute positively to society, while watching sports is empty entertainment)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
If the athletes was found moving at around 40 km/h all the time, they must have taken steroid.
If they're moving over 60 km/h, they must be driving a car.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Oh wait. Better RTFA before I say that... hold on...
From TFA: "That way everybody involved knows where we are at all times and can find us for tests"
Oh. That's how they get out of test? By going AWOL?
This still doesn't prevent use of unfair substances... they just keep inventing new drugs. You can't test for something that didn't exist yesterday.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, is it even wrong to use a substance if it's new, and therefore not yet illegal? It certainly violates to spirit of the rules, if not the letter.
I guess I'm just a cynic, but I think that doping is here to stay, and there isn't much we can do about it.
Drug testing is the DRM of meatspace - there's always a way around it.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
He replied, "you can't stop it, and will not be able to. You are constantly going to play cat and mouse, and the only ones that are going to be hurt are the honest brokers. So level the playing field and let them all take it." This was when one of the first scandals broke out.
I keep thinking about that comment (he went on to become an actuarial) and keep thinking that they now regulate athletes to the point where any slight deviation (even natural) is considered taking drugs.
Think about what is going to happen once DNA modifications come into play. What then?
I am not happy about this situation and would rather see a clean game, but it sort of seems futile. Look at Tour D'France? They have tried, tried, and tried yet again. What happens? Oh another scandal.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Extended use of HGH makes your head grow like Ken Griffy Jr. on nerve tonic. Once you're done growing, your head doesn't grow. So after your first game, the league takes a note of your hat size. If your head grows more than two sizes, you're on HGH.
This always reminds me of a comment from a pitcher I can't remember. He beaned Barry Bonds in the head, and his excuse was "I couldn't help it! His head grew after I threw the ball!"
Re: (Score:2)
Masturbation's a better hobby (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even today the whole dope testing for 'performance enhancing' drugs thing makes sport a huge joke. When you cannot take a headache pill but can perform pissed out of your head it has rather become a performing dog show.
Maybe we should keep athletes in a designated building where we can monitor them 24/7 with specially trained en