World's First Cybernetic Athlete To Compete 199
Tufriast writes "The world's first mechanically augmented athlete, Oscar Pistorius, will now compete against unaugmented peers on behalf of South Africa. He'll be running in the 400m and 4x400m relay at the World Athletics 2011 Championships. Pistorius, a double leg amputee, has had special leg blades crafted for him that allow him to compete against his peers. He's fought hard to prove they provide no advantage, and according to IAAF they do not. This should be a very interesting race to watch. His nickname: The Blade Runner."
Very very old news (Score:4, Informative)
I'm a South African. He has been competing against able-bodied athletes for ages now. It's not news. A discussion on Slashdot as to whether the blades are an unfair advantage over other athletes will be much more interesting.
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Running shoes don't represent an advantage of any sort. Except possibly for really short races. When it comes to things like the marathon there's a much better case that shoes are a disadvantage as they add mass that needs to be carried, absorb energy that could be used to spring forward and generally screw with the mechanics.
And unlike a prosthesis they're completely optional. Folks from time to time do run marathons in their bare feet.
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I want Michael Jordan's rocket shoes [youtube.com].
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Well the blades are lighter than legs, consume no bodily resources, require no "plumbing" or "wiring", produce no waste products, feel no pain, and are more efficient than flesh and bone in that more energy is converted into forward motion by them than by organic legs.
I'm waiting for the first athlete to have organic legs amputated and replaced with carbon fibre blades because they're now allowed. That will be awesome.
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Or you could just read these two discussions that we've already had:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/08/01/17/1947215/Prosthetic-Limbed-Runner-Disqualified-from-Olympic-Games [slashdot.org]
http://science.slashdot.org/story/08/05/16/210229/Amputee-Sprinter-Wins-Olympic-Appeal-to-Compete [slashdot.org]
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Very very BAD news (Score:3)
All the talk about his augmented legs, and not one photo in that article of said legs. That's WAY too PC when the augmentations themselves are the story.
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Springyness of the lower leg is based on function of tendons. It's a fairly well known feature in sports medicine, and we've been replacing/sewing tendons on sportsmen for a while to treat ruptures with materials that resemble original closely enough not to impair performance.
Proportional muscle power of any portion of the leg is measurable through equipping a harness that can measure all directional forces generated by the leg and split them by portion. With modern sensors and robotics, this should be cons
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There's a huge body of biomechanical studies to reference when you're looking at things like this.
If I recall the Catalyst story I watched about this guy a couple of years ago correctly, his false leg is springier than tendons in a standard leg, but that it wasn't really springy enough to make up for the lack of muscles in the lower leg.
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You don't see the difference between shoes and legs? Grip is obviously important, but given that any track runner could have pretty much any pair of shoes they want, and they all just run in spiked track shoes - it's the legs and form that are more important at the end of the day. If we start allowing mechanical appendages, it's easy to imagine that (eventually) there would be "legs" out there that can vastly outperform biological legs over short distances, even if they were limited to using blood glucose f
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It is similar to Rohan Murphy [go.com] who was "best of the best" for quite some time on ESPN. He had no legs, and was a very good wrestler in his weight class.
If you step back and think about it, anybody would be a great wrestler, having no legs (lower weight class), a far lower center of gravity (most impact moves require 200% effort to lift and then throw him), and his upper body mass would put him a few weight classes up, if he had legs. While I admire the guy for competing, and doing well, it seems as though
Scientifically shown to provide advantage over... (Score:5, Interesting)
...runners with natural ankles and feet.
I admire the guy's tenacity (double amputee at 11 months and still played rugby growing up) but I recall seeing him competing a few years ago in Europe (some track meet in Rome iirc) and he was no where near the fitness level of the other atheletes and yet was qualifying for heats (in other words - he was 'heavy' at the time.)
Now unless this is an unfortunate coincidence between the potentially fastest human ever having his legs amputated as a baby, it is an unfair advantage. The IAAF, contrary to the OP's assertion, claim that it provides him a clear and obvious advantage mechanically and say they have the data to back it up...
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The mass alone is an advantage. One of the IAAF scientists stated that he has a 30% mechanical advantage in lifting his legs during a run.
Re:Scientifically shown to provide advantage over. (Score:4, Funny)
Just like how Lance Armstrong had a 50% testicle mass advantage. Unfair!
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Offset by the resultant missing testosterone? ;)
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Opinions Will Be Based On Whether He Wins (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not really. The claim is that he is currently losing not because he doesn't have an advantage, but because he's simply not in as good of a shape as other runners. This is at least partially true, there are known cases of him qualifying through some tourneys when being clearly out of shape (not in the pre-competition training process, some trainers call the state "heavy" I believe). Even world's best athletes would have problems qualifying while in this state.
A strange game... (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got a tiny number of heavily selected freaks of nature, endowed by various quirks of heredity with highly atypical phenotypes, augmented by years or decades of carefully designed training, controlled diet, etc. whose handlers cry out every time somebody has the temerity to shoot a little synthetic testosterone instead of just expressing freakish amounts of it naturally "Oh, no! We have to set a good example for the kids! Professional athletes are just regular folks who get a good night's rest and eat their wheaties!". Similar things come up with, say, hemoglobin concentrations: Does your blood contain more iron than most steel alloys because your ancestors were the spacesuit people who live at 50,000 feet above sea level? No problem, come right in! Does your blood contain more iron than most steel alloys because your doctor has been extracting and re-injecting it? Banhammer!
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An excellent example of a somewhat-recent controversial athlete: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya [wikipedia.org]
She's a South African runner who, due to a variety of factors but probably her speed and appearance, had her sex called into question. I remember talking to a few friends of mine in the medical field about her at the time and one of the more interesting theories was that she may be sexually male but with a developmental disorder that causes superficially female genitalia to develop.
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The point is that if you allow "supplements", AKA "doping", then the only way to compete will be for all athletes to start injecting.
For instance, every athlete is allowed to take sugar for that extra energy boost.
That's a supplement with (almost) no side effects. Anything stronger than that gets banned, and rightly so IMHO.
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http://www.indyarocks.com/videos/SNL--All-Drug-Olympics-231702 [indyarocks.com]
At least it would be entertaining to watch.
Re:A strange game... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never understood the nigh-jesuitical levels of logic chopping(with not infrequent descent into mere hand-waving) that go on surrounding "fair" and "unfair" advantages in high level sports.
The underlying problem is the idea of "high level sports", "professional athletes", massive sponsorship deals and huge capital pork projects to host athletics events. If it was just a case of the misty-eyed wholesome self-improvement aspect of sport for sport's sake then it would be petty to argue about such things and there would be less incentive to cheat. As it is, though, these are professionals (highly paid in some cases) trying to defend their livelihood against "unfair competition".
"Oh, no! We have to set a good example for the kids! Professional athletes are just regular folks who get a good night's rest and eat their wheaties!".
Of course there's nothing particularly natural about regular folks who eat their wheaties (or anything else that doesn't grow on trees in the Rift Valley), had their childhood diseases cured and can expect to live 40 years beyond the MTBF of the original homo sapiens. Should we stop worrying and embrace the PharmaLympics, and treat anybody who wrecks their health with performance-enhancing drugs the same way we treat those of us who have wrecked our health by sitting behind a desk all day and living on pizza and coffee for the sake of our career?
That'd be Wheaties(tm) - fortified with iron and vitamins, official breakfast cereal of the BigSportsTornament(r)(tm)(c) by the way.
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Why can't a rook move diagonally?
Why is moving through water using your arms and legs one sport while using a paddle and a vessel made out of fiberglass as intermediaries a different sport?
Personally I'm not really interested in spectator sports, but it seems to me that it's about traditions, superstitions, tribalism and generally pretty arbitrary sets of rules that combine to create enough challenge and drama for enough people to care about.
I imagine Olympic sports have a long running (pun not intended) tr
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People get kicked out of chess tournaments for breaking the rules and using AI assists; people get hauled in front of Congress for using steroids in baseball...
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Michael Phelps was sponsored by Nike but didn't even wear their body
Re:A strange game... (Score:5, Interesting)
The one where even "what you were born with" seems to break down into pure handwaving is Women's high-level stuff. All the really weird phenotypes show up there: XYYs, Chimeras, burly intersex specimens of various flavors, all sorts of obscure genetic and phenotypic curiosities that definitely aren't XY males; but really, really rub people the wrong way as "women"...
His achivements will always be down to the blades (Score:2)
I will ruin the basis of athletics where the best human (on the day) wins. If he was to win there will always be the debate on whether or not is its an advantage.
It also raises the financial entry barrier instead of needing to a find a sponsor for maybe upto $10000 for shoes (they will find you if your any good). It will bring in discussion of a tech race or whether improvements on the current blades are advantage or not.
This is why we have the disabled Olympics for people with various augmentations can com
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You're being naive. First of all he is human, so technically if he bests other humans, then he is by definition "best human". But you are probably implying "best physically unaugmented human", which probably excludes doping too, etc. But you have to look at it this way: except doping and attaching carbon-fiber prosthetic to yourself, there's a myriad of ways to augment yourself and still get qualified for Olympics. Drinking funny drinks, eating funny food which contain numerous "good" doping drugs that the
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Bottomline: fair fight is actually very boring thing in the long run, it tastes like water.
Most Olympic sports are dead boring but we only watch them once every for years. No one watches athletics for entertainment.
I think the line is generally drawn where the athlete is being harmed. In my opinion the main reason performance enchanting drugs are illegal is people will be forced to permanent harm them selves or risk their lives to compete. Seriously I'm sure you can find some would take the drugs to peak for four years and then die at the end (bloody shit sport to watch or support). If that
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> No one watches athletics for entertainment.
Really? Are you sure? Absolutely positively certain without doubt?
> Bolt still beats Gay.
To a degree - yes, I haven't said the good old human factor doesn't apply. But the two probably are on different diets etc, which make much difference inside their bodies and minds, as their bodies approach "max Q", so to speak. It's not the biggest factor, but especially in sports, the decisive factor doesn't have to be the biggest one, it just needs to make all the di
A Farewell to...Legs? (Score:5, Funny)
Awesome. You are King of the Internet for a day! (Score:2)
Me too! (Score:4, Insightful)
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The world record for running the 400m is 43.18 seconds. I really hope his Chevy can do better than that...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragstrip#Typical_quarter_mile_times [wikipedia.org]
(1/4 mi. = 402 m)
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Oblig... (Score:4, Funny)
We already know how this turns out (Score:2)
Just look to Lance Armstrong. Testicular cancer.... has to take testosterone to supplement. He keeps winning "everything" and claims no advantage over people who aren't taking testosterone.
The only thing that could break this cycle and prove there is no advantage would be for him to lose.
10 Second Advantage (Score:2)
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A pretty huge advantage if you aren't track/field inclined.
Bring on the cyber games (Score:2)
Screw the regular olympics. I want to see a games where nothing is off limits. If you want to have your legs replaced with giant springs, go right ahead. And you could save a bit of weight by having your skull lightened or replaced with a carbon fibre shell. The brain requires quite a bit of energy to run... i'm sure there are bits that could be removed that are surplus to requirements for an elite athlete.
One heart? I'm sure more blood could be pumped with two hearts, and maybe an extra lung to oxygenate t
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You're pretty much describing Formula 1 in the 80's. Calling it "running" seems to be a bit of a stretch though.
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One heart? I'm sure more blood could be pumped with two hearts, and maybe an extra lung to oxygenate that blood.
Ever since I've seen a story about NASA designing an artificial heart based on the turbines of the Space Shuttle, almost a decade ago, I've wondered about what it would be like to have such a heart (no pulse to begin with, just a steady flow), and when having to exert myself, such as by running to catch the bus, turn it up into high gear until the blades start to cavitate.
Of course, this might go towards explaining how The Doctor does all the things he does, like enduring high-power electric shocks...
Let the "market" sort it out. (Score:2)
If other athletes man up and instead of taking steroids start having their legs amputated then we'll know there's an advantage.
Cybernetic? (Score:2)
Pistorius' running prosth
Here's what worries me. (Score:2)
Athletes are under enormous amounts of pressure to win. For the Olympics, this is doubly true. Many have sacrificed a normal life for that single shot at winning a gold medal. There's also the unspoken carrot dangling in front of them: "Win a medal, get rich from endorsement contracts."
Is it any wonder that they start taking all sorts of performance-enhancing drugs, some with serious life-long consequences, just for that one chance at winning?
Now let's say that allowing artificial limbs into competition
Limits of human power/endurance (Score:2)
I don't think I'm alone in that I want to see the absolute limits of what a human can do. I don't really care about "cheating" (using unconventional or banned methods of gaining an advantage) as I want to see what's possible. The (few) undoped high class sportsmen are going to ruin their bodies as well, this kind of force just does that to the body eventually, but why not open up the regulations? Make an "ultimate" category so that people can stop pretending to not dope. I don't know of any sport without do
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Why not allow wheels then? 100m should easily be possible in 2s, and much faster if you get rid of the useless "runner".
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Ah, you require that the humans do the work. Does burning human fat in an engine count?
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No advantage? (Score:3, Insightful)
Advantage or not... (Score:3)
Springs are not legs. Hence, he should not compete against athletes with legs.
There should be another class for athletes like him.
Perhaps also an open class, that allows any enhancements once can think of: drugs, surgery, doping, springs... game on.
Where's Unlimited? (Score:2)
When are we just going to get it over with and create 'unlimited' class competitions for athletics? Augmented or replaced limbs, oxygen doping, performance enhancing drugs, go nuts. Professionals do as much as they can get away with while they can get away with it anyway, let's regulate and expand it.
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When are we just going to get it over with and create 'unlimited' class competitions for athletics? Augmented or replaced limbs, oxygen doping, performance enhancing drugs, go nuts.
We already have that. It's called war.
Re:English... (Score:4, Insightful)
Augmented from his previous state of having no lower legs to having blades.
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I don't see a problem with him competing as long as the legs he uses aren't providing him with extra power. As long as he's only using his own power to propel him I think that he's doing it great.
It is today a disadvantage enough in society to have a handicap. And it's hardly likely that extreme runners will chop off their legs just to be able to compete better.
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I don't see a problem with him competing as long as the legs he uses aren't providing him with extra power. As long as he's only using his own power to propel him I think that he's doing it great.
It is today a disadvantage enough in society to have a handicap. And it's hardly likely that extreme runners will chop off their legs just to be able to compete better.
Roller blades and bicycles provide no extra power either.
and the fact that its hardly likely that "extreme runners" will chop off their legs to be able to compete better is an argument AGAINST allowing any kind of mechanical assistance.
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Idiot. He's a double amputee. Of course the blades augment him. The question is not whether they give him an advantage over his unbladed self, but over other runners with legs and no blades.
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No, the question is whether it gives him an advantage over his unaugmented and unamputated self. If you can design the prosthetics to any level of performance, up to and including superior performance to your competitors, It doesn't really make it "more fair" to choose 80th percentile or 90th percentile or 50th percentile level performance. It's not really a contest at that point, but a demo.
Really, what they should do is offer a separate category of competition: "open" and "natural". In the "open" conte
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Well he was born with congenital absence of the fibula in both legs. His unamputated self wouldn't be much of a runner. So you'd have to compare his blades to what his legs would be like with different DNA. So you might was well compare them to legs in general, which is (probably) what they have done.
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He's fought hard to prove they provide no advantage, and according to IAAF they do not.
I will admit the sentence is terrible but you hardly need to that offensive because of it.
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He does need to be offensive, because it's the only way he can get attention.
See, he is augmented by Slashdot.
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They do not give him an advantage over someone with two legs, however they are a significant step up from someone with no legs.
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I wonder whats [sic] changed?
Whinging and whining and Political Correctnes (TM).
Re:Link (Score:4, Funny)
I can see it now:
Previously
Spokesman: "Hey guys, Oscar Pistorius wants permission to race in the Olympics, do we let him in?"
Olympic Committee: "Meh."
Now
Spokesman: "Hey guys, The Blade Runner wants permission to race in the World Championships."
World Athletic Committee: "Oh hell yeah!"
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Personally, I liked his other nickname better: "The Fastest Man on No Legs" :)
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blade runners are humans who hunt down and *retire* replicants.
Really? Thanks for letting us know that.
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Great, now I feel like a dork
Demonstrating that you've seen a film of a book, but not read the book that it was based on, does not make you a dork.
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The movie was Blade Runner, the book was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I don't recall "Blade Runners" being in the book.
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Spokesman: "Hey guys, The Blade Runner wants permission to race in the World Championships."
At least they didn't call him Steve Austin [wikipedia.org]
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I liked his other nickname [youtube.com] better.
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There's an argument that, on one hand, because he doesn't have to drag along the extra weight of lower legs, feet, and shoes, and his prostheses return energy very efficiently, that he might have an energetic advantage. On the other hand, he's missing a lot of musculature that ordinarily contributes power to forward progression, so he ought to be at an energetic disadvantage.
One of the most complete studies of this question, in this particular athlete, was not published until 2009 http://jap.physiology.org [physiology.org]
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In reference to your last paragraph, are you implying that he indeed has an advantage over non-amputees? Otherwise, why is it unfortunate that the study wasn't published earlier?
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Unfortunate because they didn't have enough reliable information to base their decision upon? You do realise that in the world of sports, you're excluded even on reasonable suspicion of using artificial enhancers.
Reference: Doping.
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A race of who can produce the fastest mutant cyborg athletes would be pretty exciting to watch. It may be an ethical grey area, but everyone involved is a volunteer anyway...
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If GDR sportswomen were your thing, you may want to just come out of the closet. /black humour
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But he's producing those forces with less muscle, using an purely elastic mechanism that can't change force as quickly as the active muscles.
The difference is that real muscles tire while elastics do not (at least, not over the course of a single race). This to me negates the whole "He has no advantage" argument.
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and that's a very valid point, as a kid i ran the 220, did rather well at it. I was a total failure at the 440. and for some odd reason I was decent( top 15 consistently ) for long distance running.
I would think that this guy might have a slight edge over most people in the consistent aspect of his time. And with the right training could improve his time.
I don't like it; original from top to bottom should be the rule, and have races for those that have changes ...
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I wonder whats [sic] changed?
Whinging and whining and Political Correctnes (TM).
If it's political correctness to allow people to compete on a level playing field, just call me Mr PC.
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The issue is that it isn't a level playing field, or at least that's how it looks. I think there is more study necessary, but this definitely sets a dangerous precedent if he really does have an advantage due to the prosthesis. The Olympics have already slid way too far down the technological superiority path for my comfort, allowing for prosthesetic enhancements and such is not good.
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In 2008, they only measured him running in a straight line, this time they looked at a complete 400m race. They concluded that he's at a disadvantage at the start and in every corner, and thus for the complete race he's not at an "unfair advantage".
That, and perhaps the fact that he's no threat - his personal best on any distance (100m, 200m, 400m) is about 2 seconds behind the World Record.
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That, and perhaps the fact that he's no threat - his personal best on any distance (100m, 200m, 400m) is about 2 seconds behind the World Record.
Or so he claims ;)
But really, if he did end up beating a world record, it would open this whole can of worms again..
Sandbagging (Score:3)
That, and perhaps the fact that he's no threat - his personal best on any distance (100m, 200m, 400m) is about 2 seconds behind the World Record.
He might have been sandbagging it all this time. Can you imagine the splash if he actually wins?
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I saw him run a race on TV a few weeks ago and was underwhelmed. He finished 6th or 7th (in an 8-man field) -- and over a second behind the winner -- against a field that all seemed to have had a bad day.
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I wonder where the line should be drawn.
My guess is that it will be as always in sports: When something becomes so superior that it makes the sport boring to watch, there will be regulations to either make it less useful, forbid it or to make it a requirement. Sport really isn't about "fair competition" (which you can't really have anyway, as no two people are alike), it's about entertainment and advertising money.
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The point of sport is that no two people are alike. The point is to test people against people, not to test technological advancements against other technological advancements. Maybe we should go back to the way the Greeks did it, and have everybody race naked. Some sports even with lots of technology have kept things pretty fair. Look at cycling. They make the rules strict enough such that everyone is basically riding the exact same bike.
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I'd guess he can feel the impact with the floor through the stump, and what more feedback do you need?
If not good enough, what is the correct term for them?
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These are not cybernetic in any way. No feedback, no power, no control over their actions. These are just passive prostheses, much like a glass eye or a plastic testicle.
What's next, calling a peg-legged pirate a cyborg because his wooden leg is "cybernetic"? Then we send him to ninja school and we have "cyborg pirate ninja".
If we want to see cybernetic athletes, the closest we can come was that Japanese paralympic, who had a boat propeller hidden in his prosthetic leg, but was found out and got disqualifie
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What's next, calling a peg-legged pirate a cyborg because his wooden leg is "cybernetic"? Then we send him to ninja school and we have "cyborg pirate ninja".
Great! Then we just need to kill him and bring him back to have the legendary Ninja Zombie Pirate Robot!
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It's a bit more active than a glass eye or plastic testicle: the leg does store and release energy. It's not just there for appearances.
But it's far from cybernetic. It has no computing power at all. And while it's very sophisticated in its design, it's ultimately a very simple device. It's no more cybernetic than a ratchet screwdriver.