Comments on: The Transhuman Barry Bonds http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/ Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog Fri, 25 May 2012 02:33:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: anthro.pophago.us http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/comment-page-1/#comment-111237 anthro.pophago.us Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:05:18 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/#comment-111237 [...] The Transhuman Barry Bonds ( tags: No Tags ) [...] [...] The Transhuman Barry Bonds ( tags: No Tags ) [...]

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]]> By: Fuji http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/comment-page-1/#comment-110634 Fuji Sat, 11 Aug 2007 05:48:03 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/#comment-110634 Re John: I think perhaps the jargon of "performance enhancing drugs" may be misleading - what the media really means to say are "banned performance enhancing drugs." As any college athlete of today knows, there is a list out there of all the things that you are not supposed to eat/drink/use (this wasn't a concern back in the 1980s when I played). You are right in your point, in that Gatorade is clearly an unnatural way to avoid cramps, while bananas and other sources of potassium I guess would be "natural." In the end, there is some kind of bureaucratic rationality at play here. Although I am guilty of using overused catchphrases, I edited out "if you're not cheating, you're not trying hard enough" that I've often heard out there. I think there is a difference between outright cheating and gaming the system (a very gray area), but especially in professional sports (including college sports in the US, if you are still in denial that these are not professional), where money or the potential of money is involved, there will always be an industry and people like Conte there to help athletes cash in. Re John: I think perhaps the jargon of “performance enhancing drugs” may be misleading – what the media really means to say are “banned performance enhancing drugs.” As any college athlete of today knows, there is a list out there of all the things that you are not supposed to eat/drink/use (this wasn’t a concern back in the 1980s when I played). You are right in your point, in that Gatorade is clearly an unnatural way to avoid cramps, while bananas and other sources of potassium I guess would be “natural.” In the end, there is some kind of bureaucratic rationality at play here. Although I am guilty of using overused catchphrases, I edited out “if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying hard enough” that I’ve often heard out there. I think there is a difference between outright cheating and gaming the system (a very gray area), but especially in professional sports (including college sports in the US, if you are still in denial that these are not professional), where money or the potential of money is involved, there will always be an industry and people like Conte there to help athletes cash in.

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]]> By: John McCreery http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/comment-page-1/#comment-110610 John McCreery Sat, 11 Aug 2007 03:58:34 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/#comment-110610 Serendipitously, Ruth and I were exercising this morning with BBCWorld on in the background and happened to see Rob Bonnet's Extratime interview with Victor Conte, who made a career out of and suffered a short jail sentence for providing "elite athletes" with illegal steroids. Conte is now advising the United States Anti-Doping Association on how to improve testing for illegal substances. He says candidly, however, that he thinks performance-enhancing substances of one kind or another have always been part of the world of Olympic and other commercialized sports and always will be, given the ease with which testing regimes can be evaded and the amounts of money at stake. Listening to him talk, I found myself wondering how can we distinguish between the effects of better or worse nutrition and use of other substances consumed in the same way as, for example, ordinary vitamin pills. What about the calcium-zinc-magnesium supplement I take to ease the cramps I sometimes get in my legs, which I seem to have inherited from my father, who got them, too. If I were an athlete, would these be an "unnatural" way to enhance my performance? Serendipitously, Ruth and I were exercising this morning with BBCWorld on in the background and happened to see Rob Bonnet’s Extratime interview with Victor Conte, who made a career out of and suffered a short jail sentence for providing “elite athletes” with illegal steroids. Conte is now advising the United States Anti-Doping Association on how to improve testing for illegal substances. He says candidly, however, that he thinks performance-enhancing substances of one kind or another have always been part of the world of Olympic and other commercialized sports and always will be, given the ease with which testing regimes can be evaded and the amounts of money at stake. Listening to him talk, I found myself wondering how can we distinguish between the effects of better or worse nutrition and use of other substances consumed in the same way as, for example, ordinary vitamin pills. What about the calcium-zinc-magnesium supplement I take to ease the cramps I sometimes get in my legs, which I seem to have inherited from my father, who got them, too. If I were an athlete, would these be an “unnatural” way to enhance my performance?

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]]> By: uiolliioo http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/comment-page-1/#comment-110517 uiolliioo Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:33:13 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/#comment-110517 My brother always said Bonds had a bionic arm. Anyway, the argument for allowing athletes to taken enhancement drugs is all and good, but where would it stop?: knock-out drug injection on contact for tackling, embedded jet packs for slam dunks, laser pointers to blind opponents, multiple extensible arms for outfielders, and giant flaps of octupus skin to cover soccer goal posts like the head of a bongo drum. Sports must rely on limitations because to not do so may threaten the very structure of the sports themselves. My brother always said Bonds had a bionic arm.

Anyway, the argument for allowing athletes to taken enhancement drugs is all and good, but where would it stop?: knock-out drug injection on contact for tackling, embedded jet packs for slam dunks, laser pointers to blind opponents, multiple extensible arms for outfielders, and giant flaps of octupus skin to cover soccer goal posts like the head of a bongo drum.

Sports must rely on limitations because to not do so may threaten the very structure of the sports themselves.

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]]> By: Fuji http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/comment-page-1/#comment-110378 Fuji Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:19:26 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/#comment-110378 Re Strong: Sports is subject to myths of moral purity because of its putative competitive aspect - the so-called level playing field, may the best person win, etc. It is of course entertainment, but there is a demand for some kind of authenticity from sports fans; I'll write a post on this next week, in terms of my own research on referees. The scripting of WWE wrestling is the antithesis of what sports fans want, like the spontaneity of live performances. Even when it is scripted, entertainment audiences don't really want to know that a live performance is contrived; maybe I'm showing my age, but think about the Milli Vanilli scandal. But you're right - as the saying goes, if you're not cheating you're not trying hard enough. CKelty reads me like a book - yes, I was trying to signal that debate by dropping the buzzword instead of proper footnotes! My own work doesn't take me there, but it's a fascinating literature. The gaming aspect really needs more research - stuff like WoW (World of Warcraft) and Second Life. I'm waiting with baited breath for Tom Boellstorf's book <i>Coming of Age in Second Life</i> to come out, I think with Princeton UP. I have a friend, Thomas Malaby, who is also finishing up a manuscript on Second Life. Cyberspace lets us push the definitions of both human and gaming! Re Strong: Sports is subject to myths of moral purity because of its putative competitive aspect – the so-called level playing field, may the best person win, etc. It is of course entertainment, but there is a demand for some kind of authenticity from sports fans; I’ll write a post on this next week, in terms of my own research on referees. The scripting of WWE wrestling is the antithesis of what sports fans want, like the spontaneity of live performances. Even when it is scripted, entertainment audiences don’t really want to know that a live performance is contrived; maybe I’m showing my age, but think about the Milli Vanilli scandal. But you’re right – as the saying goes, if you’re not cheating you’re not trying hard enough.
CKelty reads me like a book – yes, I was trying to signal that debate by dropping the buzzword instead of proper footnotes! My own work doesn’t take me there, but it’s a fascinating literature. The gaming aspect really needs more research – stuff like WoW (World of Warcraft) and Second Life. I’m waiting with baited breath for Tom Boellstorf’s book Coming of Age in Second Life to come out, I think with Princeton UP. I have a friend, Thomas Malaby, who is also finishing up a manuscript on Second Life. Cyberspace lets us push the definitions of both human and gaming!

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]]> By: ckelty http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/comment-page-1/#comment-110373 ckelty Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:27:27 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/#comment-110373 fuji, i don't know if your invocation of "transhuman" intended to signal the debate in that circle about human enhancement, but certainly sports are always a topic of debate when transhumanists gather (e.g. <a href="http://www.transhumanism.org/tv/2003usa/panelsports.htm" rel="nofollow">here</a>). The topic is most interesting when it intersects with disability activists and in places like the movie Murderball. Indeed, one would think that the manifest success with which we can now enhance human bodies in the most amazing ways would focus debate on the values of sport and gaming, rather than on the definition of the human... but one would be naive to believe that now wouldn't one :) fuji, i don’t know if your invocation of “transhuman” intended to signal the debate in that circle about human enhancement, but certainly sports are always a topic of debate when transhumanists gather (e.g. here). The topic is most interesting when it intersects with disability activists and in places like the movie Murderball. Indeed, one would think that the manifest success with which we can now enhance human bodies in the most amazing ways would focus debate on the values of sport and gaming, rather than on the definition of the human… but one would be naive to believe that now wouldn’t one :)

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]]> By: Strong http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/comment-page-1/#comment-110286 Strong Thu, 09 Aug 2007 17:26:44 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/09/the-transhuman-barry-bonds/#comment-110286 I am loving your posts, Fuji, thank you! Big Sports seems to be a great place to track the work of futile forms of purification, right? On the one hand, you have technology creating ever more perfect athletes: the technologies brought to bear on even high school athletes are pretty remarkable. On the other hand, you have the 'bad faith' premise that somehow what is displayed in sport is 'natural' talent or ambition or both. The putative purity of sport (which previously was taken to an extreme in the Olympic ideology of the 'amateur') systematically screens out its hopelessly hybrid nature. This dialectic or logic can be seen across salient dimensions, from the 'commercial' to the 'physical.' Complaints about the commercialization of sport thus seem sometimes to mimic complaints about 'performance enhancing drugs.' I see it as all part of modernist narratives: rationalization and technology in many cultural domains evokes and eulogizes the lost forms of authenticity it inevitably displaces. My favorite take on sport and performance enhancement is the argument that sports is really entertainment, and that asking athletes not to use drugs would be like asking celebrities not to have plastic surgery. I think Howard Stern makes this argument. Contemporary sports is, simply, celebrity on the playing field. Why should sport be subject to myths of moral purity that other forms of entertainment are not? I am loving your posts, Fuji, thank you! Big Sports seems to be a great place to track the work of futile forms of purification, right? On the one hand, you have technology creating ever more perfect athletes: the technologies brought to bear on even high school athletes are pretty remarkable. On the other hand, you have the ‘bad faith’ premise that somehow what is displayed in sport is ‘natural’ talent or ambition or both. The putative purity of sport (which previously was taken to an extreme in the Olympic ideology of the ‘amateur’) systematically screens out its hopelessly hybrid nature. This dialectic or logic can be seen across salient dimensions, from the ‘commercial’ to the ‘physical.’ Complaints about the commercialization of sport thus seem sometimes to mimic complaints about ‘performance enhancing drugs.’ I see it as all part of modernist narratives: rationalization and technology in many cultural domains evokes and eulogizes the lost forms of authenticity it inevitably displaces.

My favorite take on sport and performance enhancement is the argument that sports is really entertainment, and that asking athletes not to use drugs would be like asking celebrities not to have plastic surgery. I think Howard Stern makes this argument. Contemporary sports is, simply, celebrity on the playing field. Why should sport be subject to myths of moral purity that other forms of entertainment are not?

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