Running with the Dopes: Cheating to be a Better Human

[JBeukema]

[T]he lines between enhanced performance and cheating have become blurred... We are allowed to use coffee and alcohol and prescription meds to cheat our way through the modern day, but when we use steroids or marijuana this is suddenly a scandal.

Think of this as a symptom of our age: we’ve embraced the anti-narcotic as an illicit postrecreational drug. Stay awake and sober as long as you can! ...

t would be wrong to call this behavior anything but pathological. Performance, achievement, and winning are a form of dope, the main symptom of the performance pathology being that winners are never satisfied even when they’re winning. If civilization is built upon the pathology of achievement, we must embrace the dope race for what it is, otherwise we are criticizing the worth of progress itself, and that totally jumps the paradigm. It’s easier to backtrack and say, “Win at any cost, but don’t get caught cheating…” than to step back and ask, “What is the inherent worth of winning, anyway?”

Running with the Dopes: Cheating to be a Better Human | h+ Magazine

 

[gautama]

[T]he lines between enhanced performance and cheating have become blurred... We are allowed to use coffee and alcohol and prescription meds to cheat our way through the modern day, but when we use steroids or marijuana this is suddenly a scandal.

Think of this as a symptom of our age: we’ve embraced the anti-narcotic as an illicit postrecreational drug. Stay awake and sober as long as you can! ...

t would be wrong to call this behavior anything but pathological. Performance, achievement, and winning are a form of dope, the main symptom of the performance pathology being that winners are never satisfied even when they’re winning. If civilization is built upon the pathology of achievement, we must embrace the dope race for what it is, otherwise we are criticizing the worth of progress itself, and that totally jumps the paradigm. It’s easier to backtrack and say, “Win at any cost, but don’t get caught cheating…” than to step back and ask, “What is the inherent worth of winning, anyway?”

Running with the Dopes: Cheating to be a Better Human | h+ Magazine

What a crappy thread. Couldn't believe my eyes so I checked.

How about starting a thread discussing something as profound as .... hmmmmmm ..." the line between drinking alcohol and pleasure is getting blurred "... DUH.....