Oh my gosh, what a terrible idea for an athletic competition…that everyone would secretly be super stoked to watch.
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel (isn’t is funny that we just read the words tech billionaire together and say “yeah, that sounds right”) has recently made a somewhat controversial idea that he supports public. Isn’t it funny that wealthy people get so bored with all their money that they have to think up stuff like this?
At its core, Thiel and others are proposing something called the “Enhanced Games,” which is pretty much what you think it is. Doping and taking performance enhancing drugs would not only be welcomed and allowed, it would be encouraged.
It’s not exactly ethical to used PED’s, but then again, what if every single athlete that is competing is taking those substances? That still doesn’t make it ethical actually, but it at least levels the playing field.
The whole idea reminds me of the classic, tried-and-true parent comeback to their kids when they say “everyone” is doing something:
“Oh yeah? Would you take performance-enhancing drugs if everyone else was doing it?”
Umm, yes, that’s the whole point of this idea. All athletes are taking PED’s and then the non-athletic general public gets to watch it all like it’s the Olympics. It all seems like a lose-win (loss for athletes dealing with side effects, win for all the viewers who get to watch super humans compete against each other).
The International Olympic Committee would be damned in the Enhanced Games. With the premise of the competition, you’d really only get in trouble if you weren’t doping, which just sounds like an odd thing to say out loud (even though I’m typing this).
And it wouldn’t just be for fun. Dr. Aron D’Souzza, who is one of the original minds behind the idea of the Enhanced Games, says that it would be a way to study the effects of biohacking and nutritional supplements in athletes. Which is just a fancy way of saying that he must be bored watching the regular Olympics.
Regardless of the blowback, both Dr. D’Souzza and tech billionaire Peter Thiel are sticking by their strange-yet-interesting athletic proposal. In fact, Dr. D’Souzza will be in Paris, France for the 2024 Summer Olympics, supposedly workshopping the idea to others.
Let me just go ahead and tell you that you don’t have to try too hard to sell the Enhanced Games to some people in this country…
