Yeah I know, maybe the world is coming to an end. 
However, I’ll cheerfully admit you said it better than I did. 
This appears to be National Testosterone Week in professional sports, since Justin Gatlin has just admitted he tested positive for testosterone or it’s precursors back in April. And while I’m never entirely suprised when one of Trevor Graham’s athletes tests positive, I didn’t see this one coming.
And it would be interesting to know why the outcome is still in doubt if he failed the test over three months ago.
Athletics is my favourite sport, and I do try to believe that the reason for the number of failed tests is that they’re making a better effort than most to catch people, rather than the fact that everyone cheats. Sometimes it’s hard though.
Sorry, link btw Link to the BBC
This struck me as a strange statement. In my mind it scanned something like sports is my favorite sport. Keying on the u in favourite and the BBC link I thought athletics must be a britishism for track and field. Merriam-Webster lists only the definitions I had expected. But Wikipedia surprised me by implying it’s an americanism for track and field. Either way, I learned a new connotation today.
I return you now to your regularly scheduled thread.
You’re not the first person to suggest this, but it would be madness. There are a couple of reasons:
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It makes competition about chemistry, rather than physical and mental strength and toughness. Whoever can buy the best drugs and afford to take them over the course of a season wins. What kind of a game is that?
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Even more importantly, virtually every drug used to gain a performance boost has side effects ranging from unpleasant to deadly. We’re not talking about popping caffeine pills, here. EPO and more traditional forms of blood packing can lead to heart failure, as athletes’ hearts simply can’t pump the thickened, sludgy blood that results from excessive levels of red blood cells in the blood solution. Anabolic steroids have a list of side effects that would probably stretch clear across the country. Legalizing doping would turn sports into a deadly game of roulette, with athletes trying to walk that dangerous and narrow line between enough drugs to give them that little bit of an edge over their competitors and enough drugs to seriously harm or kill them. Quite a few cyclists HAVE DIED as a result of doping. This doesn’t sound like a fair trade to me. Doping has got to be controlled, and the UCI simply isn’t taking the issue seriously enough.
I have a great deal of admiration for Floyd Landis as a cyclist, and I hope that he is indeed innocent of doping. It doesn’t really compute that he would choose to use testosterone in a race like the Tour de France - it conveys little benefit in this kind of event. Still, we’ll see what happens. And if he’s guilty, then no, he doesn’t deserve the title, as happy as I was to see him come back from disaster and win it. He strikes me as a decent, honest, hard-working person. Greg LeMond (former three-time American winner of the Tour) said something to this effect on NPR, and that if Landis thinks that he needs to use drugs to remain competitive, than it speaks volumes about how deeply it has affected (and infected) the sport of cycling.
This is the situation in quite a number of other sports, though.
I could compete in a benchrest rifle shooting competition with my WWI-dated SMLE Mk III* rifle (because I’m a purist like that 
) but I’d have no chance of winning, since I’d be up against people with $15,000 Feinwerkbau rifles and customised guns with the Hubble space telescope’s younger brother mounted atop them. Should I insist that everyone use a WWI vintage rifle just so I can have a better chance at winning? No, I either lay out the readies and get myself an Accuracy International “Target Pwner” (Arctic Weather Magnum/Police) with all the mod cons, or I can compete with my Lee-Enfield and see how I go, realising I’m not going to win, but enjoying myself nonetheless.
The same could be said of car racing… I could enter the Paris-Dakar Rally with a factory-standard Lada, but I wouldn’t fancy my chances
That would be a problem, I admit. But at the same time, if it were “legal”, wouldn’t a pharmaceutical company come up with something that didn’t turn your blood into engine sludge?
We may have been listening to the same programme… was that on “All Things Considered” a couple of days ago? (They rebroadcast it on ABC NewsRadio here of an evening, along with the BBC World Service).
How is that about cemistry? It’s about equipment. Not the same thing at all.
The problem is, a child can grow up dreaming about racing the next composite superbike in the Tour de France at absolutely no risk to his health. If he grows up dreaming about the day when he can inject performance enhancing drugs, he is liable not to grow up at all.
Hypothetical: It turns out the “hero” saved the life of someone who was due to change their will the next day to leave a significant amount of money to the “hero”. Turns out that if the same situation occured the next week, the “hero” would have left the person to burn.
My mother is my hero, she inspires me and I look up to her. She has done many things in her life that require great courage. Making personal sacrifices for the good of the family and so on. She’s never directly saved a life though. Are you really such an arsehole that you would tell me she is not a real hero? Are you really so dense that you can’t percieve that one persons hero, is another’s anonymous stranger or media hyped sports star?
Going around bleating that so-and-so is not a hero in this manner doesn’t make you smart. It makes you a cunt.
I agree; we really need to use different terms. Would calling someone a “great athlete” or “< fill in the sport > champion” really hurt that much ?
Well, you could discover they started the fire, in order to perform a heroic rescue and look good; that sort of thing’s happened before. ? Outside of that you’re right.
I’ve though about this for a while; my ( non-expert ) guess is “Yes and No”. I do think that they could or soon could make enhancement drugs with few or no side effects. Problem is, the destructive ones are always going to be better, because they can make the body perform past its healthy limits. It’s like the strength granted by some drugs/strong emotion/insanity; it’s so much more than normal strength because the people involved are wrecking their bodies by exerting it.
My feeling is that eventually, we’ll see a set up where the legal, non-destructive drugs are allowed and the dangerous ones aren’t. Mostly, because eventually I expect the safer enhancement drugs ( and genetic therapy and so on ) will become at least as widespread as plastic surgery. It would be hard to take sports seriously if the audience were all more athletic than the athletes.
And you learned this how, exactly? With your quantum time machine?
Reprinted for the literacy impaired:
Isn’t it about time you changed your screen name to 3. Hi Opal! or Og Smash!?
No problem with “great” or “champion” or “star” or even “fabulous”. 
It was printed in a tabloid magazine.
Ok, another hypothetical. Turns out your hero firefighter actually started the fire (although rare it is not unheard of), is he still a hero? And do you still maintain that the heroism of saving someone from a fire can’t be altered by learning something knew about the hero?
Really? But get this, it does not mean just that, and you can’t make it mean just that. Do I need to give the dictionary definitions to show you what the accepted meanings are? Or are you smart enough to look it up yourself?
I’m thinking about it. I was going to run it past you first though, I’d like to get your approval for my next username.
Well, I’ve seen the light. From now on only police men, firemen, and doctors (but only those performing life-saving emergency operations) are my heros.
My mom and dad - sorry, not good enough. Simply raising a family doesn’t count.
Obviously we can’t be wasting our time on music. Sorry Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky. No more Handel, Paganini, or Holst.
Art? Ha. Clear waste of time, why did these guys waste their lives painting, when you could have been saving lives? No luck Picasso, Chagall, Rembrandt. Hit the road Matisse, Monet, Van Gogh.
Books? You’ve got to be kidding. Take a hike Faulkner, Shakespeare, Keats. You’re outta here Whitman, Frost, Emerson.
Michelangelo? Just painted some Chapel and make a statue of some dude named David. What a hack. And a waste of time.
So, we get rid of the paintings, the concerts. No more movies, or operas, or books. And the world will be such a better place. 'Cause, you see, Miller has clearly explained to us that we can only be inspired by people who that he thinks worthy.
:rolleyes:
This, from a guy who spends his days with video games. Sheesh.
Ah, one of those tabloid magazines that reports on events in alternate timelines, right?
Yeah, that’s a good point. Of course, Der Trihs already posted it, so that explains how it ended up in your post.
I’ll put it to Der Trihs, though (what with it being his argument, and all) that what you’re really learning is more information about the act itself. A heroic act can’t be changed by the nature of the person comitting the act. In this case, you’ve misidentified a horrific act as a heroic act. The point of the analogy is that a heroic act is a good in and of itself. By its nature, it’s not something you can “cheat” into.
You really have no idea at all what I’m saying, do you? Of course there are alternate definitions. That’s the entire root of my complaint: the popular usage of the word “hero” debases the usefulness of the term. It ought to mean something larger than “really impressive.”
Nah, don’t bother. My natural instinct would be to give you a screen name that makes you look like the largest tool possible, but I don’t think I could improve on the one you’ve got.
Oh, and DragonAsh? When you feel like rebutting anything I’ve actually said in this thread, feel free to chime in. In the meantime, you just sit in the corner there playing with your strawmen.
I was addressing the issue of “whoever can afford the most expensive stuff will win”, as opposed to the “Better living through chemistry” aspects.
Miller is right. “Hero” should mean more than “really impressive”.
Sports stars are not heroes simply for being paid a lot of money to play a game.
Fire fighters, ambulance officers, and hopsital workers are deserving of the title “Hero”. Some over-paid sports jock is worthy of nothing but, at best, my complete disinterest.
And DragonAsh, I wouldn’t consider any of the people you described to be “Heroes”. Great acheivers, certainly- inspiring, even- but not “Heroes”.
If 1920s Style “Death Ray” feels like changing his name (and personally, I think it’s a pretty nifty username that transcends the whole meme thing), I’d vote for something like Ray, Death, M1920 Mk I.
Sure, if you like.
I didn’t read Der Trihs’ post. Doesn’t matter though, if the point was already made, then that is just fine. I appologise for repeating what another poster said.
But what is the point of raising all this in a thread like this? Shouldn’t you be lobbying your local government or something. You can’t change how people use the word.
Did you know that “hero” can be used in a derogatory way? Do you understand that context is everything, and that the OP using “hero” the way he did, has absolutely no impact on how we percieve firemen, soldiers, or others who’ve committed heroic acts in the self-sacrificing-for-others sense of the word?
What, with “Miller” being taken already?
Seems relevant to the topic, to me. OP complains that his sports star “hero” might be a cheat, and therefore, not really a “hero.” I don’t see anything wrong pointing out that maybe calling him a hero in the first place is part of the problem.
No, I did not know that. How, pray tell, can hero be used in a derogatory way?
Do you understand that that is irrelevant to my point?
Oh, that’s just sad, man. If that’s the best you can do, don’t even bother trying.
Ergh, “inspirational” and “hero” are different things. Just sayin’. My high school chemistry teacher inspired me but he isn’t my hero. Maybe I should learn to drool a bit more…
Except that by the definition the OP is using, he is a hero.
When used ironically. Context is everything.
You said that you feel using “hero” the way the OP does, undermines the usefulness of the term. I’m pointing out that it doesn’t. When someone calls a firefighter who has just saved lives a hero, we all know exactly what they mean. When someone else calls a sportsman a hero, we also know what they mean. We don’t think the sportsman has somehow saved lives, and we don’t think the firefighter is an excellent cyclist. We don’t even think to compare the two. The term is quite useful in a couple of ways. Using it one way has no effect on its other uses.
I am glad you have finally picked up on the merits of this part of the conversation.
Well, for that matter, at least in Tour de France level cycling, they all “have the most expensive stuff.” They don’t all win, however.