March 27, 2005
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Augmentation And The Future?
We keep getting enraged when we hear about people using drugs to
improve their physical prowess. We hate it. We think it totally unfair
and wrong and yet we still watch it and don’t mind paying a lot of
money provided we can at least pretend it doesn’t exist and not look
too closely at the world.That’s not to say that we should blame ourselves entirely, or the
business that should know better or the players that should know
better, or the advertisers or the drug dealers or those who invented
the new wave of increasingly effective performance enhancers. There’s
plenty of blame to go around, that’s for sure and who you think is most
responsible is largely a matter of preference.Here’s the thing though. If we are worried about a little matter of
performance enhancement drugs we’re in for a heck of a lot of trouble
when before long we’re going to face ethical questions that make the
current issues seem like pathetic whining over nothing.Really. Either through genetics or some other form of robotic or
nano-technology it is likely that we will develop the means to perform
feats of physical prowess that far exceed what human beings are capable
of now. And that will be over and above drug enhancements that are all
the more sophisticated than the ones we use now and might even be safe
and/or legal. When all of that happens what will we do with regards to
sports and record keeping?Now the instinct we all have is to just say NO to all of it. If you
have any unfair advantage you just can’t use it at all. And if you
can’t turn it off, then you just can’t play or at least if you do play
you won’t be considered for any records or glories at all.The problem with that is that it starts to sound an awful lot like
descrimination. We certainly don’t allow for anyone to be excluded from
such things on the basis of any orther characteristic that a person
can’t help. Why would being genetically physically superior be much
different. Especially being as in many cases the person will have not
had any choice in what their parents decided them to be.The second instinct is to create separate standards, separate
competitions, and separate leagues. This works ok except that it can
lead to all the more vicious descrimination and rivalry between the
various leagues. It will also split the fan base of various sports
making a lot less money for everyone. Lastly it just makes things a lot
more boring. Whereas an era of augmentation could provide the ability
to create a whole new world of stories of triumph and failure between
people born with different capacities and how they deal with these
differences, we’d instead be advocating a world of separation that only
allows the same old stories to exist each within their own little
world.Of course the fear is that if you don’t separate them, then the whole
sport becomes dominated by the augmented. Those who are not no longer
have a place in the game and will be descriminated against. Plus some
people will just perform watching normal feats of strength and normal
accomplishments and they will have the very games that they enjoy to
watch taken away from them. Who would want that?There is a better way but it requires a heck of a lot more work.
Statistics. There’s no reason whatsoever that a record has to be a
concrete thing. There’s no reason why we have to say that the one who
holds the Home Run Record is the person who actually physically hit the
most home runs. We could take into account additional variables such as
a measure of a person’s genetic capacity for physical strength. We
could similarly adjust for the kinds of bats the players use and the
size of the stadiums and the height of the walls. Why not? Wouldn’t
that really level the playing field and create really fair honors and
prizes. And why not? Soon we may have the means to take everything into
account and why shouldn’t we? And then, if we do take everything into
account when determining the awards that we give out and how we rank
players, so as to provide an equality of judgement that transcends
differences of birth, why then should we do anything different for
differences between players that are based on choice. Obviously we
should ban any enhancement that exceeds a certain reasonable limit on
the danger it poses to the athletes. But besides that I don’t see why
we can’t just have anything at all go.Then of course teams will decide on their own policies and what their
best strategy for winning will be. Should they pick all exceptional
non-augmented athletes or all augmented-athletes? Should they pick
athletes who are augmented through nano-technology or genetics or
drugs? The decision may be based on appealing to your fan base or based
on what you think will provide you the best chance of winning. Yes
watching games will be a lot weirder. When certain players come to
the plate, you’ll expect them to hit a home run almost every time
but you’ll be looking to see if they miss. When they miss it will be a
really big deal. As it will decrease the teams adjusted score. In
contrast when another non-augmented player comes to the plate and hits a home run it
will be a really big deal as it will increase the teams adjusted score
a great deal.I know it sounds crazy but this is really the way I think it should
work. Of course it will require a lot more thought to think up a way to
make this really work, and whatever scoring and ranking system is used
would have to be subject to constant scrutiny through the rigors of
peer review.It is complicated though and I’m open to hearing of alternatives that
will work if you can come up with them. But we certainly need something
that will work better than the mindless idea of excluding all that is
new and villanizing anyone who uses the new technology of the future
whether they chose to use it or were just born using it. That strategy
really can only go so far.
