Jul 25, 2016 04:01 AM
The solution to doping is to extend the blame beyond athletes
https://aeon.co/ideas/the-solution-to-do...d-athletes
EXCERPT: [...] Hence, while choosing not to participate in doping is theoretically possible, in practice it is not easy. The choice not to participate can be extremely costly for the athletes, as it can amount to giving up being competitive, or even leaving the profession. [...] Ultimately, the persistence of doping – by individuals on an isolated basis, and by whole teams as part of a systematic doping programme – means that professional sport today is rarely – if ever – untainted. [...] What can be done about this?
One apparently simple solution would be to legalise doping and make it part of sport. The philosopher and bioethicist Julian Savulescu has suggested this, with the proviso that drugs be used ‘under medical control’. Competitors would be allowed to take performance-enhancing drugs as long as they were ‘safe’, where the bar of safety ‘should be set at the level we allow athletes as persons to take risks’. Would that solve the problem of widespread doping in sports? I do not think so. Secretiveness is an integral part of achieving and maintaining competitive advantage in any context, and for professional athletes the option to ‘take and hide’ would remain the rational choice if doping were legalised.
[...] The only way to make professional sports sustainable, I argue, is to transform the financial matrix that supports and endorses it.
How can we do that? We can start with the idea that athletes should not be the only ones held to account (in the sense of liability) for doping. In practice, this means changing WADA’s system of strict liability for the athlete. To do so, we first need a stakeholder analysis to understand who the relevant stakeholders are for each team, athlete or sport. WADA could require teams or individual athletes and their entourages to submit something akin to a classic organisational chart, showing who reports to whom, who pays whom, and who makes decisions for whom. The next step would be to assign liability to the appropriate stakeholder(s)....
How the buzz of dancing and sports bonds us together
https://aeon.co/ideas/how-the-buzz-of-da...s-together
EXCERPT: [...] Combining insights from evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology and biology, research suggests that coordinated group movement – what we call social motion – sets the stage for the changes in brain chemistry often associated with altered perceptions and beliefs. This altered state of consciousness impacts the sense of pain and fatigue that is so key to athletic performance, as well as the sense of self and others at the root of social bonding.
Social motion comes in many forms across cultures and contexts – exercise, dance, ritual, labour and play – but it is universally characterised by two components: coordinated movement and physical exertion. Evidence suggests that synchronising movement with others leads to feelings of togetherness or ‘oneness’ – perhaps because the intentional act of coordinating with another person necessitates sharing mental states. To row a boat down the river, the individual ‘I’ must become the collective ‘we’. Other research indicates that physical exertion can lead to the release of endorphins and endocannabinoids. These are our body’s natural morphine and cannabis, responsible for feelings of wellbeing during sustained bouts of exercise. Extremes of these psychological states are colloquially known as the ‘runner’s high’.
To test the mechanism and nature of the bonding that being social bestows, our team ran a series of experiments....
https://aeon.co/ideas/the-solution-to-do...d-athletes
EXCERPT: [...] Hence, while choosing not to participate in doping is theoretically possible, in practice it is not easy. The choice not to participate can be extremely costly for the athletes, as it can amount to giving up being competitive, or even leaving the profession. [...] Ultimately, the persistence of doping – by individuals on an isolated basis, and by whole teams as part of a systematic doping programme – means that professional sport today is rarely – if ever – untainted. [...] What can be done about this?
One apparently simple solution would be to legalise doping and make it part of sport. The philosopher and bioethicist Julian Savulescu has suggested this, with the proviso that drugs be used ‘under medical control’. Competitors would be allowed to take performance-enhancing drugs as long as they were ‘safe’, where the bar of safety ‘should be set at the level we allow athletes as persons to take risks’. Would that solve the problem of widespread doping in sports? I do not think so. Secretiveness is an integral part of achieving and maintaining competitive advantage in any context, and for professional athletes the option to ‘take and hide’ would remain the rational choice if doping were legalised.
[...] The only way to make professional sports sustainable, I argue, is to transform the financial matrix that supports and endorses it.
How can we do that? We can start with the idea that athletes should not be the only ones held to account (in the sense of liability) for doping. In practice, this means changing WADA’s system of strict liability for the athlete. To do so, we first need a stakeholder analysis to understand who the relevant stakeholders are for each team, athlete or sport. WADA could require teams or individual athletes and their entourages to submit something akin to a classic organisational chart, showing who reports to whom, who pays whom, and who makes decisions for whom. The next step would be to assign liability to the appropriate stakeholder(s)....
How the buzz of dancing and sports bonds us together
https://aeon.co/ideas/how-the-buzz-of-da...s-together
EXCERPT: [...] Combining insights from evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology and biology, research suggests that coordinated group movement – what we call social motion – sets the stage for the changes in brain chemistry often associated with altered perceptions and beliefs. This altered state of consciousness impacts the sense of pain and fatigue that is so key to athletic performance, as well as the sense of self and others at the root of social bonding.
Social motion comes in many forms across cultures and contexts – exercise, dance, ritual, labour and play – but it is universally characterised by two components: coordinated movement and physical exertion. Evidence suggests that synchronising movement with others leads to feelings of togetherness or ‘oneness’ – perhaps because the intentional act of coordinating with another person necessitates sharing mental states. To row a boat down the river, the individual ‘I’ must become the collective ‘we’. Other research indicates that physical exertion can lead to the release of endorphins and endocannabinoids. These are our body’s natural morphine and cannabis, responsible for feelings of wellbeing during sustained bouts of exercise. Extremes of these psychological states are colloquially known as the ‘runner’s high’.
To test the mechanism and nature of the bonding that being social bestows, our team ran a series of experiments....