Nietzsche's Superman - the modern marketed paradigm of hyperreal humanity.
The Scene...
Nothing less than the leadership of the Free World (sic) is at stake.
Winning is Everything.
When the skewed incentives create such a competitive and nationalistic template, one may only be certain of one thing.
Cheating...
Firstly, a prediction.
Dietrological are trading massively on a private Olympic Games market in Asia.
Our position is a Buy.
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And, you know what, the reason that we think that this is a solid position (as well as being a one-parameter market!) is that Cheating is the Core Competitive Advantage in the modern Olympiad.
The cumulative impact of the incentives - personal, cultural, economic, political and national - are marked in Beijing.
Additionally, the incentives are in tandem - unlike, say, when the Black Power protests by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City extravaganza demonstrated the real feelings about living in the world's "only remaining primitive society".
The unipolar world is about to become bipolar.
Measured at purchasing power parity (PPP), Goldman Sachs reckon the Chinese will economically overtake the US of A this very year. In reality, 2028 is the projected date for the changeover in No 1 seed in the global economy - this second date is based on the modern concepts of mathematics and statistics, rather than the sleight of hand of a street magician used by proponents of PPP.
So, they're up for it.
Big style.
The People's Republic of China versus Team USA.
How spectacular do you wish for your sport to be?
Anyway.
Back to Cheating.
Herbert Marcuse: "...play is precisely a breaking off from labour and a recuperation for labour".
The Circularity of Play in the Political Economy is equivalent to the Circularity of Cheating in the 2008 Olympiad.
When the prize is so great on so many levels, Cheating will define the games.
This Cheating will, literally, exist on two different strata - Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) and Gene Doping.
Lets take these two in turn.
PESs - Remember Euro 2008? Remember how much energy ###### and ###### possessed in a run of their respective games? Remember how tired the ######## looked in their abject ########## defeat to the #######? Remember how the ##### never stopped running, even in between matches?
PESs are now commonplace in all sports - the information is "in the price", so to speak. As an example of this, count how many of those super-energetic ####### and ####### footballers have secured moves to the G14(18) teams following their overperformance at Euro 2008. We'll save you the trouble - the answer is zero. No top tier club makes an evaluation based on PESs.
The competitive advantage has turned away from the usage of erythropoietin (EPO), perfluorocarbon (PFC), blood doping, steroids, amphetamines etc, and to the development of masking substances instead.
Originally, the monitoring regimes were so lax that maskers weren't necessary. Indeed, a cynic might argue that the global regulation covering the illegal utilisation of PESs is suitably time-lagged to allow the next wave of 'innovation' to be initiated prior to more cumbersome regulations being developed for earlier forms of Creative Cheating.
But, in spite of this, PESs are secondary in impact to the Next Big Thing.
Gene Doping will distort outcomes at the Beijing Olympics.
Do you need to know the science?
Okay, here's a bit...
This physiological advancement (sic) is based on introducing extra copies of particular genes into the body (transgenes). EPO is the prime transgene target. It was the biotechnology industry that introduced EPO in the late-eighties and an EPO transgene would not be detectable using any technique.
The Perfect Crime.
Repoxygen is already freely available in the sorts of locations where you can purchase guns and things. Other Big Pharma advances include IGF-1 (which is muscle specific - think javelin or tennis), vascular endothelial, Switching Genes that act as an on/off device, advanced endorphins for pain control etc etc.
The specificity of these designer doping genes allows particular products to be aimed at particular sports. One can even game the detection regime via the use of Switching Genes.
Now, when the leadership of the Free World is at stake, surely the unknown health risks to a few athletes are not worth worrying about?
Cortisone? Who cares?
And, in a parallel pharma-verse, notice how quickly Vioxx has disappeared from the hyperreality?
As The Economist correctly states, the decision on Gene Doping should be based on safety and fairness.
However, the right wing libertarians then proceed by totally ignoring the former (profit over people) while producing illogical, unscientific and selective arguments in support of the latter.
The Economist think that Gene Doping is a Good Thing.
Over their column inches, even the name changes.
Gene Doping, with its nightmare-state images of Frankenstein-athletes...
...becomes Gene Therapy, with an altogether more comfortable-couch-with-caring-counsellor sort of image.
If we are going to be objecting to the hunger merchants of the next millennium imposing genetically modified foods on us, we must be equally assertive in our objection to genetically modified athletes.
The Economist uses the case of Eero Mantyranta to promote their case. This Finnish athlete was fortunate. His body produced large amounts of EPO entirely naturally. He won a couple of Olympic Golds in those bizarre sports that involve snow and rifles and forests and things.
So what?
Sport is about natural ability.
That is the point.
Fairness.
No corruption or advantage through PESs, Gene Doping, control of match officials or whatever.
The list of negatives to The Economists arguments are extensive, too extensive for my working day.
But here are a few points worthy of input (in random order):
* If natural ability is to be artificially equalised using Gene Doping then some of the most beautiful things that we have ever witnessed will never happen again.
Maradona, Tiger Woods, Don Bradman, Gary Sobers would all have just merged into the crowd of heightened mediocrity. The incentives would make it imperative that all athletes partake in Gene Doping - what chance in outrunning or outjumping an android without becoming one yourself?
* In the end, it will still probably be natural ability that provides some edge but not before Big Pharma has made extensive profits out of gullible and desperate athletes equalising their gene intake. The profits of the pharmaceutical industry are one of the foundational bases of this ruse.
* Big Pharma will also game the sector. Generic Gene Doping will be available off-the-shelf, in a manner of speaking, for the poorer participants. The G8(12) will have proprietary Gene Doping established with particular pharmaceutical giants - Team Pfizer USA. This will help maintain the most psychopathic nations at the top of the Medal Table.
* Longer-term health risk is the biggest issue. Corners will be cut in pursuit of glory. The real impacts may only become evident in future decades when the athletes are well away from the lens of the spectacle. And the athletes take on the Total Risk ie Life. The profiteers simply count the cash...
* Numerous unnecessary industries will benefit from the introduction of Gene Doping - advertisers, sponsors, the media, merchandisers, sportswear firms, bookmakers etc etc etc.
For example, lets look at bookmaking.
Natural ability is very annoying to bookmakers.
As we hopefully demonstrated in our recent post at http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-bookmakers-hate-olympics.html, the layers do not appreciate competitions where the incentive to win is considerably greater than the incentive to cheat.
Gene Doping will solve this.
And then some...
As only the leading nations will be able to take advantage of Gene Doping, and as the leading nations have very mature betting industries, the inevitable linking of the Dopers and the Layers will produce internally controlled betting markets on currently dangerous spectacles such as the Olympic Games.
Take the 100 metres.
This is a flagship event.
Of the top ten competitors in the betting markets, 3 are Jamaican, 3 are Trinidadian, 1 is from the Bahamas and the other three are from Team Pfizer.
In a world where the bookmaking and pharmaceutical industries cosied up to one another for mutual advantage, and oodles of insider trading opportunites - all industries love those off-balance sheet little grey and black market earners - the possibilities of gaming the 100 metres outcome for proprietary trading advantage is obvious.
For example, inside knowledge of the use of Switching Genes would be valuable both with respect to historical 'form' and real-time hyperrealities in the race.
The worst two industries, apart from all the others, are pharmaceuticals and bookmaking, and their collusion is not an edifying sight.
The Economist dresses up the whole argument regarding Gene Doping on the basis of fairness. Apparently, it is unfair that the likes of Eero Mantyranta have natural ability providing natural advantage. It would be much fairer, claim a tongue-in-cheeked Economist leader, if rich countries could develop an unnatural advantage for themselves through drugs and doping.
"Why should others be denied the chance to remedy ...[their] deficiency?" argues The Economist.
Aside from all the above (and more), the winners of the prizes should be the individuals who have natural talents, have selected the correct sports in which to demonstrate those talents, have trained while their peers partied and who avoid the competitive advantages bestowed by PESs, Gene Doping or linking to the bookmaking industry.
Exactly the sort of individuals who will not be winning Gold Medals in Beijing, in fact...
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