I could have sworn some billionaire already tried this a few years ago, and it failed miserably.
this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
96 points (93.6% liked)
News
29494 readers
2911 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
WTF, I'm.... WTF?
Sure, let's push athletes to just fuck up their bodies completely, for money of course
Coming to you from the asshole of the world, las vegas
Honestly, it's not far off from our broader cultural attitudes towards stars and idols. We've been valuing self-degradation for ages now.
On top of that all elite athletes are using performance enhancing drugs to some degree.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, NFL players get suspended fairly often for PEDS.
The whole bicycle racing doping program has a documentary about it.
Track and field, especially in the 80's/90's also had a whole documentary about how they did it.
The entire Russian Olympic team got banned for it....
And that's just off the top of my head.
Blood doping isn't drugs. It's your own blood taken out, then put back in after your body produces new blood, to increase your red blood cell count or something. I'm not aware of any way it can harm your body (unless you put an insane amount of blood back in).
It's fine, the Steroid scare really shaped the public knowledge and opinion on it.
Not any different from now. Unenhanced boxers get punch drunk just the same, and American football players are fucked up basically everywhere after a few years
Dance for us, Miley, Dance!
I mean, they could just choose to not participate. Especially now that it's still new, if they can't get many (or any) top athletes to participate, it will likely flop.
And if someone does choose to participate, well, they are free to risk their lives for a few million more imo. At the end of the day, these people are paid ludicrous amounts of money to run in circles or jump or throw stuff. Not exactly an essential job and easily replaced by another goon desperate for their five minutes of fame. It would be sad if they got hurt, sure, but they bring it upon themselves by being in that industry in the first place.
Of course it's their choice, and we structure society around rewarding and honoring them for it. Give up your life for my weekend entertainment. Another young black man has brain damage from trying to escape the ghetto, pass the nachos. Did you SEE what Hannah Montana did at the Grammies?! UGH I can't believe Brittany shaved her head!! Another star has a psychotic break, maybe they'll do a crossover with BTS!
It's not the idols who disgust me about modern culture.... it's YOU. Who condones it.
Squid Game is also an amazing idea that we should allow. After all, they are freely choosing to participate, so what's the harm?
Never watched it but what you wrote felt wrong so i checked and:
invited to play a series of children's games for a chance at a large cash prize
The players soon discover that losing a game results in their deaths
So they didnt know what they were signing up for which makes it completely different from these enhanced games.
Dont get me wrong, i also find this stupid and dangerous, but people are indeed absolutely free to choose here and there is zero pressure for anyone to participate.
Maybe you should watch it before saying I'm wrong. Yes, they don't know during the first round that losing means death, but after that they vote to go home. After being confronted with the hopelessness of their lives they choose to come back and go on playing, knowing they'll most likely die.
It's an essential plot point, and really what defines the show.
I don’t know what Squid Game is, but we let people do things like cave diving, wingsuit flying, and free solo climbing too. I doubt you’d advocate banning those either.
The difference is doing it for yourself vs. doing it for the entertainment of others. Everyone is free to take performance enhancing drugs for themselves, they shouldn't be free to take them for a literal festival.
Some of you will die. But that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
Oh FFS...
Let the (enhanced steroid swole) Gladiator Games begin!!
A fantastically dumb idea having nothing to do with actual sport but simply designed to liberate money from the plebes through ticket sales and betting.
Our return to the Roman Coliseum. But "enhanced" by tech/drugs.
SciFi novels have been written about this... 🤷♂️ 🤡 🖕
Hey now thats unfair to the Romans, they had whole mock naval battles in the coliseum in Rome. We have football and soccer, which in my opinion is far far less interesting. Give me a full on recreational of the Nevada and have is slug it out with the Bismarck, if we are going to recreate Roman blood sports give it to us in full!
bread & circus !
So what if a few athletes’ hearts explode? It’s a small price to pay for so much in ticket sales and merch!
"What, they WANT to die for our amusement! It's a story of hope and glory!"
we already have wwe, which the "sports" entertainers are juiced to the gills.
WWE absolutely is a sport but it's not a competition.
false, they labeled themselves sports entertainment, to avoid the legality of being tested for PEDS by sports authorities.
I'm actually kind of excited about this. Most elite athletes are already using performance enhancing drugs, this just allows it to be in the open.
This way we can help them be healthier and study the effects better.
It'd be great if people didn't want to push their bodies past the point of breaking, but some do, regardless of the rules.
The research that comes from this is one benefit I suppose. We'll see where it goes. It might be interesting if it gets enhancements out of regular sports too. But I doubt it will.
PED's I think have a lot of non cheating potential, but they aren't studied academically all that much, to my knowledge.
There was one drug being investigated years ago that seemed to help muscular dystrophy patients build back a little muscle.
But disregarding miracle cures, if an older person could take a small course of steroids and build some muscle they would potentially fall less and have better health outcomes.
I'm just theorizing but if these drugs stop being illegal and scary, I'm hoping there is some more public good that can come out of it.
This way we can help them be healthier and study the effects better.
Yeah sure, that's the reason.
Regardless of the reason for the event (money), letting athletes do it in the open will allow them to be healthier and safer.
I want to see a couple cyborgs do some Greco-Roman wrestling.