Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel invests in controversial doped Olympics

Flying Squid@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 103 points – Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel invests in controversial doped Olympics
independent.co.uk

Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, has joined a multi-million dollar investment in the controversial Enhanced Games, a proposed Olympics-style mega-event without drug testing.

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The idea is the brainchild of Dr Aron D’Souza, the Australian lawyer who helped mastermind Thiel’s proxy war against news media organisation Gawker, which led to Gawker’s bankruptcy in 2016.

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But in a recent interview with The Independent, D’Souza was defiant, and outlined how he hoped the Enhanced Games would not only shake up the world of sport, but would provide a public platform for life-extending science to thrive.

“This is the route towards eternal life,” D’Souza said. “It’s how we bring about performance-medicine technologies, that then create a feedback cycle of good technologies, selling to the world, more revenue, more R&D, to develop better and better technologies.

“And what is performance medicine about? It’s not about steroids and getting jacked muscles. It’s about being a better, stronger, faster, younger athlete for longer. And who doesn’t want to be younger for longer?”

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Performance enhancing steroids - famously known for extending athletes lives and doing nothing weird to their junk.

Yeah, but they don't mean steroids which are totally not performance enhancing medicine!

“And what is performance medicine about? It’s not about steroids and getting jacked muscles. It’s about being a better, stronger, faster, younger athlete for longer. And who doesn’t want to be younger for longer?”

Wtf performance enhancing medicine makes you younger for longer? If this line had come from the Onion it would have been a good laugh.

I'm sure the thousands of professional wrestlers who died of heart attacks in their 30s and 40s would disagree.

Anti-steroid propaganda was probably the only effective messaging from the war on drugs, but like all drugs, it's relative, and not that simple.

Not to go on too long of a tangent here, but the complete restriction of these classes of drugs actually can cause a lot of unnecessary harm to athletes. For example, in helping athletes heal and recover from injuries, or surgeries.

Recovery time is really important in pro-sports where the ability to earn money is limited to a relatively short window e.g. professional fighting. Often time fighters will return before they're fully healed, because they need to earn a living. In many of those cases, steroids could have significantly shortened their recovery time and reduced the risk of further injury.

I'm not here pretending that steroid use can't also cause undo harm to athletes, just that it's not as black and white as many people believe.

Edit: to be clear, steroids are some of the most complicated drugs to use correctly in order minimize long-term health effects, such as destroying your endocrine system. Professional or amateur, they should only be used under the close supervision of a specialized doctor.

Screencap from SNL. Dennis Miller at the Weekend Update news desk, behind him a graphic reads "All Drug Olympics" the Olympic logo under it is made out of circular pills.

Just admit you’ve been watching old SNL clips on YouTube, Pete.

Thiel is 56. He probably watched it live. And if he didn't, I'm sure he's good buddies with that asshole Dennis Miller and I'm equally sure Dennis Miller spends way too much time talking about his glory days on SNL, so he's probably heard every joke from that segment dozens of times.

If I remember rightly the clip features a weightlifter who’s trying to jerk some ridiculous weight. They go to lift and their arms just detach from the shoulders leaving their arms behind as the guy stands up.

It's no surprise that Peter Thiel, who is an actual vampire, is interested in doping athletes. He's been a sketchy billionaire for so long he forgets not to say the bad things in public.

It's hilarious that this guy is a darling of the right, while the right accuses people like Clinton of harvesting children's blood in the non-existant basement of a pizza parlor. Thiel is doing it right out in the open.

This is the same guy trying to build some paradise city in another third world country.

This is going to end with him brutally murdered in his huge paradise office by a race of half human, steroid infused crazed people with implants in their head.

Perfect setting for a videogame where you could find Leland Stanford's pocket watch as a legendary item that gives your character bonuses to saving rolls or something (he had a reputation for incredible dumb luck)

On a related note, everyone should read "Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World" and, like, among other things, the crazy animal torturing experiments that went down at the stock farm of the Standford University founder because California oligarchs have always been deranged like this and it has weird impacts on all of us

One of the most evil people alive wants others to destroy their bodies for his entertainment? How novel.

Billionaires really need to stop stealing their ideas from viral joke tweets.

Eddie Izzard - Stoned Olympics

Smoke a joint and win the hundred meters? Well, fair play to you.

(Eddie is now Susie Suzy but for the clarity of the link, I used the name under which she performed the sketch)

Unless it changed over the last year, she still uses Eddie Izzard as stage name, so you're fine either way. (Also it's Suzy, not Susie for her)

Thank you for correcting me on the spelling!
She chose Suzy and I wanted to honor that by mentioning it too.

What is it with these guys named d'Souza?

Probably the least controversial thing Peter Thiel is a part of.

Billionaires use transhumanism to justify human experimentation. As with Musk's brain implants, so as with the all-drug Olympics.

Fuckin tech priests 😒

Boston Marathon for those who like taking cabs part of the way.