From doping to trading, the tragedy is that people take it so seriously and thus turn it into a life-and-death game of all-or-nothing.
Taking things seriously robs any chance to just be good enough and be happy about that.
Anyone who can complete Tour de France at all or moderately but steadily grow an investment portfolio over the years should be extremely satisfied with just that already. If you're not, you'll seek greater but less likely and more momentary satisfaction from winning to win, and you'll likely end up more miserable in the average.
I don't know... in my mind, cheating at sports is fundamentally different from (and less serious than) defrauding people in the stock market;
The sock market is how we allocate most capital. Even making it slightly less efficient has huge negative consequences that touch almost everyone, not just people that choose to play in the stock market.
The Stock Market is bigger and more impactful than sports, but I wouldn't say cheating in sports is less serious. There is a LOT of money moving around in sports (Superbowl, BCS, etc.) and having the best (doping or non doping players) turns into dollars. The total impact is less, but I don't think you can wave it away.
Total impact is dramatically less. I mean, stealing a candy bar is wrong, and it has a real, measurable impact; stealing a car is also wrong, and has a real, measurable impact. but most people (and the law, at least in my jurisdiction) would make a distinction between the two crimes; one results in a 'slap on the wrist' while the other usually involves jail time and a felony record that makes it quite difficult for the perpetrator to get a legitimate job.
For that matter, there's another difference. In both sports and finance, most of the money is in the surrounding ecosystem, not in the traders or athletes themselves. The difference here is that if one athlete wins instead of another because of doping, this doesn't really effect the ecosystem all that much. Okay, so reebok gets the extra shoe sales rather than nike, but you are going to probably move about the same number of units at about the same price with about the same labour input. One athlete winning over another has nothing to do with the actual efficacy of the reebok or nike design or manufacturing operations. The wronged party is mostly the athlete that doesn't dope.
But the stock market is different. The stock market is how nearly all the corporations we work for and buy stuff from are owned. Stock prices directly effect things like how much labour is put towards food production vs. car production. There are real consequences to miss-allocated capital that are much larger than what brand of overpriced shoes is popular this week. Potentially, for instance, miss-pricing food commodities could cause starvation.
There are other factors than money. For example, I was a mad cricket fan as a child - spent endless hours watching, analyzing, playing etc. until a couple of my heroes were caught throwing away matches, for money. What I couldn't understand then, and now, is this - they were good in their game, and were already maKing boatload of money. What difference could some more money possibly make in their lives? I stopped watching the sport altogether, it was disgusting. When a sporting hero cheats and gets caught, it makes a huge impression on their fans, especially the younger ones.
I agree cheating in stock market has more impact than cheating in sports, but cheating in sports is not something to be swept under the rug.
Note that you don't have to cheat or scam the stock market in order to cause negative externalities. The same driving force of everyone trying to be the best instead of just good enough emphasizes short-term quick wins over long-term steady gains. It causes unconstructive volatility and noise in the stock prices, ultimately delivered by HFT in the recent years, which can't be ignored even by those who still wish to go by the more moderate strategy.
It's my perception that if everyone tried to merely be good enough to some respectable standards instead of trying to exclusively win, it would benefit the overall picture of the economy/society/activity/whatever more.
I think most people trading in the stock market would be pretty happy with 'second best'
I mean, I completely agree that the short term focus of the stock market destroys a great deal of the value it could be providing in it's intended role (efficiently allocate capital) - but then, I don't have good ideas how to fix that. I think that problem is way deeper and more prevalent than people being dissatisfied with being 'second best'
(though, I think, in the short term, the stock market looks awfully zero-sum, while in the long term, that doesn't seem to be the case nearly as much. Second place looks a lot better in a game that is not zero sum than in a game that is.)
> Anyone who can complete Tour de France at all or moderately but steadily grow an investment portfolio over the years should be extremely satisfied with just that already.
(I'm not certain what "should" means in that sentence - a moral judgement? - but I'll interpret it as advice.) I think that this is excellent advice for some people, but poor advice for others. I don't think there is anything wrong, per se, with wanting to be the very best at something. There's just a trade-off: you can be happily excellent, or you can take a chance and be perhaps the best but most likely just unhappy. But this decision is, in my opinion, a personal one: happiness does not have to be the ultimate goal of life.
> I don't think there is anything wrong, per se, with wanting to be the very best at something.
Its probably obvious, but everyone wants to be the very best at something (or even everything?), even though of course its unrealistic, so most people disregard that desire almost immediately after thinking of it.
However, there are a minority that feel they can be, and when they realize they mightn't be, they cheat to do so, at the cost of others. And that's what i think is the real crux of the problem.
Imagine you're now the best programmer in the world who knows as much as any other programmer knows, and more. How depressing would that be. You'll always find room to improve any library you download from the internet. When you have no idea to do something, you have no one to ask. You'll have nothing to learn from reading programmer's blogs. Nothing to learn reading programming related entries in HN. No role models to learn from. No new information to read from programming books. No enlightenment reading Knuth's (Or Rob Pike or Paul Graham or Jeff Atwood or any other programmers') writing.
No, I have no desire to be the very best at all. It'd be great if I can always have someone in front of me to learn from, all the time.
I'm happy for you, really. But those who strive for greatness and who invent or discover new concepts also get amazing feelings, and learn amazing things too.
Not to mention that nobody can know everything. If you know everything about programming, you are deluding yourself. And even if you could know everything, there is much to be said of applying concepts from other disciplines to your own. That's how we got Design Patterns.
What you described is not the best programmer. It's some kind of superhuman programmer that you get when you combine the best attributes of every single programmer on the planet and spends five thousand hours a day doing computer science research so that they always think of every idea first.
I'll go point by point in a situation where you're just 'the best' and not some kind of demigod that steals ideas before they are conceived.
1. Every library has room for improvement. Even the libraries you make can be improved by average programmers that focus on specific aspects of it.
2. Do you honestly only ask people that are better than you for help? Everyone that can understand a problem can potentially provide insight.
3. Blogs will still have new information, new insights that you haven't gotten to.
4. Same as 3.
5. If the only standard for role model is who is the best programmer ever, then this can be a valid point.
6. Same as 3.
So sure, being a demigod might be boring, but I would be perfectly content being the best at something.
Your interpretation is correct: I wrote it as an advice, not a judgement. Whenever in doubt, prefix the original sentence with "In my opinion, " and internet comments start making a whole lot of sense.
Reminds me of a piece that I read on Marc Andreessen's blog back in 2007. Now I see that it was written by Ben Horowitz. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it how long it took me to find this, like 10 minutes. Anyway, quoting:
"Once WorldCom started committing accounting fraud to prop up their numbers, all of the other telecoms had to either (a) commit accounting fraud to keep pace with WorldCom's blistering growth rate, or (b) be viewed as losers with severe consequences.
How severe were the consequences for not breaking the law? Well, like a baseball player who refuses to take steroids, CEO Mike Armstrong of AT&T did not keep pace with the cheaters. As a reward for his honesty and integrity, he was widely ridiculed in the press prior to being fired and AT&T, perhaps America's most valuable brand, was acquired for cheap. Now you see why Barry Bonds needed something to help him keep pace with Mark McGwire."
There is a difference between financial fraud and doping. The latter can actually increase performance, while the former only appears to on the surface.
Lance Armstrong actually is faster. WorldCom was not, in fact, doing any better than AT&T and may have actually been doing worse.
Very good article! I think it really comes down to the fact that people can rationalize anything nowadays. Get 10 people in a room and they'll all disagree on what's right and wrong.
You know, I always feel like deep down, everybody knows what is really right. Whenever you make a bad decision, you've just got to know that you're rationalizing why it's okay. How could you not?
But maybe I'm wrong; I doubt that sociopaths and psychopaths have a true sense of right and wrong. There's stories of these people being in interrogation rooms and revealing all of the atrocities they've committed with no trace of emotion. It's only once they read the faces of their interrogators that they realize other people are horrified. And then they pretend to have remorse because it improves their own chances of a good outcome.
> the fact that people can rationalize anything nowadays.
That's the whole point of rationalization. Rational process of thinking can be applied to anything, to choices deemed good or bad, much similarly to science which can be (ab)used for purposes deemed good or bad. Nobody can't make a decision based on pure rationalism because anyone half-skilled in rationalizing is able to counter-argue his own argument down.
Rational thinking is a valuable tool to gain insight into things but only a fool thinks he can solve dilemmas of good vs. bad with it. Ethics itself is a product of a mind and what mind does is always rational.
You seem to be confusing rationalisation with rational thinking.
Rational thinking involves making logical deductions from a set of objectives and constraints to determine what actions to take. Ideally some of the constraints will be ethical, and perhaps some of the objectives will be emotional.
Rationalisation involves coming up with reasons to justify a decision that has already been made for other reasons. Perhaps the real reasons do not satisfy the person's conscience. Perhaps the real reasons will not persuade other people. Perhaps the real reasons are emotional and not rational. But the process of inventing these reasons is not allowed to challenge the original decision.
Very good article! I think it really comes down to the fact that people can rationalize anything nowadays. Get 10 people in a room and they'll all disagree on what's right and wrong.
We know what happens when we put 12 angry men in a room.
A few years back, coach Angel Heredia did an interview with Spiegel on the same topic in which he alleges many of today's world-records would be impossible without PEDs. There's a translated version below, but note that at the time of interview, he under investigation for supplying illicit drugs to athletes, and his responses are mildly tainted by personal agenda.
What is not seen is that for this homo sapiens to be writing this book his ancestors had to cheat themselves for him to be here. Killing off the Neanderthals and whoever/whatever stood in the way is how humankind got here. I think his observations are correct but the conclusion wrong. Cheating is the way to go but unfortunately this cannot be said out loud. Homo Hypocritus(hat tip to Robin Hanson) at work here.
It's not possible to "cheat" at natural selection, because it's not a thing and doesn't have rules; it's just a mathematical fact that's true.
And, like the other reply pointed out, human societies have systems of rules because the results are worse when they don't (to stretch your example, a species which consumes or destroys too much of a limited resource dooms all its members, whether they "cheated" or not).
> It's not possible to "cheat" at natural selection
You are right but the same can be said for winning in contests. The only real rule is "to win" all the rest are social contracts that you can break if you can get away with it. In that sense the smarter, more capable more hypocritical individuals will win, so yes, you are selecting for those same traits. I take objection with the author for his moral preaching.
I m not sure that cheating "is the way to go" - you are right in the sense that there is no such a thing as cheating in nature.
But this very reason is why humans had to have civilization - otherwise, the lives of each individual would be brutal and paranoid. To me, cheating is like achieving a local maxima, whilst full cooperation, when cheating would give an individual a slightly better pay off at the cost of the whole, is achieving a global maxima.
More success has come from cooperation. Families, tribes and civilisations that cannot harness the contributions of its members are defeated (or out-competed) by those that can. In cynical terms, good wins because it is stronger.
Note that it need not be perfectly fair or perfectly good, simply that better cooperation beats worse cooperation.
I think the average professional cyclist might be less happy then the average plumber, even without doping. Think of all the pressure, knowing that you career will have to end soon, still not being the best, dealing with the press, etc.
In my mind, Cyclist Joe might be lucky to have become Joe the Plumber instead.
I forget the exact quote by Dave Ramsey - who has been rich, then poor, then rich again, said something like 'People tell you being rich sucks. Nu-uh.'
One can be rich and unhappy, and poor and happy. This is not news.
But .. having been poor myself (and then middle-class) having money to pave over the small bumps in life makes it a whole lot easier to be content.
> This is the problem with cheating across the moral landscape: it’s robs others of their possibilities.
If 1000 guys compete, only 1 wins the possibilities, 999 of them will be robbed of their possibilities regardless of whether the winner cheats or not.
Don't plan (let alone invest significant portion of you life and health) on 1/1000 ratio. You have more or less that chance of dying next year. Do you plan on that?
I take issue with how this article represents Lance Armstrong's doping as a fact. He never tested positive. From what I understand, someone just testified that they saw him shooting up with something. Who knows what Lance and his team really did or did not do. The US Anti-Doping Agency was out to get him, and from what I understand, the burden of proof is so low that they can get anyone they want.
I also do not understand how the affordability of top doping experts is any different than affordability of top coaches and nutritionists. The author claims that only the top 25% can actually compete legitimately since top doping specialists cost a lot. Top coaches likely do also.
I think these two points weaken the authors points tremendously, when I somewhat agree with is point. He just needs better examples.
Actually, he has tested positive. On multiple occasions. There was a urine test he failed in 1999 that he got out of with a backdated prescription. More controversially, it has been alleged that he failed an EPO test in 2001 that Hein Verbrugghen (then head of the UCI) made disappear. Coincidentally, Armstrong donated $125,000 to the UCI at this time. Also, 1999 TdF samples of his have recently tested positive to EPO (they didn't have an EPO test back then), but those positives didn't count because the testing was done for research purposes.
If anyone has any doubts about doping in cycling I recommend reading about Christoper Bassons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassons
a professional cyclists who was bullied out of cycling for speaking against doping (also by Armstrong).
It is not another question, and if it is, the same overwhelming evidence points to his guilt. Lance's entire myth is deeply tied to his appearance of being a clean athlete who is a victim of a vast and elaborate scheme to discredit him.
The exact opposite is true and no matter of denials and double speak will change this.
Lance fooled me. I'm a cancer survivor and an avid cyclist who was an original member of the Peloton Project before it was Livestrong. I have traveled to France and Austin multiple times to meet Lance and was completely taken by his story.
His continued denials and the complicit noise makers sicken me.
The facts are that from the early 1990s the use of EPO was widespread in professional cycling.The evidence for this is overwhelming (will clarify this but assume needs no explanation) but very few riders failed dope tests.
The way that most were discovered was from the fallout from various scandals, when certain teams were caught with blood, drugs and the like.
Confessions and allegations followed from certain riders, who no doubt were cooperating with a view to being treated more leniently.
Where Lance fits in is that his team had many dopers, who have cooperated with the authorities and named names.
What is unsatisfactory is that no the only evidence against Armstrong appears to be the word of these people. No samples have been retested, no bags of Armstrong's blood have been found etc.
It is undoubtedly the case that Armstrong's performances, where he convincingly beat known dopers and delivered power outputs that are thought implausibly high, deserve serious scrutiny.
So too, do the performances of many other sportsmen. What is needed is proper investigations with real evidence.
I think we need context here, these are just people going around in circles on a track.
Their object is to entertain, and that they have in more ways than one.
This concept sport people are anything more is a sad reflection on society. The technology and methods they spend billions on developing are mostly useless to the normal world.
Even movie technology builds on itself and makes better movies, sport technology just shaves 100ths of a second off records, what is the point. It's forgotten by all but diehards 10-20 years later. At least a good movie or book lasts hundreds of years.
To say sport is more than that is quite sad I feel, people need to get over pretending it that important.
I am so disappointed by American cyclists doping that I will no longer watch cycling on TV. The benefit is that I now have more time to watch (American) football.
There's an alternative interpretation here: that the heights of human achievement are not available "cleanly."
Truth be told, there's a lot of doping in other fields. I've hung around startuppers, scientists, and med students who heavily use racetams, modafinil, amphetamine, B12 megadosing, "stack" diets, and massive amounts of caffeine. Musicians and artists use psychedelic drugs to artificially enter hyper-creative states. Isn't that a form of doping? Would we have most of the music we have if there were no THC, psilocybin, or LSD?
And doping is just augmentation. A bicycle itself is an augmentation. Shoes and special clothing are augmentations. The list goes on.
A race where runners run almost naked and are strictly limited to a straight diet would be interesting in itself, but it would not achieve anywhere near Olympic performance numbers.
I'm not necessarily saying that doping in sports is good, per se. If the rules don't allow it in your event, you are cheating in your particular sport. (There are no such rules for startups, science, or music.) What I'm really getting at here is that there is another issue, and that the overall issue is more morally complex than "honest and clean" vs "doped."
I also know that doping can destroy your health. Those modafinil/amphetamine stackers in the startup world might be shortening their life spans. LSD and psilocybin can make you go nuts. Steroids can cause cancer, heart disease, and mood disorders. But what if that's the price for exceeding the records?
I don't think the musician/startup analogy works. Regardless of the legality of using certain drugs and prescriptions, sports players are competing against each other for a certain output. Musicians and entrepeneurs are creating a product, whether it be music or a company, that stands alone irrespective of the lengths they went to achieve that creation. The people consuming that product aren't suffering because someone else did the drugs, unlike the cyclist who is competing against a doped up competitor or the investor who doesn't do insider trading like others do.
Wait, who is suffering because of doped up cyclists? (The insider trading investor does seem different as `lsc` talks about elsewhere in these comments)
Taking things seriously robs any chance to just be good enough and be happy about that.
Anyone who can complete Tour de France at all or moderately but steadily grow an investment portfolio over the years should be extremely satisfied with just that already. If you're not, you'll seek greater but less likely and more momentary satisfaction from winning to win, and you'll likely end up more miserable in the average.