Watching the Olympics this year, you couldn't escape the question of doping. Even if French television coverage showed primarily judo, equestrian, and handball, the controversy surrounding the use of performance enhancing drugs was still present. But during the Olympics there was an advertisement that played frequently featuring an African runner saying that the Olympics means that we can go faster, we can play better, etc, etc. And it is true. Each time a world record is broken, isn't that proof of human evolution? I got very nostalgic about this (I am exactly the kind of schmuck that the Olympic marketing machine targets). But then I began to think, is a new world record the sign of a superior human capability, or is it just the result of better equipment, more efficient training techniques, or drugs? I don't really see these three areas of advancement as being too different from each other. They all show that human physical ability is not enhanced by Darwinian evolution...the fastest and strongest are able to reproduce while the weak are slowly weeded out. Instead, the body is simply a vehicle for the ever-industrious human mind that is in the constant pursuit of products and ideas. The Olympics is not a physical competition, but a mental one and even more disturbingly, an economic one. After all, which countries have the money to invest in the development of athletes and training programs?

And as upsetting as it is to have my idealistic vision of the Olympics shattered by this new awakening, I began to wonder if all the hoopla surrounding doping is deserved. After all, if we are measuring the human capacity to do sports better, shouldn't doping be allowed? After all, it is a man-made creation that serves the purpose of pushing human physical ability further. You can make the ethical argument that the negative side effects render these drugs dangerous to the athletes. But you can't ignore the fact that every pair of Nikes worn also contributes to the widening economic rift in the world and is the physical embodiment of much more profound human suffering.

In Futurama, Blurnsball (the spiced-up version of baseball with multiball rounds, tigers, and balls on rubberbands) also has mandatory steroid injections. I say, next Olympics, don't kick the doped athletes out. Let them make it more exciting! And if people still have ethical problems, have a parallel event where its legal. I for one would like to see the freaks go at it!