Originally Posted by Nick Corpstein
I dont think there is anything wrong with using steroids and I know of no argument, aside from moronic appeals to legality, that asserts its immorality. This particular issue of ethics is purely about contractual agreement.
No one has any right to tell you how to treat your body and no one has any right to tell you how your path in jiu jitsu has to be. If you want to train as much as possible, if you want to go down to Brazil and train all day, every day, for an extended period of time, your body is going to break down. If you want to weigh the minimal risks of safe steroid usage, or even reckless multi-substance stacking, in order to achieve the progress levels that you want, you owe it to no one to go about that in any particular way.
If people genuinely dislike steroids in competition for the sake of fairness, aside from several issues that fundamentally call fairness in an absolute sense into question, they are free to form competitions that openly stipulate in contract that they wish competitors to prepare and behave a certain way for and in that competition. There are many ways to go about this, obviously urine testing and blood testing are a viable means. But, if it is impossible to develop a means of detecting it, at the end of the day what is wrong isnt the "cheating" of using steroids, it is the breach of contract. It is actually wrong, and in practical terms far worse to be a dishonest person who provides evidence to others that their words and promises are worth nothing. The problem is that the ludicrous nature in which people handle how others treat their own bodies, largely guided by deep encroachments into liberty by government, force undue shame upon those that have done no wrong.
This is an important aspect of socialization that I think we all need to keep in mind: when you make something shameful, you make honest choosers of that shamed action decide between expressive dishonesty and external rejection. In this case, many people wish for many reasons to use anabolic substances to supplement their training. Deep connection to and passion for jiu jitsu often does easily outweigh the negatives, so people do and will ALWAYS chose to use. Lying about usage arrives from the inability to reasonably accept the sea of disrespect that will inevitably come to one who is honest. It might seem that I am issuing apologetics for liars, but I think we can all agree that no real feeler of passion would reject the benefits of their usage of anabolic agents for the sake of a couple of lies.
What is true is that it is the convolution of disagreement for another's actions and the proper establishment of competitions that excludes those actions, and thus the mishandling of both, that form social pressures which progress the actual circumstances that those objectors claim to object to. The truth is that there are no rules in the vast majority of grappling competitions against steroids. Thus, it is in no way wrong to use them. And, it is the poorly formed and reckless objections to their usage that promotes hiding of their usage from public view. If competitions banning the usage of anabolic agents began to arise and the usage of anabolic agents became a choice instead of necessarily an "abuse" we would see far, far less dishonesty about their usage. And, most importantly for the aims of the objectors, it would narrow the focus of objection to rule breaking and largely increase the clarity and potency of enforcement.
So, super fast and non-ranty: people should quit telling others what to do and how to do it. People should quit blanket rejections of usage which promote lies, not lesser usage. People should make competitions that actually forbid usage. Otherwise, people should shut up.
No one has any right to tell you how to treat your body and no one has any right to tell you how your path in jiu jitsu has to be. If you want to train as much as possible, if you want to go down to Brazil and train all day, every day, for an extended period of time, your body is going to break down. If you want to weigh the minimal risks of safe steroid usage, or even reckless multi-substance stacking, in order to achieve the progress levels that you want, you owe it to no one to go about that in any particular way.
If people genuinely dislike steroids in competition for the sake of fairness, aside from several issues that fundamentally call fairness in an absolute sense into question, they are free to form competitions that openly stipulate in contract that they wish competitors to prepare and behave a certain way for and in that competition. There are many ways to go about this, obviously urine testing and blood testing are a viable means. But, if it is impossible to develop a means of detecting it, at the end of the day what is wrong isnt the "cheating" of using steroids, it is the breach of contract. It is actually wrong, and in practical terms far worse to be a dishonest person who provides evidence to others that their words and promises are worth nothing. The problem is that the ludicrous nature in which people handle how others treat their own bodies, largely guided by deep encroachments into liberty by government, force undue shame upon those that have done no wrong.
This is an important aspect of socialization that I think we all need to keep in mind: when you make something shameful, you make honest choosers of that shamed action decide between expressive dishonesty and external rejection. In this case, many people wish for many reasons to use anabolic substances to supplement their training. Deep connection to and passion for jiu jitsu often does easily outweigh the negatives, so people do and will ALWAYS chose to use. Lying about usage arrives from the inability to reasonably accept the sea of disrespect that will inevitably come to one who is honest. It might seem that I am issuing apologetics for liars, but I think we can all agree that no real feeler of passion would reject the benefits of their usage of anabolic agents for the sake of a couple of lies.
What is true is that it is the convolution of disagreement for another's actions and the proper establishment of competitions that excludes those actions, and thus the mishandling of both, that form social pressures which progress the actual circumstances that those objectors claim to object to. The truth is that there are no rules in the vast majority of grappling competitions against steroids. Thus, it is in no way wrong to use them. And, it is the poorly formed and reckless objections to their usage that promotes hiding of their usage from public view. If competitions banning the usage of anabolic agents began to arise and the usage of anabolic agents became a choice instead of necessarily an "abuse" we would see far, far less dishonesty about their usage. And, most importantly for the aims of the objectors, it would narrow the focus of objection to rule breaking and largely increase the clarity and potency of enforcement.
So, super fast and non-ranty: people should quit telling others what to do and how to do it. People should quit blanket rejections of usage which promote lies, not lesser usage. People should make competitions that actually forbid usage. Otherwise, people should shut up.
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