JRE 2166 · June 19, 2024

Enhanced Games

sportssciencephilosophybusiness

Who is Enhanced Games?

Christian Angermayer and Dr. Aron D’Souza are the co-founders of the Enhanced Games, an upcoming Olympic-style event that brings together the world’s top athletes to compete without arbitrary bans on performance-enhancing substances.

Topics and Timestamps

01Christian Angermayer and Dr. Aron D'Souza are launching the Enhanced Games, an Olympic-style competition where athletes can use performance-enhancing drugs legally
02The concept challenges the arbitrary nature of current Olympic bans on PEDs and argues for transparency and athlete choice
03They discuss the hypocrisy of sports organizations that claim to ban performance enhancement while athletes find loopholes
04The Enhanced Games aims to create a safer environment by allowing medical supervision of performance-enhancing substances
05Elite athletes are reportedly interested in competing, seeing it as an opportunity to push human performance limits
06The discussion explores the philosophy of whether banning PEDs is actually about health or about maintaining artificial competitive standards
▶Introduction to the Enhanced Games concept0:00:00
▶Discussion of how current Olympic athletes secretly use PEDs0:05:30
▶The safety argument for medical supervision of performance enhancement0:12:00
▶Elite athletes expressing interest in competing in the Enhanced Games0:22:15
▶Philosophical debate about arbitrary bans versus athlete choice0:35:00

The Show

Joe sits down with Christian Angermayer and Dr. Aron D'Souza to discuss their audacious new venture: the Enhanced Games. This isn't your typical Olympic event. Instead of pretending athletes aren't using performance-enhancing drugs while secretly doing exactly that, the Enhanced Games are built on a radical premise: let's just be honest about it and let athletes compete openly with pharmaceutical enhancement.

The whole conversation centers on calling out the absurdity of current sports governance. The Olympic committee and other athletic organizations maintain this fictional world where everyone competes on a level playing field without performance enhancers, but everyone knows that's complete bullshit. Top athletes are using sophisticated PED protocols designed by the best sports scientists money can buy, they're just doing it in the shadows. So why not flip the script?

Angermayer and D'Souza argue that their approach is actually safer. Instead of athletes secretly using whatever they can get their hands on without proper medical oversight, the Enhanced Games would have doctors on staff monitoring athletes' health, adjusting protocols, and ensuring people aren't destroying their bodies chasing records. It's a harm reduction model applied to elite sports.

They discuss how elite athletes are genuinely interested in participating, which speaks to how absurd the current system has become. These are people at the absolute peak of human performance, and they want to push even further. The current Olympic structure essentially says no, you have to artificially limit yourself to maintain some outdated ideal of purity. The Enhanced Games say, let's see what human beings are actually capable of when we remove arbitrary restrictions.

The conversation also touches on the philosophical questions this raises. What exactly are we protecting by banning PEDs? Are we actually protecting athlete health, or are we just maintaining a competitive illusion? If an athlete wants to take calculated risks to compete at the highest level with full medical supervision, who are we to tell them no?

Joe and the guys explore the inevitable pushback they'll face from traditional sports institutions, the IOC, and various athletic organizations that profit from maintaining the status quo. But there's real momentum here. This is happening.