Cyborg Performance: Robot Wednesday

[W. Rabbit]

Discussion of the day: should people with prosthetics superior to natural body parts be allowed to compete with us non-augmented individuals?

If so, how long until we see the first athlete to undergo a performance-enhancing voluntary amputation?

(And yes, to all you masters of Pedant Silat, we know this guy isn't technically a cyborg; unless he's got his smartphone velcroed to one of those "feet"...)

Unless they can pick up things with their toes like I can, they are not superior prosthetics.

/thread.

[Kovacs]

Yeah but they're immune to certain types of landlines and ankle locks which is pretty impressive, as well as being able to run bloody fast.

[lordbd]

I think there should be a league specifically for competition between robotically/prosthetically enhanced athletes and chemically/hormonally enhanced athletes. Final Boss fight: they try to beat a 1000 year-old Shaolin monk's time on a ninja warrior obstacle course.

[Devil]

This is a tough question. Hugh Herr was one of the best young rock climbers in the world before he lost both his lower legs. It was a huge struggle for him to learn to deal with his disability and it was even tougher for him to climb again.

The flip side - in order to climb again he handcrafted multiple foot attachments for his prosthetic legs. He had various custom attachments to match different rock surfaces. When he competed again some opponents bitched and moaned about him having an unfair advantage. Their arguments were (1) his super duper spiderman feet and (2) he had less weight to drag up the rock because half his legs were gone and his prosthetics were ultra light.

My opinion on his particular case is that his opponents were whiny bitches. First of all, he could outclimb them to start with so the fact that he beat them post-accident didn't mean ****. Second, any weight and grip advantage from the prosthetics is offset by the fact that he couldn't feel with his feet and had no calf muscles, which do a bunch of the work when climbing. Third, he had to deal with the additional pain of the prosthetics against his leg nubs.

Anyway, on the subject of robo fairness I would answer with a clear and definitive "it depends."

[Kovacs]

This is a tough question. Hugh Herr was one of the best young rock climbers in the world before he lost both his lower legs. It was a huge struggle for him to learn to deal with his disability and it was even tougher for him to climb again.

The flip side - in order to climb again he handcrafted multiple foot attachments for his prosthetic legs. He had various custom attachments to match different rock surfaces. When he competed again some opponents bitched and moaned about him having an unfair advantage. Their arguments were (1) his super duper spiderman feet and (2) he had less weight to drag up the rock because half his legs were gone and his prosthetics were ultra light.

My opinion on his particular case is that his opponents were whiny bitches. First of all, he could outclimb them to start with so the fact that he beat them post-accident didn't mean ****. Second, any weight and grip advantage from the prosthetics is offset by the fact that he couldn't feel with his feet and had no calf muscles, which do a bunch of the work when climbing. Third, he had to deal with the additional pain of the prosthetics against his leg nubs.

Anyway, on the subject of robo fairness I would answer with a clear and definitive "it depends."

QFT about them being bitches. In rock climbing your calfs do a massive amount of the work plus he won't be getting any feedback nor flexability from his feet which is a huge disadvantage. He's going to have (or already got) arms like hercules to counter those problems

[wetware]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...he-games-begin

There's always this. Good luck finding more info on it, though.

[It is Fake]

I think it lost steam when they overturned the ruling and the guy didn't make the Olympics. He missed the cut by one second IIRC. I think he ended up competing in regular events. I'll go see if I can find a link.

[Devil]

QFT about them being bitches. In rock climbing your calfs do a massive amount of the work plus he won't be getting any feedback nor flexability from his feet which is a huge disadvantage. He's going to have (or already got) arms like hercules to counter those problems

He's still inflicting his wrath on the haters. After climbing he became the Professor X of cripples and is currently at MIT turning motherfuckers into Terminators.

http://biomech.media.mit.edu/people/herr.htm

[aiyer]

If it does give them an advantage then I say no, it would for me be a form of technical doping. But with the current prosthetics I'd say it's still a drawback instead of an enhancement.