00:00:15
Speaker 1: Welcome back to tech stuff. Today, we're diving into one of the most controversial intersections of technology, biology, and capitalism that the world has ever seen, The Enhanced Games. Imagine the Olympic's strictest rules being tossed aside, and athletes being encouraged to use performance enhancing drugs under medical supervision to push them to the absolute limits of their performance and of the human body. Our guest today is Chris Guymarley. He's the host of the Superhuman podcast All about the Enhanced Games, which I'm proud to say is on the Kaleidoscope Network. Chris, welcome, congrats is a great pot Thank you. It's really it's funny and clever and revealing about this. It's a games, but it's also a cultural phenomen and it's also a science experiment. It's kind of the implications of it go far beyond the kind of spectacle of a headline.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, you know, when I started breaking Bread with Enhanced well over a year ago. It was like February twenty twenty five. At this point that I first met with the founder, Aaron Desuza. I was sort of just pitching myself as like, hey, I write a lot about human augmentation and like weird body stuff and what you're trying to do sounds so fascinating. It was kind of like magazine writer Catnet in a lot of ways. So I thought there were going to be a million people chasing it, and that ended up being the case. But I ended up pitching myself as the guy to write the big magazine story for it when I met up with him, And Yeah, after being brought on, it's just enhanced. Was like following the ball where it was going in such a dramatic fashion, and now I'm kind of shocked that we're in a world where peptides and self injection and all this other stuff is kind of normalized very much. Wasn't the case over a year ago.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: I know. It's mainly how fast the world changed, right, Just backing up a couple of steps to what actually is the Enhance Games.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was originally conceived as the Steroid Olympics. Basically the idea is that this may twenty fourth. I believe they're going to take a bunch of former Olympians, people who are mostly just on the wrong side of thirty, a little bit past their primes, but still have something to prove, and they're going to give them customize drug regimens basically to see if they can shatter some world records. And there's a financial incentive in the form of a million dollar prize for some of the events too, for.
00:02:36
Speaker 1: Each world record broken. With each winner of the event.
00:02:38
Speaker 2: Each world record broke in. Yeah, so you know, if multiple people smash the old world record, it's going to be whoever has the fastest time basically, yes.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: And do we think world records will be smashed?
00:02:50
Speaker 2: I don't know. You know, that's kind of like what's so exciting about this? Like, going into it, I very much had the thought that this could end up being like some sort of biohacky fire festival in some way. You know, these people are gonna like, you know, there's a lot there's a lot of social accountability that like goes into signing on with enhanced you're sort of crossing a rubicon into a new life. You're banned by the World antide Doping Agency, which is WATA from ever competing in like you know, normalized sports again. And there's gonna be three different types of events. There's gonna be swimming, there's going to be powerlifting, and there's going to be track and field very fast, very quick, very digestible, in like TikTok sort of sports, which was a very much intentional thing that they decided to do.
00:03:41
Speaker 1: It's been built, it's been built as a spectacle, but do you think anyone will actually watch?
00:03:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing I get. They they made a big fuss about like this is going to be distributed on major platforms, and then that that platform ended up being Roku and this other one called zoop, which was founded by one of the former founders of Only Fans, and so I got to meet with him and I was like, how do you get people to tune in? And he didn't give me a straight answer when I was fishing around for like the you know what Only Fans used to do. But it's it'll be it'll be interesting. I think it's like gonna be a weird, wacky experiment, and you know, I hope some records are broken because they're working really hard. And I've gained a lot of sympathy for the athletes who are taking part of this.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's interesting. When I first heard about this and Full dis Leisure, I also met Aaron because we you know, pitched a podcast about this, which end up being partnership with you, and it's not like an authorized podcast for an official podcast, but we just did say because we want to get introduced to the athletes and etcetera, etcetera. And you know, it was interesting conversations. He's a thoughtful guy. I think you describe him as somebody who talks in paragraphs. He's also the guy who sued Cogan on behalf of Peter Teel and and and and so doing kind of you know down cocker. Yeah, which you know, my favorite website. You're so, I mean, it's it's a it's a common a group of people behind this. Obviously the Trump's invested or Donald Trump Junior through seventeen eighty nine capital is Peter Teal, an investor.
00:05:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's one of the investors too. Yeah, so Aaron is sort of like a protege of Peter. Tele's very sort of cold and steely. And when I met with him, I met him with him in some like nondescript apartment building on like the East side of Manhattan. Rode up to the top floor, set at a long table. I felt like a trapdoor to some sharks. It was going to open up under me at any point just because I was a journalist or am a journalist, So you know, coming face to face and meeting him, you know, I was very clear about my intentions and like that. I didn't want to write a piece though, as you know, Trump is bad and these steroids are bad. I really wanted to understand why they were attempting to build this thing and how they would even build it.
00:05:51
Speaker 1: So you know, that's what shines through to me in the podcast. I'd love that you just to tell our listeners what they can expect when they tune into Superhuman. But what I love about it is is you are a forty one year old sorry forty one year old, Yeah, got a kid? You do my time, if I will say times a week. You're you're an athlete. You know who is not a looks MAXI per se, but who I think, frankly, as most people do. As I mean when I when I hear bou, oh my god, if I could just inject myself and feel better and look better and all these things like it's very tempting. You approach it very much from a place of empathy with these athletes who are thirty plus whose best dated athletes are behind them, who probably never made enough money by any means to retire, but don't have any other real obvious transferable skills, and you kind of you put yourself, I mean, you're not, you know, becoming an athlete for the enhanced Games, but you kind of imagine yourself into the space of being one.
00:06:49
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, you know. In some ways what they're what they're doing is sort of like what we all kind of want to do. We want to extend our prime yeers, like just a little bit longer for them, you know that, especially like we talked to a lot of swimmers for for the podcast, and for them, you know, their their options are somewhat limited after they their swimming careers, and it's like coaching and maybe like teaching some kids how to float around, Like it's like, you know, not a very lucrative post career endeavor. And so for them, if they can take some drugs, I feel ten years younger and extend that window of them being able to compete at a high level for just a little bit more. It's like, isn't that what we all kind of want? Like don't you just want to feel your best for as long as possible to be able to do what you love doing. And basically all they've been doing their whole lives, which is trained and you know, rest and show up to these events and try to do their smash and world records.
00:07:46
Speaker 1: What was the you talked to Aaron, you talk to pe Teal as well?
00:07:50
Speaker 2: I have not.
00:07:50
Speaker 1: No, he didn't, he did, He politely declined.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: He's he's a hard matt to read.
00:07:56
Speaker 1: But what is the what is the ideological mission of this game? And what is the commercial mission of these games?
00:08:01
Speaker 2: I'll start with the commercial side. So the commercial side is they're endeavoring to sort of normalize the usage of these drugs that have sort of had wishy washy definitions of what's legal and what isn't. Like, for instance, in my reporting, they I learned that caffeine used to very much be an illegal band substance up until like the early two thousands.
00:08:23
Speaker 1: In fact, I've read in your piece, didn't somebody win an Olympic medal and then got disqualified because I had too much caffeine in their blood?
00:08:28
Speaker 2: Yes, they're yeah, they had too many milli leaders per.
00:08:33
Speaker 1: Whatever the metric gets. I couldn't I read I couldn't believe you could get dqed from the Olympics for drinking coffee, I know.
00:08:40
Speaker 2: And also it was an absurd amount of coffee because it was like eight cups before race. Like that just doesn't sound like very routine. Yeah, So you know, they're they're hoping to normalize some of these drugs like testosterone and maybe some stimulants, some some of the peptides human growth hormone, in order to figure out a framework that they can then sell to the masses. And you know, that's that's that's one part of the equation.
00:09:07
Speaker 1: And you mean that, You don't mean that like in a very abstract way, you mean that very literally.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: Right.
00:09:11
Speaker 1: There's also a program to sell some of these drugs.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: Yes, they want to sell a sort of telehealth like you know, you consult with a doctor, You'll take a bunch of blood tests, I have a bunch of you know, safe like biometrics red and then they'll prescribe to you what would kind of be ideal for your unique biometrics and you go from there and presumably you feel awesome.
00:09:35
Speaker 1: You know, is I got to ask you how much would have you tried?
00:09:40
Speaker 2: Not very much. I've only tried a NAD plus, which is, you know this coenzyme that sort of helps with healing and helps with brain fog. And I was kind of taking that because I really just wanted to understand what it is like to put a needle in your belly and yourself for the reporting of this. But it made me feel amazing, So I think I'm going to yeah.
00:10:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, So so commercial missions basically stage of games, get the world's attention on this topic, hopefully you know, have a great clipping strategy so it goes viral. It already has. I mean, I think that the idea is obviously like really cool, the world's attention and then build a business basically selling regimes.
00:10:19
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know the in the reporting too, Like I don't know how much they some of them are a little bit more loose slip than others. But one of the executives, Christian Ingermier, he told us that they're in conversation with other sports leagues around the world. Wouldn't specify which ones, but you know, you have to imagine that if you are the owner of a sports team, say the Lakers or something, and you can have Lebron James playing within three weeks after he hurts a hamstring or something, instead of having to set out for six months. Like there's a huge financial incentive there for you to to sort of explore that and maybe like get them healthier faster. So you know, I kind of see this matriculating to a bunch of different areas in the world and not just like mass consumers if successful.
00:11:07
Speaker 1: I want to come back to the sort of ideological mission as well before we get there. What you just said really struck a chord with me, because there's you know, we talk in venture capital investing about the power law, right, like the people who can accumulate the most resources have the most to invest in. That's foremost by definition win. It's kind of almost exactly the same in sports, right Like you look at in soccer Cristiano Ronaldo and Leomessi, who are like pushing forty and still I mean they're not quite at their prime, but they're still absolutely dominating the leagues they're in, still playing on the international stage. I've read a book called Racket by a tennis player who was hovering around. Did you read a book? It's a great book. Irish tennis player called Connan Island. He got to about one hundred in the world. One around at Wimbledon, one around at the US Open, played Roger Federer. But I've wrote in this book he said, you know, I was arriving at this you know, hotel in the middle of the night, having flown in the middle seat on Ryan and got they exhausted, couldn't sleep, you know, it was stiff, but couldn't get a massage, was given the worst playing slot, had to eat them. And you know, and I saw you know, the you know, federal Djokovic basically arriving a private jet. So you know, and just that the they're not injecting or ingesting substances, but they are controlling for their body chemistry with the money they can spend, the entourage they can build. So there's a there's an odd there's a kind of inherent sort of it's not it's not the concept of a level playing field doesn't exist.
00:12:33
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, you know, it's like, you know, if you think about an NBA player, it's like, by dint of them being six seven, they originally they already have like a huge advantage over like normies like you and I. But you know, and and enhance. They're they're they're paying their athletes. You know, they get a monthly stipe in. They have a great place to live. I got to visit their hotel that they were training at in Abu Dhabi, which had you know, just a sick cafeteria full of like a maze healthy gourmet food, a pool area, like everything was taken care of. They basically just wake up, go to practice, eat good food, get pampered and recovered, and that's all they have to focus on. And it dawned on me that just like the mental load of being able to live like this, like that does so much for your ability to compete at a high level. Just not having to worry about any of the other stuff of like where's my dinner going to come from? And oh no, now I got to cook for my kid and like do all this other stuff. It's like a very privileged sort of you know, almost like a college sports star existence again for as long as they want to do it.
00:13:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. I found the first episode of podcast. I wasn't I was expecting to be intrigued and entertained that I wasn't expecting to be moved, but I was as a Ukrainian swimming champion, yes, who basically loses his business. You know, he's and he's saying he's still could be an Olympic athlete and could be a gold medal winning Olympic athlete, but he says, I need ten was a month to train properly. Where am I going to get that? And if I could get that or anything could get half of that, I spent it on my family, yes, so you know, and then he's applying for grants and I saying, we can't give you a ground because you haven't demonstrated performances like well, I haven't had a chance to compete because I've been in a war zone. And so he is one of the people who decides to become an enhanced athlete. And then you mentioned Abudhabi. He's with me annnced Athlete group at the hotel in Abudabi where the bomb started falling, and he's kind of becomes the godfather of the group, being like, guys, you know, hold steady, this is fine, right, yeah, yeah, he was.
00:14:32
Speaker 2: So Andre He's a wonderful, wonderful dude. He like had to escape from Ukraine during the war and when the bomb started falling, he was like a very serene, sort of calming voice among the group. And it's an interesting dynamic because they're all competing against each other. They're all trying to you know, win money over the other person, but they all are really pushing each other to be better. Like having the coach brat Hawk told me that having this caliber of athlete in sort of the same practice, it's it's unreal. It's sort of like a just rarefied air in there of excellence. You know, the second best guy is like to your left, the third best guys to your right, and it pushes you to train harder. But when the bomb started falling, Andre it was just like, oh, yeah, I've been there. Like he's like do this, like pull out some cash, like here if you don't, if you need some, I got some for you. Have your ideas all in one place. And he was just a real sweetheart to the rest of them.
00:15:27
Speaker 1: It's interesting though, I mean you also there's a scene where you go to one of the pools where all of the swimmers are training and you talk to the lifeguard who is a college swimmer. Who is who is I mean he probably on the college campus, is you know, Basically it looks next god, compared to these guys, there's another normal like us. Yeah, and you say to him, and one of one of those women's Ben Proud, English swimmer is absolute hero. And you say to the lifeguard, well, but what do you think about him, you know, doping essentially, and kind of almost can't give you an answer, right.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, So this lifeguard I felt bad for him because it's like, you know, I think I think the metaphor used in the GQ piece was it was like Frodo minding the Avengers. It's like, yeah, go go corral the Hulk over there, buddy, Like, good luck with that. But yeah, he Ben Proud was sort of his his swimming hero, and knowing that he was taking drugs and trying to like take new records, he was really sort of not mystified, but just really conflicted about it. I don't think he had like a real conclusion that he could articulate about how he felt about these guys, but I could tell that he was like a little disturbed. Because if you are an athlete, you're you're told from like day.
00:16:40
Speaker 1: One, and you spend the worst thing you can do.
00:16:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, that cheating taking drugs is just a constant source of paranoia and anxiety, and you could get tested at any moment. And so that's like really like ingrained in all these athletes in a real way. And so for them to take that leap is is kind of a really special, one strange thing for a lot of them.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the mission, the kind of ideological mission behind this. I mean, we talked about Aaron Desuza. He compared what he said was, we're building the Apollo Mission for the twenty first century. What did the Apollo mission do? He asks? Rhetorically, it showed us that we were so much more capable as a human species. On the one hand, this is kind of absurd. Yes, on the other hand, they are pointing towards a different mode of living. So how do you interpret this quote?
00:17:32
Speaker 2: You know, so much of this feeds into this idea of longevity, which I know you've covered as well. Just you know that if we can extend our life and feel better, and like, if you can be an active person in your seventies, who wouldn't want to do that? And a question I composing to these executives was doesn't this create sort of a caste system? Like it's like you have that the haves who will have access to pds and all these other enhancements that will make you live longer, and then people who just won't be able to afford it, and you know, it unspiraled all these like crazy ideas. It's like, maybe there's a world where like not getting any enhancements is actually like the end vogue thing among the elites, and like maybe it's going to become affordable enough that we're all going to be able to take testosterone if we need it by the time we're in our fifties. So it's it's interesting to watch this all play out. I don't know where any of it's actually going to be headed, but I don't know. I did get a little testosterone curious myself, Like if I turn fifty and then sort of need some tea, I wouldn't put it past me to indulge.
00:18:39
Speaker 1: Well, respond to the idea this is the poly moment for our generation.
00:18:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, when I first met with Aaron, like he's obviously great talker, like very captivating dude, he likened it to we have an obligation to improve ourselves, especially in like the age of AI, to be the best most you know, special humans that we can be. A word that got brought up a lot in the reporting was transhumanism, which is this concept that feeds back to you know, it's mankind should endeavor for immortality and to be able to beat death. These guys, a lot of them wouldn't identify with that explicitly, but I could see the shades of it in a lot of what they're trying to accomplish. And you know a lot of them are already on enhancements themselves. There's this CEO of it, Maximilian Martin, He's twenty nine, already on testosterone. He feels awesome. He says he sees it as a moral responsibility to him, not only himself, but it functions as also birth control for him and his girlfriend. And he's like a super jacked, very handsome man. And you know, they all just want to be the best version of themselves, to feel the best, to feel young forever, and that sort of undergirds everything that they're trying to accomplish with this.
00:20:03
Speaker 1: After the break, how the enhanced games could trickle down into our everyday lives. Stay with us. We talk a lot on this show about protecting your data, especially in the age of AI and how scary it can be when it's breached. And I want to tell you today about NordVPN, which really covers all the bases when it comes to privacy. I travel a lot and I use Wi Fi while I'm flying all the time, and NordVPN makes me confident in no matter where I am in the world or the sky for that matter, my private details like bank information, passwords and online identity is safe. And it's also possible to switch on virtual location, which allows you to save money by buying flights and hotels or subscriptions or even streaming soccer or football as I like to call it from other countries at a cheaper price. And NordVPN doesn't slow you down. It has super fast internet speed, no buffering or lagging while streams mean. It is premium cybersecurity for the price of one cup of coffee per month. To get the best discount of your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN dot com slash tech stuff. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two year plan and there's no risk with nords thirty day money back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description box. I guess you know you mentioned earlier that caffeine was banned the band substance for a while. Now it's not what's the like what's on the table here? Like is are there any drugs? Can you do whatever you want? I mean on this as it enhanced athlete or do they have their own protocol and like what are they? Are they just becoming another regulatory body but with slightly different rules or a true revolution.
00:21:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is where things get really squishy for them. So the athletes who took place and are getting these custom protocols and lived in Abu Dhabi and met with doctors, they're taking part of this long term study that's being conducted by an independent body that enhanced works with this guy named Guido Inde independent body, so they claim, but you know, they're making recommendations about what to take. And the four broadcat categories are you know, testosterone, some stimulants, growth hormone and uh some some like peptides, but functionally all they all a lot of them do the same thing, which is like they help you grow muscle, they help you focus better. Sometimes it makes you a little agro which is something that like was a was a funny thing to talk to them about, especially when you have a bunch of like alpha males in the same room and they're all getting testy with each other. Wouldn't wish that upon anyone, But so they're all going to be taking that stuff. There was one swimmer, one of the women named. Her name is Megan Romano. She was really concerned about, you know, taking tea and having her voice potentially drop. So she was like, I'm gonna like, like, if my voice starts dropping, I'm immediately gonna stop. We're going to try to find a new protocol. But conversely, you know, they're not going to be testing for anything basically, like if an athlete does decide to take substance that's beyond those parameters, you know, they could feasibly do it if they found someone to give them the drugs. So you know there, it's it's a very mushy definition, and I think by design because they don't want to, you know, I think they're they're kind of like, we don't want to impose limits on you, but at the same time, we want you to like take like work with us, work with our doctors, so we can figure out what to sell and like it's like, uh, sell that to the mass market.
00:23:45
Speaker 1: And they worried someone could die at the games.
00:23:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, you know, that's that's that's one of the big concerns. But they're trying to mitigate that by having a lot of interactions with doctors, Like you have a very tailor regiment, you have constant checkups, your heartbeat gets monitored, you had like a comprehensive health analysis complete with DEXA scans and all this stuff up front. And I think that's kind of the place where you know, is that going to be accessible to normal people, like when they sell that stuff to the masses, I don't know. It's like very expensive. It takes health insurance like you know, and that these athletes are going to be under constant safety monitoring like that, it makes me feel a little bit better about like that no one's going to like, you know, pass out in the pool during these games, but you know, we'll see It's it's a very real wrestler there is. I mean.
00:24:36
Speaker 1: It's an interesting thing here because the the Olympic Protocol is governed by an organization called water Right. Yes, weld a dooping and as you peel back the onion on what the principles of the world antidope agency are You get to this core, which is maintaining the spirit of sport, so and and and what the Enhanced Game says, Well, the spirit of sport is human excellence, and humans have always looked for ways to enhance themselves, and therefore this is the new spirit of sport. Is that Is that a fair summary of the debate.
00:25:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, that's that's that's one component of it. Wada like their their definition too, is also intentionally like mushy. There's a lot of mushiness in this this world from both sides, and because I think no one wants to take full responsibility for the lives of these athletes.
00:25:31
Speaker 1: Which is basically impossible to say this is that this is dope and this is not doping, Captain being a perfect example exactly.
00:25:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like what it's like, everything is harmful on some level, and every everything is also safe kind of on some level. So it's like, you know, it's it's it's kind of an impossible thing to police. Uh, the enforcement of it is just like it makes life miserable if you're a professional athlete getting woken up at like, you know, one example we had was Christmas Eve at Megan her mom's house. She went home for Christmas. Here's a knock on the door and there's strangers there to collect her pea and blood to make sure she hasn't been doping. And her mom was just like, is this like a regular occurrence? She's like, yeah, they could show up at any time, you know, and that's like no way to live.
00:26:15
Speaker 1: Like the honest game is also probably in large publics that people involved, and also the idea is kind of a lightning world for the cultures, right, Like there's a lot of people who think like this is by definition bad and then obviously the people who are involved with it, you have the opposite view. Yeah, what light did you come to a value judgment spending time with it?
00:26:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this is a talk I've had a lot with my producer Sam on the show too. It's like, I don't know, are they doing something like Noble? I think it's more interesting, Like my curiosity is what kind of drives my interest in it. But like I said earlier, like it could very well end up being a firefest. There could be a situation where no world reds get broken. Later when the games happen, they're all too muscular or they like all like feel terrible by the time they get in the pool, and like, you know, the stock price sinks and the whole thing goes up in flames. But you know, I do think the question of what is and what is in a PD, I think that's a question worth in territory drug. Yeah, And so I think by engaging with that, I find the whole experiment pretty worthwhile.
00:27:26
Speaker 1: Honestly, has that caused a controversy with your like friends in the journalism community, Like are you getting people like saying why are you swimming in this water inception metaphor?
00:27:39
Speaker 2: But like, yeah, well, I've never spent this much time with libertarian techno utopianis this is kind of like my first person with it. But I gotta say, there, you know, they know how to party, They no good time. But yeah, you know, like it is a lightning rod for the culture wars. But I'm sort of less interested in that and more interested in the central question of like what even should a PD be going forward?
00:28:05
Speaker 1: And what are some of the potential answers to that.
00:28:09
Speaker 2: I wish I had the answer to that. You know, I personally, I feel like if there's anything that can extend an athlete's like time actually playing and actually like you know, being visible in the sport, like you know, back to the Lebron example, Like I want to watch him like just play until he's fifty, honestly, you know what I mean. Like that would be my ideal, and maybe he goes back to like playing like a twenty five year old again if he's allowed to take some stuff. Do you know that's possible? I think so, And I think that would be awesome. I think that would be so fun to watch, you know, and like just like that and like it would like do some some work around the stigma of aging, Like it would just like I don't know, it would like make me feel better certainly, like about being in my forties now and dealing with my midlife crisis. I can kick that ken down the curb a little bit until I'm fifty, Like that would be amazing.
00:29:03
Speaker 1: And it's also I didn't you talk around the podcast. Is your your your moti part of your motivation is you know, selfish and vain as what you all are, but also you want to be able to play sports with your with your kids, yeah, and totally and being great shape to enjoy your time with them. So I mean there's this yeah, it's double double, double edged.
00:29:19
Speaker 2: Right yeah, yeah, you know, like I yeah, I I come computamoy Thai, very amateur, very low level stuff, and I just feel aches and pains every day, but it's like so fun. It's like the thing like outside of journalism and my family that I care about the most. And you know, if I can do that for a little bit longer, like you know, sign me up.
00:29:40
Speaker 1: You also cover the kind of darker history of doping. I knew that the I mean East Germany and West Germany during the Cold War. I knew that East Germany had like a more successful athletics program. Yeah I didn't know why.
00:29:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was it's real insidious evil stuff. So basically for during the Cold War, you know, hundreds of athletes from East Germany were unknowingly given you know, all sorts of illegal drugs, like you know, testosterone given to like very young teenage girls unknowingly, and they you know, it was the dark ages back then. They didn't know what effect it was going to have long term, and it just led to all sorts of problems when they got older, like miscarriages, depression, there were some suicides I believe as well. You know, it was it was really dark, and it was all in pursuit of just more gold medals, you know, like why they were doing it was real, like sort of like weapon X dark you know, comic book stuff that was actually happening with them, and you know, with enhance, it's like their whole thing is if we can drag all that stuff out of the shadows and do it in a controlled and you know, honestly kind of conservative scientific environment where people are going to be closely monitored and there's safety as top of mind, like we should be doing that, and that's kind of part of their mission.
00:31:03
Speaker 1: What's it like to be an a Han's athlete. I mean, what's the It seems like there's some kind of identity crisis that that happens for someone that you talked about crossing the rubicon. But also there's something inherently uncomfortable about a group of super rich people running a live science experiment on people who are coming to the end of their careers and don't know what to do next. Yeah, it has It can go into the kind of squid game territory.
00:31:31
Speaker 2: Totally right, right right. You know Ben Proud who was the UK swimmer and silver medalist, he had a good perspective on it. He was like, you know, at least in we we in some ways we are treated like like race horses, you know, like like prize possessions. But at least we're being compensated for it. And so that was like, you know, that's a big deal for them to be you know, paid fairly for you know saying basically into being known with all of this, and you know, the Max Martin, the CEO, he had this analogy that I kept returning to, which is that enhances basically like Formula one. The athletes are like the supercars, like the Ferraris and the Toyotas and all this stuff. We're trinkering things here and there, and eventually our hope is that like these little adjustments and little innovations like trickle down to the masses, which is how you're for Fiesta gets anti lock breaks at some point.
00:32:30
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've had a couple of F one team principles on this podcast. Sect should we have James Vowels from Williams F one recently and Zach Brown from McLaren before that, but they both talked about exactly that, which is like this is an R and D lab, which is a spectacle, but also you know a lot of the innovations that make driving safer come from F one.
00:32:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, like they're they're starting off with these three you know sports, which are you know, like big Olympic events. But I'm interested to see like how that translates into something like you know, long distance running or something that like, you know, more everyday people kind of like participate in. Like I think that's going to be interesting, Like if we're going to be able to like get a marathon time that is close to the too two hour mark or something with someone who's enhanced, I think that's going to be like really fascinating if that ever comes through cruition.
00:33:21
Speaker 1: Do you buy this idea that there will be it will be nagostift one in the sense of some of these things that are experimented with at the enhance do become the norm for like regular sports people.
00:33:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I suspect, you know there, it's their their research And I'm using air quotes here.
00:33:41
Speaker 1: I'm not a.
00:33:41
Speaker 2: Video but but you know, I do think that's going to translate to to not not necessarily the masses, but the people who are curious enough about it to do it. And and I think if like you have a safe framework, I think that's a worthwhile thing.
00:33:57
Speaker 1: What does the actual protocol look like? You like basically like just being pumped with needles like day and night? Is that you got have to get very comes with needles.
00:34:05
Speaker 2: It was like, but that was actually really funny because it's all self administered. And I asked a bunch of the athletes and a few of them were actually afraid of needles. I was like, oh, good luck to you, sir. You know some of them like a testosterone requires a big needle that you have to like jam into your butt and like self administer a couple times a week. They were cagy about specifics because they see it as basically intellectual property that they're helping to sell one day. So I couldn't get like exact dosing or even like what anyone was taking. The athletes were warned not to share their exact protocols with the media, which I thought was interesting. But yeah, it's a it's a cheesecake factory sized menu. I think of like things I'll be able to like combine and work with.
00:34:55
Speaker 1: So May twenty fourth is one day event? Is the Games? Yeah you're going to go obviously, Yes, I'll be there. What are you expecting to see? I mean, I guess you could be the five Festival or it could be the spectacle for the Ages. What do you think normal people are going to pay attention? Like, is it going to be like the Olympics or do you think it might It might be.
00:35:14
Speaker 2: Oh man, No, I think it's going to be more like a carnival. Honestly, Like they told me about the event uh arena that they were building, it's basically like four lanes of pool. People are gonna be standing close. It's going to look more like a WWE match sure than anything else. Max Martin was really excited about some of the techno DJs that he was going to be bringing on. I think it's going to feel like a you know, a Vegas pool party a little bit, you know, more than the Olympics. And I think, you know, in the beginning, they they kind of like made a big fuss about we're going to replace the Olympics one day, but you know, I forget who it was but one of them said, this is more like an offshoot. This is like three on three basketball versus the NBA, So you know, it's I think it's gonna be weird. It's gonna be kind of funny. I asked if Diplo was going to be there and couldn't get a firmancer. But you know, I think it'll be something worth like at least paying attention to.
00:36:11
Speaker 1: Do you think I'll be more than one game? So I think this will be like the one and done moment, and then they'll transition hardcore into selling the protocols as because they raised a billion dollars for RESPEC, right, yeah's how far that goes?
00:36:22
Speaker 2: Totally.
00:36:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes a lot of money. But also if you're staging a huge event with I mean.
00:36:26
Speaker 2: It's yeah, the finances don't make total sense to me, especially since you're paying like fifty athletes a salary and then building this whole apparatus around them with coaches and recovery and food and all this stuff just taking care of for them housing. So you know, I don't know all the financial errors and how that exactly fits together. I hope there's more games. I think it's you know, I would love to see them expand into other sports, like like marathon racing, for example, or even cycling, Like I think that would be a lot of Tennis would actually be kind of a fun one to watch too, just because it is like one on one and like, you know, I want to see what I want to see in a dog about retirement or something.
00:37:12
Speaker 1: Was that like a main major preconception of yours or like something that really I mean spent all this time with the story, something in your thinking that shifted as you as you were most in this world.
00:37:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was surprised how much they they sort of moderated their their stance on everything. I think they came out the gate really hot, trying to sell this as like a big carnival, like you know, free for all, take whatever you want, but actually like in practicality, like it's going to be pretty pretty conservative, Like the dosing is very minimal. They took a lot of learnings from an earlier experiment where they with a swimmer named James Magison, where they actually gave him too many pds and he put on like he claims to have put on like forty pounds of muscle mass, and you know, if you're a professional swimmer, being a bear is not necessarily the move. Instead of becoming a speedboat, he came like an ocean liner, so his time's actually suffered for that. But you know, I think I've grown a lot more sympathetic to the plight of these athletes over the course of the reporting it. You know, just like they're just trying to make it work, like like all of us, and this place is giving them a steady, stable job basically, and they're treating very much like a job, like I'm going to do the best that I can at this, trying to go for that gold. But if I don't, like, if I can get close to who I used to be, that's that's enough for me. For a lot of them.
00:38:40
Speaker 1: What can listeners expect from the podcast?
00:38:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets weirder, I promise you that six episodes, eight episodes, Yeah, six yiss episodes. We're still like figuring it out on the go. We have a lot of reporting, a lot of kookie characters in this world. You know, the Libertarians that were actually very open with us about like what they were hoping to get out of it, and they are some weird like you know, not weird but like dudes that are like outside of my usual orbit as a Brooklyn Dwelly, New York City journalist. One of them collects t Rex fossils as his hobby, which couldn't be me, but you know, if I had a billion dollars to spare, why not.
00:39:26
Speaker 1: The podcast is Superhuman. You can listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Highly recommend it and Chris, thank you for joining on text ups today.
00:39:34
Speaker 2: Oh thank you for having me appreciate it.
00:39:47
Speaker 1: That's it for the we can take. Thank you all so much for joining us today for tech Stuff by most veloci in. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Melissa Slaughter. He's actually produced by me, Julian Nutter and Kate Osborne for Geidoscope and Katrian novel v ihotpot Casts. The engineer is Kathleen Conti from CDM Studios. Jack Insley mixed this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song. Make sure to like and subscribe to Superhuman and Tech Stuff while you're at it on the podcast player of your choice so that you won't miss a single episode.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to tech stuff. Today, we're diving into one of the most controversial intersections of technology, biology, and capitalism that the world has ever seen, The Enhanced Games. Imagine the Olympic's strictest rules being tossed aside, and athletes being encouraged to use performance enhancing drugs under medical supervision to push them to the absolute limits of their performance and of the human body. Our guest today is Chris Guymarley. He's the host of the Superhuman podcast All about the Enhanced Games, which I'm proud to say is on the Kaleidoscope Network. Chris, welcome, congrats is a great pot Thank you. It's really it's funny and clever and revealing about this. It's a games, but it's also a cultural phenomen and it's also a science experiment. It's kind of the implications of it go far beyond the kind of spectacle of a headline.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, you know, when I started breaking Bread with Enhanced well over a year ago. It was like February twenty twenty five. At this point that I first met with the founder, Aaron Desuza. I was sort of just pitching myself as like, hey, I write a lot about human augmentation and like weird body stuff and what you're trying to do sounds so fascinating. It was kind of like magazine writer Catnet in a lot of ways. So I thought there were going to be a million people chasing it, and that ended up being the case. But I ended up pitching myself as the guy to write the big magazine story for it when I met up with him, And Yeah, after being brought on, it's just enhanced. Was like following the ball where it was going in such a dramatic fashion, and now I'm kind of shocked that we're in a world where peptides and self injection and all this other stuff is kind of normalized very much. Wasn't the case over a year ago.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: I know. It's mainly how fast the world changed, right, Just backing up a couple of steps to what actually is the Enhance Games.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was originally conceived as the Steroid Olympics. Basically the idea is that this may twenty fourth. I believe they're going to take a bunch of former Olympians, people who are mostly just on the wrong side of thirty, a little bit past their primes, but still have something to prove, and they're going to give them customize drug regimens basically to see if they can shatter some world records. And there's a financial incentive in the form of a million dollar prize for some of the events too, for.
00:02:36
Speaker 1: Each world record broken. With each winner of the event.
00:02:38
Speaker 2: Each world record broke in. Yeah, so you know, if multiple people smash the old world record, it's going to be whoever has the fastest time basically, yes.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: And do we think world records will be smashed?
00:02:50
Speaker 2: I don't know. You know, that's kind of like what's so exciting about this? Like, going into it, I very much had the thought that this could end up being like some sort of biohacky fire festival in some way. You know, these people are gonna like, you know, there's a lot there's a lot of social accountability that like goes into signing on with enhanced you're sort of crossing a rubicon into a new life. You're banned by the World antide Doping Agency, which is WATA from ever competing in like you know, normalized sports again. And there's gonna be three different types of events. There's gonna be swimming, there's going to be powerlifting, and there's going to be track and field very fast, very quick, very digestible, in like TikTok sort of sports, which was a very much intentional thing that they decided to do.
00:03:41
Speaker 1: It's been built, it's been built as a spectacle, but do you think anyone will actually watch?
00:03:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing I get. They they made a big fuss about like this is going to be distributed on major platforms, and then that that platform ended up being Roku and this other one called zoop, which was founded by one of the former founders of Only Fans, and so I got to meet with him and I was like, how do you get people to tune in? And he didn't give me a straight answer when I was fishing around for like the you know what Only Fans used to do. But it's it'll be it'll be interesting. I think it's like gonna be a weird, wacky experiment, and you know, I hope some records are broken because they're working really hard. And I've gained a lot of sympathy for the athletes who are taking part of this.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's interesting. When I first heard about this and Full dis Leisure, I also met Aaron because we you know, pitched a podcast about this, which end up being partnership with you, and it's not like an authorized podcast for an official podcast, but we just did say because we want to get introduced to the athletes and etcetera, etcetera. And you know, it was interesting conversations. He's a thoughtful guy. I think you describe him as somebody who talks in paragraphs. He's also the guy who sued Cogan on behalf of Peter Teel and and and and so doing kind of you know down cocker. Yeah, which you know, my favorite website. You're so, I mean, it's it's a it's a common a group of people behind this. Obviously the Trump's invested or Donald Trump Junior through seventeen eighty nine capital is Peter Teal, an investor.
00:05:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's one of the investors too. Yeah, so Aaron is sort of like a protege of Peter. Tele's very sort of cold and steely. And when I met with him, I met him with him in some like nondescript apartment building on like the East side of Manhattan. Rode up to the top floor, set at a long table. I felt like a trapdoor to some sharks. It was going to open up under me at any point just because I was a journalist or am a journalist, So you know, coming face to face and meeting him, you know, I was very clear about my intentions and like that. I didn't want to write a piece though, as you know, Trump is bad and these steroids are bad. I really wanted to understand why they were attempting to build this thing and how they would even build it.
00:05:51
Speaker 1: So you know, that's what shines through to me in the podcast. I'd love that you just to tell our listeners what they can expect when they tune into Superhuman. But what I love about it is is you are a forty one year old sorry forty one year old, Yeah, got a kid? You do my time, if I will say times a week. You're you're an athlete. You know who is not a looks MAXI per se, but who I think, frankly, as most people do. As I mean when I when I hear bou, oh my god, if I could just inject myself and feel better and look better and all these things like it's very tempting. You approach it very much from a place of empathy with these athletes who are thirty plus whose best dated athletes are behind them, who probably never made enough money by any means to retire, but don't have any other real obvious transferable skills, and you kind of you put yourself, I mean, you're not, you know, becoming an athlete for the enhanced Games, but you kind of imagine yourself into the space of being one.
00:06:49
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, you know. In some ways what they're what they're doing is sort of like what we all kind of want to do. We want to extend our prime yeers, like just a little bit longer for them, you know that, especially like we talked to a lot of swimmers for for the podcast, and for them, you know, their their options are somewhat limited after they their swimming careers, and it's like coaching and maybe like teaching some kids how to float around, Like it's like, you know, not a very lucrative post career endeavor. And so for them, if they can take some drugs, I feel ten years younger and extend that window of them being able to compete at a high level for just a little bit more. It's like, isn't that what we all kind of want? Like don't you just want to feel your best for as long as possible to be able to do what you love doing. And basically all they've been doing their whole lives, which is trained and you know, rest and show up to these events and try to do their smash and world records.
00:07:46
Speaker 1: What was the you talked to Aaron, you talk to pe Teal as well?
00:07:50
Speaker 2: I have not.
00:07:50
Speaker 1: No, he didn't, he did, He politely declined.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: He's he's a hard matt to read.
00:07:56
Speaker 1: But what is the what is the ideological mission of this game? And what is the commercial mission of these games?
00:08:01
Speaker 2: I'll start with the commercial side. So the commercial side is they're endeavoring to sort of normalize the usage of these drugs that have sort of had wishy washy definitions of what's legal and what isn't. Like, for instance, in my reporting, they I learned that caffeine used to very much be an illegal band substance up until like the early two thousands.
00:08:23
Speaker 1: In fact, I've read in your piece, didn't somebody win an Olympic medal and then got disqualified because I had too much caffeine in their blood?
00:08:28
Speaker 2: Yes, they're yeah, they had too many milli leaders per.
00:08:33
Speaker 1: Whatever the metric gets. I couldn't I read I couldn't believe you could get dqed from the Olympics for drinking coffee, I know.
00:08:40
Speaker 2: And also it was an absurd amount of coffee because it was like eight cups before race. Like that just doesn't sound like very routine. Yeah, So you know, they're they're hoping to normalize some of these drugs like testosterone and maybe some stimulants, some some of the peptides human growth hormone, in order to figure out a framework that they can then sell to the masses. And you know, that's that's that's one part of the equation.
00:09:07
Speaker 1: And you mean that, You don't mean that like in a very abstract way, you mean that very literally.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: Right.
00:09:11
Speaker 1: There's also a program to sell some of these drugs.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: Yes, they want to sell a sort of telehealth like you know, you consult with a doctor, You'll take a bunch of blood tests, I have a bunch of you know, safe like biometrics red and then they'll prescribe to you what would kind of be ideal for your unique biometrics and you go from there and presumably you feel awesome.
00:09:35
Speaker 1: You know, is I got to ask you how much would have you tried?
00:09:40
Speaker 2: Not very much. I've only tried a NAD plus, which is, you know this coenzyme that sort of helps with healing and helps with brain fog. And I was kind of taking that because I really just wanted to understand what it is like to put a needle in your belly and yourself for the reporting of this. But it made me feel amazing, So I think I'm going to yeah.
00:10:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, So so commercial missions basically stage of games, get the world's attention on this topic, hopefully you know, have a great clipping strategy so it goes viral. It already has. I mean, I think that the idea is obviously like really cool, the world's attention and then build a business basically selling regimes.
00:10:19
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know the in the reporting too, Like I don't know how much they some of them are a little bit more loose slip than others. But one of the executives, Christian Ingermier, he told us that they're in conversation with other sports leagues around the world. Wouldn't specify which ones, but you know, you have to imagine that if you are the owner of a sports team, say the Lakers or something, and you can have Lebron James playing within three weeks after he hurts a hamstring or something, instead of having to set out for six months. Like there's a huge financial incentive there for you to to sort of explore that and maybe like get them healthier faster. So you know, I kind of see this matriculating to a bunch of different areas in the world and not just like mass consumers if successful.
00:11:07
Speaker 1: I want to come back to the sort of ideological mission as well before we get there. What you just said really struck a chord with me, because there's you know, we talk in venture capital investing about the power law, right, like the people who can accumulate the most resources have the most to invest in. That's foremost by definition win. It's kind of almost exactly the same in sports, right Like you look at in soccer Cristiano Ronaldo and Leomessi, who are like pushing forty and still I mean they're not quite at their prime, but they're still absolutely dominating the leagues they're in, still playing on the international stage. I've read a book called Racket by a tennis player who was hovering around. Did you read a book? It's a great book. Irish tennis player called Connan Island. He got to about one hundred in the world. One around at Wimbledon, one around at the US Open, played Roger Federer. But I've wrote in this book he said, you know, I was arriving at this you know, hotel in the middle of the night, having flown in the middle seat on Ryan and got they exhausted, couldn't sleep, you know, it was stiff, but couldn't get a massage, was given the worst playing slot, had to eat them. And you know, and I saw you know, the you know, federal Djokovic basically arriving a private jet. So you know, and just that the they're not injecting or ingesting substances, but they are controlling for their body chemistry with the money they can spend, the entourage they can build. So there's a there's an odd there's a kind of inherent sort of it's not it's not the concept of a level playing field doesn't exist.
00:12:33
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, you know, it's like, you know, if you think about an NBA player, it's like, by dint of them being six seven, they originally they already have like a huge advantage over like normies like you and I. But you know, and and enhance. They're they're they're paying their athletes. You know, they get a monthly stipe in. They have a great place to live. I got to visit their hotel that they were training at in Abu Dhabi, which had you know, just a sick cafeteria full of like a maze healthy gourmet food, a pool area, like everything was taken care of. They basically just wake up, go to practice, eat good food, get pampered and recovered, and that's all they have to focus on. And it dawned on me that just like the mental load of being able to live like this, like that does so much for your ability to compete at a high level. Just not having to worry about any of the other stuff of like where's my dinner going to come from? And oh no, now I got to cook for my kid and like do all this other stuff. It's like a very privileged sort of you know, almost like a college sports star existence again for as long as they want to do it.
00:13:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. I found the first episode of podcast. I wasn't I was expecting to be intrigued and entertained that I wasn't expecting to be moved, but I was as a Ukrainian swimming champion, yes, who basically loses his business. You know, he's and he's saying he's still could be an Olympic athlete and could be a gold medal winning Olympic athlete, but he says, I need ten was a month to train properly. Where am I going to get that? And if I could get that or anything could get half of that, I spent it on my family, yes, so you know, and then he's applying for grants and I saying, we can't give you a ground because you haven't demonstrated performances like well, I haven't had a chance to compete because I've been in a war zone. And so he is one of the people who decides to become an enhanced athlete. And then you mentioned Abudhabi. He's with me annnced Athlete group at the hotel in Abudabi where the bomb started falling, and he's kind of becomes the godfather of the group, being like, guys, you know, hold steady, this is fine, right, yeah, yeah, he was.
00:14:32
Speaker 2: So Andre He's a wonderful, wonderful dude. He like had to escape from Ukraine during the war and when the bomb started falling, he was like a very serene, sort of calming voice among the group. And it's an interesting dynamic because they're all competing against each other. They're all trying to you know, win money over the other person, but they all are really pushing each other to be better. Like having the coach brat Hawk told me that having this caliber of athlete in sort of the same practice, it's it's unreal. It's sort of like a just rarefied air in there of excellence. You know, the second best guy is like to your left, the third best guys to your right, and it pushes you to train harder. But when the bomb started falling, Andre it was just like, oh, yeah, I've been there. Like he's like do this, like pull out some cash, like here if you don't, if you need some, I got some for you. Have your ideas all in one place. And he was just a real sweetheart to the rest of them.
00:15:27
Speaker 1: It's interesting though, I mean you also there's a scene where you go to one of the pools where all of the swimmers are training and you talk to the lifeguard who is a college swimmer. Who is who is I mean he probably on the college campus, is you know, Basically it looks next god, compared to these guys, there's another normal like us. Yeah, and you say to him, and one of one of those women's Ben Proud, English swimmer is absolute hero. And you say to the lifeguard, well, but what do you think about him, you know, doping essentially, and kind of almost can't give you an answer, right.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, So this lifeguard I felt bad for him because it's like, you know, I think I think the metaphor used in the GQ piece was it was like Frodo minding the Avengers. It's like, yeah, go go corral the Hulk over there, buddy, Like, good luck with that. But yeah, he Ben Proud was sort of his his swimming hero, and knowing that he was taking drugs and trying to like take new records, he was really sort of not mystified, but just really conflicted about it. I don't think he had like a real conclusion that he could articulate about how he felt about these guys, but I could tell that he was like a little disturbed. Because if you are an athlete, you're you're told from like day.
00:16:40
Speaker 1: One, and you spend the worst thing you can do.
00:16:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, that cheating taking drugs is just a constant source of paranoia and anxiety, and you could get tested at any moment. And so that's like really like ingrained in all these athletes in a real way. And so for them to take that leap is is kind of a really special, one strange thing for a lot of them.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the mission, the kind of ideological mission behind this. I mean, we talked about Aaron Desuza. He compared what he said was, we're building the Apollo Mission for the twenty first century. What did the Apollo mission do? He asks? Rhetorically, it showed us that we were so much more capable as a human species. On the one hand, this is kind of absurd. Yes, on the other hand, they are pointing towards a different mode of living. So how do you interpret this quote?
00:17:32
Speaker 2: You know, so much of this feeds into this idea of longevity, which I know you've covered as well. Just you know that if we can extend our life and feel better, and like, if you can be an active person in your seventies, who wouldn't want to do that? And a question I composing to these executives was doesn't this create sort of a caste system? Like it's like you have that the haves who will have access to pds and all these other enhancements that will make you live longer, and then people who just won't be able to afford it, and you know, it unspiraled all these like crazy ideas. It's like, maybe there's a world where like not getting any enhancements is actually like the end vogue thing among the elites, and like maybe it's going to become affordable enough that we're all going to be able to take testosterone if we need it by the time we're in our fifties. So it's it's interesting to watch this all play out. I don't know where any of it's actually going to be headed, but I don't know. I did get a little testosterone curious myself, Like if I turn fifty and then sort of need some tea, I wouldn't put it past me to indulge.
00:18:39
Speaker 1: Well, respond to the idea this is the poly moment for our generation.
00:18:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, when I first met with Aaron, like he's obviously great talker, like very captivating dude, he likened it to we have an obligation to improve ourselves, especially in like the age of AI, to be the best most you know, special humans that we can be. A word that got brought up a lot in the reporting was transhumanism, which is this concept that feeds back to you know, it's mankind should endeavor for immortality and to be able to beat death. These guys, a lot of them wouldn't identify with that explicitly, but I could see the shades of it in a lot of what they're trying to accomplish. And you know a lot of them are already on enhancements themselves. There's this CEO of it, Maximilian Martin, He's twenty nine, already on testosterone. He feels awesome. He says he sees it as a moral responsibility to him, not only himself, but it functions as also birth control for him and his girlfriend. And he's like a super jacked, very handsome man. And you know, they all just want to be the best version of themselves, to feel the best, to feel young forever, and that sort of undergirds everything that they're trying to accomplish with this.
00:20:03
Speaker 1: After the break, how the enhanced games could trickle down into our everyday lives. Stay with us. We talk a lot on this show about protecting your data, especially in the age of AI and how scary it can be when it's breached. And I want to tell you today about NordVPN, which really covers all the bases when it comes to privacy. I travel a lot and I use Wi Fi while I'm flying all the time, and NordVPN makes me confident in no matter where I am in the world or the sky for that matter, my private details like bank information, passwords and online identity is safe. And it's also possible to switch on virtual location, which allows you to save money by buying flights and hotels or subscriptions or even streaming soccer or football as I like to call it from other countries at a cheaper price. And NordVPN doesn't slow you down. It has super fast internet speed, no buffering or lagging while streams mean. It is premium cybersecurity for the price of one cup of coffee per month. To get the best discount of your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN dot com slash tech stuff. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two year plan and there's no risk with nords thirty day money back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description box. I guess you know you mentioned earlier that caffeine was banned the band substance for a while. Now it's not what's the like what's on the table here? Like is are there any drugs? Can you do whatever you want? I mean on this as it enhanced athlete or do they have their own protocol and like what are they? Are they just becoming another regulatory body but with slightly different rules or a true revolution.
00:21:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is where things get really squishy for them. So the athletes who took place and are getting these custom protocols and lived in Abu Dhabi and met with doctors, they're taking part of this long term study that's being conducted by an independent body that enhanced works with this guy named Guido Inde independent body, so they claim, but you know, they're making recommendations about what to take. And the four broadcat categories are you know, testosterone, some stimulants, growth hormone and uh some some like peptides, but functionally all they all a lot of them do the same thing, which is like they help you grow muscle, they help you focus better. Sometimes it makes you a little agro which is something that like was a was a funny thing to talk to them about, especially when you have a bunch of like alpha males in the same room and they're all getting testy with each other. Wouldn't wish that upon anyone, But so they're all going to be taking that stuff. There was one swimmer, one of the women named. Her name is Megan Romano. She was really concerned about, you know, taking tea and having her voice potentially drop. So she was like, I'm gonna like, like, if my voice starts dropping, I'm immediately gonna stop. We're going to try to find a new protocol. But conversely, you know, they're not going to be testing for anything basically, like if an athlete does decide to take substance that's beyond those parameters, you know, they could feasibly do it if they found someone to give them the drugs. So you know there, it's it's a very mushy definition, and I think by design because they don't want to, you know, I think they're they're kind of like, we don't want to impose limits on you, but at the same time, we want you to like take like work with us, work with our doctors, so we can figure out what to sell and like it's like, uh, sell that to the mass market.
00:23:45
Speaker 1: And they worried someone could die at the games.
00:23:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, you know, that's that's that's one of the big concerns. But they're trying to mitigate that by having a lot of interactions with doctors, Like you have a very tailor regiment, you have constant checkups, your heartbeat gets monitored, you had like a comprehensive health analysis complete with DEXA scans and all this stuff up front. And I think that's kind of the place where you know, is that going to be accessible to normal people, like when they sell that stuff to the masses, I don't know. It's like very expensive. It takes health insurance like you know, and that these athletes are going to be under constant safety monitoring like that, it makes me feel a little bit better about like that no one's going to like, you know, pass out in the pool during these games, but you know, we'll see It's it's a very real wrestler there is. I mean.
00:24:36
Speaker 1: It's an interesting thing here because the the Olympic Protocol is governed by an organization called water Right. Yes, weld a dooping and as you peel back the onion on what the principles of the world antidope agency are You get to this core, which is maintaining the spirit of sport, so and and and what the Enhanced Game says, Well, the spirit of sport is human excellence, and humans have always looked for ways to enhance themselves, and therefore this is the new spirit of sport. Is that Is that a fair summary of the debate.
00:25:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, that's that's that's one component of it. Wada like their their definition too, is also intentionally like mushy. There's a lot of mushiness in this this world from both sides, and because I think no one wants to take full responsibility for the lives of these athletes.
00:25:31
Speaker 1: Which is basically impossible to say this is that this is dope and this is not doping, Captain being a perfect example exactly.
00:25:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like what it's like, everything is harmful on some level, and every everything is also safe kind of on some level. So it's like, you know, it's it's it's kind of an impossible thing to police. Uh, the enforcement of it is just like it makes life miserable if you're a professional athlete getting woken up at like, you know, one example we had was Christmas Eve at Megan her mom's house. She went home for Christmas. Here's a knock on the door and there's strangers there to collect her pea and blood to make sure she hasn't been doping. And her mom was just like, is this like a regular occurrence? She's like, yeah, they could show up at any time, you know, and that's like no way to live.
00:26:15
Speaker 1: Like the honest game is also probably in large publics that people involved, and also the idea is kind of a lightning world for the cultures, right, Like there's a lot of people who think like this is by definition bad and then obviously the people who are involved with it, you have the opposite view. Yeah, what light did you come to a value judgment spending time with it?
00:26:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this is a talk I've had a lot with my producer Sam on the show too. It's like, I don't know, are they doing something like Noble? I think it's more interesting, Like my curiosity is what kind of drives my interest in it. But like I said earlier, like it could very well end up being a firefest. There could be a situation where no world reds get broken. Later when the games happen, they're all too muscular or they like all like feel terrible by the time they get in the pool, and like, you know, the stock price sinks and the whole thing goes up in flames. But you know, I do think the question of what is and what is in a PD, I think that's a question worth in territory drug. Yeah, And so I think by engaging with that, I find the whole experiment pretty worthwhile.
00:27:26
Speaker 1: Honestly, has that caused a controversy with your like friends in the journalism community, Like are you getting people like saying why are you swimming in this water inception metaphor?
00:27:39
Speaker 2: But like, yeah, well, I've never spent this much time with libertarian techno utopianis this is kind of like my first person with it. But I gotta say, there, you know, they know how to party, They no good time. But yeah, you know, like it is a lightning rod for the culture wars. But I'm sort of less interested in that and more interested in the central question of like what even should a PD be going forward?
00:28:05
Speaker 1: And what are some of the potential answers to that.
00:28:09
Speaker 2: I wish I had the answer to that. You know, I personally, I feel like if there's anything that can extend an athlete's like time actually playing and actually like you know, being visible in the sport, like you know, back to the Lebron example, Like I want to watch him like just play until he's fifty, honestly, you know what I mean. Like that would be my ideal, and maybe he goes back to like playing like a twenty five year old again if he's allowed to take some stuff. Do you know that's possible? I think so, And I think that would be awesome. I think that would be so fun to watch, you know, and like just like that and like it would like do some some work around the stigma of aging, Like it would just like I don't know, it would like make me feel better certainly, like about being in my forties now and dealing with my midlife crisis. I can kick that ken down the curb a little bit until I'm fifty, Like that would be amazing.
00:29:03
Speaker 1: And it's also I didn't you talk around the podcast. Is your your your moti part of your motivation is you know, selfish and vain as what you all are, but also you want to be able to play sports with your with your kids, yeah, and totally and being great shape to enjoy your time with them. So I mean there's this yeah, it's double double, double edged.
00:29:19
Speaker 2: Right yeah, yeah, you know, like I yeah, I I come computamoy Thai, very amateur, very low level stuff, and I just feel aches and pains every day, but it's like so fun. It's like the thing like outside of journalism and my family that I care about the most. And you know, if I can do that for a little bit longer, like you know, sign me up.
00:29:40
Speaker 1: You also cover the kind of darker history of doping. I knew that the I mean East Germany and West Germany during the Cold War. I knew that East Germany had like a more successful athletics program. Yeah I didn't know why.
00:29:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was it's real insidious evil stuff. So basically for during the Cold War, you know, hundreds of athletes from East Germany were unknowingly given you know, all sorts of illegal drugs, like you know, testosterone given to like very young teenage girls unknowingly, and they you know, it was the dark ages back then. They didn't know what effect it was going to have long term, and it just led to all sorts of problems when they got older, like miscarriages, depression, there were some suicides I believe as well. You know, it was it was really dark, and it was all in pursuit of just more gold medals, you know, like why they were doing it was real, like sort of like weapon X dark you know, comic book stuff that was actually happening with them, and you know, with enhance, it's like their whole thing is if we can drag all that stuff out of the shadows and do it in a controlled and you know, honestly kind of conservative scientific environment where people are going to be closely monitored and there's safety as top of mind, like we should be doing that, and that's kind of part of their mission.
00:31:03
Speaker 1: What's it like to be an a Han's athlete. I mean, what's the It seems like there's some kind of identity crisis that that happens for someone that you talked about crossing the rubicon. But also there's something inherently uncomfortable about a group of super rich people running a live science experiment on people who are coming to the end of their careers and don't know what to do next. Yeah, it has It can go into the kind of squid game territory.
00:31:31
Speaker 2: Totally right, right right. You know Ben Proud who was the UK swimmer and silver medalist, he had a good perspective on it. He was like, you know, at least in we we in some ways we are treated like like race horses, you know, like like prize possessions. But at least we're being compensated for it. And so that was like, you know, that's a big deal for them to be you know, paid fairly for you know saying basically into being known with all of this, and you know, the Max Martin, the CEO, he had this analogy that I kept returning to, which is that enhances basically like Formula one. The athletes are like the supercars, like the Ferraris and the Toyotas and all this stuff. We're trinkering things here and there, and eventually our hope is that like these little adjustments and little innovations like trickle down to the masses, which is how you're for Fiesta gets anti lock breaks at some point.
00:32:30
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've had a couple of F one team principles on this podcast. Sect should we have James Vowels from Williams F one recently and Zach Brown from McLaren before that, but they both talked about exactly that, which is like this is an R and D lab, which is a spectacle, but also you know a lot of the innovations that make driving safer come from F one.
00:32:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, like they're they're starting off with these three you know sports, which are you know, like big Olympic events. But I'm interested to see like how that translates into something like you know, long distance running or something that like, you know, more everyday people kind of like participate in. Like I think that's going to be interesting, Like if we're going to be able to like get a marathon time that is close to the too two hour mark or something with someone who's enhanced, I think that's going to be like really fascinating if that ever comes through cruition.
00:33:21
Speaker 1: Do you buy this idea that there will be it will be nagostift one in the sense of some of these things that are experimented with at the enhance do become the norm for like regular sports people.
00:33:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I suspect, you know there, it's their their research And I'm using air quotes here.
00:33:41
Speaker 1: I'm not a.
00:33:41
Speaker 2: Video but but you know, I do think that's going to translate to to not not necessarily the masses, but the people who are curious enough about it to do it. And and I think if like you have a safe framework, I think that's a worthwhile thing.
00:33:57
Speaker 1: What does the actual protocol look like? You like basically like just being pumped with needles like day and night? Is that you got have to get very comes with needles.
00:34:05
Speaker 2: It was like, but that was actually really funny because it's all self administered. And I asked a bunch of the athletes and a few of them were actually afraid of needles. I was like, oh, good luck to you, sir. You know some of them like a testosterone requires a big needle that you have to like jam into your butt and like self administer a couple times a week. They were cagy about specifics because they see it as basically intellectual property that they're helping to sell one day. So I couldn't get like exact dosing or even like what anyone was taking. The athletes were warned not to share their exact protocols with the media, which I thought was interesting. But yeah, it's a it's a cheesecake factory sized menu. I think of like things I'll be able to like combine and work with.
00:34:55
Speaker 1: So May twenty fourth is one day event? Is the Games? Yeah you're going to go obviously, Yes, I'll be there. What are you expecting to see? I mean, I guess you could be the five Festival or it could be the spectacle for the Ages. What do you think normal people are going to pay attention? Like, is it going to be like the Olympics or do you think it might It might be.
00:35:14
Speaker 2: Oh man, No, I think it's going to be more like a carnival. Honestly, Like they told me about the event uh arena that they were building, it's basically like four lanes of pool. People are gonna be standing close. It's going to look more like a WWE match sure than anything else. Max Martin was really excited about some of the techno DJs that he was going to be bringing on. I think it's going to feel like a you know, a Vegas pool party a little bit, you know, more than the Olympics. And I think, you know, in the beginning, they they kind of like made a big fuss about we're going to replace the Olympics one day, but you know, I forget who it was but one of them said, this is more like an offshoot. This is like three on three basketball versus the NBA, So you know, it's I think it's gonna be weird. It's gonna be kind of funny. I asked if Diplo was going to be there and couldn't get a firmancer. But you know, I think it'll be something worth like at least paying attention to.
00:36:11
Speaker 1: Do you think I'll be more than one game? So I think this will be like the one and done moment, and then they'll transition hardcore into selling the protocols as because they raised a billion dollars for RESPEC, right, yeah's how far that goes?
00:36:22
Speaker 2: Totally.
00:36:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes a lot of money. But also if you're staging a huge event with I mean.
00:36:26
Speaker 2: It's yeah, the finances don't make total sense to me, especially since you're paying like fifty athletes a salary and then building this whole apparatus around them with coaches and recovery and food and all this stuff just taking care of for them housing. So you know, I don't know all the financial errors and how that exactly fits together. I hope there's more games. I think it's you know, I would love to see them expand into other sports, like like marathon racing, for example, or even cycling, Like I think that would be a lot of Tennis would actually be kind of a fun one to watch too, just because it is like one on one and like, you know, I want to see what I want to see in a dog about retirement or something.
00:37:12
Speaker 1: Was that like a main major preconception of yours or like something that really I mean spent all this time with the story, something in your thinking that shifted as you as you were most in this world.
00:37:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was surprised how much they they sort of moderated their their stance on everything. I think they came out the gate really hot, trying to sell this as like a big carnival, like you know, free for all, take whatever you want, but actually like in practicality, like it's going to be pretty pretty conservative, Like the dosing is very minimal. They took a lot of learnings from an earlier experiment where they with a swimmer named James Magison, where they actually gave him too many pds and he put on like he claims to have put on like forty pounds of muscle mass, and you know, if you're a professional swimmer, being a bear is not necessarily the move. Instead of becoming a speedboat, he came like an ocean liner, so his time's actually suffered for that. But you know, I think I've grown a lot more sympathetic to the plight of these athletes over the course of the reporting it. You know, just like they're just trying to make it work, like like all of us, and this place is giving them a steady, stable job basically, and they're treating very much like a job, like I'm going to do the best that I can at this, trying to go for that gold. But if I don't, like, if I can get close to who I used to be, that's that's enough for me. For a lot of them.
00:38:40
Speaker 1: What can listeners expect from the podcast?
00:38:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets weirder, I promise you that six episodes, eight episodes, Yeah, six yiss episodes. We're still like figuring it out on the go. We have a lot of reporting, a lot of kookie characters in this world. You know, the Libertarians that were actually very open with us about like what they were hoping to get out of it, and they are some weird like you know, not weird but like dudes that are like outside of my usual orbit as a Brooklyn Dwelly, New York City journalist. One of them collects t Rex fossils as his hobby, which couldn't be me, but you know, if I had a billion dollars to spare, why not.
00:39:26
Speaker 1: The podcast is Superhuman. You can listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Highly recommend it and Chris, thank you for joining on text ups today.
00:39:34
Speaker 2: Oh thank you for having me appreciate it.
00:39:47
Speaker 1: That's it for the we can take. Thank you all so much for joining us today for tech Stuff by most veloci in. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Melissa Slaughter. He's actually produced by me, Julian Nutter and Kate Osborne for Geidoscope and Katrian novel v ihotpot Casts. The engineer is Kathleen Conti from CDM Studios. Jack Insley mixed this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song. Make sure to like and subscribe to Superhuman and Tech Stuff while you're at it on the podcast player of your choice so that you won't miss a single episode.
