The value of racing

"Bill C" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Everything is a question of relative value.

Don't dare let Jim Flom see this. You sound like a possible convert to
Goedelism.

Quoted message said:

I choose to place a very high value on fair competition and the health
of the children that I am involved with. That being the case, doping is
not acceptable to me in the sport I have chosen to value.

Well said!!

Bill C said:

We choose to place a higher
value on things like bicycle racing than the plight of strangers
because bicycle racing is more immediately rlevant to our quality of
life.

I'm guessing that from how you phrase this, you mean that we value
bicycle racing more because we put more money into it. That's over
simplistic and also isn't necessarily true even on that basis. Some of
us write checks for more for those other values.

I think the reality is most often that people value those lives more,
but fail to fully act on their convictions. The reasons for that are
more complex than when and why we write a check, and for what.

Quoted message said:

We live the way we do because we have decided that our personal
standard of living is more important than supporting others who aren't
at a surviveable level.

To a degree, no doubt. OTOH I've known people that have given a great
deal of time, effort and money to good causes, but did not sacrifice
all of their standard of living. It doesn't count until they give
everything? Or do we do it on a percentage basis?

Anyway, most make choices in the middle, not at either extreme. They
contribute perhaps several thousands to charitable work, do volunteer
work on a regular basis, choose not to buy a McMansion or 10 mpg SUV.
They buy fair trade products and don't spend everything on themselves.
They also own a few nice things and leave money in their retirement
account, so they could no doubt help a few more fellow humans.

Perfect? No, but human.

Quoted message said:

We give nothing more than lip service to
slaughters around the globe because either we are gaining an advantage
from them, or we have decided that it's not worth our lives and
resources to attempt to change.

You're right - I haven't volunteered to go to the Sudan. I have some
pretty clear ideas on a few of these, but probably a lot less willing
to send our troops into harms way than when I went voluntary draft 30+
years ago. This is not as simple as you make it appear above, not
least that the political parties in the U.S. want to beat up on the
other side when they support troops in one war and then again when
they don't send troops in another, all subject to revision from
perfect or near perfect hindsight.

Giving France effective veto privileges on intervention based on the
fact the country was once a colony or country of influence is one way
to insure the U.N. will do little or nothing. On the other hand,
France has shown periodic willingness to send in paratroopers to shoot
anything that moves and bomb everything else when their citizens or
influence are threatened. Interestingly, they don't seem to get much
criticism for doing so, or even much notice.

In any event, its hard to prove ahead of time that U.S. intervention
will add or subtract from the count of homeless people and parentless
children. Intervention is rarely a prefect process. And the political
party in the U.S. out of power will be sure to count the results
afterwards...

In the end, bicycle racing is still just bicycle racing. Its not even
the most important reason for riding a bike. And riding a bike isn't
the most important thing that even I will do this week.

Do I think there is drug abuse in bicycle racing? Yes. Do I condone
that drug abuse? No. Is there an effective way for me to try to combat
that drug abuse? No. Is there any way for me to really know who is or
isn't doing drugs? No. So is it of value for me to spend a lot of time
worrying about it or losing sleep? No.

So I'll just enjoy the bike racing as it is on the surface and spend
my time, effort and money on something that I can effect. I can
understand why people obsess about it (I halfway obsessed about Ann
Margret for a decade or so, but got not much out of it), but I don't
see the point until you have a way to effect change (see Ann Margret
reference).

And now I've wasted a lunch hour. Oh, well, on a diet anyway.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

This is the part where Jay Mohr takes you to lunch and tells you that
you're fired.

"Bill C" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message de :
news:[email hidden]...
[not repeating ...]

Quoted message said:

Rant off
Bill C

Nice rant, Bill, and nice to get to know you better.
--
Bonne route,

Sandy
Verneuil-sur-Seine FR

Curtis L. Russell said:

In the end, bicycle racing is still just bicycle racing. Its not even
the most important reason for riding a bike. And riding a bike isn't
the most important thing that even I will do this week.

Do I think there is drug abuse in bicycle racing? Yes. Do I condone
that drug abuse? No. Is there an effective way for me to try to

combat

Quoted message said:

that drug abuse? No. Is there any way for me to really know who is or
isn't doing drugs? No. So is it of value for me to spend a lot of

time

Quoted message said:

worrying about it or losing sleep? No.

<snip>

Dumbass -

You nailed it.

Bill C said:

Since this, perspective, morals, and how they all figure into the
wider world keep coming up in the doping threads, but nobody is
discussing what they really mean, and are.
My take it that 99.9% of the population NEVER seriously contemplate
these issues.
My opinion is that NOTHING has inherent value, not my life, not yours,
not anything. The value of an object or concept is what people choose
to assign to it, and this is never universal. Evolution and survival
have forced humans to value the things that allow them to survive the
most. Next are things that affect their quality of life and there isn't
anything else.
Value changes with the proximity of the situation to the person for
the most part. The closer it is to them the more it matters.
Every single decision we make, and every single resource we use has an
affect on everything else. Most people choose not to think about any of
this in any depth.
Where this concept was forced on me was doing Mass Casualty exercises
in the military. As part of the Disaster Preparedness Mobility Team,
and a combat first aid instructor one of my jobs was to do triage. Mash
whitewashed this because the hard part was over before the casualties
got there. In triage you are deciding how to best use your resources.
You are also choosing who dies so that others can live. In a best case
there would be enough personell and resources to treat everyone with
whatever they need immediately. In reality it's never that way. You
have to decide how likely someone is to live and how much of your
resources they are going to consume, balanced against how many others
you might lose by dedicating that big a percentage to cases you are
probably going to lose anyway. You have to effectively condemn people
you might be able to save, to make sure you save a much bigger number
of less critical people. You make a quick attempt to stabilise them and
they go to the bottom of the priority list. Instead of one 10 hour
surgery, your are able to get care for 20 people in half hour blocks.
This is all massively oversimplified but illustrates the point I was
making which is that unless you've been forced to consider this most
people never will. Fortunately I never had to do it for real, and I'm
thankful for that, but I would do it.
To make this relevant, Save The Children requests $1 a day to greatly
improve the life of a child. That seems to be in line with other
charities estimates of what it takes to save lives.
Unless you are living at just above the subsistance level and putting
everything else back into improving things for people who aren't at
that level you are choosing your quality of life over their lives.
People place much higher value on the lives that touch theirs, it's a
survival trait. People are also driven to make their lives easier,
that's progress. Unfortunately some groups are in areas that are
naturally poor in resources and haven't been able to progress with us.
Others have been brutally exploited by people who are willing to do
whatever it takes for their own comfort and power.
In large part here in the first world, which is where almost all of us
active here are, we tend to ignore the issues and people because they
aren't in our faces and our daily lives. We choose to place a higher
value on things like bicycle racing than the plight of strangers
because bicycle racing is more immediately rlevant to our quality of
life. We live the way we do because we have decided that our personal
standard of living is more important than supporting others who aren't
at a surviveable level. We give nothing more than lip service to
slaughters around the globe because either we are gaining an advantage
from them, or we have decided that it's not worth our lives and
resources to attempt to change.
Everything is a question of relative value.
I don't live extravagently, but I am aware of the fact that the case of
beer I buy, or the extra food that made me fat could've helped prevent
malnutrition for several people when converted into cheap healthy food.
Ditto for all the cycling stuff by a large factor. I've reached a point
in my life where I can conciously live with the balnce I have chosen,
but I am supremely aware of the affect of my choices and I take
responsibility for them.
Bicycle racing is very important to all of us here based on what it
provides to our quality of life, whether you want to admit it or not.
We choose to engage in, and dedicate resources to this rather than
other "more important" things. Therefore those things are not as
important to us as racing is.
I choose to place a very high value on fair competition and the health
of the children that I am involved with. That being the case, doping is
not acceptable to me in the sport I have chosen to value.
Rant off
Bill C

I generally agree. In terms of some of our resources, it probably is
an oversimplification to think of this as a zero-sum game (though this
doubtless is true in some cases).
Also, self-sacrifice often helps no one. I am reminded of the old
Allan Sherman recitation, that he should "clean his plate, because
children are starving in Europe. They kept starving, and I got fat."
I certainly wouldn't use this as a rationale for conspicuous consumption.
As far as doping is concerned, you touch on the point that I find most
compelling (and one I have seldom heard acknowledged by Europeans who
seem to be more tolerant of doping) and that is that children are being
forced to make these decisions (and worse, sometimes these decisions are
being made for them) before they have the legal or moral maturity to
make them.

Steve

Curtis L. Russell said:

Bill C said:

We choose to place a higher
value on things like bicycle racing than the plight of strangers
because bicycle racing is more immediately rlevant to our quality of
life.

I'm guessing that from how you phrase this, you mean that we value
bicycle racing more because we put more money into it. That's over
simplistic and also isn't necessarily true even on that basis. Some

of

Quoted message said:

us write checks for more for those other values.

I think the reality is most often that people value those lives more,
but fail to fully act on their convictions. The reasons for that are
more complex than when and why we write a check, and for what.

Quoted message said:

We live the way we do because we have decided that our personal
standard of living is more important than supporting others who

aren't

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

at a surviveable level.

To a degree, no doubt. OTOH I've known people that have given a great
deal of time, effort and money to good causes, but did not sacrifice
all of their standard of living. It doesn't count until they give
everything? Or do we do it on a percentage basis?

Anyway, most make choices in the middle, not at either extreme. They
contribute perhaps several thousands to charitable work, do volunteer
work on a regular basis, choose not to buy a McMansion or 10 mpg SUV.
They buy fair trade products and don't spend everything on

themselves.

Quoted message said:

They also own a few nice things and leave money in their retirement
account, so they could no doubt help a few more fellow humans.

Perfect? No, but human.

I agree completely with you, but the people you describe, such as
yourself, are aware of the choices they are making, and place things on
a scale of value to themselves. I fit the picture you've painted
nicely, but I make no bones about the thousands of dollars that I have
invested in cycling equipment could save more lives if I had used that
money differently. I chose to use it on cycling instead. I have found a
level that I'm mostly comfortable with, but am aware that my choices do
have an adverse affect on others.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

We give nothing more than lip service to
slaughters around the globe because either we are gaining an

advantage

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

from them, or we have decided that it's not worth our lives and
resources to attempt to change.

You're right - I haven't volunteered to go to the Sudan. I have some
pretty clear ideas on a few of these, but probably a lot less willing
to send our troops into harms way than when I went voluntary draft

30+

Quoted message said:

years ago. This is not as simple as you make it appear above, not
least that the political parties in the U.S. want to beat up on the
other side when they support troops in one war and then again when
they don't send troops in another, all subject to revision from
perfect or near perfect hindsight.

Giving France effective veto privileges on intervention based on the
fact the country was once a colony or country of influence is one way
to insure the U.N. will do little or nothing. On the other hand,
France has shown periodic willingness to send in paratroopers to

shoot

Quoted message said:

anything that moves and bomb everything else when their citizens or
influence are threatened. Interestingly, they don't seem to get much
criticism for doing so, or even much notice.

In any event, its hard to prove ahead of time that U.S. intervention
will add or subtract from the count of homeless people and parentless
children. Intervention is rarely a prefect process. And the political
party in the U.S. out of power will be sure to count the results
afterwards...

No it's not because greed and human nature are what they are. Here
from the BBC are a couple of paragraphs that illustrate my point
perfectly. From:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4226067.stm

Quoted message said:

Dealing with Darfur

The problem is also another reflection of the difficulties the
international community has had in dealing with Darfur. The Security
Council has threatened sanctions, but has not imposed them.

For one thing, China, with a veto on the Council, is against them and
China is now heavily involved in the rapidly growing oil industry in
Sudan.

China's National Petroleum Corporation has major interests in Sudan's
oil fields and Sudanese oil is now exported to China. Sudan was
exporting 345,000 barrels of oil per day last year and this figure is
expected to rise to 500,000 this year.

Oil is transforming Sudan's economy and this prospect is making
investors other than China wary of imposing sanctions on the oil
industry, which would be the only one worth restricting.

Quoted message said:

In the end, bicycle racing is still just bicycle racing. Its not even
the most important reason for riding a bike. And riding a bike isn't
the most important thing that even I will do this week.

Agreed, but it's more important to you than the things you choose not
to do, right? That places it in your priority set. All I'm saying is
that people think it's important enough to spend resources on it that
could be doing other "More Important" things. All of the things you
brought up such as volunteering and donating help create a balance that
the individual can live with relative to their concern with the "More
Important" things. Nothing is absolute. I'm just pointing out that it's
brutally hypocritical to claim that the time and money spent on racing
are less important to you than what you could have done, but chose not
to. If you hadn't found a level of neglect and selfishness you were
comfortable with you would be Mother Theresa. Very few of us are that.
Certainly not me.

Quoted message said:

Do I think there is drug abuse in bicycle racing? Yes. Do I condone
that drug abuse? No. Is there an effective way for me to try to

combat

Quoted message said:

that drug abuse? No. Is there any way for me to really know who is or
isn't doing drugs? No. So is it of value for me to spend a lot of

time

Quoted message said:

worrying about it or losing sleep? No.

I disagree because unless somebody is making noise things get swept
under the rug because it's a lot easier to ignore things that don't
directly affect you until it hits you in the face. Unless we are
telling them we care, they wont either.

Quoted message said:

So I'll just enjoy the bike racing as it is on the surface and spend
my time, effort and money on something that I can effect. I can
understand why people obsess about it (I halfway obsessed about Ann
Margret for a decade or so, but got not much out of it), but I don't
see the point until you have a way to effect change (see Ann Margret
reference).

And now I've wasted a lunch hour. Oh, well, on a diet anyway.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Thanks for good talk
Bill C

"Steven Bornfeld" <[email hidden]> schreef in bericht
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

...As far as doping is concerned, you touch on the point that I find most
compelling (and one I have seldom heard acknowledged by Europeans who
seem to be more tolerant of doping) and that is that children are being
forced to make these decisions (and worse, sometimes these decisions are
being made for them) before they have the legal or moral maturity to
make them.

Steve

I'm tolerant in a way - although I would like to know what the consequences
would be if I somehow became intolerant - and definitely European. You are
very wrong. The tolerance you mention is mostly directed towards the big
cases that get a lot of attention, not the doping that is used by the
younger and amateur riders. Ofcourse nobody likes it if Museeuw gets caught,
but at the same time there is a general awareness that a two-year suspension
of his career after it has effectively ended isn't really helping anyone. It
will not reduce doping among amateur racers. After all, they know their
phones will not be tapped and that some substances cannot be traced, or that
some tests are too expensive for local races. But to extrapolate the
toned-down reaction of disappointment that is currently the norm in Europe
to indifference to what happens to 'the children' is way off. Doping among
pro riders appears to be a fact of life - acknowledging that does not imply
cruelty to children.

Kurgan Gringioni said:

Curtis L. Russell said:

In the end, bicycle racing is still just bicycle racing. Its not

even

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

the most important reason for riding a bike. And riding a bike

isn't

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

the most important thing that even I will do this week.

Do I think there is drug abuse in bicycle racing? Yes. Do I condone
that drug abuse? No. Is there an effective way for me to try to

combat

Quoted message said:

that drug abuse? No. Is there any way for me to really know who is

or

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

isn't doing drugs? No. So is it of value for me to spend a lot of

time

Quoted message said:

worrying about it or losing sleep? No.

<snip>

Dumbass -

You nailed it.

He nailed it's value to him. Nothing more, nothing less. The value he
places on something has no effect on the value I place on it, unless we
are considering a transaction. Your opinion is that racing has minimal
value compared to the big issues. It does have considerable value in
what it adds to the quality of my life. Therefore I value it fairly
highly. It's eqiuvalent to saying that music, art, etc that doesn't
directly address the bigger stuff doesn't have a lot of value. Using
that argument it probably provides less than cycling because that at
least provides a fair amount of exercise. They are just entertainment
too when you come down to it. Entertainment and stimulation is very
important to our quality of lfe. Cycling provides that for a lot of
people here.
Bill C

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I choose to place a very high value on fair competition and the

health

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

of the children that I am involved with. That being the case, doping

is

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

not acceptable to me in the sport I have chosen to value.

Quoted message said:

Well said!!

Ditto. But... I don't lose any sleep over athletes/sports stars
doping.
For some reason some people do.... Why?
Cheating sucks in sports. Cheaters suck. It's all an entertainment
game.
Not worth losing any sleep over though.

Athletes who dope are stupid, ignorant (!), and cheats.
THEY ARE forgivable nonetheless.

-Ken

Jonathan v.d. Sluis said:

"Steven Bornfeld" <[email hidden]> schreef in bericht
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

...As far as doping is concerned, you touch on the point that I find most
compelling (and one I have seldom heard acknowledged by Europeans who
seem to be more tolerant of doping) and that is that children are being
forced to make these decisions (and worse, sometimes these decisions are
being made for them) before they have the legal or moral maturity to
make them.

Steve

I'm tolerant in a way - although I would like to know what the consequences
would be if I somehow became intolerant - and definitely European. You are
very wrong. The tolerance you mention is mostly directed towards the big
cases that get a lot of attention, not the doping that is used by the
younger and amateur riders. Ofcourse nobody likes it if Museeuw gets caught,
but at the same time there is a general awareness that a two-year suspension
of his career after it has effectively ended isn't really helping anyone. It
will not reduce doping among amateur racers. After all, they know their
phones will not be tapped and that some substances cannot be traced, or that
some tests are too expensive for local races. But to extrapolate the
toned-down reaction of disappointment that is currently the norm in Europe
to indifference to what happens to 'the children' is way off. Doping among
pro riders appears to be a fact of life - acknowledging that does not imply
cruelty to children.

Perhaps it is unfair to paint all Europeans with the same brush for
having observed here a general lack of concern with the pervasiveness of
the problem. Perhaps you see a difference (whether implied or explicit)
with regard to control of dangerous drugs among underage athletes, and
for all I know kids really don't get their hands on these drugs. For
me, it is hard to square the attitude that adult racers have the moral
prerogative to do what they will because it is (after all) their body,
and at the same time assume that kids will not get the message that this
is what is expected in order to race well. I certainly have no
confidence that amateur coaches will make this distinction either.
If you have reason to believe that these drugs are in fact being kept
from children because there is an awareness of their medical danger (to
say nothing of the moral issues Bill brings up), then I'm happy to hear it.

Steve

Bill C said:

He nailed it's value to him. Nothing more, nothing less. The value he
places on something has no effect on the value I place on it, unless

we

Quoted message said:

are considering a transaction. Your opinion is that racing has

minimal

Quoted message said:

value compared to the big issues. It does have considerable value in
what it adds to the quality of my life. Therefore I value it fairly
highly. It's eqiuvalent to saying that music, art, etc that doesn't
directly address the bigger stuff doesn't have a lot of value. Using
that argument it probably provides less than cycling because that at
least provides a fair amount of exercise. They are just entertainment
too when you come down to it. Entertainment and stimulation is very
important to our quality of lfe. Cycling provides that for a lot of
people here.

Dumbass -

Ya, bike racing is entertainment and exercise.

Anyone who dopes is valuing it too highly. Anyone who spends emotional
energy on the dopers is also valuing it too highly.

Dopers are losers. So are crusaders against dopers.
Just my opinion.

K. Gringioni.

The inherent value of something (anything) is what people are willing
to pay for it. You don't value racing that highly, so you are willing
to pay a low price (if any price at all) for success.

It only matters to those who have similar perceptions of value. The
friction exists when two sets of people (who place the same value on
winning) take two different approaches on how to get what they want.
The cheaters and the non-cheaters.

So you are correct in one respect: The only people who should be
[censored] are those clean folks who have half a chance at winning bike
races. It sounds like Decanio is perhaps the only rider who fits that
profile today.

The inherent value of something (anything) is what people are willing
to pay for it. You don't value racing that highly, so you are willing
to pay a low price (if any price at all) for success.

It only matters to those who have similar perceptions of value. The
friction exists when two sets of people (who place the same value on
winning) take two different approaches on how to get what they want.
The cheaters and the non-cheaters.

So you are correct in one respect: The only people who should be
[censored] are those clean folks who have half a chance at winning bike
races. It sounds like Decanio is perhaps the only rider who fits that
profile today.

Quoted message said:

The inherent value of something (anything) is what people are willing
to pay for it. You don't value racing that highly, so you are willing
to pay a low price (if any price at all) for success.

That would generally not be the inherent or intrinsic value of
something, but would be a value, whether or not you want to call it
market, transactional, whatever. If three or more people are going to
disagree on the value, it isn't very inherent.

Inherent or intrinsic values may not apply easily to bicycle racing or
racers. To the extent that it does, it would not be between two
people, but within the largest context possible - perhaps at the
societal level. At that level bicycle racing IMO has relatively low
intinsic or inherent value, and lower than simple bicycle riding for
exercise or commerce. All IMO, as some would say it would have an
inherent value that transcends any one society. Can't quite buy that.

Bicycle racing may have high inherent value to an individual, but I
would argue that it would be because an overriding 'other' imbues it
with that value - i.e. for that individual it is their lifestyle and
lifestyle has high inherent value. Just as some see NASCAR racing as
having high inherent value.

A simple question whether or not it is bicycle racing or some 'other'
that passes its inherent value to bicycling that makes up that value
is whether or not you could adjust to the loss of bicycle racing by
moving the same effort, emotions and attitude to another endeavor. If
so, it isn't bicycle racing that has the inherent value, its what
bicycle racing represents to you.

Example extant: ice hockey in the U.S. - essentially a tag group on
ESPN score wire that gets in the way of the real scores, like arena
football. Some have had a problem with its absence, some have adjusted
easily, and the other 90% didn't notice.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

I'm going to disagree with you on who can and should be [censored]. I'm
an official. It's my job to see that races are fair and safe.
Unsupervised doping is neither, and if it's supervised it's still not
fair and is still outside the rules.
My other concern is for young racers, including my own, and other kids
out there that I've really grown to like. When the picture in front of
them is one where they feel that they have to dope to have any shot at
a career in what they love that is a huge problem for me. I think
that's pretty much the picture we have today, and ignoring it, or
saying it's not our problem doesn't change it. I think that the impact
of drugs in cycling is more immediate and effective than in anything
other than power based sports like football. I think we should be doing
everything possible to not make a kid face the choice of giving up what
they love, or doping.
Bill C

"B Lafferty" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Bill C" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Everything is a question of relative value.

Don't dare let Jim Flom see this. You sound like a possible convert to
Goedelism.

I will resist dismantling Bill C's more general philosophical statementse,
partly because it's begging to be done in almost troll-like terms, and
partly because I am too happy to bother. Relativism has been alive and well
quite independently of contemporary applications of your friend Kurt.
Although his theorem can be stated and proved in a rigorously mathematical
way, what it seems to say is that rational thought can never penetrate to
the final ultimate truth. Neato. Revelation is a cool thing.

Loveable as ever,

JF

"Only Christianity makes men both happy and lovable: the code of the
gentleman does not allow you to be both happy and lovable." -- Blaise
Pascal

"Bill C" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Since this, perspective, morals, and how they all figure into the
wider world keep coming up in the doping threads, but nobody is
discussing what they really mean, and are.
My take it that 99.9% of the population NEVER seriously contemplate
these issues.
My opinion is that NOTHING has inherent value, not my life, not yours,
not anything. The value of an object or concept is what people choose
to assign to it, and this is never universal.

You're right in that value is not inherent -- it comes from outside.

< military illustration snipped >

Richard Posner is a judge on the 7th circuit court of appeals in Chicago.
He's a judge, a law Professor, and an author, and he's also managed to write
about three dozen books along the way. His latest is Catastrophe: Risk and
Response, and in it he describes the risks of certain catastrophic disasters
(tsunamis, asteroids, bio-medical) and their impact economically,
politically, and in terms of lives lost.

In his scenarios, the cost-benefit of taking certain steps to assess risk
sometimes assigns a dollar value to human life. The dollar value of a North
American under Posner's formula is about $7 million US. Posner said that
the value varied according to the earning power and economics of their host
countries, so other, poorer countries, apparently have less valuable people.

Quoted message said:

People place much higher value on the lives that touch theirs, it's a
survival trait.

"One death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic." -- Joseph Stalin.

Quoted message said:

Everything is a question of relative value.

In context, I have no idea why Brian would think I'd disagree with you.

Quoted message said:

Bicycle racing is very important to all of us here based on what it
provides to our quality of life, whether you want to admit it or not.
We choose to engage in, and dedicate resources to this rather than
other "more important" things. Therefore those things are not as
important to us as racing is.
I choose to place a very high value on fair competition and the health
of the children that I am involved with. That being the case, doping is
not acceptable to me in the sport I have chosen to value.
Rant off

Two different roads to the same destination: doping is wrong. Gee, the
things Brian cold do with that...

JF

Bill C said:

I'm going to disagree with you on who can and should be [censored]. I'm
an official. It's my job to see that races are fair and safe.
Unsupervised doping is neither, and if it's supervised it's still not
fair and is still outside the rules.
My other concern is for young racers, including my own, and other

kids

Quoted message said:

out there that I've really grown to like. When the picture in front

of

Quoted message said:

them is one where they feel that they have to dope to have any shot

at

Quoted message said:

a career in what they love that is a huge problem for me.

<snip>

Dumbass -

Face the fact that you can't do anything about it.

If that happens, then you can use your valuable energy on more
productive pursuits, things that you actually have control over.
Crusading vs. the brick wall will only make you unhappy.

Then again, who am I to say whether you should be wasting your time and
emotional energy? It is your prerogative to throw it away.
K. Gringioni.