Think back to when you were a young child and how you imagined you were one of the many superheroes you watched on the Saturday morning cartoons. In your mind you were a perfectly chiseled titan, strong enough to lift a skyscraper right out of its foundation. Or maybe you were able to run at the speed of light, or read minds. Children everywhere have dreamt of having supernatural strength and abilities. As adults, those who study advocate for, and work towards enhancing human abilities are called transhumanists. (Humanity+) In today’s world, the technology and science of pharmacology are expanding the limits of human cognitive and physical ability; however, personal desire, and not the transhumanism movement, is driving force behind these feats.
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Many of the interviewees brushed off any notion of adverse health effects they experienced as a result of using the steroids. They also seemed apathetic to the seriousness of legal punishments that were attached to the use and trafficking of what the federal government considers a Schedule III drug. Despite evidence of the negative effects of steroid usage, the chief concern held by recreational steroid users appeared to be the financial burden of obtaining the drugs. Both articles gave considerable insight into the culture of consumers of performance enhancing drugs, their motivations, and concerns (or lack thereof). What can be established from the analyses of the users of these drugs is that the recreational use of performance enhancers, whether physical or mental, is hardly an overall “movement for improving humanity” (Talbot), but an individual means of obtaining a desire that would otherwise require an undesirable or impossible lifestyle. This is evident when comparing the types of users focused on in “Brain Gain” and “Getting Huge, Getting …show more content…
The recreational bodybuilders using the steroids insist on doing what is incredibly difficult for most of the populations. Not only do they strive for enormous muscle mass, but they want an inconceivable level of vascularity that is almost impossible to obtain naturally. These average weight lifters have no financial motivation to achieve such conditions. They aren’t world-class competitors, and it’s not likely that they will gain any prominence outside of their fellow bodybuilders at their gym. In essence, like the students Alex describes, they have no real need to use performance enhances, yet they still do.
Many of the interviewees brushed off any notion of adverse health effects they experienced as a result of using the steroids. They also seemed apathetic to the seriousness of legal punishments that were attached to the use and trafficking of what the federal government considers a Schedule III drug. Despite evidence of the negative effects of steroid usage, the chief concern held by recreational steroid users appeared to be the financial burden of obtaining the drugs. Both articles gave considerable insight into the culture of consumers of performance enhancing drugs, their motivations, and concerns (or lack thereof). What can be established from the analyses of the users of these drugs is that the recreational use of performance enhancers, whether physical or mental, is hardly an overall “movement for improving humanity” (Talbot), but an individual means of obtaining a desire that would otherwise require an undesirable or impossible lifestyle. This is evident when comparing the types of users focused on in “Brain Gain” and “Getting Huge, Getting …show more content…
The recreational bodybuilders using the steroids insist on doing what is incredibly difficult for most of the populations. Not only do they strive for enormous muscle mass, but they want an inconceivable level of vascularity that is almost impossible to obtain naturally. These average weight lifters have no financial motivation to achieve such conditions. They aren’t world-class competitors, and it’s not likely that they will gain any prominence outside of their fellow bodybuilders at their gym. In essence, like the students Alex describes, they have no real need to use performance enhances, yet they still do.