Skip to content

Comment on Thoughts on Lance Armstrong [video]parent

Comments

> Second -- people don't really fault Lance Armstrong for doping.

Of course they do. Why wouldn't they? He's a cheat. The fact that many other people were cheating too is irrelevant to how he's judged for that. That just makes professional cycling as a whole look terrible too.

Even if he had been a saint in every other way, he's still a disgraceful cheat.

Well, Ariely in this video is making the point that, as far as human nature is concerned, it does matter that everyone else cheated. It makes it socially acceptable.

If I were an honest competitive cyclist at the Tour de France level I would care that he doped. But if you believe the common wisdom, there were almost no such people :)

Anyway, Barry Bonds doped and so did a million other athletes. My point was that Lance Armstrong took it to an entirely different level by trying to destroy others to cover up what he did, and what he KNEW that others knew he did. It is really beyond brazen.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.