Deadspin reported:
A who’s who of extremely online investors pitched in to fund a series of events called the Enhanced Games, which describes itself as “the 21st Century Olympics without drug testing.” The list includes Christian Angermayer, venture capitalist, Balaji Srinivasan, former Coinbase CTO, and Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and frenemy of Elon Musk.
“Unlike the Olympic Games, Enhanced believes that excellence deserves to be rewarded,” said Aron D’Souza, President of the Enhanced Games, in a press release. “Support from the world’s leading venture capitalists enables us to create the structures that pay athletes fairly.”
Enhanced promises its upcoming show will be a “world-class sporting event” that’s fit for the modern era.
The juiced games are a perfect fit for our bizarre world where social media harms children and billionaires have so much money they want to sling it at athletic cheats.
“Enhanced will be adopting a sophisticated safety protocol which puts the athlete’s health first—including comprehensive health checks before and after competitions.”
That brought to mind FTX Sam Bankman-Fried's testimony before Congress, just months before FTX imploded:
We (FTX) also have strong customer protections under our model. It is a safe and conservative risk model which would have helped to alleviate some of the instances that we have seen with recent futures exchanges like the LME nickel fiasco earlier this year by having the collateral pre-funded at the clearinghouse rather than relying on credit, and having a real-time risk engine.
We (FTX) also have enhanced customer protections. We have all of the customer protections that exist on traditional features exchanges and on FCMs because we understand deeply that we have a responsibility to ensure that if there is direct access to the platform, that users are still afforded the same level of protection. On top of that, we have further customer protections, suitability, and transparency than what you find on most other platforms.
All that talk from SBF was a bald faced lie. The fraudster sits in jail awaiting his sentence.
The premise of juiced games is nonsensical. Consider the health risks of steroid use:
Anabolic steroids can cause severe, long-lasting, and in some cases, irreversible damage. They can lead to early heart attacks, strokes, liver tumors, kidney failure, and psychiatric problems.
Enhanced Games website had another nonsensical statement under its values:
Because we embrace capitalism, we reject corruption.
Billionaire Peter Thiel is a private equity underwriter (PEU) via Founders Fund, Mithral Capital and Thiel Capital. PEUs often turn affiliate Human Resources into People Abuse departments.
Flashback to 2011 when "modern" private equity was accelerating:
I have seen so many people -- particularly those in their 50s - 70s -- taken apart by what has happened in their industry as greed has hollowed out the economy. These are people took pride in their jobs and held themselves to this invisible standard that we all just took for granted, but is being wiped out.
The Carlyle Group scares me more than anything I've ever seen on Wall Street. It seems to exist to corrupt politicians and it's hard to know who they even represent.
I watched a video interview of (David) Rubenstein and his arrogance is really beyond tolerance. He was going on about the debt ceiling problem and how there would need to be cuts in services and higher taxes. When the reporter asked him about tax on carried interest he turned really disdainful and said that this "only" amounted to $22 billion over some number of years and this was not serious money. Boy, nothing like everybody doing their small part to save the country from oblivion!
Asking these gits to pay more in taxes puts them in a PEU rage.
Is Enhanced Games another "let's see what we can get away with" experiment for the "live forever" billionaire crowd? Rest assured, many will be harmed by their greed.
Update 2-2-24: My wise friend wrote:
"The juice must flow. All the rules and disciplines that keep things balanced must be removed for the mighty. But those that need help must have it taken away because it makes you stronger."
Update 2-4-24: Local horse tested positive for meth after winning race in Ohio. Innovators are all around.
