Talk:1173: Steroids

Does anyone know what that 'something' is? That's what I came here to find out... :/ --NeatNit (talk) 11:57, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I had a lot of ideas, but I don't know. It might be a molecule, some sort of portal transmitting sound, a star, a future life form.

--Jaap-Jan (talk) 12:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

My first instinct was that Megan was talking to the asterisk that gets put next to world records held by athletes who have been suspected of using steroids.

Smperron (talk) 17:08, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

It looks to me like the God from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Though that God would know all about the steroid scandal, presumably. 98.234.113.134 00:19, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

It's the crystalline life-form from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Home Soil". When not killing red shirts, it keeps taunting humans that they're "ugly bags of mostly water".Columbus Admission (talk) 00:28, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the "artificial boundary" isn't so artificial. There is a clear difference between food chemicals, which are healthy for us, vs steroid chemicals, which cause all sorts of health problems. Of course, then Megan would have to explain that we have limited lifespans and we greatly value our quality of life, and these steroids would decrease our quality of life. 70.31.159.230 13:41, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

So on the one side of this "clear boundary" you'd have something like Big Macs (food, good for us) and on the other you'd have vitamin supplements (non-food chemicals, bad)?

Like trying to line up all the people in the world and draw a clear line to divide blacks from whites, it's too much of a gradual spectrum to be anything other than arbitrary. 67.51.59.66 17:27, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I explained my point very poorly. "Good" performance enhancing chemicals (like healthy foods) tend to also make us more healthy while "bad" performance enhancing chemicals (like steroids) cause all sorts of health problems. Athletes are generally encouraged to take the "good" stuff while avoiding the "bad" stuff. Of course there's a huge grey area in between (including non-performance-enhancing Big Macs), but I think steroids clearly fall outside this grey area. 70.31.159.230 19:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

|Um, you do realize that the human body itself creates "Steroids"? Which are also in found within the plants and animals that we eat. (Especially soybeans.) Testosterone is supposedly one of these "bad" steroids, which cause many problems for humans. 69.181.140.191 12:28, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I suppose my point requires further explanation; devil's advocates will never be satisfied. Testosterone isn't intrinsically "bad" for us (as you mentioned, it is an integral part of our chemistry), but taking significant amounts of it from external sources has been shown to damage our bodies' ability to produce it and/or regulate its levels, among other effects. Hence, taking steroids is bad for us. Compare that with healthy food, which is generally accepted to "increase" our athletic performance (compared with unhealthy food, or no food) without any serious avoidable side effects.

However, you do bring up the point of testosterone being present in some things we consider to count as "food". I guess there is a certain amount of testosterone you are allowed to ingest (for these contests) that cause a negligible effect. 70.31.159.230 13:21, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Blood doping is not the same as steroid use. -- ‎98.204.81.157 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Douglas Adams

Does anyone else feel that the title text has a strong Douglas Adams flavour? And if so, can we make that hard with a quote from one of his books?

It's a biblical reference, Genesis 3:19, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return", King James version.Jasqm (talk) 14:03, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

D.N.A. has been known to reference the bible:

-"In the beginning, the universe was created. This made a lot of people unhappy and has been widely regarded as a bad move."

-"And then one day, nearly two thousand years after one man was nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be if people were nice to each other for a change..."

Smperron (talk) 17:08, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

You're probably thinking of his quotes that reference digital watches and what a big mistake it was to leave the oceans (combined with the scene from the show where the guy walks back into the ocean).CityZen (talk) 21:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Ive said that Douglas Adams write for XKCD for years now...Notice if you change all the letters to their corresponding number (A=1, B=2, etc) and add them, you get 42 ;) 90.205.199.80 12:49, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Not just a Biblical reference, the comic is published on (western christian) Ash Wednesday... Patmiller (talk) 14:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)