Thoughts on Lance Armstrong [video]

http://danariely.com/2013/01/18/thoughts-on-lance-armstrong/

by kennyma • 14 years ago

20 18 14 years ago

danariely.com

AndrewWorsnop• 14 years ago

Is there a transcript?

rayiner• 14 years ago

Ugly couch, but I love Ariely and it's an interesting little talk.

justinator• 14 years ago

I like this guy a whole lot, too. Let's give this guy a mic!

clicks• 14 years ago

If anyone saw the Oprah interview, I think it's clear by now that Lance Armstrong is a sociopath. Even his admittance was a very calculated move intended to curb additional financial loss (even though it was supposed to be a tell-all interview, he chose not to talk about a handful of things; and a good half of things were straight lies: UCI gifts he made were not 'bribes', he did not use drugs after 2005, etc.). His appearance on Oprah was a calculated move to avoid jailtime and position himself for the coming onslaught of legal trouble.

chubot2• 14 years ago

I like Dan Ariely, and most of what he says in this video is true. However he doesn't address the whole Lance Armstrong story, and there is one correction to be made.

He says that it's possible that Lance Armstrong took EPO as a cancer patient, and that made it easier for him to keep taking it as a performance enhancing drug.

Lance tried a similar tactic in his interview last night -- he explained that his cancer changed him. It made him more of a bully, and more of a fighter, and he kind of justified taking testosterone since he had testicular cancer. However, Oprah had to point out that he was taking performance-enhancing drugs BEFORE he had cancer. So the cancer is a scapegoat.

Second -- people don't really fault Lance Armstrong for doping. I'm sure it's true that everybody was doping. And Ariely correctly points out that that makes it much easier for someone to justify to themselves.

What distinguished Armstrong is going over the top to destroy people who were telling the truth. He was vicious about attacking and suing people who told the truth, and trying to ruin their reputations, while he knew he was in the wrong. Oprah confronted him on this and he was like "oops ... sorry"

I watched the whole Oprah interview last night. I don't have a big interest in competitive cycling, nor have I really followed the Lance Armstrong story very much. But I did come away with the impression that he is emotionally "different" or verging on psychopathic. I don't want to venture too much into pop psychology, but he does seem to follow the stereotype of a "psychopath CEO". The only thing he cares about is results (and it worked spectacularly for a time), and he has literally no emotions about the tactics that got him there. I'm not trying to cast moral judgement, but just saying what is pretty apparent.

But in retrospect this is obvious... anyone who could so viciously and baldly and publicly lie for decades, when so many people knew otherwise (all the cyclists he rode with), has some weird psychology going on. It's not normal.

TillE• 14 years ago

> 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.

chubot2• 14 years ago

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.

brudgers2• 14 years ago

"But I did come away with the impression that he is emotionally "different" or verging on psychopathic."

Drugs don't change the fact that it takes a vicious competitor to win the Tour. Eddie Merckx was called "the cannibal."

jmix• 14 years ago

I always find these video logs to be a very inefficient way to communicate. Having watched through the whole thing, the main argument that Ariely is making here is that there is a much larger problem than just the "Lance Armstrong problem." People do these PEDs because they have a sense that "everyone else is doing it."

Now, it's not clear if everyone else was doing it in this case, or whether the crooks were convinced (falsely) that everyone else was doing it. Ariely doesn't draw this distinction, but it is critical. If you want to clean up the sport, it's not sufficient to make sure that everyone is clean. It has to be so sparkling clean that no one should even suspect that others could be cheating. Unless all the participants are convinced that everyone else is clean, they will have the motivation to cheat themselves, which in turn makes others cheat, and so forth.

And the vlog didn't get into Armstrong's psychology. I would have liked to hear how the cognitive dissonance between his private reality and public (fake) persona change his personality. I would suspect that, even if one does not begin the game as a sociopath, living for decades with a lie would turn one into a sociopath.

snogglethorpe• 14 years ago

> Now, it's not clear if everyone else was doing it in this case, or whether the crooks were convinced (falsely) that everyone else was doing it.

It's professional cycling... pretty much everybody that made it to the top was doing it.

Yeah there are probably exceptions, but the pervasiveness of doping in cycling is surreal. If you're actually in the top echelon and stand a chance of winning, there's a very good chance that some of your chief competitors are doping. Obviously this puts even good people in a real quandary...

defrost• 14 years ago

Bearing in mind that Lance Armstrong is as much a cyclist as Red Bull is an energy drink it might be of interest to watch an advertising and marketing centred discussion of whether the strategy of losing the doping war but winning the PR battle is a good one.

> Is there a point where running away is the right PR move? How much immunity does a cancer charity buy you? Why are his sponsors standing by their cycling-man?

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruenplanet/pages/s3583424.htm

Episode on Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/48928785 (Lance Armstrong discussion starts @ 3 minutes in)

rikacomet2• 14 years ago

Though, I'm believing it now that the confession closes a chapter, A few things still linger in my heart about this whole thing.

A. They still can't prove, how he did it, how he was not caught for so many years, and barely proved that he did it, which in itself is not concrete.

B. It appears he is being forced to make all these statements, to do what? So he can be allowed to come back to sports again, his life's passion. If I'm a sportsmen, of that degree, I might would be vulnerable to blackmail if they took my one passion away.

C. After I read his Wiki page, it appears, to be case of sour grapes for some of his competitors, who pursued these charges against him over and over again. I mean, ok, we know now they were right, but what before that? They were no forensic experts, all the accusations were based on doubt and jealousy back then.

D. There is something terribly wrong with how this case has been pursued legally, a lot of things don't sum up. Like until 2009, UCI had him clear in a row with a doping official, at least officially, meaning, if any doubts, they were not being actively pursued by UCI. The biggest bolts in this story were by 2 of his former subordinates, who were both "Fired" before turning hostile. And it was actually Times Newspaper, that followed it up with a reprint of a 2004 book in 2012 (8 years later), the same time when another newspaper 'interestingly' sued a sportsman, i.e Armstrong.

robinhowlett• 14 years ago

A. We know pretty well how he did it - all he needed to do was stay within the limits and there is considerable evidence that the UCI and testing labs were suggesting to him how to do that. When the UCI picked a max hematocrit number of 50%, it was an invitation to the athletes to dope up to that limit. When he came back to competition in 2009 & 2010, the USADA report clearly states that his blood passport profile shows almost certain non-legal manipulation.

B. He isn't being forced to do anything. He had the opportunity to challenge USADA's report in arbitration; he declined and again denied he had ever doped. Going on TV to speak with a talk-show host after you have retired is not a coerced move, especially to say that you have been lying for 15 years. Yes, he may want to return to some kind of competition (triathlons) and needs his life sentenced to be reduced to the minimum 8 years to do this. But oh look, he says the last time he ever doped was 2005 (not when he raced in 2009 or 2010, how about that?), which would mean he could return to sport in 2013.

C. George Hincapie never tested positive either, had an even longer career than Armstrong and was a long-time friend of Armstrong. He admitted to doping for years and testified against Lance. There's a rather simple truth here and it isn't driven by doubt and jealousy.

D. I'm not even sure what you are trying to say. But I imagine it is similar to arguments made before about scored rivals and journalists seeking vengeance. I've followed pro cycling for many years now; the truth is much more boring. The sport was rife with drugs, Armstrong would do anything to win and I don't think to this day he thinks he did anything truly wrong.

I watched the movie "Shattered Glass" two nights ago. It had this great scene:

Caitlin Avey: What the hell did you do to Steve? He called me from his car, hysterical. I asked him what was wrong, he said, "ask Chuck?" Chuck Lane: I fired him, okay? Not suspended, fired. Because this wasn't an isolated incident Caitlin. He cooked a dozen of them, maybe more. And we're going to have to go through them, you and I. We're going to have to go through all of them, now. Caitlin Avey: No, the only one was Hack Heaven. He told me that himself. Chuck Lane: If he were a stranger to you, if he was a guy you were doing a piece about, pretend that guy told you he'd only did it once. Would you take his word for it? Of course not! You'd dig and you'd bury him! And you'd feel offended if anyone told you not to.

rikacomet2• 14 years ago

I will check the movie out, well, I only said what I said, on a "what if" basis.

A. Indeed they have a idea of how he did it, but not exactly how, 7 years without getting caught is not something, you can only pull off with the little bit of sophistication you described.

B. He is being forced partially, from what I read, he has been given a lifetime ban from all competitive sports, unless he confesses it under oath and names accomplice.

C. Indeed its valid, what you said about Goerge Hincapie, but it is as same as saying, "You are a criminal if your neighbor is a criminal"

D. What I meant is that, that it was not UCI that were actively pursuing the case of Armstrong at least until 2009, but, it was reopened in 2012, after Times published a extract of a book written in 2004, which contained statements of Lance's ex-masseuse, who made these allegation without concrete proof herself, and was fired EARLIER for reasons unknown. The second big statement was by another Ex-employee, his personal trainer.

Check the Lance's wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Armstrong

donebizkit• 14 years ago

Irrelevant points. He tries to deflect the issue from Lance and he shouldn't. I don't care if Lance cheated. I don't care if any athlete cheats as long as they get their deserved penalties from their respective sports authorities. The issue here is the hypocrite image that Lance and his PR team drew to the rest of the world. Everyone through of him as superman. He sold his image as a believer and fighter while he was none of that. Again, I don't care about cheaters but I despise hypocrite preachers.

brudgers2• 14 years ago

We've heard of Lance Armstrong because his performances were entertaining. To pretend now as if our interest was his moral purity is disingenuous.

alpeb• 14 years ago

Lance says he wasn't caught because the drugs were already out of his system during the races. So was the doping just for training? I'm not clear on that part.

crazycatmum• 14 years ago

He was very controlled until he talked about his Son (fake or real tears?). His answers seemed text book and learnt. He is arrogant and seems incapable of grasping just how 'low' he's behaved . I feel sorry for his children who will forever be tainted with 'your dad's a cheat'. He should face criminal prosecution. This interview doesn't cut it. He's definately a Sociopath. I think it teaches us that if you weave a web of lies you can actually start believing them to be true. Crazycatmum warsash

Thoughts on Lance Armstrong [video]

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