Tuesday, June 3
Sports' brave new world
Tom Farrey
ESPN.com
If you watched the recent Outside the Lines television special on the "Athlete of the 21st Century" or read the first four installments of the companion online series on ESPN.com, you probably realize by now that new scientific advances have the ability to dramatically impact the world of sports.
|  |
| How far would you go to make your child a champion? |
But how -- and how much -- it will change depends in part on human nature and the choices we will make when offered the use of new technologies.
Today, ESPN.com takes the predictions of experts in various fields and presents a series of three hypothetical scenarios that people could face later this century. (And just so you know we're not pulling these scenarios out of the thinnest air, just thin air, we invite you to hit the terms with the magnifying glass icons in each segment).
Of course, predicting the ethics of future humans is about as reliable as predicting the future itself. We are creatures of here and now, and it is difficult to fully understand the environment of 100, 50 or even 10 years in the future.
Still, the exercise hints at the weird times and hard choices ahead. At the end of each scenario, answer the question in the poll at the bottom.
The future of sports is in your hands -- whichever one cradles your computer mouse. What are you going to do?
Sports in the Year 2010 | 2050 | 2100