I think probably the single most important thing that nobody is saying is that Google have ALL the numbers on this decision and they are not stupid, so it would be silly to assume this will work against their interests. Not only do they know how many people use chrome, their ad network gives them insight into ALL browsers.

Dude if there’s one thing we’ve done it’s listen to far too much of the drivel that man has to say.

Thank you for taking the time to say it all out. I saw this headline and my reaction was: who’s going to tell him: it never was one!

It is de facto political because people bring their politics to it, and because people are who they are. It is also overtly organized around the nation states of the athletes which is essentially political. But the spirit of it is to set politics aside and compete in a sportsmanlike way on an even playing field. You might say who cares what the “spirit” is versus the facts, and you’d have a point, but then again I’m not sure we should characterize the event by how terrorists choose to abuse it, either.

Congratulations for actually saying your piece instead of just “lol bruh.” You just took part in a discussion!

Well that was a perfectly substance-free reply.

It is, though there are more forces than that at play.

Competition is supposed to help lower prices. If one tennis racket manufacturer overcharges, then another can charge less and steal all their sales.

But if landlord #1 owns an house and overcharges while landlord #2 owns a house and does not, it’s not like landlord #2 gets all the tenants. They still just have one house. There is no way for one of them to win by benefitting tenants. They can however both win by both hurting tenants.

I guess where there is too much housing, one apartment building can keep full occupancy by charging less, while another building across the street might have 60% occupancy because they overcharge. But rarely is there too much supply anymore. And rarely are there such head-to-head commoditized situations.

TBH even as a man I’d prefer to sit not with other men. They are bigger, for one thing. And overall less considerate, though of course they have no monopoly on that.

For people who care about medal count (btw not me) it’s the whole point though to show that you are the biggest with the most people and the most resources. Not that you made the most of what you had or that you have the purest spirit.

Raw industrial capacity and soldier count have decided wars after all, so showing you can amass the most / biggest can hardly be said to be an empty boast. It’s a threat, really.

I think it’s a stretch to call international competition “political.” But if you insist on doing that, then it’s silly to claim that they are supposed to be apolitical when every athlete competes under a flag.

It’s a great case of how tempting doubt is, and how people will automatically believe that accusations wouldn’t be made if something were not happening, so we have a 55% starting bias to believe “guilty.”

In college I was once the object of a salacious rumor that was 100% fabricated by someone and spread throughout my circles in school. By the time I heard about it, friends-of-friends and the entire faculty in my department had as well. Closer friends said things like “I never bothered to ask you about it because I figured it wasn’t true. And if it was true I didn’t care. Is it true?”

It was very frustrating how ready everyone was to believe it. People not very close to me ALL believed it. To this day I bet some people I know doubt whether I have just been lying this whole time to defend myself. But I know what I did and didn’t do, and I learned that people will absolutely get up one day and decide to manufacture something out of thin air and then spend energy spreading it around as if true.

I no longer think “well something must have happened if there’s this much hubbub about it…”

I didn’t realize anyone earned anything on Twitter ever. Is this just video views? Is this new?

Also, fuck Musk, etc.