tfowler11
1yr ago
Does Amazon Studios make a profit?
If Amazon Studios makes a series or a movie or a mini-series and it shows on Amazon Prime is there even a way to tell if it makes a profit? A lot of people get Prime for free shipping. Even if it was all about video and other benefits where not an issue, it can be hard to determine what content is driving subscriptions. Sure Amazon knows how many people are watching each of its shows and movies on Prime. But something you decide to watch after you have Prime isn't necessarily what caused you to get Prime.
There is also the pricing issue for the show, how much Studios gets from Prime. In some companies internal production wouldn't even be a separate profit center. They would know Studios cost, but there wouldn't actually be a price they get for it unless they sell it externally. My understanding is that this is not the case with Amazon, that the different elements of the company sell their services to each other in a similar manner to selling services to an external customer. But if the execs made a strategic decision that Rings of Power was going to be a "flagship" for Prime Video they might not have shopped it around to other companies and made Prime Video outbid those companies in order to get the content so even if there is some internal price its not necessarily a real market price and could be arbitrarily set to whatever. Set it high and Prime Video doesn't do as well but Studios rakes in big bucks (even if the show doesn't do well, at least as long as Prime Video keeps paying for it).
tfowler11
1yr ago
It could be presented as the work of a rogue faction, but not as easily as the Liberty Incident could be presented a mistake (even if it was not, even more so it it was a mistake). Also a rouge faction would not completely remove the diplomatic fallout even if that explanation was believed (although it could possibly reduce it, perhaps significantly).
Mostly though it just doesn't seem to be rational on a risk/reward basis. No gas was being sold through either of those pipelines. Longer term Germany was planning to move away from all Russian gas (even if the Russians are willing to continue to sell) in a couple of years. The gain to Ukraine is zero very short term, looks to be zero long term, and is uncertain and not huge in-between.
tfowler11
1yr ago
It was more of a revolution than a coup, and it doesn't seem at all like she engineered it, instead of coming in later and trying to take control and get some credit for what happened.
As for decertifying it, the US had been pressuring Germany to do so. Biden could have said "Germany will decertify it" but he wanted to make a statement where it was the US or him doing something rather than Germany, and also probably wouldn't want to announce Germany's policy before they did. Wanting an active and tough sounding statement he could have said "we'll make Germany decertify it" but that could have pissed off Germany, and possibly have even sabotaged the effort to get it decertified.
As for mind reading, its no closer to that than thinking he meant that it would be blown up.
"Germany is the enemy here" was very unlikely to be what he was thinking.
Germany will have enough gas to not freeze in the winter if they (as I suspect they will) prioritize residential over industry. That will have a heavy short term impact on their industrial production (and risk losing some markets for a smaller long term impact). But its not deindustrializing, which would imply that they would have no industry, or at least much less industry, afterwards.
tfowler11
1yr ago
The "he meant I'd blow it up" explanation sounds like trying to fit in a more spectacular or otherwise preferred explanation in. Biden had been trying to get it decertified, and it was in fact decertified. Is it possible he meant something else? Sure. But there isn't any good reason to think so. And trying to get it decertified fits more with talking about it, than a covert operation that you would want to keep covert.
As for multiple bombs being difficult to keep completely secret, to the extent that's true it applies to everyone.
tfowler11
1yr ago
The quotes are pretty meaningless. "Bring an end to it" meant to get it decertified. And it wasn't said about Nord Stream 1. The Thank you, only implies that he believed that the US did it and is happy that (he thinks) they did. Just one person's opinion. As for heavily controlled, while its not an ocean, there is still a lot of water out there. A sub, or a nondescript looking boat with divers could go the area without attracting notice. Confirmed that there was an explosion != confirmed that someone planted explosives or used a weapon against it. And explosion is a rapid expansion of material, which can happen without C4, TNT, ect. The size of the explosion could be an argument against methane hydrates but not just that there was an explosion.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Yes by decertifying it and never bringing it online, as stated by someone who wanted to sound tough rather than measured and technical.
tfowler11
1yr ago
The Liberty incident either was, or if it wasn't can plausibly be presented as, a mistake rather than a plot.
tfowler11
1yr ago
The more knowledgeable and wise parts of their leadership knew that a win against the US would be very unlikely. Others understood they were at a serious disadvantage but thought that they could win a decisive battle or three before the US was fully spooled up and that the US would lose its determination and settle. Then you have the racist fools in their leadership who thought that Japanese were so superior in fighting spirit that they could overcome any materiel advantage.
They must not be given any reason to use them.
What would be a reason to use them? The US using its nukes sure, or a drive on Moscow that they find themselves unable to stop conventionally. The US sending some HIMARS and HARMS and Javelins to Ukraine? Not so much. It isn't an existential threat to Russia, but the US nuclear response to a Russian nuclear attack would be.
tfowler11
1yr ago
And even if it was US, and UK personnel doing almost all the work and the Ukrainians "just pulling the triggers" (and I agree with you it isn't). It wouldn't exactly be an unprecedented level of involvement in post WWII wars were one major power was fighting a small power that was receiving a lot of aid from another major power. In Korea, and to a lesser extent Vietnam, Soviet pilots fought the USAF. Also China, while not an open full blown combatant like they were in Korea, had construction and AA units in North Vietnam. In neither of these cases was it considered a reason to go full WWIII on either the USSR or China.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Yes you can send bombs down pipelines. Pipeline "pigs" are sent down all the time. You could attach a bomb to one of those or you could create a new device specifically for the purpose of moving the bomb.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Attacking a target in Russia (assuming it actually was a Ukrainian government operation which I don't think is really a settled issue) is less risky than attacking your benefactors. Germany isn't the top supporter of Ukraine but I think its fourth after the US, Poland, and UK. Also attacking an EU and NATO country isn't exactly going to be positive for the support of the rest of them or probably even the US.
The other problem for Ukraine attacking is that it would be rather hard for them to pull off. Its not like they have assets in the Baltics. Its not impossible, they could have smuggling in some bombs and given them to some expert deep water divers who then go out on some civilian boat in to the area and blow up the pipelines, esp. if they started planning the op months ago. Still it would be more difficult for them than for Russia or Germany (easiest as they have direct access to the pipeline from land), the US, Poland, or the Baltic states.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Biden was talking about getting Germany to decertify Nord Stream 2, which happened shortly after the Russian attack.
tfowler11
1yr ago
If they try to make you fuck off, and esp. if they had the actual power to kick you out of the activity, then that might better be called cultural appropriation than what often gets attacked under that label.
If some white American wears traditional Chinese clothes or makes tacos or learns traditional African dances, or teaches yoga, or whatever they aren't *appropriating *from anyone else. The do what they want to do, and anyone who did it before is still free to do so.
But to the extent they could take over a campaign or a gaming venue, and then effectively kick the people that where there before them out of it, that could be considered appropriation.
tfowler11
1yr ago
I'm not sure that it works that way so much. If a group is influential and powerful so as to be a risk of taking control and imposing authoritarian control they are less likely to be effectively censored. Its easier to shut up the weak.
If the though is that some day way down the line some toxic authoritarian ideas which are weak now might eventually take hold if we don't nip them in the bud, it seems to me that depriving them of free speech might backfire on more than one level.
1 - That people are trying to shut up claims can be taken by those adjacent to those clams as evidence that there is truth in what they are saying, and that the powerful are trying to suppress the truth.
2 - If you drive people with hateful ideas in to the shadows you don't recognize the people who have those ideas as much.
3 - Also when driven to the sidelines and shadows they face no opposition and contradiction in those shadows.
4 - The move to censor ideas is directly itself a deprivation of rights and and make society less free.
5 - The fact that people can shut up speech that is called authoritarian or that supposedly puts rights at risk creates and incentive to give more and more speech and ideas the label of "authoritarian" or "dangerous to our rights", making problem 4 worse and potentially creating a situation where existing competing political blocks that aren't' on the far fringes, to label each other as falling under those categories.
6 - The general acceptance that people and ideas can reasonably be shut up by force sets a precedent that empowers authoritarians should they take power.
tfowler11
1yr ago
And generally you can just keep reading their articles if your delete your NYT's cookies.
tfowler11
1yr ago
I am not aware of what Meloni thinks or says about the Russia sanctions
She supports sanctions and arming Ukraine.
ROME, July 22 (Reuters) - Italy will keep sending arms to Ukraine and back Kyiv in its war against Russia if the conservative bloc wins a forthcoming national election, the head of the most popular party in the alliance has said.
The far-right Brothers of Italy, led by Giorgia Meloni, has been one of the few Italian parties that has wholeheartedly endorsed Prime Minister Mario Draghi's decision to ship weapons to Ukraine, even though it was in opposition to his government.
both Brothers of Italy and the League have condemned the war, Salvini, who once heaped praise on Vladimir Putin, even signing a cooperation pact with the Russian president’s United Russia party in 2017, said the sanctions were not working and were instead “bringing Europe and Italy to their knees”.
Meloni, meanwhile, argues that the sanctions are working, citing a significant slowdown in Russia’s GDP growth prospects, and since the start of the war she has been resolute in her support for sending arms to Ukraine while reassuring the international community that she is pro-Europe and pro-Atlanticist.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Erik Hoel on Effective Altruism, Utilitarianism, and the Repugnant Conclusion - https://youtube.com/watch?v=PCnkJ1y9kys
Russ Roberts talks with Erik Hoel. They both think overall that effective altruism does good, but they think it, and strong/exclusive forms of act utilitarianism have some strong problems. Most of what they mention will not be new to many people here, they talk about the repugnant conclusion, and the difficulty of predicting results, and comparing the utility of different outcomes. They mention Yudkowsky discussion of a huge number of trivial harms being compared to one severe harm (specifically a googleplex people getting hiccups compared to one person being torn apart and killed by a shark). Despite the fact that most of it wasn't new to me I still found it to be an interesting discussion.
I think I agree with them on what I called strong/exclusive act utilitarianism (they didn't use that term they just called it utilitarianism). What I mean by strong/exclusive is that you don't consider other moral principles, and that you give an extremely heavy weight to utilitarian calculations. OTOH I don't think totally ignoring consequences, or even specifically utility is a good idea either. I think your actions should aim for outcomes with higher utility. I have a mixed moral view both deontological and consequential. Sometimes the two conflict. When that happens I don't have some well developed overarching theory to choose between them its more of an intuitive thing. If an act I consider to be immoral on deontological grounds is necessary to prevent some horrible catastrophe, I'd probably say it still is immoral but you should do it anyway.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Boomers were born as early as 1946. Its more GenX that came of age in the 80s
tfowler11
1yr ago
Using percentage of GDP makes sense in certain circumstances, such as when your trying to analyze the burden the spending puts on the economy but I agree it makes less sense when your comparing national education spending to see who spends more, or when you considering whether spending is increasing over time and how rapid the increase is.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Hasn't the official narrative for the past couple decades been that the reason schools in the U.S. underperform is due to lack of funding?
Yes. And that despite the fact that a massive increase in school spending in staffing per pupil, failed to do anything noticeably in terms of increasing educational achievement. - https://www.cato.org/blog/obama-vs-romney-public-school-jobs (old data now but it shows a decades long trend).
Later that spending increase slowed, and in some places even had short term reversals, but still generally kept an upward trend (and again I'm talking about real per pupil spending so ts not inflation or more students causing the increase).
Germany has other way to get Russian gas besides Nord Stream. 2 was never brought fully online (it was ready and tested, so it could have been used, but it was decertified and never used). 1 was the biggest pipeline supplying Germany, but not the only one or even the only one that Germany used to buy Russian gas.
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