9 ms·

I was wondering about whether this would happen. I am not enough of an expert to make a call on this either way of course, but if experts decided this was the

I was wondering about whether this would happen. I am not enough of an expert to make a call on this either way of course, but if experts decided this was the right call would it even be possible to cancel/reschedule the Olympics? Imagine the financial impact on Rio.

Kristine1975 11y ago
Imagine the financial impact on the manufacturers of performance-enhancing drugs and forged birth certificates (to make athletes seem older than they really are)! Edit: If the IOC is half as corrupt and greedy as the FIFA, canceling the olympics should be a financial plus for Brazil.
giarc 11y ago
I imagine Rio would be given the 2020 Summer Games. And then Tokyo would be moved to 2024 and so on. Just my guess though.
- tomp 11y ago
  Well, the fair outcome would be that Tokyo was cancelled altogether, if the allegations of corruptions [1] are true. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/11/tokyo-olympics-payment-diack-2020-games https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/11/tokyo-olympics...
  - big_youth 11y ago
    Wow, Japan is generally known as being clean and corruption free. I can only imagine the type of bribes Brazil and Russia handed out.
    - pound 11y ago
      clean - yes, but corruption free? corruption is everywhere. if you have powers and decisions making you'll get corruption. look at lobbying in US - that's pretty much buying decisions. huge corps giving money to presidential candidates in US now - are there no strings attached and no further expectations?
    - bsder 11y ago
      > Wow, Japan is generally known as being clean and corruption free. Huh? This is the home of the keiretsu and the yakuza, you know. Corruption among the political elite is a standard assumption among the Japanese.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mbreese 11y ago
Imagine the potential global financial impact of all of the visitors (and athletes) contracting Zika and bring that home with them to spread. Tough call...
- EGreg 11y ago
  Why is the FINANCIAL impact the biggest one to be considered?
  - 15charlimit 11y ago
    Because it's an objective unit of measurement. You can't objectively measure (or assign a value to) human suffering.
    - EGreg 11y ago
      It depends what you are measuring. If a city could increase its financial prosperity at the expense of poisoning its population (fracking may be a good example) would they do it? After all, if money is the only thing that matters then human health only matters insofar as it affects the flow of money. And if other factors compensate to preserve "financial health" then human health outcomes become expendable. If you could produce more meat cheaper at the expense of keeping animals in terrible conditions on factory farms, would you do it? After all, if money is all that matters the animal's suffering doesn't even enter the equation. How about increasing financial gain at the expense of destroying the natural environment (eg overfishing, dumping plastics and releasing all the carbon from the ground)? Grandchildren may have to pay the bill, but what if you had perfect knowledge and knew they'd be economically richer, but with worse health outcomes and lots of species gone exinct? Measuring implies a model, and the model makes assumptions about the world that may not be true, and the whole combination can be extremely harmful. Not to mention very human-centric (and "us" centric). As the Native American chief said: When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money
    - roel_v 11y ago
      Except that we do. We assign monetary values to human lives in actuarial models every day. The statistical value of a human live in the Netherlands when considering traffic safety was E700k in the last project I worked on, but this varies by purpose and over time. Furthermore, there are several international standard methods of quantifying the burden of disease, like the DALY and QALY. So yes, we can and we do 'objectively' (as in, per a standardized methodology) assign value to human suffering.
cypherpunks01 11y ago
Wikipedia lists the only previously cancelled Olympics as 1916 (WWI) and 1940 and 1944 (WWII). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cancelled_Olympic_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cancelled_Olympic_Gam...
- takno 11y ago
  So it's happened 3 times out of a possible 30. Doesn't even seem that dramatic when you put it that way.
shaggy 11y ago
It's pretty well known and well documented at this point that the host cities for olympic games see no financial benefit at all, and in fact they lose money. Most recently, look at the Sochi games, which cost $50+bn. There is a 0% chance that the games brought in that much money. The entities making money are the IOC and the broadcast companies, NBC being the primary. It would be sad if the games were cancelled, but at the risk of a global pandemic it's hard to see how people can argue in favor anymore.
- scott_s 11y ago
  Agreed that the Olympic games do not have financially benefit the host city. But, Rio has probably already spent a lot of money on the games. Not hosting them would probably hurt, financially, even more. Please note I am not arguing that the Olympics should continue in Rio. We should do what is best for world health, even if that negatively impacts Rio financially.
- sago 11y ago
  But that is nonsense for Rio, which has already spent its capital outlays for the games. Overall Rio may and probably will lose money, but if the games were cancelled, it could be financially catastrophic. You're right that it isn't a question that should be determined by finances, but that's a different issue.
- jbigelow76 11y ago
  >It would be sad if the games were cancelled, but at the risk of a global pandemic it's hard to see how people can argue in favor anymore. The corruption, bribery, and kick backs that go into selecting host cities means that short of a host city being wiped off the map by a nuclear bomb, the games will go on.

Kristine1975 11y ago

Imagine the financial impact on the manufacturers of performance-enhancing drugs and forged birth certificates (to make athletes seem older than they really are)! Edit: If the IOC is half as corrupt and greedy as the FIFA, canceling the olympics should be a financial plus for Brazil.

giarc 11y ago

I imagine Rio would be given the 2020 Summer Games. And then Tokyo would be moved to 2024 and so on. Just my guess though.

tomp 11y ago
Well, the fair outcome would be that Tokyo was cancelled altogether, if the allegations of corruptions [1] are true. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/11/tokyo-olympics-payment-diack-2020-games https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/11/tokyo-olympics...
- big_youth 11y ago
  Wow, Japan is generally known as being clean and corruption free. I can only imagine the type of bribes Brazil and Russia handed out.
  - pound 11y ago
    clean - yes, but corruption free? corruption is everywhere. if you have powers and decisions making you'll get corruption. look at lobbying in US - that's pretty much buying decisions. huge corps giving money to presidential candidates in US now - are there no strings attached and no further expectations?
  - bsder 11y ago
    > Wow, Japan is generally known as being clean and corruption free. Huh? This is the home of the keiretsu and the yakuza, you know. Corruption among the political elite is a standard assumption among the Japanese.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mbreese 11y ago

Imagine the potential global financial impact of all of the visitors (and athletes) contracting Zika and bring that home with them to spread. Tough call...

EGreg 11y ago
Why is the FINANCIAL impact the biggest one to be considered?
- 15charlimit 11y ago
  Because it's an objective unit of measurement. You can't objectively measure (or assign a value to) human suffering.
  - EGreg 11y ago
    It depends what you are measuring. If a city could increase its financial prosperity at the expense of poisoning its population (fracking may be a good example) would they do it? After all, if money is the only thing that matters then human health only matters insofar as it affects the flow of money. And if other factors compensate to preserve "financial health" then human health outcomes become expendable. If you could produce more meat cheaper at the expense of keeping animals in terrible conditions on factory farms, would you do it? After all, if money is all that matters the animal's suffering doesn't even enter the equation. How about increasing financial gain at the expense of destroying the natural environment (eg overfishing, dumping plastics and releasing all the carbon from the ground)? Grandchildren may have to pay the bill, but what if you had perfect knowledge and knew they'd be economically richer, but with worse health outcomes and lots of species gone exinct? Measuring implies a model, and the model makes assumptions about the world that may not be true, and the whole combination can be extremely harmful. Not to mention very human-centric (and "us" centric). As the Native American chief said: When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money
  - roel_v 11y ago
    Except that we do. We assign monetary values to human lives in actuarial models every day. The statistical value of a human live in the Netherlands when considering traffic safety was E700k in the last project I worked on, but this varies by purpose and over time. Furthermore, there are several international standard methods of quantifying the burden of disease, like the DALY and QALY. So yes, we can and we do 'objectively' (as in, per a standardized methodology) assign value to human suffering.

cypherpunks01 11y ago

Wikipedia lists the only previously cancelled Olympics as 1916 (WWI) and 1940 and 1944 (WWII). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cancelled_Olympic_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cancelled_Olympic_Gam...

takno 11y ago
So it's happened 3 times out of a possible 30. Doesn't even seem that dramatic when you put it that way.

shaggy 11y ago

It's pretty well known and well documented at this point that the host cities for olympic games see no financial benefit at all, and in fact they lose money. Most recently, look at the Sochi games, which cost $50+bn. There is a 0% chance that the games brought in that much money. The entities making money are the IOC and the broadcast companies, NBC being the primary. It would be sad if the games were cancelled, but at the risk of a global pandemic it's hard to see how people can argue in favor anymore.

scott_s 11y ago
Agreed that the Olympic games do not have financially benefit the host city. But, Rio has probably already spent a lot of money on the games. Not hosting them would probably hurt, financially, even more. Please note I am not arguing that the Olympics should continue in Rio. We should do what is best for world health, even if that negatively impacts Rio financially.
sago 11y ago
But that is nonsense for Rio, which has already spent its capital outlays for the games. Overall Rio may and probably will lose money, but if the games were cancelled, it could be financially catastrophic. You're right that it isn't a question that should be determined by finances, but that's a different issue.
jbigelow76 11y ago
>It would be sad if the games were cancelled, but at the risk of a global pandemic it's hard to see how people can argue in favor anymore. The corruption, bribery, and kick backs that go into selecting host cities means that short of a host city being wiped off the map by a nuclear bomb, the games will go on.