5 ms·

Tone aside, she is not wrong though. At this point, there are only two groups of people who are clearly incentivized for the Olympics to happen: the IOC, which

Tone aside, she is not wrong though. At this point, there are only two groups of people who are clearly incentivized for the Olympics to happen: the IOC, which would lose all the revenue; and the athletes who would "age out" for the 2024 games. Why should an entire city, even an entire country, bear the cost for just a few?

Danieru 5y ago
> Why should an entire city, even an entire country, bear the cost for just a few? Are you imaging some form of refund on the billions in infrastructure spending? Japan has nothing to gain by canceling and freeing the athletes and IOC from their responsibilities. Why shouldn't Japan get their own private Olympics? They paid for it.
- fomine3 5y ago
  Sunk cost.
  - Danieru 5y ago
    Yes that's the point.
    - admax88q 5y ago
      You're actievly committing the sink cost fallacy. You need to ignore how much has been spent already and just look at how much it more it will cost from right now to host the Olympics, compared to potential value it would produce.
      - Danieru 5y ago
        These comments are old but I figured I should point out the meta: if the japanese government cuts contracts they would just have to spend yet more on subsidies. Japan already has extensive subsidy programs for companies with reduced revenue from Corona. Not only would Japan lose out on any upside, there would not be any savings. Further more: it is Japan: the government is not for want of cash.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- throwaway_kufu 5y ago
  Maybe Elon could give Japan a insider tip before he pumps Doge again and everyone call it a day. In all seriousness though I think Japan has plenty to gain by acting as a global leader, it’s not all about money, and even if it were all about money then unfortunately sometimes cutting loses is the best you can do...and no one really knows how it might work out legally/financially, there may be refunds, or more accurately legal remedies for many of the contracts and investments, and there could be untold amounts of insurance coverage.
- rurounijones 5y ago
  > Japan has nothing to gain by canceling Japan has not paid 100% of the costs already. Cancelling will avoid throwing good money after bad. If we are _only_ thinking about finances then the question is if Japan will make more money from hosting the reduced olympics than it would cost to finish all work required to host it.
  - rtpg 5y ago
    And there's the even "real-er" cost of bringing in thousands of people in an ongoing pandemic (it might be hard to realize for the many Americans on this site, but many places, including Japan, are still only getting a trickle of vaccines for example). It would be possible to just vaccinate every athlete (talking less than 10k people). It might be possible vaccinate all of the staff as well. But in a country where not even all the doctors have gotten vaccinated yet, it's not a great look, politically. And if you choose not to do mass vaccinations, you're talking about doing a mass event with huge risks of spread at every level.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    More importantly, canceling saves lives. There are not much medical resources.
bsder 5y ago
> At this point, there are only two groups of people who are clearly incentivized for the Olympics to happen: the IOC, which would lose all the revenue; and the athletes who would "age out" for the 2024 games. You are forgetting the most important constituency driving this: "Senior Japanese politicians also in on the take."

Danieru 5y ago

> Why should an entire city, even an entire country, bear the cost for just a few? Are you imaging some form of refund on the billions in infrastructure spending? Japan has nothing to gain by canceling and freeing the athletes and IOC from their responsibilities. Why shouldn't Japan get their own private Olympics? They paid for it.

fomine3 5y ago
Sunk cost.
- Danieru 5y ago
  Yes that's the point.
  - admax88q 5y ago
    You're actievly committing the sink cost fallacy. You need to ignore how much has been spent already and just look at how much it more it will cost from right now to host the Olympics, compared to potential value it would produce.
    - Danieru 5y ago
      These comments are old but I figured I should point out the meta: if the japanese government cuts contracts they would just have to spend yet more on subsidies. Japan already has extensive subsidy programs for companies with reduced revenue from Corona. Not only would Japan lose out on any upside, there would not be any savings. Further more: it is Japan: the government is not for want of cash.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
throwaway_kufu 5y ago
Maybe Elon could give Japan a insider tip before he pumps Doge again and everyone call it a day. In all seriousness though I think Japan has plenty to gain by acting as a global leader, it’s not all about money, and even if it were all about money then unfortunately sometimes cutting loses is the best you can do...and no one really knows how it might work out legally/financially, there may be refunds, or more accurately legal remedies for many of the contracts and investments, and there could be untold amounts of insurance coverage.
rurounijones 5y ago
> Japan has nothing to gain by canceling Japan has not paid 100% of the costs already. Cancelling will avoid throwing good money after bad. If we are _only_ thinking about finances then the question is if Japan will make more money from hosting the reduced olympics than it would cost to finish all work required to host it.
- rtpg 5y ago
  And there's the even "real-er" cost of bringing in thousands of people in an ongoing pandemic (it might be hard to realize for the many Americans on this site, but many places, including Japan, are still only getting a trickle of vaccines for example). It would be possible to just vaccinate every athlete (talking less than 10k people). It might be possible vaccinate all of the staff as well. But in a country where not even all the doctors have gotten vaccinated yet, it's not a great look, politically. And if you choose not to do mass vaccinations, you're talking about doing a mass event with huge risks of spread at every level.
- fomine3 5y ago
  More importantly, canceling saves lives. There are not much medical resources.

bsder 5y ago

> At this point, there are only two groups of people who are clearly incentivized for the Olympics to happen: the IOC, which would lose all the revenue; and the athletes who would "age out" for the 2024 games. You are forgetting the most important constituency driving this: "Senior Japanese politicians also in on the take."