[HN Gopher] Medals at Tokyo olympics are recycled from discarded...
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Medals at Tokyo olympics are recycled from discarded electronic
equipment
Author : MichaelMoser123
Score : 276 points
Date : 2021-07-31 06:45 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cosmosmagazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (cosmosmagazine.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Compound Chemical post and infographic where probably a bunch of
| this article was sourced from:
|
| https://www.compoundchem.com/2021/07/27/tokyo2020/
| snickmy wrote:
| I'm a bit surprised that there are more Silver than Copper and
| Zinc in electronics .
|
| Quote: the government collected several million tonnes of
| equipment, and extracted 32 kilograms of gold, 3500 kilograms of
| silver and 2200 kilograms of copper and zinc for the bronze
| medals
| sandworm101 wrote:
| So where did all the non-gold material go? The millions of tons
| that wasn't precious metals? I see little point in recycling
| something if 99.99% by volume goes to the landfill anyway.
| vikramkr wrote:
| Profit. Recycling rare materials is profitable. Keeping stuff
| out of landfills is not really why stuff is recycled- thats
| why we had that whole crisis recently with Recycling
| materials building up with no destination
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The point is the symbolic gesture.
|
| This doesn't help with any environmental goals.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It does, because precious metals mining is environmentally
| intensive, and by recovering some from trashed electronics
| instead you're having to do a little bit less mining.
|
| It's something like 31 tonnes of ore must be processed per
| ounce of gold yielded. That's a lot of energy, fuel,
| caustic chemicals, and polluting mine tailings.
| jhgb wrote:
| I'm fairly sure that this is simply the amount that they
| recovered for the medals specifically, not all the copper and
| zinc they extracted from that equipment.
| Koshkin wrote:
| I suggest using polished engraved silicon - judging by the looks
| of an exposed microchip die, it should be beautiful.
| grecy wrote:
| Brisbane in Australia just "won" the hosting of the 2032 games.
|
| It was uncontested, which tells us everything we need to know
| about how beneficial it is for cities to host it.
| draugadrotten wrote:
| Crikey! I hope croc wrestling will be an olympic sport by then,
| in honour of the amazing Steve Irwin.
| logronoide wrote:
| A curious family tale: after the Spanish Civil War, my
| grandfather extracted gold and silver from broken devices like
| radios. Then he sold it in the black market to survive, and he
| briefly went to jail for smuggling. What a turn of life for a
| watchmaker.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| I can't help but think this olympics will go into the history
| books with an asterisk. That probably has something to do with
| Biles stepping down. It just feels weird.
| serial_dev wrote:
| In the grand scheme of things, Biles stepping down is
| inconsequential, and it is definitely not a reason for an
| asterisk in the history books, no matter what this week's news
| cycle try to make you believe.
|
| One year delay, and basically no live audience due to the still
| ongoing lockdowns and pandemic would be a reason for the
| asterisk.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _That probably has something to do with Biles stepping down_
|
| People failing to medal due to mental issues is likely rampant
| in the games. Nothing is unique about her situation, except she
| stepped down first.
| Lazare wrote:
| I think it was irresponsible to _hold_ them, but I can 't see
| any particular reason why they might not be considered valid.
|
| And I certainly I don't think Biles's decision is meaningful.
| Why would it be? It seems entirely inconsequential to me.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| Simon Biles will go down as a hero.
|
| Admitting you don't feel well is huge.
|
| Her honesty will save countless people.
|
| She is my new hero. I probally shouldn't have said "hero".
|
| We all don't like word, or label.
|
| I just admire her on a lot of levels.
|
| Crippling anxiety pretty much ruined me life.
| mijamo wrote:
| Is it? Plenty of athletes say they don't feel well. The
| specificity about Biles is that she was the great favorite
| and abandoned at the last minute in the Olympics without much
| prior signals that it could happen. Tennis players for
| instance have talked about pressure, depression, the
| importance of mental preparation for decades now. Recently
| Them for instance admitted he had a terrible breakdown after
| so many efforts to finally win the US open and since then
| hasn't been able to do much. In cycling Dumoulin also
| recently had a break from his career because he felt too much
| pressure and too little joy, them dis a great come back at
| the Olympics. Ian Thorpe in his time spoke a lot about mental
| health amongst athletes, difficulties and depression.
| rocqua wrote:
| This was significant because it was so last minute. It
| shows "no matter how far you went, you can always put your
| mental health first".
|
| I think it's also significant because she's womam gymnast.
| Generally, they have been pushed really hard mentally. With
| a lot coming out in my country at least about bullying and
| other (non-sexual) abuse. Mostly this was focused on
| pushing them to train harder, ignore pain, ignore feelings,
| and lose more weight.
|
| In that context, having a female gymnast stand up and say
| "no I am not pushing past my limits" is a big deal. It
| looks like a break with the past of mental abuse. Hopefully
| putting gymnastics in a much healthier place.
| Tarsul wrote:
| For the competition that Biles competes in (all kinds of
| gymnastics) it is downright dangerous physically to compete
| without confidence because every small misstep can result
| in devastating injuries. That's not the case in many other
| sports.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| We shouldn't have sports where you can increase your
| chances of winning by increasing your chances of becoming
| a quadriplegic or getting killed. Whether or not Biles
| should have pulled out of competition is moot, because
| her event(s) shouldn't exist in the first place.
| matwood wrote:
| Most (all?) sports increase the risk of injury when
| increasing the chance of winning. Running faster, jumping
| higher, etc... all increase the chance and severity of
| injury.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| You can't increase your odds of winning an Olympic gold
| medal in running by increasing your chances of becoming a
| quadriplegic or suffering a traumatic brain injury.
| However you can for sports like gymnastics, snowboarding,
| and cycling.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| And I admire Kerri Strug. The whole point of the Olympics is
| to transcend the limitations of your mind and body and not to
| succumb to them.
| kenjackson wrote:
| One can admire both. They aren't in competition with one
| another.
| rocqua wrote:
| If you can't do that, is the olympic spirit to push anyway
| and damage yourself? Or is the olympic spirit to be honest
| with yourself and the rest of the world.
|
| I also think that this decision took a lot of bravery for
| Biles. And I admire her for that.
| krapp wrote:
| >If you can't do that, is the olympic spirit to push
| anyway and damage yourself?
|
| Traditionally, yes. The Olympic spirit is to be willing
| to push yourself as hard as necessary, through anything,
| even to the point of death, to win the gold. Quitting
| only brings shame and disgrace to you and your country.
|
| I agree with what Simone Biles did, and I don't think
| anyone can judge her - only she knows what her headspace
| and capabilities were - but it was absolutely against
| what the Olympic spirit is supposed to be. Olympic
| competition often serves as a form of neo-eugenic
| nationalist propaganda (that our nation and its values
| creates genetically superior people and potential
| combatants to yours.) Imagine the furor if this were the
| 1980s and Simone Biles had quit and a Soviet gymnast had
| won the gold medal. _Everyone_ in the US would be calling
| her a traitor and a coward.
| inside6 wrote:
| Who?
| ColonialOne wrote:
| Assuming this isn't a rhetorical question, Google is your
| friend here. OP wasn't making an obscure reference, her name
| is headline news around much of the world at the moment.
| yreg wrote:
| An in context explanation here would be much more valuable
| than sending all the readers on a google quest to figure it
| out.
|
| To me (european, doesn't follow sports at all), the name
| _is_ an obscure reference.
| shard972 wrote:
| @dang rule violation
| fomine3 wrote:
| World Heath Organization
| spockz wrote:
| It might be more because these Olympics have been held during a
| pandemic. With all kinds of consequences.
| spodek wrote:
| The 10,000+ athletes who flew around the world and the
| 100,000-odd attendees who also flew around the world can all
| offset their emissions with that savings /sarcasm.
|
| I love athletics and competition, but do the Olympics promote
| activity or more sedentariness? They are certainly devastating to
| the environment.
|
| We can achieve more sport, communication, and what they Olympics
| represent by promoting local fun and games:
| https://joshuaspodek.com/olympic-devastation-that-could-be-l....
| ColonialOne wrote:
| Out of interest do you think it's worth sacrificing
| international sport competitions for the sake of the
| environment? What level of travel would you support, are
| continental competitions ok? National competitions?
| goldenkey wrote:
| The olympics isn't the only international sports competition.
| It's just the most daft one. It groups unrelated sports
| together like a circus. It slaps ads, sponsorships, and as
| much scrooging as it can all over the footage and then
| ironically pays the athletes a pittance to boot, making them
| rely on outside sponsorship deals.
|
| Most sports have world championships. They don't need the
| resources that the Olympics do, because they are sport
| specific and not necessarily sponsored by the government. If
| I'm American and I goto the world boxing championship, I
| don't need Biden's permission to represent America. If I win,
| then an American won. I just get listed as holding the title.
| The Olympics on the other hand is an ill scandal based on
| bribes, doping and awful bureaucracy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_Games_scandals.
| ..
| Retric wrote:
| Moving the athletes is effectively trivial for these
| completions. It's the spectators and facilities which
| represent most of the pollution. Olympics is a huge outlier
| in terms of athletes and it's still 100 spectators in the
| stands per 1 athlete.
| amelius wrote:
| I'm surprised they extracted more silver than copper from the
| discarded electronics.
| rbanffy wrote:
| As a retrocomputing enthusiast, I find this horrifying. I imagine
| the beautiful Sony NEWS, Sharp MZ's, NEC PCs, Epson QX's and so
| many other amazing machines that were crushed in order to make
| decorations.
| Frost1x wrote:
| I was curious about the medals, compositions, and materials costs
| so here's what I found.
|
| The dimensions of the medals are specified as a minimum of 60mm
| diameter by 3mm thick. For a cylinder, that's 8.482 cm^3 volume
| per medal, minimum. The 2020 Olympics has 339 events, each with a
| gold, silver, and bronze medal. Market price I found for gold as
| of this post is $58.56/g and silver is $0.82/g. Gold has a
| density of 19.30 g/cm^3 and silver 10.49 g/cm^3. I'm not keeping
| track of sig figs because I don't care enough for a quick
| rundown.
|
| For the gold medal, its composition is listed as minimum 92.5%
| silver with 6g of gold mixed in. I didn't see what the percentage
| specified (mass, volume) so I'll assume volume for silver
| henceforth. 7.845 cm^3 is 92.5% of min volume of a medal. This
| works out to 82.294 g of silver (7.845 cm^3 * 10.49 g/cm^3).
| Using market prices above, silver value: $67.48, gold value:
| $351.36, total materials value: $418.84.
|
| Now, if the gold medal were solid gold, you'd have 163.703 g
| (8.482 cm^3 * 19.3 g/cm^3) of gold. Materials market value of the
| medal would be $9,586.
|
| For the silver medal, it's 92.5 silver with nothing specified
| mixed in. So the identical silver component from the gold medal
| which means its total materials value is $67.48.
|
| If the silver medal was pure silver, we'd have 88.976 g (8.482
| cm^3 * 10.49 g/cm^3) and the materials value would be $72.96.
|
| The bronze is 97% copper, 0.5% tin, and 2.5% zinc. I won't do
| this because I'm not interested, I'll leave it as an exercise for
| the reader.
|
| Now the fun part, rough estimate of total material cost of
| existing gold and silver medal compositions for all 339 events:
| $164,862.48 (339 * ($418.84 + $67.48)).
|
| Rough material cost if the gold medals were actually gold and the
| silver were actually silver: $3.274 million (339*($9,586 +
| $72.96). It would cost about 20x the current material costs to
| give the athletes more representitive and valuable medals. The
| total cost of this would be an additional ~$3.1 million to the
| host or whoever pays for it.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _The dimensions of the medals are specified as a minimum of
| ..._
|
| Do they specify maximums? That could get hilarious.
| robbiep wrote:
| The Tokyo medals are around 500g each, so while those are nice
| estimates for the minimum dimensions, if the Tokyo golds were
| of the same weight and heft they have been made (and also 100%
| base metal) then you'd be looking at around $15m USD just for
| the golds
| gitgud wrote:
| > _Olympics has 339 events, each with a gold, silver, and
| bronze medal._
|
| Many events are team-based too, where every team member gets a
| medal.
| Frost1x wrote:
| Very good point. I don't really watch sports and 339 was the
| best representitive number I could find for total medals
| awarded. I imagine if you knew how many medals were team
| based, the fixed sizes of teams that get medals, and so on
| you could work this out more accurately then.
| kleer001 wrote:
| I bet you're within an order of magnitude. Good
| calculations.
| Wiles_7 wrote:
| Some sports also give out multiple bronze medals.
| pinko wrote:
| Interesting -- I had no idea!
|
| From wikipedia: 'Some combat sports (such as boxing, judo,
| taekwondo and wrestling) award two bronze medals per
| competition, resulting in, overall, more bronze medals
| being awarded than the other colours."
| mikepurvis wrote:
| The occasional tie could also push it the other way-- an
| additional gold at the expense of a silver or likewise
| with two silvers instead of a silver + bronze.
|
| A handy dandy list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of
| _ties_for_medals_at_the...
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Cool fast math! Seems like the cost to give out actual gold is
| super tiny compared to the amount the olympic committee charges
| for the games. They should give out solid gold or at least 18k
| to make it last longer with fewer scratches.
| fukd wrote:
| Olympics is a waste of money and resources. it should be banned
| forever.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| it is much cheaper than holding the same kind of contest
| between nations in the form of a war.
| fukd wrote:
| cheaper to conduct at same stadiums every year
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Voting for Greece. Nude wrestling on Mount Olympus every 4
| years. Back to basics, everyone should be content.
| [deleted]
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I like how it brings countries together to play games with each
| other. It's better than the alternative.
|
| I want to read about Japan destroying China in _sports_ , not
| literally.
|
| Or are you just butthurt because your country is losing?
| fukd wrote:
| Ohh god what a disugsting human being you are
| decremental wrote:
| It's not since it can be a great source of pride for people to
| see their nation represented by their best athletes. It's a
| display of the best humanity has to offer in the areas of
| physical endeavor, discipline, and endurance. Reducing
| everything's value to a function of its consumption of money
| and resources is a depressing and inhuman way of viewing the
| world and thankfully most people don't think this way. We're
| not robots.
| fukd wrote:
| It can be done conducting at one place instead of building
| and then leaving behind infra. See what happend to what was
| built last time in Brazil and guess how many Brazils are
| happy to hear what you said
| Aeolun wrote:
| Several million tonnes of equipment = 5 tons of precious metals.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Fun fact: Electronic waste contains two orders of magnitude more
| gold per mass than actual gold ore.
| Retric wrote:
| That's misleading, gold ore can have an extremely high gold
| content. The comparison is to the minimum threshold for
| economic extraction and that's from rocks via chemical leaching
| not electronics.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Ok, thank you. I went looking for the numbers before posting,
| but I mostly found the same "100 times" number repeated in
| different sources and decided to roll with it. Do you have
| some reference that could be used to inform instead?
| Retric wrote:
| https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/022315/what-does-
| gr...
|
| As to economic viability, 44g/ton is the highest grade bulk
| ore being extracted, but much lower concentrations can be
| viable. Heap leaching is pouring diluted sodium cyanide
| over a pile of crushed ore this cheaply processes vast
| quantities of material which scales based on how cheap it
| is to extract the ore from the ground. For example at
| current gold prices an open pit mine with ore
| concentrations of 1g/ton is likely viable, but the deeper
| the mine the more expensive extraction becomes. 4g/ton is
| roughly the minimum for traditional mining. Similarly the
| total quality of ore available must be large enough to
| justify associated investments.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_leaching#Precious_metals
|
| As to gold content of electronic waste " The electronic
| waste gold contents vary from 80 to more than 800 parts-
| per-million (ppm), and silver contents range from 250-350
| ppm; no gold or silver is observed in the automotive waste
| material."
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40831-016-0051-y
|
| Anyway, 1 g/ton is ~1ppm so the 100 times number is a
| reasonable ballpark compared to low grade ore. The issue is
| Heap leaching doesn't work on electronic waste and open pit
| mines are extracting at 10$/ton where handling costs for
| e-waste is vastly higher.
| goldenkey wrote:
| Here's a reference for your convenience:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28016961
| busyant wrote:
| This seems like a reasonable opportunity to remind people of this
| fascinating story.
|
| It's not exactly a story about eco-friendliness, but it involves
| gold medals and "recycling."
|
| "When Germany invaded Denmark in 1940, [George] de Hevesy
| dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of Max von Laue and James Franck
| in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from taking them. After the
| war, he precipitated the gold out of the acid, and the Nobel
| Society recast Franck and von Laue's awards from the original
| gold. In 1958, de Hevesy received the Atoms for Peace Award for
| his pioneering use of radioactive isotopes to study metabolism.
| Over his career, he published almost 400 scientific
| publications."
|
| copied from: https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/george-de-
| hevesy
| numpad0 wrote:
| They were going for sustainability angle like recycled medals,
| stadium benches out of reused wood, cardboard hybrid beds for the
| village, etc.
|
| COVID blew them all away though.
| new299 wrote:
| I feel like any article on the Olympics should mention that
| >80% of the Japanese population was against holding the
| Olympics [1].
|
| And that in most respects it has be a disaster, I've lost count
| of the number of scandals and resignations... [2] Rather than
| being good PR for Japan, it feels like it's been overwhelmingly
| negative.
|
| On top of this, COVID19 infections are rapidly increasing (now
| at their highest level). While the government expands the state
| of emergency, asking people to restrict their activities while
| holding the largest sporting event in the world...
|
| [1] https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14351670
|
| [2] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/19/tokyo-
| olympics...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/world/asia/yoshiro-mori-t...
|
| https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14347483
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| At least the Games serve to shine light on Japan's refusal to
| respect UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child, despite
| ratifying it in 1994.
|
| Japan's Law incites and rewards Child Abductions by giving
| sole custody to the first abductor. Judicial visitation
| decisions are not enforced.
|
| By refusing to protect the fundamental Right of Children to
| access both their parents directly and regularly, as per the
| CRC, Japan is a massive and frequent Child Right violator.
|
| In 2019, Japan Minister of Justice publicly and cynically
| qualified the CRC of "non-binding", and the European
| Parliament's resolution denouncing the violations of being
| "unfunded".
|
| Is is estimated that between 150,000 and 200,000 new children
| each year, the majority Japanese, have this basic Human Right
| violated in Japan.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/japan-
| cust...
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Whole thing seems to be about the denied rights of parents,
| not children? Doesn't mention what any child wants
| anywhere. Weird to dress it up as being about the children.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Children benefit to have both parents in their lives,
| especially when young and can not express consent. There
| are enough studies and exemples in every other developed
| countries where it's the norm that it's not a matter of
| opinion.
|
| The UN's CRC is indeed about Children's Human Rights. The
| specific article in question being Art 9.3
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Yet the story is 'man denied right to see children', not
| 'children denied right to see father'.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| The oldest being 6, they don't have much agency. Are you
| trying hard to not understand?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| The US does not respect these "rights" either.
|
| And just because the UN says it doesn't make it so.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Human Rights are Universal and Unalienable. But it's the
| fact that Japan chose to ratify the CRC treaty that
| "makes it so".
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Human Rights as defined by the UN and Politicians are not
| necessarily Universal or Unalienable.
|
| This does not mean I dispute that there are human rights.
| Politicians have every incentive to claim something as a
| right when it's not.
|
| For example, the UN could announce the newfound "Right to
| a Gun-Free Society." Despite the name, it's not Universal
| or Unalienable.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Human Rights are Universal and Unalienable
|
| Clearly not.
|
| You can go to many places on earth, even major western
| countries, where people do not have these rights.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| People _always_ have those rights, no matter where they
| live, their religion, their cast or what not. That 's the
| definition of Universal.
|
| However, they are sometimes not respected and it's the
| duty of the international community to lobby against the
| perpetrators especially when they took the moral
| engagement to recognise them officially.
|
| It not the wild west, there are voluntarily agreed upon
| international treaties that can be brought as a base for
| these discussions.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > People always have those rights, no matter where they
| live, their religion, their cast or what not.
|
| Many people do not have these rights. This cannot
| possibly be a surprise to you?
|
| > That's the definition of Universal.
|
| We know. That's why they aren't universal rights.
|
| > However, they are sometimes not respected
|
| If you live under an authority that doesn't think you
| have these rights, then you don't have them.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Of course I do, even under a Human Right violating
| regime. Human Rights transcend local authorities. And
| this authority would be both wrong and illegitimate if it
| has endorsed those Rights by ratifying a treaty that
| defines them, and somehow doesn't "belive" in them as you
| put it.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| This is a bizarre kind of double-think.
|
| If someone the other side of the world tells you that you
| have the right to freedom of religion, but the authority
| you live under disagrees, and the people on the other
| side of the world don't do anything about it, then in
| what sense do you have the right?
|
| You don't - it's meaningless.
|
| If I say I have decided that you have the universal
| inalienable right to beer, but where you live doesn't
| agree, and I don't do anything about it either, then have
| I really given you that right? Of course not.
|
| I think what you're saying is that you think people
| _should_ have these rights. Great. But they don 't in
| practice, and so they aren't universal.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| The concept is not new, 232 years old now, it shouldn't
| be that strange to you.
|
| The vocation of tyrants is to have their head cut at some
| point, more or less figuratively.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| This whole thread started with _you_ giving an example of
| how people don 't actually have these rights.
|
| So even you know they aren't actually universal or
| inalienable.
|
| 232 years of pretending people have rights that they
| demonstrably do not have.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| You still continue to say that people having their rights
| violated means they don't exist. That's a demonstrably
| false and illogical statement. It's _because_ people
| inherently have rights that they fight for them, and
| others take their side. Hence events like the French
| Revolution, the Abolition of slavery, or the Civil Rights
| Movement.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > You still continue to say that people having their
| rights violated means they don't exist.
|
| Yes. What is the meaning of a right that nobody enforces?
|
| It's just an aspiration, a wish, something you'd like to
| have or other people would like you to have. If nobody's
| enforcing it, it's not really a right. By definition.
|
| > Hence events like the French Revolution, the Abolition
| of slavery, or the Civil Rights Movement.
|
| These were fights _to create_ rights. They didn 't have
| them before.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I don't think the games have shone a light on that at all,
| sorry. First I've heard of it.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| It was written about in the Financial Times: https://www.
| ft.com/content/d43090eb-e005-4042-8b7a-13ab00ac0...
| ekianjo wrote:
| Olympics is such a massive waste of money that nobody except
| politicians who want to show off with taxpayer money or
| industrials benefiting from government contracts would be for
| it.
| Hacktrick wrote:
| I completely agree. The Olympic Games are a huge waste. The
| stadiums built in Rio for the 2016 games are standing there
| unused and unmanaged and slowly degrading. I think that it
| was a shame that Rio was chosen to host the Olympic games.
| Their country should have spent the money on the nearly 50
| million people in poverty in Brazil. (source:
| https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-politics/more-
| tha...)
| poooogles wrote:
| We benefited from it in London, I think we all wanted it
| too. Even if it kind of was an austerity Olympics compared
| to before it and after it? Sure we wasted some money here
| and there (was who the fuck needs a giant slide) but
| overall it turned an industrial wasteland into a useful
| area for East London.
| darkfirefly wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not quite sure how other countries do it, but
| for the 2000 Olympics (Sydney) they basically renewed
| this giant landfill site. There's been a bunch of
| apartments, etc, built around there since then because it
| basically became a suburb where you could live.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > but for the 2000 Olympics (Sydney) they basically
| renewed this giant landfill site.
|
| Why would you need the Olympics to have land repurposed.
| They were waiting for a good excuse? No need to have big
| expensive party if you could have done that in any other
| context. But then again you'd need to whole country to
| accept paying for making new apartments just in Sydney.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I remember a report on how Sydney was the only Olympics
| for a while that was net positive.
|
| Paris might also be, as they have very little new infra
| to build.
| jedberg wrote:
| That's not correct. Sydney lost money, and Atlanta (4
| years prior) made money:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I am a bit split. If I'm reading it correctly, Wiki's
| source is a journal's comparing their simulation of what
| Sydney's economy would have been without the Olympics,
| and the numbers published officially, with a twist on
| additional costs they think should be added to the
| official estimates.
|
| > We simulated the behaviour of industries, households
| and government resulting from hosting the Games for each
| of eight Australian regions over the years from 1997 to
| 2005. Our results revealed that rather than producing an
| economic benefit the Sydney Games actually reduced
| Australian household consumption by $2.1 billion.
|
| For comparison there are later reviews of the economics
| of the town with the 6 years after Olympics, with less
| simulation apparently, which come to a different
| conclusion
| https://repository.tcu.edu/handle/116099117/10360
|
| I honestly don't know which one is more trustworthy
| Ntrails wrote:
| > I think we all wanted it too
|
| Definitely not true. However, post hoc I am forced to
| admit it was not as colossal a waste of money as I'd
| expected, and honestly there was an astonishingly
| positive societal response. So, _I was wrong_ , but I was
| not alone!
| ColonialOne wrote:
| An astonishingly positive societal response which lasted
| how long? Do you think there have been long lasting
| benefits from that or was it just a nice few weeks? If
| the latter, which is my impression, I don't think that
| represents value for money at all.
| Ntrails wrote:
| I would argue years, genuinely. I still hear
| conversations about how great it was etc etc.
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| The Olympics in London cost 11.3 Billion and generated
| revenue of 3.3 billion which doesn't exactly seem hugely
| beneficial.
|
| Of course in the usual London fashion most of the money
| came out of UK govt coffers, national lottery funding etc
| - so it was just a form of London sucking cash out of the
| rest of the UK to build infra, via the handy "Olympics"
| excuse, so I can see how a _londoner_ might argue it was
| good as it was a means of extracting resources from the
| rest of the country.
|
| In the aggregate, it was just a giant waste of money
| especially for the 90% of the UK population that isn't in
| London.
| acituan wrote:
| > The Olympics in London cost 11.3 Billion and generated
| revenue of 3.3 billion which doesn't exactly seem hugely
| beneficial.
|
| Except it is one giant international PR and brand
| recognition event for the host country. TV ads cost in
| aggregate billions too and don't bring any revenue
| immediately, doesn't mean they are a waste of money.
|
| Not to mention Olympics getting people interested in
| _doing_ sports, which amid a global obesity upsurge,
| could also be worth more than nothing.
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| If this is true, why is there no evidence? Tourism in
| cities that have hosted the olympics doesn't have an
| increase - certainly for london it didn't. There's no
| economic benefits in the years following for the host
| country that have been observed. It is doubtful that
| these second order benefits exist at all.
|
| Even for "name recognition" as an end in itself - cities
| like London and Tokyo are hardly backwaters in need of a
| PR boost.
|
| If tackling obesity is such a priority, I'm sure there's
| more direct and effective ways to tackle it with 11
| billion quid.
| acituan wrote:
| > If this is true, why is there no evidence?
|
| How well can companies evidentiate their brand awareness
| campaigns? How well can an actress calculate returns from
| having attended a talk-show? Evidence of absence cannot
| reliably be inferred from an absence of evidence.
|
| > Even for "name recognition" as an end in itself -
| cities like London and Tokyo are hardly backwaters in
| need of a PR boost.
|
| Familiarity is not the same as salience. Coca Cola is
| known by virtually the entire world, that doesn't make
| them stop the ads or branding campaigns.
|
| > If tackling obesity is such a priority, I'm sure
| there's more direct and effective ways to tackle it with
| 11 billion quid.
|
| Conceivable doesn't mean doable. There are many direct
| and effective ways of improving a great many things in
| the world, yet they don't _happen_.
|
| Just like a great startup idea doesn't translate to a
| billion dollar revenue, political implementation doesn't
| spring into existence just from good ideas either.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >How well can companies evidentiate their brand awareness
| campaign?
|
| Remarkably well actually. You can do things like ask
| people questions about the olympics and the sponsor city
| and then put them into cohorts based on their answers.
| From that, you can look at how much spending occurred in
| the target city from each cohort.
| dijit wrote:
| I don't disagree with any particular point here but I'd
| like to point out that there are some second order
| effects from that investment money, it wasn't just "gone"
| and it didn't just go to the koffers of building
| contractors either.
|
| I can give some examples;
|
| 1) Newham was a very impoverished area before the olympic
| stadium was set to move there. Now Stratford and Newham
| are desirable.. More desirable than Hackney which has
| been "up and coming" for as long as I lived there.
|
| 2) Internet in London is/was _abysmal_. Genuinely awful.
| I even wrote a exasperated blog post about it[0]. This
| was due to degraded and faulty ADSL being he only option
| and grossly oversubscribed even if it worked well- and
| the large providers only followed each other with fibre
| installations.
|
| When the olympics rolled in there was an enormous
| infrastructure improvement - I even remember talking to
| some Telecity employees about it. -- That infrastructure
| was later sold on to last mile providers who expanded it
| a bit and I went from speeds worse than dial-up with
| frequent route drops to symmetric gigabit and IPv6 using
| a new company called "Hyperoptic". That was a real
| improvement for everyone in my area because they had
| given up on home internet. (no netflix, youtube, only
| basic banking websites possible).
|
| [0]: https://blog.dijit.sh/the-true-state-of-london-
| broadband
| breakfastduck wrote:
| For people in London only, though. At the cost of the
| rest of the country.
| dijit wrote:
| I never refuted that, and in another comment I equally
| lambasted this practice.
|
| So, what are you contributing to the conversation?
| smt88 wrote:
| I'm not sure where your jab at London taking govt funds
| came from.
|
| London, like most modern cities, generates a surplus that
| subsidizes surrounding suburban and rural areas[1].
|
| It was still an awful waste of money, but it wasn't part
| of any trend.
|
| 1. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/23/uk-
| budget-d...
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| It comes from London frequently having money lavished on
| it that other areas don't (eg - check public transport
| [1]) - and usually accompanied with a self-fulfilling
| prophecy about how other areas don't generate tax income
| (which of course is because they don't have good infra
| and investment). And this situation has been very much
| engineered by the UK government over the last 40 years,
| it isn't some state of nature.
|
| [1] https://www.ippr.org/news-and-media/press-
| releases/revealed-...
| scns wrote:
| In Paris an Munich it is similar i think.
| dijit wrote:
| I just want to chime in here and agree with this
| wholeheartedly.
|
| There is a lot of self-fulfilment when it comes to London
| spending vs London generation of revenues.
|
| It's famously the case that London props up almost the
| entire rest of the country. Scotland itself being a net-
| loss in terms of GDP.
|
| I come from a City called Coventry, "investment" in the
| city is non-existent; the only investor right now is the
| University which has essentially bought the entire City
| over the last 10 years.
|
| Why? Because "Coventry doesn't make money". Why does
| Coventry not make money? -- well, companies would never
| headquarter there because the infrastructure is not good
| enough and the networking connections are not compelling;
| even if you think it will save you money because it's
| cheaper to hire in Coventry (somewhere in the order of
| 1/3rd london salaries, 1/5th London commercial rents)
| it's still awkward because navigating the city requires
| making use of the awful public transport or buying a
| car[0] (which the city is close to capacity with
| already!)
|
| Birmingham, Britains "second city" has only moderate
| investment compared to London (though insanely more than
| most other UK cities), but also feels destitute in the
| majority of areas, _especially_ when compared to London,
| the infrastructure is marginally better than Coventry but
| the prestige/networking/access is nearly no different.
|
| This is many decades in the making, there is absolutely
| no way to compete with a city like London which is
| reaping the rewards of many decades of incredible
| investment which creates network effects which only serve
| to increase the gravitational pull of the city.
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/Mxvk3KO8p20
| heurisko wrote:
| One the most frustrating things to me, and I say this as
| as a Southerner, was why they decided to build HS2 first,
| instead of linking up Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds,
| Sheffield first (HS3). Then building HS2 if it was
| necessary.
|
| But now there is, yet another, infrastructure project
| that is connected to London.
|
| Spreading investment around the UK would be a good thing,
| it would take the heat out of Southern property prices,
| if everyone wasn't compelled to find jobs in the same
| geographic area.
| [deleted]
| midnightclubbed wrote:
| Born and raised in Coventry and still have family there.
|
| Coventry has fought (as I see it) 2 major issues which
| have held it back.
|
| Firstly as the center of the UK car industry and the
| Detroit of Britain its economic successes and failures
| have been tied closely to the ups and downs of UK car
| production. The collapse of that industry from the 1980s
| through to the early 2000s resulted in huge numbers of
| unemployed skilled and semi-skilled manufacturing
| workers. Manufacturing of that type and scale is not
| something governments can will into existence (and
| generally the efforts to do so have been at best non-
| ideal - see Rover's sale to BMW).
|
| The other issue with Coventry is the well-intentioned but
| disastrous rebuilding of the city center following its
| flattening in WWII. The city center remains an uninviting
| concrete jungle with few non-retail businesses and almost
| no housing. Though the 1980s the inner core became a no-
| go area after dark and continues to have a bad
| reputation. Outside of University housing there is little
| reason for anyone to live anywhere but the suburbs (or in
| a neighboring town or city).
|
| I would argue that Coventry does have excellent
| infrastructure and that is no part of why companies
| haven't wanted to move there. There are multiple trains
| per hour to London (and Birmingham) and is served by
| major motorways to London, Birmingham and Oxford
| (M6/M45/M69). Compared to most UK cities traffic seems
| manageable.
|
| The expansion of Coventry University and University of
| Warwick (which despite its name is located in Coventry)
| may have been the best possible result for the city. How
| else could the UK government have spent money in the city
| to attract the size of employers that the city needs?
| eyko wrote:
| Of all the boroughs I've lived in, in London, the East
| Village (a.k.a. Olympic village) and the adjacent Queen
| Elizabeth Park is by far my favourite, and it's still
| improving. It has also had an impact on the surrounding
| areas which, negative in terms of gentrification and
| ridiculous house prices, but very positive in terms of
| the flourishing local economy and community.
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| Sure, I mean if you have the entire UK lavish money on a
| small area of London, that small area will benefit!
| Nobody would deny that nobody has benefitted from the
| olympics - a very small area of the country and a small
| number of companies contracted to build things benefited
| greatly, at the cost of the rest of the UK.
| ColonialOne wrote:
| Shame about the cladding fiasco though.
|
| https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/buying-
| mortgages...
| ekianjo wrote:
| > We benefited from it in London
|
| You can never say that for sure because the money spent
| on organizing Olympics could have been used somewhere
| else (or not used at all, therefore decreasing taxation).
| It was certainly a waste for anyone not living in London
| in any case.
| prashantsengar wrote:
| Every money that one spends can be spent somewhere else
| too
| fomine3 wrote:
| Well, Tokyo is most far from wasteland in Japan. It
| wastes money to most crowded city despite most towns are
| declining.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| And NBC, they aren't paying over 1 billion dollars per
| olympics just to not have the show go on.
| Asymmetryk wrote:
| The understanding that I think that attentive observers are
| taking away from this games, is that the Olympics Committee
| and political cohort bring shame on the host nation, not
| glory. I hope I'm not being too sensitive, but I really
| have felt as if the Japanese people have been reacting not
| merely to the patent illogic and consequently unjustifiable
| dangers, but I like to think that the Japanese are reacting
| to the contemptuous and privileged solipsism of those
| responsible, with a demonstration of regret and protest
| that's going to make everyone start to see these organisers
| for who they are.
| strulovich wrote:
| The sentimental in me really appreciates what the Olympics
| stand for. There are many things bad in sports, but the
| idea of all the humans in the world sending delegates for a
| global sports competition is a good reminder of all the
| progress we've made. (I'm also a Eurovision fan)
| monkeycantype wrote:
| Watching the soccer made we think maybe we could get used
| to watching athletes compete in beautiful locations with no
| stadiums and crowds. Maybe you could do olympics really
| cheap with no tourists
| ekianjo wrote:
| Or do the Olympics always in the same place, instead of
| wasting energy building new installations around the
| globe every 4 years that will never be re-used.
| jedberg wrote:
| Every Olympics held in the United States has been
| profitable for the host city (and all but one in Canada) in
| large part because the infrastructure already exists.
|
| Los Angeles is looking forward to having the games in 2028
| because it gives them extra money to pay for infrastructure
| that they've been planning to build anyway.
|
| San Francisco really wanted the 2028 games as well because
| it would have allowed us to finish building BART/CalTrain
| around the Bay, and we would have already had all the
| venues necessary with the various pro and college
| facilities around the Bay.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Every Olympics held in the United States has been
| profitable for the host city (and all but one in Canada)
| in large part because the infrastructure already exists.
|
| Do you have a source? From
| https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/economics-hosting-
| olympic-g...
|
| > As a result, in 1979 Los Angeles was the only city to
| bid for the 1984 Summer Olympics, allowing it to
| negotiate exceptionally favorable terms with the
| International Olympic Committee (IOC).
|
| > The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles were the only games to
| produce a surplus, in large part because the city was
| able to rely on already existing infrastructure. As the
| costs of hosting have skyrocketed, revenues cover only a
| fraction of expenditures. Beijing's 2008 Summer Olympics
| generated $3.6 billion in revenue, compared with over $40
| billion in costs, and London's Summer Games in 2012
| generated $5.2 billion compared with $18 billion in
| costs. What's more, much of the revenue doesn't go to the
| host--the IOC keeps more than half of all television
| revenue, typically the single largest chunk of money
| generated by the games.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Atlanta 1996 turned a profit:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Summer_Olympics
| ak217 wrote:
| Atlanta 96 was a great case study in this. Atlanta built
| a ton of infrastructure that continues to serve the city
| well. Many of the venues built in downtown and especially
| on the Georgia Tech campus went on to be very productive
| and useful. Georgia Tech has a world-class gym and still
| uses some of the olympic village as dorms as part of that
| legacy. There is one big exception - a massive tennis
| center built out in the suburbs. It was too far outside
| the city, never got much use and was demolished in 2018.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain_Tennis_Cente
| r
| crakenzak wrote:
| You're incorrect. The Fifa World Cup is the largest sporting
| event in the world.
| new299 wrote:
| In the context of my comment, I mean largest in terms of
| number of athletes and support staff. The Olympics is far
| larger in these terms I believe.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| No. More than 80% are against doing Olympics during COVID
| lockdown.
|
| I think the majority is for a non-COVID olympics.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > I think the majority is for a non-COVID olympics
|
| When you phrase it like that it has me imagining make the
| 100m sprint for Covid athletes (maybe 80% SpO2?). It sounds
| quite interesting. So I guess I'm now part of the 20%.
| new299 wrote:
| There's no lockdown (as this is normally understood) in
| Japan. This concept doesn't really exist (because it's
| legally difficult to implement without changing the
| constitution as I understand it).
|
| There's a state of emergency in Tokyo (now expanded to
| surrounding areas). But this doesn't really restrict people
| very much.
|
| Yes, the majority are against holding the Olympics now (or
| cancelling it if it's not possible to postpone). But you'd
| likely find support for delaying the Olympics until after
| COVID-19 (whenever that might be).
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| > And that in most respects it has be a disaster, I've lost
| count of the number of scandals and resignations... [2]
| Rather than being good PR for Japan, it feels like it's been
| overwhelmingly negative.
|
| You are basically describing every olympics I can remember
| and most that I've read about before my birth.
|
| Assassinations, at least 5 decades of doping scandals by East
| Germany and USSR, ice skaters' husbands attacking
| competitors, Hitler, etc.
|
| The Olympics is a rage-inducing waste of taxpayer money, but
| I love watching gymnastics.
| numpad0 wrote:
| WA2000 is also one of the coolest sculptures in the history
| :p
| [deleted]
| m4rtink wrote:
| It's so unfortunate! The 2020 Olympics was supposed to be the
| start of the new Reiwa Era, rebirth after the devastation of
| the 2011 quake, like the 1964 Olympics and 1970 expo were a
| sign of rebirth after the end of the war.
|
| Already during our visits to Japan in 2017 and 2019 we could
| see a lot of infrastructure work going on all around, lots of
| optimistic Olympic advertising and countdowns. It really should
| have been an even presenting modern Japan to the whole world,
| with the expectation that many of the countless tourists who
| would go for the Olympics would like Japan and return.
|
| But with covid this is all gone, a lot of expensive
| infrastructure that will take many years to pay back without
| all the tourists and possibly bad image of Japan on the
| international stage & dissatisfaction with the government and
| foreign organizations in the Japanese population.
|
| Oh well, at least Akira did not happen. ;-)
| Scea91 wrote:
| Small details like this make my day. I also love how it was
| basically crowdfunded by Japanese people. It quite strenghtens
| the symbolic value of the medal I think.
| Asymmetryk wrote:
| when and where from can I get myself a recycled electronics
| gold watch / earrings for my lady geek? I feel very confident
| that this is going to happen, now, but I'm fascinated by the
| economics of the acquisition of the e-waste, in terms of "ore"
| density : it's a while since I was marvelling at the sight of
| the gold pad to pin wires in a ceramic package. Where's the
| highest quality and concentrations now?
| jdavis703 wrote:
| There are potential moral concerns with e-waste recycling. I
| won't say it's more problematic than mining. But many of the
| same issues with environmental degradation, dangerous work
| environments and child labor can apply.
|
| Source: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/vie
| wconten...
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Too bad they didn't crowdsource the decision about whether the
| olympics should happen this year:
| https://sports.yahoo.com/cancel-the-olympics-japanese-people...
| nixass wrote:
| Canceling Olympics is difficult. Whoever cancels it, has to
| pay hefty fine, either the host or the Olympic committee. The
| pandemic is sadly not the valid reason to cancel them, at
| least not in committee's eyes, so Japan was strong handed
| here.
| toiletaccount wrote:
| Japan could have just said no to the Olympics, not paid the
| fine and told the IOC exactly where to put the contract.
|
| Hosting the games ends up costing the host countries more
| money anyway so if IOC skips over them in the future...so
| what?
|
| E: this assumes the fine isn't already in escrow
| alasdair_ wrote:
| That could have led to Japan being banned from the
| Olympics until the fine is paid.
| toiletaccount wrote:
| eh.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Couldn't they just compete anyways as the "Japanese
| Olympic Committee?"
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| If you left the pandemic decisions to a majority vote, most
| places would be fully open by now.
| taejo wrote:
| I don't know about your country, but every month from
| January to June (the latest data I found) a large majority
| of Germans polled believed the measures to fight COVID were
| appropriate or didn't go far enough.
| https://de.statista.com/infografik/23810/umfrage-zur-
| angemes...
| jdavis703 wrote:
| I'm not sure what country you're basing this on, but in the
| US the 2020 election felt like a repudiation of the more
| liberalized COVID-19 policies of the Trump administration.
| decadancer wrote:
| Almost all of government spending is crowdfunded
| kzrdude wrote:
| Olympics has huge sponsors too
| craftinator wrote:
| If you don't opt in to the crowdfunding, it's called "mass
| theft".
| jdavis703 wrote:
| People opt-in to crowdfunding. Generally we have no choice in
| paying taxes. That said some states like California give
| taxpayers the option to pay extra taxes for special funds
| like coastal cleanup or processing the rape kit backlog.
| These funds are more analogous to crowd funding, but they
| pale in comparison to total state revenue.
| kzrdude wrote:
| It claims the medals are pure silver, but a 925 silver alloy or
| so would be more realistic? Probably just ignorance of the detail
| by the research behind the article.
| [deleted]
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