Svettie

"Can" is the key word in that quote. It's possible, but not necessarily likely. There's no contradiction.

Efficiency of markets is like the Law of Large Numbers. But it's possible to get n consecutive coin flips that come up heads.

sure, I mean the paradigm of using military force, and more generally disregarding international law to achieve geopolitical goals

that's... exactly the point, but with the reverse conclusion. You can always paint a narrative about how this situation is different than others. You can justify anything you want by just working backwards in this way. So instead, we have values and principles, and those are the things that should be under debate.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that the only thing that matters at all is power. Sadly, the USA is responsible for establishing this paradigm, although pointing this out is taboo whataboutism. Now, we're returning to a world as it's always been: apes compelling other apes with their sticks.

I just don't think human psychology works this way. Your attitude is akin to a parent's with a child, "your actions have consequences, so do better". But Russia's parent in this analogy is Putin, and he will use such things to his advantage. Your approach might feel just, but the message will be completely lost.

You will note how many Western governments over the past few days have been saying explicitly: "These sanctions are not meant at the Russian people, we see that they did not want this war". It doesn't seem like this is even true from polling, but it's calculated messaging, and it's important.

Maybe that's how you feel, but not me. I try to live in a principled way, and I think many other people do as well. So I support calling out hypocrisy because I think it makes the world a better place (I would like my own views also challenged on these grounds). In this case, the hypocritical action is needlessly divisive because it paints Russians as "the other", and I don't think this type of thinking helps the world in the long-term.

It's hypocrisy nonetheless, regardless of the scale

You and others use "whataboutism" like it's some sort of checkmate. The point is, many Americans are very eager to police everyone based on their "principles", everyone else except themselves and their allies that is.

The topic of discussion is not whether or not the Russian invasion of Ukraine is bad. If it was, your argument would be applicable.

This topic is analogous to "selective enforcement" from police. If a policeman typically jails blacks but gives whites a warning for the same crime, this is bad, and should be acknowledged as such. Same here.

That's not the case. But anyway, after a night to clear my head I realize this is an emotional time for everyone, and I'm sorry for stirring you up. I was reacting to my own things. I definitely don't support this war, nor any further bloodshed. I wish for peace, and peace to you as well. Have a good day

Call me what you wish, but it's not true. If you're done then log off and stop spamming your replies to every single comment in this thread, and leave some space for any other opinion. You're just ranting

that's your opinion, and you're welcome to it. But it's not fact, and none of us are in Putin's head and know what he thinks. This is simply one perspective

Again, something being ridiculous (to you) does not make it evil. And your straw man has nothing to do with my response

A perspective you don't share is ridiculous, so your explanation is "evil"? Maybe, it's more likely that you just don't understand it.

I'm not "enlightened", and you can draw your own conclusions. But they don't have to annex Ukraine, they can just mess it up and cripple its military. At the least, Putin's stated aim is "demilitarization" of Ukraine. As for the comparison with the Baltic states, I would note that this entire situation evolved over decades. Perhaps Russia would have more strongly opposed NATO membership for the Baltics had it been in a more powerful position when that was happening. Perhaps they thought that NATO-expansion would stop there. A lot has happened in the past 3 decades and some patterns are much more clear now than they were back then. One that Putin has repeatedly pointed to is that the USA is continuously supporting overthrow of governments that it doesn't like, even in the case of democratically-elected Yanukovich in Ukraine. Maybe Putin is paranoid to think the same can happen in Russia, maybe not. But I think in his view, maintaining the nuclear deterrent with the West is an existential concern, like it had been for the USSR. Having NATO missiles and bases in Ukraine is clearly a step in the wrong direction for that concern. I'm not saying that this justifies war or that Putin is right. I just think that Putin perceives himself as a cornered rat, and that from this perspective his actions make a lot more sense than just seeing him as deranged or a power-hungry demagogue. This perspective is laid out more fully in this talk by John Mearsheimer if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4&t=120s

This is obviously a very sensitive topic at this time, and I hesitate even to post this comment. But I think everyone should be free to draw their own conclusions.

No, this isn't a trial. It's OK to raise ideas up for others' consideration. The absence of obvious evidence doesn't mean the thing itself isn't happening.

There is also a big difference between one person's voice on a platform, and a decision-maker of the platform who is creating policy/process for filtering those voices.

If we're talking about products with a large number of reviews:

- The fake reviews are commonly very low-effort: "best I've found, gift for grandma".

- A seller looking to do review spam doesn't want to keep pumping fake reviews forever. It costs money, and it's a risk.

Taking these two things into account, I sort for recent reviews, and only consider <5 star reviews OR reviews with some meat on them.

One thing to note is: I can't find any mention of returns/refunds on the wurkkos website, while Amazon has their standard (very liberal) return policy.

From the manufacturer's standpoint, they pay 15% referal fee to Amazon for getting them the sale. They also have a 5% coupon. Taking both of those things into account, their revenue on the sale is ~$64 compared to the ~$54 on their site. But I'd wager they're not getting very many sales on their website.

competing is not anti-competitive.

> Even though some competing platforms charge much lower fees, if Steve lowers his prices on another shopping site, Amazon’s algorithms punish him

I think in most cases, this "fair-pricing" bot kicks in because a seller has instead inflated prices on Amazon to squeeze more profit from Amazon customers. Amazon thinks that such tactics diminish the value of their marketplace, so they apply this crude heuristic as a way to disincentivize it.

So to answer your question: it's good for you, because if you're shopping on Amazon you can reasonably expect that you're getting good prices (at least in theory). This leads to a virtuous cycle which feeds the beast: people buy more stuff from Amazon, Amazon can operate more efficiently, you get lower prices.

Steve is griping against Amazon, but quite possibly he just has a bad business, and the core of his problem is that he can't compete effectively with other sellers on Amazon. But to him, Amazon seems like the problem because he feels like he's between a rock and a hard place.

But, hypothetical harm aside, Amazon (FBA especially) is currently a really good deal for sellers in terms of shipping costs and access to customers.

Amazon wants to be the place with the lowest prices, and to be known as such.

If Steve wanted to sell through a traditional retailer, he would wholesale to them and they would set the price to whatever they want.

Amazon's model is different, but not really. Imagine Steve could come in to negotiate a wholesale price with an Amazon rep.

Amazon would say: "Steve, we want to have the lowest prices in the marketplace. We checked 10 other stores, and the lowest price we found is $10. So, if we make a deal today, that would have to be our retail price. Now, working backwards, if we subtract our profit margin and expenses, the best wholesale price we would buy at from you is $3. Take it or leave it."

Also, what are these competing platforms charging much lower fees? In any case, if you're not profitable selling at the lowest price on Amazon, you don't have to sell on Amazon. You can go to these other platforms, or set up your own website. And the reason you won't want to do that is because actually Amazon offers a lot of value both to sellers and customers.

Some lively debate on this on Amazon's own Seller Forums: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/amazons-toll-road-...

So the massive list of uncontested gun victims is caused by a bunch of people with a vain fascination with deadly weapons? Either: a) this is the same type of fallacy you started out criticizing, or b) it's hyperbole, because "massive" and "bunch" could mean anything and you haven't substantiated it

"a true self-defense situation", according to who?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

There doesn't need to be a clear "bad guy" in every situation. Situations can escalate and get out of hand without any individual actors with bad intentions. So it's entirely plausible that the people charging Rittenhouse thought he was a terrorist and wanted to disarm him, and it's entirely plausible that Rittenhouse feared for his life when he shot them. To illustrate my point:

Suppose there are two people at two corners of a dark alleyway. They both hear a gunshot towards the center of the alley and draw their pistols in self-defence. They take a few steps and now see each other holding a gun. Each one raises his gun at the other, thinking that's the shooter. One fires and kills the other. AFAIK it would be justified self-defense

The last line is just your opinion, and clearly Rittenhouse disagreed. If it's not illegal for me to be somewhere, then I have the right to be there, and I can choose to exercise that right.

politically motivated interference with airliners in flight, to force a landing and arrest people in transit who are currently not within your jurisdiction

I don't disagree with you. Yes, one is worse than the other.

The point that I'm making is that the distinction is dwarfed by the baseness of the paradigm itself: politically motivated interference with airliners in flight, to force a landing and arrest people in transit who are currently not within your jurisdiction. Anyway you want to look at it this happened in both cases, and we shouldn't be celebrating "ooh, but technically, we just withdrew permissions so it's not that bad is it?"

To me it seems minor in the grand scheme of things. It's still trickery. I assume that in the Snowden case the permissions were withdrawn precisely to force a landing in a country where Snowden could be arrested. Belarus doesn't have the same alliances, so they resort to dirtier trickery to accomplish the same goal

I think you're choosing an arbitrary standard to defend your narrative. "Protasevich broke laws, but these are not laws that we consider bad."

I could also say that "being a whistleblower about a government agency violating the rights of millions of it's citizens" is something that Western democracies claim to protect, when it's not happening to themselves.

It's an apt comparison. And if we don't like the consequences, all the more reason to reflect on our own actions