Category Archives: Everybody Hates Cassandra

Lippmann and How Close

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“It is often very illuminating, therefore, to ask yourself how you got at the facts on which you base your opinion. Who actually saw, heard, felt, counted, named the thing, about which you have an opinion? Was it the man who told you, or the man who told him, or someone still further removed? And how much was he permitted to see?”

“When he informs you that France thinks this and that, what part of France did he watch? How was he able to watch it? Where was he when he watched it? What Frenchmen was he permitted to talk to, what newspapers did he read, and where did they learn what they say?”

Public Opinion, chapter 2
Walter Lippmann

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One may obviously substitute Ukraine, Russia, Gaza, and Israel here.

How video streaming got fragmented, in a picture

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There’s a version of this RIAA infographic going around that’s a) total revenues, and b) not adjusted for inflation. “Total revenues” includes subscription revenues, ie Spotify (or as Ulrika calls the model, ransomware).

This is sales only, and also unadjusted for inflation. But I’m calling your attention to it for two reasons:

  • iTunes was a big deal. iTunes really did replace CDs, for a while. But that meant Apple got a 30% cut. It is difficult to overstate how much resentment this caused at the labels. And a few labels were owned by movie studios (Sony/Columbia, Warner Bros., MCA/Universal). Which leads to…
  • When Netflix was small, the studios didn’t care. But when Netflix kept growing, and looked like it was going to become an iTunes-like gatekeeper… Well, this graph shows why they decided to setup their own streaming sites. They were damned if they were going to get snookered again (from their point of view).

Now, it looks like video streaming really does benefit from economies of scale, and fragmenting the market is probably going to lead to everyone except Netflix imploding. Had the studios just stayed out of things, let Netflix take their cut, and kept everything consolidated, vast amounts of capital expenditures using shareholder cash wouldn’t have been wasted. Everyone would have been fat cats.

But there’s that damned ego problem. Faced with a second gatekeeper, the studio execs had to give it a try, other people’s cash be damned.

Oh, well.

Well, there you have it:

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According to Mr. Bush’s speech last night, Iraq is anywhere from one to five years before being capable of launching a strike against us. Which is why it’s so desperately urgent we hit them… um, tomorrow. {cough}

But the most disturbing thing about this whole scenario is how it plays out if you look at it logically.

There’re two axes here: Either Iraq has weapons of mass destruction (WMD), or it doesn’t. And Iraq will either use them, or they won’t.

That means there’re four outcomes, one of which is impossible:

Iraq doesn’t have WMD, and won’t use them. For me, this is the most likely outcome. You can see it all over the place in our own planning, with the devil-may-care attitude we’re showing both about how long this war will last (over quickly enough for Tony Blair to stay PM a day or two, we hope), and the possibilities about retaliation. Then again, that means we’re about to send 300,000 combined troops over to a country looking for weapons that don’t exist. According to some polling data released during today’s Talk of the Nation call-in show, 80% of Americans think Iraq has WMD, and that disarming Iraq is a major criterion for “victory”.  (Dear 80% of the US: Iraq is likely already unarmed, and you’re likely to get a massive disappointment.) Either that, or I would look really carfeully at the serial numbers of whatever WMD we “find” — especially after the fiasco of the forgery of the documents purporting to show Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. Also, this is the scenario most likely to generate the previously predicted 1-14 vote in the Security Council calling for sanctions against the US (and maybe the UK, if they’re still in the game).

Iraq has WMD, and uses them. But if that’s true… then we’re sending 300,000 soldiers good and true to basically be burnt to a crisp so the Administration can then justify massive retaliation. And the Administration is doing this knowingly, with malice aforethought. Oddly, this doesn’t comfort me. (Marshmallows at the Reichstag, anyone?)

Iraq has WMD, but won’t use them. This appears to be the Officially Approved Plan. I hope Mr. Hussein has been properly briefed, and he sticks to the script. But it’s the only way to explain the combination of no obvious contingencies for the use of WMD against our trops, intertwined with no apparent hesitation about the fact that months of concentrated effort through inspection, espionage, satellite flybys, and surreptitious signals listening has turned up… radio chatter with nothing else to back it up. {ooh! aah!} Ruel Marc Gerecht appears to have gotten it right in The Atlantic back in July 2001 — our intelligence agencies appear to have about zero assets in the Near East region. Almost every breakthrough we’ve had appears to have been done by either the Israelis or the Pakistanis, with Our Boys brought in at the last minute for the photo op.

Iraq doesn’t have WMD, but will somehow use them. This is the outcome that’s logically impossible. Unless Mr. Hussein just rang up a massive credit card bill tonight. Or unless he just cut a deal with the North Koreans — who almost certainly do have WMD at this point, which is why the Cowardly Lion treats them with such shyness — to bomb us on his behalf.

(NOTE: I did indeed write this in March, 2003. It was in my Livejournal, since converted to Dreamwidth. I’m just bringing it over here because… well, look at the domain name, pal. It belongs here.)