> 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.
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
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.
This is a really interesting point, and I've thought about this a little bit to try and understand why I think these are not analogous.
I would probably think that a potential rape victim who successfully defended him or herself was justified in doing so.
But there is a scale.
You can't go and stand on the sidelines at an orgy, then shoot anyone who looks at you funny. You can't go and shoot someone who offers to buy you a drink on the off-chance they might slip a roofie in it. You can't just turn around and shoot someone who is walking behind you in case they might be a rapist. On the other hand, if you shoot a guy who tries to drag you into his car, that's pretty clearly a sensible defence.
There are grey areas here too. What if a guy runs up behind you and you spin around and shoot, and it turns out you'd left your phone at the bar, and he was trying to catch up and give it to you.
> 'legal, but risky and potentially foolhardy'
This does describe both 'drinking a lot' and 'going with a gun to a riot', but I don't think it does justice to the differences between the behaviours.
Drinking too much, wearing short skirts, etc. does not imply any kind of consideration of consequences. Bringing a gun to a riot DOES. It shows that Rittenhouse was aware of the increased likelihood of violence, and had already decided that he was prepared to respond with deadly force.
Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter?
Agreed. You're in luck here, as I've actually just rewatched the Fox clip of Grosskreutz's court appearance just before I saw this, and cross referenced it with the NYT visual investigation just to account for selective clipping.
In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate. As to why I believe so, lets go over what happened post Rosenbaum.
In the initial confrontation, Rittenhouse retreats, trips and falls to the ground. Huber hits Rittenhouse with a skateboard and gets shot in the chest. Grosskreutz then advances with his gun, then gets shot as well.
Why do I consider this proportionate? First: Rittenhouse made an attempt to retreat. Only after the first physical attack (skateboard) and an attempted disarming, did Rittenhouse fire. After which, as per Grosskreutz's own admission, Rittenhouse did not fire when he backed off with his arms raised. Only after he ~returned to a firing position~ lowered his firearm and advanced did Rittenhouse fire on him as well. As he was armed and advancing with a firearm, I'd consider that a proportional response.
>Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter?
Apologies, I'm not too sure of the context before that as I've only personally seen the bit where Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse. However, if Huber and Grosskreutz did believe that they had an active shooter, they might ALSO be justified. Both sides here may have a sufficient justification in this case.
However, in my opinion, and this is contingent on the accuracy of the NYT's report and the above assumption of "active shooter", the only ones who weren't justified, and are thus the root cause, are Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse, and whoever that idiot shooting a pistol into the sky while Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse was.
There's of course more to this, but I'll leave it open for response.
Also, thanks for keeping it civil, it's much appreciated when discussing this sort of controversial topic.
> Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse
I don't think it's been clearly established why Rosenbaum attacked Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse's testimony on this sounds hollow and unlikely, and the narrative that Rosenbaum was unhinged after getting out of hospital doesn't quite tally with the fact that there were people with him - he wasn't a lone actor here.
It seems incredibly unlikely that there wasn't some sort of verbal provocation from Rittenhouse's side. As I mentioned in another comment, the drone footage shows Rittenhouse pointing his gun at Rosenbaum while Rosenbaum is still 20 feet away from him. To my mind, it's far from certain that this was the first time Rittenhouse pointed his gun at Rosenbaum, but we'll never know.
Now to my main point:
> In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate.
If I think to how I personally would have acted in Rittenhouse's position from the moment Rosenbaum threw the bag at him, I think I would probably also have been in a state of adrenaline-fueled panic, and I would have probably made very similar choices.
I don't really have any arguments that Rittenhouse only fired his gun at people he (reasonably, whether rightly or wrongly) believed were attacking him. I do think it's a stretch to think that they were all trying to kill him, particularly Huber (is this further evidence to support my hypothesis above that maybe Rittenhouse escalated the lesser threats of being disarmed or of being detained to threats of deadly force? Hard to say).
To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. He chose to go to a location where he was expecting people to get injured, brought a gun with him, and associated himself with a band of people who believed that they were some kind of private security force.
No-one died that night (or any other night of the unrest) apart from the people Rittenhouse killed, there were no other reported injuries from gunshots, no mob attacks[0], which makes it seem relatively unlikely that anyone would have died if Rittenhouse had not been there, or had not brought his AR-15.
Whatever the ins and outs and the specifics of the case might be, I still think that Facebook were right to err on the side of caution here - technically he may not have committed a crime, but he still killed people, and although the doctrine of 'innocent until proven guilty' holds, his 'innocence' hung on an affirmative defence, which sort of swings it the other way to a certain extent.
[0]: I gather there were some minor injuries to a firefighter and a police officer, but couldn't find details on the circumstances.
>It seems incredibly unlikely that there wasn't some sort of verbal provocation from Rittenhouse's side.
At that time tempers were already flaring nationwide and I find both the above, as well as it's inverse, plausible. Most likely, both sides were clashing, as is oft the case in situations as volatile as this.
Returning to the NYT's video of Rosenbaum, there's a few things to note. One, that he was potentially mentally ill (relevant?), and two, he was directly antagonizing the "militia", sufficiently so that the other protestors felt it necessary to stop him [1].
In the later part, of the same video (note that there's a cut though), Rosenbaum seemingly suddenly pursues[2] and continues chasing. Only after he gets quite close (in my opinion; 18:04 or so), do we hear the first shots. There could be a hypothetical in between to fill in the gap, but given the available evidence that I'd observed, I gave more credence to Rosenbaum ultimately initiating.
>To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. ...
So, I think that while I'd agree with you that yes, the problem started long before the first shot, I would think that it's better to evaluate it at point of firing. Otherwise we'd be chasing this rabbit hole till the end of time.
The protestors and rioters shouldn't have been there earlier as curfews were in place, and the police should have been enforcing law. The side arguments of open carry vs gun ownership and the inherent lethality increase a gun brings to any conflict, all the way to "gun rights". These arguments however are all applicable to the situation but are far more general, and I feel, a too tempting distraction.
I thus divide these into two different questions (or more, if necessary) so they can be addressed piecemeal. 1: At the time of firing, was Rittenhouse justified. 2: All the other bits and bobs about the context of the situation and who should have been there.
For the first, I've continued to make my case above, while for the second (rest?), this comment is long enough as it is, and I'll leave it open for now if you want to pick that one up.
><On facebook's topic ban>
This one is a bit more dear an issue to me, being a question of speech rights. But it's also one of those which I haven't come to anything solid. However, picturing myself in that situation, I'd be aghast to have a whole pile of media flaming me and having whatever scant opposition to that narrative literally blocked.
EDIT:
Oops, I missed your line on Rittenhouse's belief in his immediate danger. I think we've already come to the same conclusion in a different thread in which the government, and it's dereliction of it's duty to maintain order is probably the one who should be most at fault (correct me if I've misplaced your position).
Again, we see a part of the story here which definitely supports that interpretation. There's also a part of the video you linked to which (I believe) shows the police asking the 'militia' not to point their guns at people[0], which to me suggests that they had been doing this prior to the request from the police. I think it's impossible to know whether Rosenbaum's behaviour was in response to some (perceived?) aggression against him in the first place.
> I gave more credence to Rosenbaum ultimately initiating.
Potentially. However, Rittenhouse is running, with his gun, towards a location where Rosenbaum's 'side' are up to something. Maybe Rosenbaum believes Rittenhouse is going to go and shoot some of the other protestors (or vandals, whatever), and that's why he starts chasing. As you say, it's a long chain back to where the first 'provocation' may have happened. It's clear that the situation developed over the course of the whole day, rather than in the 15 seconds leading up to the killings.
> I'd be aghast to have a whole pile of media flaming me and having whatever scant opposition to that narrative literally blocked
Yes, but at the end of the day, you shot and killed not just one person, but two. The president of the USA was publicly in his corner[1]. I'm not sure I'd say that the opposition to the narrative was blocked, it was just against Facebook's policies. They get slammed when they don't react quickly enough[2], strongly enough[3], etc., and then they get slammed when they do take stronger action, so frankly it's hard to see how they could get it right. I get the free speech implications, but if your only forum for free speech is through Facebook, we have much worse problems in society than whether they allow you to post 'Rittenhouse is a hero' or not.
> the government [...] should be most at fault
That's a pretty accurate summary of my position. Failing to properly maintain order led to the formation of vigilante groups (and it seems these were even encouraged by law enforcement), which ultimately led to the clashes which resulted in Rosenbaum and Huber's deaths.
> Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter?
Grosskreutz stated outright during the trial that he had no reason to believe Rittenhouse had shot anyone. Despite this, there is video of him pulling his gun while he was chasing Rittenhouse down. Maybe this was just mob mentality Maybe this is because he was associated with violent revolutionary groups to the point that he was invited to speak at their rallies.
If going to a riot with a gun is stupid, chasing a guy with a gun is at least as stupid. The fact that he was running toward where EVERYONE knew the police were lined up makes this even more strange. Why risk your life when you can corral the shooter into the police?
Have you watched the entire testimony? On cross, he contradicts almost everything he said on direct questioning.
2:11:20 -- Grosskreutz denies he was chasing Rittenhouse.
2:23:30 -- he establishes that when he saw Rittenhouse, he was just helping people
2:27:00 -- he says he believed there was an active shooter, but had no information about who it was and apparently had no way to say why he believed this to be the case.
On the video Grosskreutz was taking with his camera, it is shown that Rittenhouse says that he is going to the police. Grosskreutz claims he though Rittenhouse said "he shot first" even though they sound absolutely nothing alike.
2:30:00 -- he says he was NOT chasing Rittenhouse. Instead, he just happened to be coincidentally pulling his gun while he happened running in the same direction. At the same time, he says he was running that direction because Rittenhouse was. Make of this inconsistency what you will.
2:31:00 -- he sees people mobbing Rittenhouse
2:32:00 -- he says he was concerned about Rittenhouse's safety. This DIRECTLY argues against the idea he believed Rittenhouse was an active shooter.
2:35:00 -- he believed Rittenhouse was in physical danger (even though he just denied seeing jump kick man kick Rittenhouse)
2:36:00 -- he says Huber was slinging his skateboard by the trucks (note: a skateboard is 11 pounds while a baseball bat is only 2 pounds). He says that as a medic, this concerned him. He says he believed Rittenhouse was in danger of head trauma and being seriously hurt. He even claimed in his police report that he told Huber to stop hitting Rittenhouse (though he says in hindsight this was untrue). Once again, there is no reason for concern if he believed Rittenhouse was a dangerous active shooter.
2:37:30 -- he claimed to the police that Rittenhouse just shot him. He completely left out that he had a gun and was advancing and that no shots were fired when he put his hands up.
2:38:30 -- he claims the anesthesia somehow made him forget about the gun while still allowing him to remember everything else with perfect clarity.
2:44:00 -- delving into prosecutorial misconduct where the prosecutors suddenly decided to tell the detectives not to execute a search warrant (they don't want Brady evidence is my read given all the other misconduct allegations).
2:48:00 -- he testifies that EVERYONE who put up their hands and backed off -- even the guy with a club -- do NOT get shot. Once again, this is not what an active shooter does.
2:51:30 -- the point where the prosecution lost case. He contradicts his testimony to the prosecutor in the face of an image of his bicep being vaporized (his word) while his gun is pointed directly at Rittenhouse's head.
Don’t get me wrong, he makes a lot of mistakes, contradicts himself all over the place, and is generally not what I would call a reliable witness by any stretch of the imagination, but I can’t find anywhere where he said that he had no reason to believe Rittenhouse had shot anyone.
I admit though that I’ve only seen the highlights of the cross, which I why I asked for a link.
I might go away and watch the rest of cross this evening.
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.
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
It definitely is not. Denying someone access to airspace the way they did for Snowden to a gov’t level official is the equivalent of a bouncer stopping just the head of a competing club from entering - so the cops could grab him. Not seen as supportive, but not that crazy.
What happened in this case is the state level equivalent of holding someone and their friends who were walking on the sidewalk in front of your house at gun point - and then dragging the one you thought had spray painted your house a week earlier into your basement never to be seen again.
There is zero expectation that someone would or could use state level military assets to force a civil airplane flying under legal authorization and long standing agreements with no expectation of it landing in your country, under the flag of another nation, to grab someone you like.
It’s not like it hasn’t been possible, it’s just exceptionally hostile to everyone else and in violation of pretty much every international norm.
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?"
But that is my point - the morales flight incident wasn't an airliner. Near as I can dig up, there is no evidence anyone but Morales was on it and staff. It's more equivalent to stopping an officials car (via roadblock) than the hijacking of a civil airliner at gunpoint (or fighter jet point).
It's not a distinction without a difference, these are big differences with many non-subtle distinctions.
Laws don't really work in countries like Russia or Belarus. Vague laws that encompass anything under the sun + complete lack of judiciary independence means that laws are whatever Lukashenko, Putin, or a careerist prosecutor (who needs convictions) wants them to be in a particular case. There is a saying in Russian speaking countries "Был бы человек, а статья найдётся" which can be roughly translated as "For every man, there's a law to convict him under".
How is it apt? In one case a fake bomb threat and a fighter jet force land a commercial flight for political reasons of a despot. on the other side refusal to allow air travel through sovereign air space of democratic countries, and was "downed" after failing to comply.
This is far from apt comparison.
politically motivated interference with airliners in flight, to force a landing and arrest people in transit who are currently not within your jurisdiction
> 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.