
Chicago Loses, Nerds Win: The real story behind Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid - brandnewlow
http://www.slate.com/id/2231173/
======
pasbesoin
In all the commentary so far (e.g. on Chicago's WBEZ public radio, playing in
the background), I haven't heard a single mention of the hassle it has become
for many people to visit the U.S. I've seen this point made many places,
including in comments on this site, particularly a year or two ago. I've heard
it from friends and acquaintances.

I don't know whether it would have influenced the decision at all -- my ill-
informed impression is that many of those decision makers don't travel in such
a "plebian" manner. But I've been wondering. Given what I've heard, if I were
a non-U.S. representative casting my vote, I'd take it into consideration.

Overall, but again without having paid particular attention, the Rio decision
makes sense to me. South America has not seen much of the Games. Brazil is an
up and coming power. Much of the world is weary of the excesses of U.S.
hegemony (the excesses, as opposed to the entire role of the U.S.), even if it
did in general take some heart in Obama's election.

Perhaps, also, this is a leading indicator of a decline in the need to kiss
the U.S.'s posterior.

~~~
jrockway
_I haven't heard a single mention of the hassle it has become for many people
to visit the U.S._

It is a hassle to visit China, as well, but that did not affect their Olympic
bid.

~~~
carpo
I've visited China many times, and it has never felt like a hassle. It
actually feels more difficult re-entering my own country (Australia), as it
takes considerably longer to get through customs and pick up baggage here.

~~~
jrockway
I consider getting a visa for a short-term tourist stay to be a hassle. You
can't just buy your plane ticket and show up, instead you have to fill out
paperwork, fax copies of your passport around, etc.

(Personal story: I transited Shanghai a few weeks ago. If I didn't need a visa
to visit the city, I would have added a stopover or picked a longer connection
so that I could go into town. But since this would have involved money and
paperwork, I decided to skip it.

I did get to see the Great Firewall in action, though, which was kind of neat.
I felt like I was Sticking It To The Man when I had to ssh to my server at
home and use w3m to read blogs.)

~~~
electromagnetic
Er BTW many people need a visa for a short-term visit to the US. Now even
people who previously could visit short-term either have to jump through hoops
or have to apply for a visa. A significant amount more post-bush need visas
than did pre-bush.

Because of decent negotiating on the British part, most Britons still apply
for the visa-waving program (mostly because the British government said if the
UK loses its Visa-waving program to the US, the US will lose its to the UK).
This happened only a couple of years after the whole mandatory machine
readable passport thing (which the British government again said that US
citizens have to do it too).

Ironically the US was trying to ban British Pakistani's from entering the US,
however the US never even attempted to prevent the entry of the IRA when they
were purchasing weaponry from the US for terrorist purposes. I suppose the
US's whole anti-terrorist stance is hugely different when they terrorists are
helping your economy, not trying to destroy it.

~~~
jrockway
No offense, but US immigration restrictions have very little to do with
terrorism. It is more about "protecting" our jobs, or something.

We have plenty of natural-born citizens that like killing people (Ted
Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh, etc.), and the 9/11 hijackers all had valid visas.
INS (DHS now) is not in a position to prevent terrorism.

Now, why anyone would want to come to the US illegally, with our lack of
health care, crumbling school system, horrendous prisons, and so on, is beyond
me. Someone should tell the illegal immigrants that there are many better
places to immigrate to.

~~~
electromagnetic
I wasn't talking about immigrating, I was talking about visitors visas. Big
difference, the US was planning to remove the visa-waver program because of
the British Pakistani community.

However, I understand what you mean about illegal immigration. Although I
completely understand why people work illegally when they do go to a different
country. I'm immigrating legally to Canada and it's been almost 6 months
without a single response, but I can't work for risk of voiding the
application process. I'll be lucky if I hear anything before the new year.

However 1 year of unemployment is a better option than the potential 5 years
my wife could face trying to work legally in the UK. Plus, you know, Canada
actually has vegetation in the places they call 'cities', which by far beats
the UK's desolate wastelands (personally I don't count many British people on
the streets as alive, at least from the city I came from, I think 90% would
probably pass a test for P-Zombieism).

~~~
jrockway
_Big difference, the US was planning to remove the visa-waver program because
of the British Pakistani community._

I doubt this. One crackpot unelected official does not "the US was planning"
make. If we kill our visa-waiver program, everyone else in the world will
remove the US from theirs. That is simply not going to happen.

Also, if you feel that the US is discriminating against you because of your
ethnicity, you have full access to the courts. The Constitution protects all
"people", not just citizens.

------
brandnewlow
Hey HN. I wrote this for Slate today and wanted to share it with you as it
breaks down the conflict in Chicago over their own Olympic bid, good-
government geeks on one side, pro-tourism jocks on the other.

~~~
biohacker42
What I found most interesting is the detailed analysis of the expect costs and
benefits. What I strongly disliked is how it was cast in jocks vs nerds
theater.

I understand that Slate's readership isn't HN's readership, and that just the
facts aren't enough, that there needs to be some kind of emotional story to
hold the reader's attention.

But is jocks vs nerds really it? Is that the most interesting thing? Wouldn't
a more generic dreamers vs. hard nosed realists be something a wider audience
can identify with?

Perhaps you're also looking for strong passion, not just the widest general
interest? But even in that case, the jocks vs nerds cliche? Nerds hate any
kind of sports related activity so much they won't even allow their home city
to host the Olympics?

It just feels tired and forced. But the economic analysis was great.

~~~
jacoblyles
I wonder if the same people opposing the Olympics would oppose, say, an
economically dubious high-speed rail line?

~~~
hughprime
I would! I can't speak for anyone else, though.

------
edw519
I'll become interested in the Olympics when they add programming to it. I've
been an aspiring prograthelete for years, but alas, the Olympics still doesn't
have the most grueling sport of all: the prograthelon, 36 consecutive hours of
mind blowing competition:

    
    
      1. IDE Finger Gymnastics
      2. 100 Lines-Of-Code Dash
      3. Individual Text Editor Medley
      4. Regular Expression Datelifting
      5. Greco-Roman Webpage Translation
      6. Modern Compiling
      7. Databaseball
      8. Hackstroke
      9. Printer Throw
     10. Debugging Marathon

~~~
gaius
You forgot race condition :-P

------
balding_n_tired
Denver actually bailed out of a commitment to host the Olympics 30-odd years
ago:
[http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/millennium/1012stone.sht...](http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/millennium/1012stone.shtml)

------
noodle
p.s.: rio won the bid for 2016.

------
bilbo0s
I'm sorry . . .

But the comic in the right hand column of that Slate Article is awesome. That
is SO Chicago.

~~~
tptacek
The comics rotate. Which one were you looking at?

~~~
bilbo0s
The one with Obama at the podium, flanked by two mafia guys with tommy guns.
And he says something to the effect of, 'Like we Chicagoans always say, vote
early, and vote often!'

~~~
tptacek
It is definitely annoying that every time I go downstairs to buy coffee, I
have to thread my way around angry looking mafia guys with Tommy Guns and
bribe the barista.

~~~
pasbesoin
Ha. In a previous corporate position, senior management was flipped to some
East Coast "fixers". They started whacking jobs left and right. They felt the
need to be on site, rather than remaining out east, but apparently feared for
their lives or well-being during this blood bath. So... they holed up in one
wing of the building, and installed armed guards in the lobby. Every time I
went in or out, I was walking past armed guards.

(I realize a significant fraction of people here may have that, but for a
bland corporate job?)

Fortunately, the guards were decent fellows, once you got to know them (and
working a lot of evenings and weekends, I got to know them). Neither angry nor
armed with fully automatic weapons. But then this was the genteel suburbs;
might have been different if we were downtown. ;-)

------
dschobel
Interesting article. I wish it would have addressed the go-to stat of the pro-
Olympics crowd here in Chicago, namely that no Summer Olympics has lost money
since '84.

~~~
hughprime
Really? I heard that no summer Olympics in history had ever _made_ money
except for 1984.

I expect it's one of those creative accounting things where you can come up
with pretty much any number you like.

