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World Cup Daily, Day 25

grantwahl.substack.com

131–140 of 175 posts

Re: World Cup Daily, Day 25

#131

Did Grant care about the incredible number of young people dying of fentanyl in USA? Did he care about the fact there are more teenagers homeless in LA than people with mental health problems?

I don't know. What's your point?

Not trying to make a point here I’m genuinely curious.

Re: World Cup Daily, Day 25

#132
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Even a single preventable death on a job site is one too many. We are doubling down on safety precautions and training to prevent any further workplace hazards. While complete safety is impossible to achieve on a project of this scale, we are using our massive wealth to ensure our construction sites follow international best practices in this area. We value the lives and wellbeing of our workers and will take every…

There are 1+ million migrant workers in Qatar. Roughly, the average human mortality rate is about 1% per year. In a given population of 1 million, you could expect about 27 to die, on average each day . (0.01x1000000)/365 = 27 Sure, more elderly people make up the 1%, and if accounting for the workers ages maybe you'll have half that figure. Or a quarter. The point is, in context, one worker dying out of a million on…

> How many times per day would it take for an authority to issue a statement like the above before such statements begin to seem trite and meaningless?

Nobody asks them to issue a statement every time a worker was killed. This was what he said when was asked specifically about the incident. Still think it's trite and meaningless?

Re: World Cup Daily, Day 25

#133
post #6

https://grantwahl.substack.com/p/world-cup-daily-day-22 My body finally broke down on me. Three weeks of little sleep, high stress and lots of work can do that to you. What had been a cold over the last 10 days turned into something more severe on the night of the USA-Netherlands game, and I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort. I didn’t have Covid (I test regularly here), but I we…

Honestly, as much as I’d like to lean into the conspiracy theories here, I think this post highlights the likely cause of his death. Won’t stop people from speculating though.

Yeah, yikes. Those are clear and dangerous symptoms. Literally worked himself to death. I find the conspiracies a little hard to swallow knowing how severe his symptoms were, and I love a good conspiracy. I would not entirely discount murder, but that was really not smart of him to keep working through such severe medical condition.

Re: World Cup Daily, Day 25

#134
post #19
post #10

It seems pretty obvious that a totalitarian petrostate, that bribed its way into using a global sports event as a massive PR push, doesn't care. What matters is whether we care that they don't care. What matters is whether we care that our sports institutions are massively corrupt.

> bribed its way into using a global sports event as a massive PR push So common that it has a name. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportswashing

The lists in that article are absurdly tendentious. Except for Berlusconi, there's very little reason given to justify inclusion.

Re: World Cup Daily, Day 25

#135
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s very unreasonable? In a analytical sense it’s bad of course, you don’t want workers to die if you can prevent it, but you cannot really expect me to care about every person that dies. This person is just very blunt about stating as much, or maybe they don’t care in the first sense either, and they wouldn’t change anything for the better even if they had opportunity to.

I think the issue may be that humans have social norms which dictate that we express that we care. If someone flouts that norm then it implies that there is something significantly wrong with them.

> social norms which dictate

I thought we went past that three centuries ago. But then, globablization of communication showed differently.

I am not even sure about when and where these "social norms about expression" emerged; I am not sure they existed among the Romans, the Carolingian Franks etc.

Surely, they are apparent in some anglophone contexts. The Britons very often go "Will you apologize?" in odd contexts very far from those others would find consistent with the request (e.g. if A randomly knocked B down and showed indifference).

Re: World Cup Daily, Day 25

#136
post #111
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working conditions in the US have improved dramatically over the last century because politicians and leaders took action to improve them. Your position seems to be that it doesn’t matter what leaders and politicians say if they don’t believe it in their heart. I think that’s less relevant than their actions. (And FWIW, yes, usually when a worker dies on the job in the US the company does sponsor a memorial)

> when a worker dies on the job in the US the company does sponsor a memorial What? Who? Amazon docks people productivity points for the time it takes to walk a longer route to avoid a dead body on the warehouse floor.

Most companies aren't big corps and tend to care about employees if only because there are fewer of them.

Re: World Cup Daily, Day 25

#137
post #52
post #26

Maybe I am just cynical, but I highly doubt many leaders would actually care about a worker’s death. Most would like have the decorum and PR experience to feign shock, but I doubt you’d get more than an empty “oh that’s terrible“ from most in power. To me the fact that anyone would find this shocking is the most shocking part as it implies people are believing politicians facades.

Maybe it’s all a facade, but in the U.S. such shows of concern have gotten us effective workplace safety regulation. I don’t really care if the politicians’ concern is fake: the avoided deaths are real.

Don't simply pardon civic decay - simulation - because of practical progress. Culture is paramount.

Re: World Cup Daily, Day 25

#138

Not surprising at all. mohammed bin salman personally ordered a journalist beheaded in the Istanbul consulate a few years ago. Why not poison a journalist at the World Cup? royal families can commit genocide, and still have no legal financial or personal recourse. To them, he was just a worker and workers are garbage in the Middle East.

President of USA are known to bomb civilians. And still they get re-elected and even some people give them donations that is bribes to support their murderous tendencies. And nothing is being done about this. No death penalties for people involved. No one is spending rest of their live in jail. Or being prosecuted and judged by jury made of peers of victims.

Re: World Cup Daily, Day 25

#139
post #6

https://grantwahl.substack.com/p/world-cup-daily-day-22 My body finally broke down on me. Three weeks of little sleep, high stress and lots of work can do that to you. What had been a cold over the last 10 days turned into something more severe on the night of the USA-Netherlands game, and I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort. I didn’t have Covid (I test regularly here), but I we…

That really looks to me that he should have taken at least a few days off.

Re: World Cup Daily, Day 25

#140
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in most western countries, insurance and workers compensation laws result in safer working conditions.

Not really a story I have followed but the numbers I see after a quick search suggest this is another bullshit story. This website (first result on google, I don't particularly vouch for it [1]) suggests in 2020, 340 workers died every day from hazardous working conditions in the US. If you scale it to the population of Qatar, that's about 3 per day, or 20 per week. The guardian claims 12 migrant workers died per wee…

Hazardous working conditions is described in the report: "Chronic occupational diseases receive less attention, because most are not detected until years after workers have been exposed to toxic chemicals, and because occupational illnesses often are misdiagnosed and poorly tracked" [1] The context here is the deaths of migrants working on construction sites for the World Cup. On site. 14 deaths/daily is a more comparable number. [1]

Also, you cited a report by the unions, for the purpose of promoting workplace safety. There are no such champions for migrants working in Qatar.

[1] - https://aflcio.org/reports/death-job-toll-neglect-2020

> if you scale it to the population of Qatar

That's incorrect way of scaling, since the majority of deaths in Qatar are migrants from countries such as the Philippines, Bangladesh, India or Pakistan.

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