@Espaol64212573@TheTennisLetter He lost IW points + $$ fine, 3 months ban losing big tournos money and points, perhaps even #1 rank… don’t know man… seems fair for accidental contamination.
Unless you don’t believe it was accidental, but then it’s a completely different conversation
The only thing people seem to agree on is that the anti-doping system is broken and it has been for a very long time.
It was unfair to Simona Halep who received a 4-year ban, which was reduced to 9 months (contaminated supplement, bore no significant fault or negligence, CAS ruled her anti-doping violations were unintentional)
It was unfair to Beatriz Haddad Maia who served a 10-month suspension (cross-contamination from food supplement, which she took as a part of a medical prescription, ITIA said she bore no significant fault or negligence)
It was unfair to Tara Moore (contaminated meat, she was cleared in 2023 when an independent tribunal found that she bore no fault or negligence, but ITIA appealed against that decision, so she is now slated for a new hearing in March)
Jannik Sinner’s positive tests were a result of transdermal contamination (Both ITIA and WADA accepted that he did not intentionally dope, WADA appealed, WADA reaches a case resolution & says he bore some responsibility for his entourages negligence)
The system has been unfair to many athletes. That is blatantly obvious.
But ask yourself this… would it have been ‘fair’ if Jannik Sinner were treated in the same manner?
That would have been the prolonging of a broken system. Nothing will ever change if we keep demanding that innocent players are held to drastically disproportionate punishments.
Simona’s name was dragged through the mud by many who follow the sport. She was banned from playing the sport she loves and couldn’t even have her case heard or decided in a timely manner.
Does that mean we should do the same to every player in the name of ‘fairness’?
Every case is different. But the one thing the players mentioned above all have in common is that they are INNOCENT.
The system’s #1 priority should be to catch dopers.
These players are not dopers and never were. So why treat them unfairly? Why continue to treat innocent players unfairly?
The system does need to be more consistent. Every player should have access to resources to defend themselves.
But we will never get there if we ask that every innocent player is treated just as unfairly as the last.
This chart of the highest ocean polluters is interesting
Why aren’t more environmentalists focused here instead of on plastic bags & straws in America?
To me, the most fascinating aspect of Deepseek is the fact it stemmed from a hedge fund, a mere few months after China "cracked down" on the levels of compensation in the finance industry.
It's also incidentally an important reason why the U.S. will struggle to compete with China.
Let me explain.
First of all, worth mentioning that this was predictably, as for most Chinese initiatives, presented by Western media as a terrible move (2 examples screenshoted below 👇) - "why would China do this to the poor innocent bankers" 😏. As usual they didn't even try to reflect on why China would do this: as we all know, all Chinese initiatives are always completely mindless and "crackdowns" are just what the Communist party does for fun...
The actual reason this was done, I believe, is that China looked at the West - the U.S. in particular - and saw the overbearing importance of the finance industry at the expense of the real economy. And in particular they saw that the country's most brilliant graduates from the very best Ivy League schools went to work for the increasingly parasitic finance industry instead of working on stuff that actually made society move forward.
Bloomberg lamented below that the "crackdown" would "fuel an industry brain drain" and yes, that was precisely the point: China doesn't want those who can most contribute to society to spend their careers building ever more senseless financial derivative products or new ways to trade crypto. It doesn't mean they don't want a finance industry, it does serve a purpose, just not one that becomes such a drain on society, in particular in terms of capturing the country's best talents. China would rather have them working on stuff like... artificial intelligence.
And lo and behold, fast forward a few months, and you suddenly have hedge fund geniuses who found a new calling in AI. Too good a coincidence not to see a correlation there.
This is something that would arguably be very hard for the U.S. to do, where capital is very much in control: an industry that becomes extremely wealthy, even if largely detrimental to broader societal goals, becomes difficult to reform. We're seeing this with finance, defense, big pharma, etc.
It also illustrates that the U.S. and China are at different stages of their development: excessive financialization is a common pattern among late-stage great powers - from the Dutch Republic to the British Empire (but also Venice or Spain) - and a vicious-circle type factor of their decline. Emerging great powers are often more thoughtful and nimble about managing talent flows to achieve technological and industrial primacy.
Looking at this question is also very interesting in the context of the H-1B visa debate in the U.S. It feels like the debate doesn't address the elephant in the room: why claim a shortage of top talent when the country's best minds are funneled to the finance industry? Much more coherent to first thoughtfully allocate talent at home before seeking to brain drain the rest of the world...
Anyhow, yet another example of a Chinese policy that seems bizarre and incomprehensible to the West at first glance but which over the long run (and even short-run as illustrated by Deepseek) helps China develop another strategic advantage in the tech competition. Simply put: you want your best minds building real value, not extracting it from society.
@RossellaRome@eleonora_aloise È un po’ un casino, non esiste un abbonamento unico per vedere tutto.
D+ per AO e RG. Supertennis (e a pagamento anche Supertennix) per WTA e USOpen.
Wimbledon su Now (oppure VPN e tanta fortuna)
TennisTV per tutto l’ATP
All in all diciamo circa 150€/anno e un discreto sbatti
BREAKING:
@SpaceX just managed to catch the Starship booster with the “Mechazilla arms” on their first attempt.
A fully reusable Starship is now really close.
It would bring the U.S. a strategic advantage is the space industry and make colonization of Mars possible.
This 500-year-old portrait may seem ordinary, but it's one of the most mysterious in history.
There's so much detail that you can read every musical note on this small page.
But look closer — an unsettling secret is hiding in plain sight... 🧵
FlightAware has a page up tracking the UPS planes loaded with iPhones heading to the US for Friday’s launch.
Assuming roughly 300,000 iPhones fit a 747-8F, just one group planes near Alaska was hauling $2,330,200,000 ($2.3 billion) worth of iPhones this morning.