No one can say if it was "as large as possible." It's at least plausible he left money on the table with some missed opportunities.
For example: handing over the semi-pro video creator space to YouTube. Apple already a thriving podcast ecosystem, but failed to capitalise on it. There was a real opportunity for vertical integration with Apple selling hardware, targeted content creation software (a CapCut-a-like version of FCP), and access to a distribution network.
Also, home automation and security. Cameras, switches, maybe even routers with local backup. Not sold as devices, but as high quality services with obvious benefits that happen to run on specific hardware.
AI: there was the opportunity to develop Siri into an agentic assistant well before anyone else got there.
Cook's slant was more towards chasing high-end Veblen lifestyle status - cars, watches, premium computers and phones - and less towards social marketing and less shiny but useful consumer devices.
That's not accurate - the uprising was not planned in collaboration with the Russians.
The whole point of the uprising was to liberate Warsaw before the Russians get in, as everybody knew that Russians are not liberating Poland - they are looking to occupy the country, just as Germany did. If the Uprising was successfull, it would give a great credit and negotiating card to the Polish government.
Unfortunately, Russians knew that too - that's exactly why they stopped their advance and watched the city being razed to the ground. Also unfortunately, they were right and ended up occupying Poland for the next 45 years.
It was definitely not planned with the Soviets, for multiple reasons:
- the Poles of the AK (London government loyal) were not the communist faction (Lublin government loyal), and saw the insurrection as the last chance to get a Poland out of the Soviet sphere of influence post WWII – especially after the publicization of Katyn;
- even if they had wanted, Stalin had zero interest in giving a hand to London-loyal Poles that were in frontal opposition to “his” Lublin-loyal Poles;
- the Germans were not caught flat-footed, they already knew of the insurrection preparations and therefore not only was the city well garrisoned, it would have been in any case, as it was the strategic lock of the area to hold the RKKA on the Vistula;
- and all the above is moot in any case, because the RKKA units that reached the neighborhood of Warsaw in '44 had as many chance of taking the city as the German units that reached Moscow in '41 – they were just spent and at the end of their logistic tail after months of fighting during the Bagration operation, and had no chance of successfully developing an opposed crossing of the Vistula against two Panzerkorps.
So the London-loyal Poles were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and at least they were able to go with a glorious bang. Like a Marshal said, “c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre”.
> So the London-loyal Poles were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and at least they were able to go with a glorious bang.
Many argue this uprising is nothing to be proud of and the crime of the leadership with devastating results: ~200k civilians went with this bang, and city completely wiped out.
It was an attempt of the Polish resistance to avoid being "liberated" by the Soviets to just immediately become occupied by the communist red army. The idea being to liberate Warsaw and get US/UK assistance through the Polish government-in-exile in London to establish Polish military control before the Soviet army arrived. Getting US/UK support could have meant that Poland remained an independent state. Instead, Stalin not only betrayed them, but later actually convicted the surviving leaders of the uprising. "Crimes against communism".
This is now politely referred to as a Soviet betrayal in service of "Stalin's post-war political goals for Poland".
My own city was liberated by Polish troops. After WW2 they obviously couldn't go back to Poland. A lot of them ended up in relative poverty after the war.
At least Canadians and Australians went back home and got a parade.
It was definitely Soviets/Stalin that started conquering and this was a western reaction to it. The Yalta conference was an attempt to appease Stalin and give Russia the conquests it wanted (it's not like they appeased someone else 10 years before leading to the incredible disaster, arguably the biggest disaster in human history, or anything like that. But not giving up Eastern Europe would have likely meant war with the Soviets right then and there)
It was a choice between giving up a lot, not just Poland, and continued war. Must have sucked pretty damn badly if you were one of the things given up to Stalin, but ...
We can only guess if it would mean war or not, but it looks like Churchill assumed it would, given he tried to campaign for taking Poland from USSR by force. I know that not only Poland was sold.
It was a horrible betrayal in both how it was done and in its outcomes. Embargoing those countries by the West, which the same West has sold to Stalin in the first place, was just a cherry on top.
It would be naive to think that either ruler intended to honour this agreement in the long run. Both sides were probably gambling on when, not if, the agreement would be broken.
Yes, and actual history yet again subverts the dominant story:
> The citizens of Poland have the highest count of individuals who have been recognized by Yad Vashem as the Polish Righteous Among the Nations, for saving Jews from extermination during the Holocaust in World War II. There are 7,232 (as of 1 January 2022) Polish men and women conferred with the honor, over a quarter of the 28,486 recognized by Yad Vashem in total. The list of Righteous Among the Nations is not comprehensive and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Poles concealed and aided tens of thousands of their Polish-Jewish neighbors. Many of these initiatives were carried out by individuals, but there also existed organized networks of Polish resistance which were dedicated to aiding Jews – most notably, the Żegota organization.
As a Pole, I am pissed af about the fact that this true story of WWII is not known. In fact, very often the Russian version of "pravda" is what has been spread.
Why tf is there no Oscar winning movie about this story?
Poland is invaded from both sides, saves the most lives of our fellow Jewish brothers and sisters: the most heroic story, and the movie count is zero.
Are you upset that Russia's attempt at occupying Kyiv was hilarious bad (from a military point of view, obviously not as far as the Ukrainians are concerned), and Russia has lost any chance of retaking Poland for generations?
If anything the current consensus on the scientific front lines is that the alarmism is understated, and the real orthodoxy is astroturfed denial of the facts.
The global fossil industry is worth around $11 trillion a year. It supports some of the worst regimes in the world.
Of course they're going to try to FUD away the science, with the usual copy-paste narratives about how it's really scientists and academics who are corrupt.
It's all about money, power, and entitlement. Not about truth or responsibility.
But no amount of PR nonsense, astroturfing, and false accusation is going to make the slightest difference to climate reality.
Yes - ultimately it's the same system. Far from being daring and innovatory, it's backward-looking, unimaginative, and bureaucratic.
Vision for the future is limited to grandiose fantasies straight out of 1950s pulps and the "heroic" creation of narcissistic corporations that are cynically extractive and treat employees and customers with equal contempt.
The differences which used to provide a convincing cover story - no single Great Leader, a functional consumer economy, votes that appear to make a difference - are being dismantled now.
What's left are the same mechanisms of total monitoring (updated with modern tech) and reality-denying totalitarian oppression, run for the exclusive benefit of a tiny oligarchy which self-selects the very worst people in the system.
Electronics are more likely to be obsolete for technical reasons, but - for example - modern dishwashers and dryers are far more likely to have cheap plastic parts that fail more quickly. Even for brands with premium price tags.
With clothes, fast fashion is designed down to a budget and up to a price. For consumer brands, the more expensive something is the more disposable it is and the shorter its working life.
A lot of people assume everyone else has it worked out.
But people mostly don't have it all worked out.
There are specific demographics who do.
Some are naturally gifted at social interactions and/or grew up in environments which taught them how to socialise effectively.
Others are charming narcissists - likeable, high status, attractive on the outside, monsters on the inside. They can appear effortless because they don't care about anything except presenting an image, so they get get very skilled at it.
Most everyone else has some social anxiety or frustration and makes more or less obvious social mistakes at least occasionally.
For example: handing over the semi-pro video creator space to YouTube. Apple already a thriving podcast ecosystem, but failed to capitalise on it. There was a real opportunity for vertical integration with Apple selling hardware, targeted content creation software (a CapCut-a-like version of FCP), and access to a distribution network.
Also, home automation and security. Cameras, switches, maybe even routers with local backup. Not sold as devices, but as high quality services with obvious benefits that happen to run on specific hardware.
AI: there was the opportunity to develop Siri into an agentic assistant well before anyone else got there.
Cook's slant was more towards chasing high-end Veblen lifestyle status - cars, watches, premium computers and phones - and less towards social marketing and less shiny but useful consumer devices.
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