141–150 of 181 posts
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This post is inaccurate at its face but for those who are curious, Canada's GDP is in the low trillions of USD and its growth stagnated (but remained positive) the past several months. By contrast, several US states like Vermont and Alaska have GDP in the double digit billions, while others like South Dakota and Nebraska shrunk.
Did you not see the footnotes? edit: okay I see the post got flagged even when evidence was provided.
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Have you ever actually been to Canada? It's quite nice, pretty clean and safe, feels fairly functional, people are totally different to Americans (in a very good way). Hard to judge based on short trips/holidays and not living there but my immediate impression coming from south east England was how pleasant everyone was and that everyone seemed pretty happy instead of being depressed, so that was nice
A short trip/holiday to any country will never give you the full dynamics of a country. I've lived in Toronto and Montreal for a bit. It's very palpable how demoralized Canadians are once you spend some time there. Don't mistake politeness/friendliness for closeness.
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It’s a multiparty system that was recently in a minority configuration but through a fairly interesting series of floor crossings and by elections to fill open seats the Liberal party under PM Mark Carney has obtained a majority which more or less allows them complete dominance over the legislative process. An explanation as to why the NDP fail to gain any substantial power could fill an entire book but imho the over…
>dominance of the Bloq Quebecois has over Quebec It's "Bloc". The NDP did well in Québec not long ago, when they had a candidate that the electorate liked.
That was 15 years ago
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It can go both ways. Bad actors can simplify because it leads to indifference, by way of generalizations. "black" = "bad", "illegal immigrant" = "gang member". It's how racism works. > The “good” side therefore needs to fight that complexity with simplicity and empathy. Empathy, yes. Simplicity doesn't normally lead to empathy; complexity does.
I think this often tends to fall along political lines. In my experience, the left tends to like simple stories ("we are poor and the capitalists are rich, so just take their money and give it to us", "if people love each other, they should be able to marry, no matter the gender"). The right tends to like complex explanations ("taking money from the rich destroys the incentive structure required for effective resourc…
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Precisely. Bad actors desire complexity because it leads to indifference. The “good” side therefore needs to fight that complexity with simplicity and empathy. “Unions can be corrupt” or “You don’t need unions to get your voice heard” is the kind of rhetoric that leads to disinterest in unions over the years.
It can go both ways. Bad actors can simplify because it leads to indifference, by way of generalizations. "black" = "bad", "illegal immigrant" = "gang member". It's how racism works. > The “good” side therefore needs to fight that complexity with simplicity and empathy. Empathy, yes. Simplicity doesn't normally lead to empathy; complexity does.
Racism never was (and still isn’t) simple. There were entire scientific fields developed to justify racial hierarchy. Nazism was similar.
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Precisely. Bad actors desire complexity because it leads to indifference. The “good” side therefore needs to fight that complexity with simplicity and empathy. “Unions can be corrupt” or “You don’t need unions to get your voice heard” is the kind of rhetoric that leads to disinterest in unions over the years.
> Bad actors desire complexity because it leads to indifference. This is an extremely dangerous idea without being counterbalanced by fact that reality is often complex and good actors want to be honest about it. Bad actors desire confusion is closer to being accurate. But bad actors also often oversimplify to rouse people to some politically beneficial but ultimately harmful action.
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Precisely. Bad actors desire complexity because it leads to indifference. The “good” side therefore needs to fight that complexity with simplicity and empathy. “Unions can be corrupt” or “You don’t need unions to get your voice heard” is the kind of rhetoric that leads to disinterest in unions over the years.
I think "unions are always good" is worse than "unions can be corrupt or good, here's how to push for good"
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While I agree this is the case, I think this is a consequence of low education for the general public and low quality of the public discourse. If the quality of those two goes up, then WYSIWYG politics will emerge as a preferred choice. I only wish I knew of possible ways for us to get there :(
>> I feel like WYSIWYG politics is what most of us want, but probably doesn’t actually work. > then WYSIWYG politics will emerge as a preferred choice. I think the problem that Waterluvian's is getting at is precisely that WYSIWYG politics is taken as the preferred choice without understanding the implications that make it not actually work. For example, continuing to accept anything that remotely passes as protect-t…
Have you checked the premise? Usually the waves of fake protect-the-children policies are widely decried, support is fairly thin and the politicians pass it anyway then refuse to revisit the issue ever.
It is like the constant aggressive warfare the US is in - the US public clearly loathes it. Every single election they seem to vote for the candidate most vocally promising peace. I don't think it would be fair to say that the people keep accepting it, the dynamic is clearly that the political class refuses to acknowledge the hint.