Canada considering charging for road access from USA to Alaska • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada considering charging for road access from USA to Alaska

#351

Post by ben_w » Sat, Mar 22, 2025, 11:18 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #316

kube-system wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should we be borrowing all this money from foreigners when we’re a rich country? The crazy thing is, most of the money that the US borrows from is from their own citizens... not foreigners. I don't know why everyone presumes that US debt is mostly or entirely owed to other countries. It isn't.

Okay, but then doesn’t that undermine your point about the importance of the US being the world’s reserve currency? What does that matter if most of our debt is to ourselves anyway? Japan runs huge structural deficits and most is held by its own citizens.

Reserve currencies are important for international trade, not just international loans.

Being a reserve currency increases currency stability.

Being stable makes the cost of all loans, including domestic loans, cheaper.

Being stable also increases the use of a currency for reserve purposes.

Re: Canada considering charging for road access from USA to Alaska

#352

Post by rdsnsca » Sat, Mar 22, 2025, 6:52 PM UTC

InitialLastName wrote: post #196

overfeed wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes 2 to make a trade, and the best strategy for an iterated prisoner's dilemma scenario is tit-for-tat. The party that started the silliness should end it, but until then, Canada should rightly consider stronger ties with the Europe - they do share a border with a European country after all.

Depending how you count "borders" and "European countries" they share a border with 2 (France via St Pierre and Miquelon, Denmark via Greenland) and share a landlord with a third.

We share a land border with Denmark, Hans Island , because of the Wiskey War.

Re: Canada considering charging for road access from USA to Alaska

#353

Post by rayiner » Sat, Mar 22, 2025, 9:04 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #340

rayiner wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civil rights is orthogonal to democracy. Creating a democratic country like the U.S. is the real achievement. Most countries never come close to accomplishing that.

The founding of the US is absolutely a remarkable achievement. A group of colonies successfully broke from global imperial power to successfully establish a society heavily influenced by the best enlightenment thinking and classical civil philosophy. It's really something. Looking at some populist reactionary movements that happened in the early 19th century, one wonders if the outcome could have been as good as the…

> A country without a universal franchise has already established that some people don't get a democratic say, it's just haggling over who those people are. And that means it can haggle over whether you get to be one of those people. And even eventually over whether anyone gets to be one of those people, over whether it is democratic at all.

I don't think that inductive reasoning works. Every country excludes lots of people from the franchise. The U.S. has almost 100 million people who aren't eligible to vote, mostly young people and non-citizens. No country has a truly universal franchise. Under your reasoning, that's unstable--if we can take away the franchise from 17 year olds, we can take away the franchise from 18 year olds, etc.

Historically, the big democratic jumps were probably extending the franchise to prominent family heads voting, followed by landowning males.

Re: Canada considering charging for road access from USA to Alaska

#354

Post by wwweston » Sun, Mar 23, 2025, 9:31 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #353

wwweston wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founding of the US is absolutely a remarkable achievement. A group of colonies successfully broke from global imperial power to successfully establish a society heavily influenced by the best enlightenment thinking and classical civil philosophy. It's really something. Looking at some populist reactionary movements that happened in the early 19th century, one wonders if the outcome could have been as good as the…

> A country without a universal franchise has already established that some people don't get a democratic say, it's just haggling over who those people are. And that means it can haggle over whether you get to be one of those people. And even eventually over whether anyone gets to be one of those people, over whether it is democratic at all. I don't think that inductive reasoning works. Every country excludes lots of…

"Young people" or other age limits are a dramatically distinctive case because the considerations involved are universal, cross-cutting and temporary. Age-based standards can't be used to create systematic outgroups. They bind and protect everyone equally in the ultimate and most practical sense because (a) everyone grows into enfranchisement (b) no one has it until they do. Which gives everyone an equal stake in what the specific age limit is too.

Contrast that with sex, religion, ethnicity, origin, asset ownership etc and the real question is why anyone would accept that they're truly comparable.

Citizenship may be the only truly stickier corner case. Largely because international relations will sometimes produce reasons to limit it more tightly or extend it more freely by broad categories such as national origin. But even here (a) most countries recognize that is often only one of several important judgements in a wise process (b) it's possible to review the equitability of citizenship qualifications: can they be met by anyone by way of objective assessment of investment in society and respect for acceptable participation?

Re: Canada considering charging for road access from USA to Alaska

#355

Post by machomaster » Sun, Mar 23, 2025, 11:10 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #300

machomaster wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you asking questions instead of easily reading about the index criteria?

It’s just a way to say: why do you think this index is meaningful based on what it measures.

In that case you should have actually made your case, voice what in the index you disagree with and why.