• 11 Posts
  • 135 Comments
Joined 29 days ago
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Cake day: March 7th, 2025

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  • Or we could have a digital services tariff, charging a stiff fee on American techbro monopolists like meta Google reddit Apple amazon etc.

    Also hits their ads, and then if they don’t like it they can pull out of Canada. This would open the space to domestic and non-us companies, and noncommercial entities like lemmy.

    The American firms hold on because of the network effect and their headstart thanks to VC investments but if we break their network effect we can break our dependence on them. I believe europe is working on something along these lines.

    Think big! Let’s really take those fuckers down.


  • This is a good article but I wish we would stop asking questions when the answers are obvious, and instead make statements.

    This headline should be “Danielle Smith and Postmedia are on Team Trump”. The article supports this conclusion well.

    As it stands it gives the article a cowardly vibe of “oh we’re just asking questions” when this article clearly is not. It would feel more authentic to just call a spade a spade.


  • The argument I resonate the most from you here is that our allies might appreciate having our F-35s in place to act as a deterrent to further Russian aggression in Eastern Europe.

    I still don’t love the idea, but I’m coming around to the idea that your perspective overall on taking current deliveries and cancelling the rest is quite reasonable and may actually be the best option.

    Thanks again for answering my questions. It’s a nontrivial amount of time to spent helping some internet rando. Cheers!


  • Sorry. I wasn’t clear in my earlier comment.

    I meant that the US administration would react poorly to a provocation like targeting Tesla specifically and lash out in ways that cause further harm.

    So while I would personally choose to start a public pissing contest because I’m mad as hell— Carney’s more mature approach will cause less pain in the short term.

    The good news is that Canadians are rejecting Teslas with or without any tariffs. Which is maybe even a bigger FU to Musk because he can’t even blame a government for his failures. I drive a South Korean EV and it’s a fantastic vehicle, and as you said some of the European ones are quite good too.




  • I appreciate your thoughtful reasoning, like you said even if we come to different conclusions.

    You’ve helped provide some context to a position I’ve disagreed with, and that feels much better in my mind than just stumbling at “why” with no real answer.

    One point of clarification I’d like to get a handle on. What in your perspective are these jets useful for in the context of Canadian defence?

    You hinted at a partial answer to my question with the mention of arctic patrols and supporting allies, but if you have time to elaborate on some practical scenarios I’d appreciate your perspective on that


  • I hope Canada can change this.

    One challenge has been that many of our best-educated people have left for the US, which has blunted some of the economic trickle-down effects that should accompany publicly-funded research. So we incur the costs but yet not reap the benefits, which dulls public enthusiasm for supporting this.

    It’s entirely plausible to me that this system has been upended and think we should reevaluate these choices to consider expanding funding for science not directly tied to industry and short-term benefits. But I don’t think it’ll be as easy as snapping our fingers


  • By far the biggest threat is coming from the very country that is supplying and would be required to maintain the F-35s.

    What good would these jets do? What threats could we expect to mitigate with them? They wouldn’t deter the US, China, Russia if they decided to attack us.

    So with respect, I’m feeling like your answer is reflective of a mindset that reflects a world order that doesn’t exist anymore.

    But I’m also open to consideration that I might be wrong. I’m not asking the questions about what good they would accomplish in a rhetorical way, I’ll listen to feedback from you about the usefulness they might deliver for us.



  • For sure I get that.

    In my view at least part of why these were put in is that it’s easy for bad actors to use anti-Israel speech as a veneer over their actual underlying antisemitism.

    But especially as the government of Israel amplifies its own status as a bad actor, it’s becoming increasingly important to be able to speak openly about this. So I’m on board with the idea you’re presenting, but also just saying we need to be cautious about how this could be used to cause widespread harm.




  • Interestingly, neither Carney’s nor Poilievre’s perspectives acknowledge that higher program spending and larger headcounts has not led to significant improvement in public service delivery, as shown by a recent analysis by Jennifer Robson, one of our co-authors.

    I disagree with this take. My interpretation of Carney’s plan is that it’s squarely aimed at improving productivity of the public sector. This speaks directly to this point — we need our public sector to be focused on delivering results. The main cost is headcount so the cost-efficiency without layoffs that is Carney’s plan will require improvements to delivery.

    So it’s far from a done deal and I largely agree with the author about this being the important thing to work on. I just also think that what is being described is already the plan.




  • I’m going to honest and say that I really don’t understand what you’re getting at. Either you misunderstood what I’m saying, or i misunderstood you and still don’t understand; or both.

    A proper accounting of the emissions generated in Canada is what’s important. Averaging our emissions down because of all our vast expanses of empty land is disingenuous at best and false propaganda at worst.

    For industrial uses an ideal accounting would be look at who consumes the byproducts of those products. If we ship oil to the US we could allocate those emissions to the US and if China or India has emissions to serve our demand then we could be allocated this to us.

    A consumption-based accounting in combination with the current per-capita accounting would give a decently accurate representation of where and why the emissions are occurring. Per-sq-km emissions have zero place in any reasonable discussion.