wampus

Western Canadian here (BC) -- I agree with Moe on this one.

Tariffs on them imply they're still generally safe to use / drive -- it's not a 'ban' after all, for being unfit for the road or a security risk. Tariffs make sense to some degree if/when there's a local industry you're protecting, especially if/when the good is a luxury.

In the case of EVs though, getting off of gas is a priority in terms of reducing emissions / combating climate change -- it's not so much a luxury even, given how many of our cities are designed for car-oriented travel. I'd rather we had $20k EV options from BYD, rather than we continued to push gas cars and/or EVs that are in the $40-50k from US manufacturers, as it'd mean faster adoption of EVs and faster exit from gas cars. We have literally had multiple cities burn to the ground due to climate change lately. You'd think we'd be above political nonsense on this subject.

So you're in a demographic that gets 'uplifted'/'praised' at the Canada Together event -- explains why you view it differently.

One of the most common graffiti tags around Vancouver is FN tagging things about giving land back, or wanting colonials out. The MMIWG report recommendations largely orient around FN-exclusive services and privileges. The criminal system literally has to have a race-based reviews as part of judgment, which is an attempt to justify the law punishing people differently based on racist segregation, giving specific benefits (in the form of reduced sentences/bail conditions) to criminals of FN descent, and giving harsher punishment for crimes committed against people of FN descent -- JWR, our first FN AG, literally campaigned for and implemented this race-based privilege, her policies being a big reason we had the huge uptick in repeat violent offenders being released onto the streets around the time COVID started (it became much more noticeable after the lock downs). Housing is built explicitly for FN. The Hereditary chief system, and band management in general, is not inclusive, not overly accountable, nor something other races can "immigrate" to -- a black guy can't show up and become a FN, the system is racist by definition. Non-FN that do things like create art/images that resemble FN things, get sued / torn down / shamed -- hell, my Mom once brought some home-made Dreamcatchers to a craft sale in the 90s, and was verbally assaulted by a FN vendor (whose dreamcatchers weren't selling, as they were lower quality) until she had to leave.

I'm not allowed to ask questions about the residential school system, or question the narrative around it being a genocide, as questioning it is on schedule to be claimed a hate crime. So you win that one by authoritarian decree, I have to accept whatever you say about it. Because the system doesn't treat people equally. Very Canadian -- so you're right, we do have very authoritarian tendencies, even in recent history.

I'm from Vancouver, and currently live here. Vancouver does "Canada together" (not Canada Day celebration -- because it's triggering to some minority groups to Celebrate a nation that they view as a colonial genocidal occupier). No fireworks. And as you say, lots of recognition of past injustices. Most of the events are FN oriented, basket weaving, music, etc. There're food trucks, which aren't bad. It's not so much a celebration of Canada, but a celebration of FN culture, and an assertion that FN culture is key to Canada. FN culture is often xenophobic, undemocratic, and unaccepting of 'colonials' (for good reason in some cases) -- these aren't, historically, Canadian values. It's not so much "Let's show off how great Canada is", as it is "look back at all the bad stuff we did, and celebrate the victims with a hope for reconciliation". So in that sense, yes, we do still "celebrate" on Canada day, but it's not so much a celebration of Canada. The change over to this format happened around the same time as Trudeau's "Postnational" comments, declaring us a people without a singular connecting culture.

Alberta is likely the reason the Americans are confident they can 'take Canada by economic force'. Smith's overtures are basically moving towards Alberta leaving Canada / joining the USA. Once that happens, east/west trade basically gets cut -- BC is left isolated and unable to feed its population without trade crossing the USA. This, coupled with the dissolution of the Columbia River Treaty, wherein we get a cut of the power produced by US hydro plants downstream of the river (so BC isn't energy independent by any stretch, contrary to what some politicians have implied over the years), allows the USA to annex BC. Most of the prairies would follow Alberta, from the sound of things when push comes to shove (the Sask premier has made similar "you can't restrict our trade south, we don't care about the federation!" comments from what I recall, we just don't hear it as much in the media), and areas of the northern territories would be increasingly pressured after BC+Alberta fall, especially on the western side. The USA wouldn't have to move any troops to accomplish this, they just need a compliant Alberta, which they seem to have.

Taking Greenland would allow them to isolate the eastern parts of Canada by restricting ocean trade routes and limiting access to European markets -- they won't need to "take" take Greenland, but just setup a few occupied military bases similar to what they have in Guantanamo in Cuba (Cuba doesn't want them there, but there they are!). And without BC / access to the West Coast and/or the Panama canal, moving goods from China becomes difficult/impossible for Eastern Canada. Without the prairies and lacking non-US controlled trade routes, food sustainability becomes an issue for Central Canada, making it an easy target. The maritimes fall, practically as an afterthought.

With the "fentanyl is a WMD" rhetoric, they may even try to expedite that by sending troops in to our ports -- and honestly, when you hear how the longshoremen in BC operate, the states may have actual justification to do so: their 'attack' would have a grain of truth, given the seedy crap that goes on at the ports. And despite the bravado from some of our politicians, they would likely still capitulate on a ton of things to try and appease the Americans. PP would do it with a smile, Carney will do it slightly grudgingly but in the same "rationale" as what we saw down south with the Senate Democrats betraying the progressives on the budget vote -- so, for example, the Americans are on about "banking", specifically wanting access to retail banking while ignoring Canadian regulations. Carney likely won't hesitate to throw Canada's retail banking ecosystem under the bus. Carney and Carolyn Rogers are the folks who were responsible for smashing the hell out of the small credit unions in Canada already -- Carolyn practically killed Central1, the primary trade association for the Credit Union system (though it takes a long time to bleed out) -- they'll happily sell out what's left, and any modicum of privacy people have on their payments, to the USA if they think it'll buy them a few more years of "near status quo". Even if doing so will make it easier for the USA to target "bad thinkers" by reviewing where you spend money - similar to what Doge and the social media inspections are doing currently. The CBC will spin the story into a positive, just like how they spun Freelands negative results on the USMCA into a positive after that deal was signed. The CBC reporting there, while it was being negotiated, listed various things we were seeking that'd be 'measures' of how we did -- we failed on most of em, yet they still ran pieces as though Freeland did a great job, with photos of her collapsed on a couch 'exhausted' from negotiating so hard or whatever. That sort of shenanigans from the CBC, is one reason the "right wing" calls to defund the CBC convince so many people; and instead of addressing the issue, the Left is now simply blasting out that we need to protect the CBC because of American influence in other media channels. You either support all Left wing positions without question/thought, or else you're labelled a bootlicking fascist. We don't really have a non-authoritarian option.

Another area they're likely to capitulate on, are things like Immigration and "bad state" students -- like the Bill the US is currently pushing to ban students from China from accessing higher education. Realistically, do you think they'll be all "Yeah, no worries, we'll keep sharing tech/education stuff with Canada, even though they don't do the same racist shit"? Nah, they'll require Canada to put restrictions / limits / block the same sorts of people. With Trumps approach, he may just go with a blanket "No more CPUs for Canada, unless they agree to our terms" -- try finding any kind of computer that isn't tied to the USA supply chains, its nearly impossible. And we'll likely end up doing it, because our politicians will reason out that the "best option" is to go along with it, and hope the USA 'gets better'.

Places like Europe are aggressively trying to build up sustainable military manufacturing. They're pushing to excise American tech companies - advancing things like Linux-centric Operating systems for use by businesses/government agencies. Building up nuclear capacity. Our politicians are big on talking, but very short on actual action. They put the entire government into Microsoft, AWS, Google, Meta etc. Our health records are in the US cloud. Our financial regulators are in the US cloud. Most of our government agencies are in the US cloud. Even if "data is stored in Canada", access and use of that data is controlled by USA companies, that are beholden to the Orange mans whims -- no, that's not quite right: USA tech companies that are not only beholden to his whims, but are egging him on to do more. The govt sold out so much of our supply chain to other countries, that it's nearly impossible to get anything that's "Canadian made", beyond the odd grocery or clothing item here and there. And while claiming that they view this as an existential threat, their actual response has been very muted when it comes to supporting Canadian industries / businesses. And none of the parties, from what I can see, will realistically change that trend -- it's mostly just whether you want PP gleefully destroying stuff with a "DOGE-NORTH" hat, or if you want a sullen Carney doing it. Best hope is that the states descends into a civil war, and we manage to last long enough to see it -- but its increasingly unlikely, as American "resistance" sorts are weak willed, and generally "online activists, offline enablers".

Like, it wasn't too long ago that Trudeau was busy blasting out, and celebrating, that Canada was ‘the first postnational state’, adding that there was ‘no core identity, no mainstream in Canada’. Places like Vancouver don't even bother with celebrating "Canada" on Canada day, instead putting on basket weaving "Canada is a genocidal shame fest" events, and making asking question about that narrative a criminal hate crime. Even if the Liberals are the most "likely" to provide some sort of resistance at this point, they celebrated the country being dismantled, segregated and separated. And they celebrate tools like censorship -- many of the tools the right-wing extremists are using, were made/blessed by left-wing "progressives". They're all marching to the beat of the same authoritarian, tech oligarch drum.

Sorry, I'll stop ranting.

And yet Albertans will almost definitely support PP, even as he campaigns using Trumps slogans, wearing Trumps bronzer, and promising the same DOGE-like crap that's going on down south. They'll also likely re-elect Smith when the time comes.

I hope I'm proven wrong, but I'm not optimistic.

Well, I guess that's still a step 'up' from his dad, with the 40 year age gap between him and his baby mamma/former step daughter, saying "Show me the rules that say I can't groom/fuck/marry my former step daughter. Show me the rules."

So your college degree seems to have been poor quality, as your approach to discussing a topic is to just insult the other person to try and make your point. You're also conflating your personal experience, from the sound of things, with the framing I was referencing in the article. Pointing out that the article is highlighting an extreme example of an outlier, who works in a field that most people find 'more respectable', is a valid criticism of the article's bias. The article would read a lot differently if it was someone who'd gone to an ivy league school to get an arts degree, went into debt for $500k doing so, and now works as a Starbucks barista struggling to make payments. The way the article is structured is intended to cause people to get triggered and be all out-ragey, without properly engaging with the subject / thinking about what's going on, the issues, and potential tweaks to make things work.

The article does include a reference to the 'average' debt level of ~40k, for people that took out student loans. But it doesn't comment on how those "average" students debt servicing amounts are changing due to the changes in policy. It references via secondary links a more regular example, one where the person is just 2-3x more in debt than average -- where a woman comments that her payments are going from $250 to $900.

One of the 'horror' stories we hear out of the American system, is that people will be paying these amounts for decades and decades, without chipping away at the principle. Not a surprise, if your payments are less than the monthly interest costs -- and if she's paying just $250 out of a payment that 'should' be $900 on a 10 year term, she isn't covering the interest at all. If they're allowed to take out loans from regular FIs, they could theoretically get that down to around $450-500 by extending the amortization out to 25 years and adding options for over payments if they want to get out of debt faster. You could get that even lower, if you have a guarantor (ex. Parent) or other security behind the loan to reduce the interest rate further -- with that setup, you get a monthly payment of like.... $250. A more practical middle ground. Yes, it'd potentially increase the payments, but it'd also remove the common complaint of not being able to get ahead on principle payments.

And again, that referenced example is one where someone's gone into twice as much debt as the average person who uses that system. The average person, based on the numbers in the article, is looking at a payment of about $400 after the change, from the look of it. A difficult, yet far more manageable change than putting out there that people are suddenly seeing a 10x increase up to $5000, which is the 'shock and outrage' approach taken in the article.

I don't think anyone from a more sane country is looking at the American system and thinking its 'good'. In another response, I noted that here in Canada, from what I recall at least, we cap our tuition amounts for Canadian citizens / undergrads -- so its far less common to hear of people going into massive debt to get degrees from local universities. Doing so aims to place the 'pressure' on Universities to figure out how to fund their operations. Many ended up relying on foreign student income, where tuition isn't capped. Even with some restrictions, universities still have massive endowment funds, so they aren't 'hurting' for money at the institutional level -- for example the University of BC is sitting on about $3billion in its fund. Putting pressure on the Universities/institutions to give students a fair shake, is more practical in my view than saying the government should cover student loan debts / interest issues. I mean, if the Universities "fraudulently sold degrees that they claimed would get you 6 figures", shouldn't they be the ones holding the bag -- not the government / regular tax payers?

You say you graduated HS 22 years ago. It may be time to act more like an adult, and treat other people/discussions with some decorum.

*just an edit to add in, that if you watch the clip of the lady with the 5k payment... she openly admits that, while complaining about the increase, they're aiming to put in about $7k/month to get it all paid off in 5 years, while still having more left over for 'prioritizing other investments too'. So, the article's 'outrage' increase, is one where the person clearly got a really high paying job out of it, and isn't exactly 'hurting'. So they earn way more than enough to cover their debts -- and are essentially 1%'rs who were getting subsidized by the government by thousands of dollars per month.

Thanks, appreciated.

Sure, I get that not all lawyers are scum -- though I do know a few that fit the very description I gave. But the point is more that you can find less 'noble' examples of people in massive debt, which may alter opinions on the subject. The article chooses to use a specific outlier to make the case more persuasive/concerning.

Like another thing I'd be curious about is the variance in debt levels between professionals who train at "regular" schools/colleges, and ones who train at "elite" schools like Harvard or MIT or whatever's good down there these days. The impression I get as an outsider to the US system, is that the costs vary wildly between different tiers of schools -- and that it's entirely possible to get a decent career (middle class) even without a top tier school education. I'd suspect then that there's a tranche of people who are going in to massive debt attempting to go to these more expensive options, without good reason for doing so -- but it's the individuals choice, at the end of the day.

And contrary to what some folks seem to think on here, an 18 year old is an adult in most countries, as far as I know. They're old enough to be accountable for their actions. They can vote and all that. And these folks are often mid 20s by the time they get out / have fully accumulated their debt -- so even more 'old enough'. As long as they have 'options' to choose from, I find it questionable that people choosing the highest/most expensive options should be given the biggest break.

It'd make more sense to me to regulate the hell out of your schools, and have government enforce things like tuition caps for American citizen under grads etc -- rather than have a kind of manic approach to debt forgiveness that flips every four years, which turns education affordability into a lottery. University endowment funds are a fairly clear argument for clipping those institutions wings a bit, and forcing them to give a break to the students. Heck, even here in Canada where we cap tuition, some of our universities have absurd amounts of money stockpiled.

Silly question perhaps, but I haven't tripped across it on the site for Revolt -- is there a relatively straight forward server version for self-hosting, or is it just that the source is on github and you can compile it in theory if you feel like goin through that process... ?

Your optimism as to how the American people would react is cute, but likely not realistic. There's a huge chunk of Americans who voted for this, there's another huge chunk that didn't care to even bother voting. The thought that someone who couldn't be arsed to spend an hour popping in to vote, would get organized and take up arms -- especially on behalf of other people / principles / morals -- is a bit of a stretch.

True, though Debit cards offer some protections as well. I mean, interac cards do fully cover fraudulent charges already under their zero liability policy, so I'm guessing your main point is that it's "easier" to challenge bogus cc payments.

But in general, while I agree it's a feature of the cards, I don't think it's a 'main' thing that drives their usage. Sorta like, in the interac card agreements, there's usually a clause that says buying something with a warranty on debit, adds a year to the warranty period, up to a max of something like 5 years - so the default 1y warranty turns into 2y. It's a nice feature, if you take advantage of it. But that's not something that most people know/care/take advantage of, and it's not a 'driving' feature for people adopting/using interac cards.