wampus

I disagree with it. Nothing wrong with having friends of whatever shape or size. But to act like you need those sorts of friends in order to learn basic human traits is utterly false.

Also, in terms of role models and gender stuff, it's just weird to think how that'd come in to play for a younger person. You can look up to role models for any reason -- typically for excelling in a field or pursuit that you're also interested in pursuing. But it's a personal relation imagined in your head between you and them. When gender enters into that relation, in terms of who you're modelling your behaviour after, a straight guy modelling himself off a gay man doesn't make sense. If you have an interest in the gender of your role model, as a guy, it'd be mostly in seeing the reaction they get from women, and wanting to emulate their success by dressing / behaving similarly. Like kids who saw rock stars gettin bras thrown at them, pursuing becoming a rock star because they wanted the same gender-oriented treatment.

Hell, you could argue that's one reason the incel's are so keen to model themselves after psuedo "alphas", and shitheads like Trump -- Trump's a disgusting pile of yuck, but he's rich, has a hot younger wife, a large family all living pretty well, and has tons of extra-marital affairs without any seeming repercussions (he's likely to dodge even that Epstein stuff). It's hard to argue that he hasn't 'succeeded' at life. Same goes for all the tech bro fascists who're fathering, literally, hundreds of kids. Meanwhile, Mr Too Much Empathy is going to internalize all the negativity about men from feminist sources, won't be able to ask a woman out because of that internalized trauma, and will disappear from the gene pool.

Its even better than just that though. Letting Thiel, Luckey and crowd open up a crypto bank, and pretending like its real currency, means that all the bank deposit insurance pools / regulatory safe guards are inching open to the Billionaire shit-heads who intentionally crashed SVB specifically to get to this position. Standard tech practice of breaking things, obfuscating why things broke and then claiming to be the only ones smart enough to fix it, while stealing everything in reach and destroying otherwise stable industries. SVB? No, no, it wasn't because Thiel encouraged all his tech bro buddies to pull money at once from SVB to trigger a liquidity crisis, noooo... it couldn't've been income inequality and an aggressively destructive group of power mad tech bros acting without accountability... it was because the bank wasn't using crypto! Trust us, we're rich and contributing to your campaign!

So it's not just the people who fuck around with crypto who are gonna find out. It's anyone with savings, as the tech fascists are being given a path to steal all the money from any safety net that exists. Those crypto rug pulls are moving into position to drain things like the FDIC in the states, and things like CDIC/CUDIC in Canada.... and similar funds in most jurisdictions that are following suit on this stupid approach.

I disagree with the defunding, as many of the programs supported by NPR and PBS are pretty interesting / educational -- but to claim its just a 'modicum' of liberalism in regular media channels is a bit odd, especially if you look outside 'just' the 'news' (news sources are slanted towards right wing, definitely).

But if you look at things like netflix/most streaming services, or hollywood movies, or 'leisure' type shows in general, there's far more than a 'modicum' of liberalism.

Hydro's already been posting YoY decreases in energy output due to dropping water levels, it's why we're 'buying' back more and more energy from US downstream dams. One reason the Trump admin down south had been eye'ing the thompson river treaty, is because they know BC already isn't energy independent, and they could use that leverage to further chop up the country - especially with a US fascist enthusiast in Alberta.

Osoyoos is a desert, and could likely use a new industry or two to bolster jobs in the area. Solar farms would make sense in the desert, other countries have built them on that terrain because it's .... got a lot of sun, and not a lot of precipitation.

The nation-building crap is a shitty predicament though. If rights aren't suppressed, nothing will get built due to FN blocking everything for generally racist reasons (that we're not allowed to call racist, or else we're racist). What few Solar projects we seem to have on the go, appear to be mired in FN reviews / trying to placate numerous FN special interests. So if race-based benefits for racially defined special interests aren't part of the projects, they don't go forward. The few we have in the works, heavily favour FN communities, and involve huge spends by the govt.

And it seems clear that the main rights needing to be dealt with in terms of development problems, are FN things -- just looking at the Aspen Solar project, which aims to develop a relatively small area of land near Merritt, they've gotten 7 different FN groups each wanting a piece of the pie, needing to have their specific special interests met, in order for the project to move forward. It's been sitting in planning for over two years as they try to placate FN. In that sense, it's reasonable for FN groups to be opposing the C5 legislation -- though at the same time, a business needing to suck up to 7 different race-based groups and provide each with their own benefits in order to move forward on something like this is absurd. And to put it in context a bit, one of the bands holding it up has fewer than 400 band members, 85% of which live outside their traditional lands. So a tiny band that's generally no longer in the area, is able to hold up a renewable energy project until they get paid. That's also the size of group where a chief is like "Yo, the PM needs to respect my authority! We should be at the G7 meetings!"......

If the nation-building stuff helps to 'streamline' those issues by suppressing rights, not only will the FN likely start protesting, but the change'll get used by primarily US-backed interests to extract Canada's natural resources. So it's lose-lose in many ways.

Shipping by rail is generally quicker, at a relatively low price point, and with far less ecological impact.

Shipping things like produce via sea to/from Mexico would likely result in a lot of spoiled food. Larger non-perishables it 'might' work, but you wouldn't bother if you have a cheap, less damaging and quicker option available.

Canada's economy has never been about using our resources, it's been about trying to find ways to sell resources to others, so that they can make products and sell those products back to us.

And us applying tariffs on China is almost entirely about US interests, not Canadian. Just look at EVs, and how we block Chinese EVs to protect US auto makers, under the guise of a "Canadian industry" that doesn't exist. Doug managed to screw the entire country out of cheap, high quality EVs by trotting out an "Arrow" vapourware car that was only ever intended to be used to prove to US/international auto makers that Canada can make the various components that go in to an EV -- ie. a fancy brochure / proof of concept to try and suck up to US car makers.

There are agreements in place to facilitate the transit of goods via rail/truck through the USA, without onerous tariffs involved. Just like there are agreements in place to allow for transit of goods through Canada up to Alaska.

Could the fascists in the USA impact those trade routes? Sure. But they haven't yet, and there's been no explicit talk of it as far as I've seen at least. The most 'noise' on this front was caused, briefly, by the premier of BC saying they were going to tax trucks going to Alaska -- a threat they backed down from almost immediately, as they realised what it'd likely open the doors for in terms of Canada / Mexico trade routes.

Well, with all those scientists putting documents in clouds like google / aws, and with those companies happily using that data to train their models, it's totally plausible that they'll announce potential breakthroughs before the scientists officially do... without crediting the source... making it seem like the LLM did a science.

Yeah, cause developers are so strapped for cash. I'm sure the affordability will trickle down.

The title of this post reminds me of that terrible joke about an old person going to the doctor. They complain about having gas, but say that it's manageable because the farts are silent and neutral smelling. Doc prescribes some pills. A few days later the patient comes back complaining that the pills have made the problem worse, because now the farts are super smelly. Doc responds "Great, the pills have helped your sense of smell, the next set will try to help your hearing".

Even before the current shitshow, it was common for Americans to put Canadian flags on their luggage to try and avoid negativity while travelling in other countries. Like they literally dropped nuclear bombs on Japan, and are acting all shocked pikachu that Japan don't like em all that much?

America's recent approach to trade is significantly tarnishing their reputation in the business sense, in that you can't even trust America to stand by American principles anymore. But I mean, other aspects of their self-image were just imaginary to begin with.