CanadaPlus

@CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org

Formerly u/CanadaPlus101 on Reddit.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

CanadaPlus,

2019 Biden was right, tariffs hurt everybody. Behind closed doors Biden knows that, but also knows what further helping the Chinese could mean down the road.

CanadaPlus,

They get strong enough quick enough that they become geopolitically unstoppable. I don’t trust those guys to rule the world, or even have it sort of within reach.

CanadaPlus,

And yet China still can’t make very good chips or CNC machines. That’s because fast development works by first picking up outsource work that’s simple, and then gradually moving to more complex types of value-added production. Without Western outsourcing, China would be economically like North Korea.

I have a feeling you’re on of those guys that thinks NK is Wakanda, though, so maybe that’s not as useful an analogy as I’d hope.

CanadaPlus, (edited )

Actually, I agree. The US has had the opportunity to go rogue for decades, though, and so far has opted to ignore the outside world instead (with occasional, unpopular forays to the desert or jungle to feel like a big man). That’s probably down to their political system, and the fact voters don’t want to be bothered with empire building.

If it was China vs. the autocratic Trump empire, I’d seriously be considering China.

CanadaPlus,

Yup. And if they don’t, it’s everyone else’s responsibility to get in the way. We’re sending the white side weapons, instead.

CanadaPlus, (edited )

Israelis ⊂ Jews

I mean, technically, there are non-Jewish Israelis, but we all know they aren’t in the driver’s seat of anything. There’s definitely non-Israeli Jews, like me, and it’s super shitty they’re making me feel bad about it.

CanadaPlus,

Prepare, sure. There’s a lot of alternate ways things could resolve, though, and MAD is about as sturdy as it’s ever been.

CanadaPlus, (edited )

Okay. In detail, how do you manage complex, shifting supply chains without some kind of market?

Like, I’m also team eat the rich, but nobody can ever answer this.

CanadaPlus,

Yeah. Patchwork benefits are ass to navigate. Like, almost dehumanising.

CanadaPlus,

I mean, if we had actual competition they’d be forced to pull their prices right back down again competing with each other.

CanadaPlus,

I’m not about to join a mailing list, but I don’t like using the term “capitalism” for this exact reason. Depending on exact definition I could be pro or anti capitalism, or anywhere in between.

CanadaPlus, (edited )

Doesn’t that suggest they’d get more market share by having worse quality, somehow?

Companies do all those things, and not always for good reason, but let’s get our econ 101 ducks in a row a bit. I don’t think it’s because of competition for buyers.

CanadaPlus,

I’ve heard of the general “philosopher king”-type idea, but that website is using it differently. I’ll go over it, but it wants a state of post-scarcity before their idea applies, which we of course don’t have.

CanadaPlus,

They did pass a new competition act at the start of this year. Hopefully it starts biting soon, like before 2026.

CanadaPlus, (edited )

Sometimes people mean “markets” when they say capitalism. Sometimes they mean the existence of really high wealth inequality. Sometimes they’re using Marx’s original definition about the means of production.

In the first case, I see no alternatives, and so am for it. In the second case, I’m against it. The third requires more discussion about how ownership should be structured, and which things count as means of production before I can even decide. Using a term that could be any of them just leads to confusion.

CanadaPlus, (edited )

Actually in North America we could have had a working post-scarcity since the 1930s.

How does that work? There almost wasn’t enough food to go around in the great depression, and plastic was an advanced new material hard to come by from the 40’s through the 60’s. Electronics took a long time to be produced in any significant quantity too. And what about land?

Not sure where you are getting the philosopher king thing from?

Plato said everything would be great if we had the smartest people in charge. He called it the philosopher king, others call it technocracy. In ancient Greece I probably would have thought it makes good sense.

In practice, thousands of years on, I think history has shown that there were always smart people and good ideas around; the shortage was of incentive for those with power to implement them, instead of just entrenching and enriching themselves.

CanadaPlus, (edited )

The exact wording used is a bit rich, but the situation isn’t great. We need some kind of provincial refugee sharing agreement.

CanadaPlus,

Heading gun?

CanadaPlus,

Pretty much, right?

CanadaPlus, (edited )

Conservatism varies tremendously by time and location, but I don’t know if changing or improving is ever the point. Some combination of doing it the way it used to be done, hurting the right people, and supporting the existing social hierarchy go into the mix. There’s also movements like libertarianism that tend to glom on to Conservatism, but done straight are a very different animal.

To be fair, progressive ideas can be bad sometimes too. Eugenics is a great example that all the cool forward-thinkers were into for a while. At least we try though…

CanadaPlus,

They do burgers in 'Murica? Yikes…

CanadaPlus,

No, this giant corporation was never “for the little guy”, and bad pizza is not some elitist thing.

CanadaPlus,

Ah, the good old days of WASP supremacy, before all those romance-language-speaking Catholics arrived in Canada.

Wait…

CanadaPlus,

Sorry for the delay. I’m trying to get this the response it deserves, including gathering figures for Alberta, and some basic mathematical modeling.

CanadaPlus, (edited )

Did you use linear extrapolation, or something else? Because it’s an actual paradigm shift happening now, I’d guess some kind of exponential or subexponential curve would be best. That would bring it even faster.

Extrapolation is tricky, and actually kind of weak, although I think it’s appropriate here. This XKCD explains it really well, and I end up linking it all the damn time.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • anitta
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • InstantRegret
  • magazineikmin
  • cubers
  • GTA5RPClips
  • thenastyranch
  • Youngstown
  • rosin
  • slotface
  • tacticalgear
  • ethstaker
  • modclub
  • JUstTest
  • Durango
  • everett
  • Leos
  • provamag3
  • mdbf
  • ngwrru68w68
  • cisconetworking
  • tester
  • osvaldo12
  • megavids
  • khanakhh
  • normalnudes
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •