Zephyr
8hr ago
Unless you are saying that there is an exactly 1-1 correspondence between jobs and potential employees, I don’t believe this is accurate. I don’t think you’ve done the work to prove that there would be 500 jobs for 500 employees if there were 30 jobs for 30 employees.
Zephyr
9hr ago
Supply and demand?
If there are 500 employees who can each do any of 30 jobs, then the employees will need to distinguish themselves from the others in order to get the position. If there are 3 employees who can each do any of the 30 jobs, then the jobs will need to distinguish themselves from the others in order to get an employee. Pay and benefits are excellent ways to do that.
Zephyr
9hr ago
Speed limits are maximums; in theory if someone is going 60km/h in an 80km/h, you are allowed to pass them.
You can also think of it as a common knowledge problem; if everyone knows that they're supposed to be in the left lane if they're fast, and the right lane if they're slow, it can reduce the number of accidents by simply reducing the number of lane changes (if I know I'm 'slow', I'm going to use the left lane to pass extremely slow traffic, but otherwise stay in the right; if someone knows they're 'fast', they're going to stay in the left lane, and use the right lane occasionally to pass slow traffic).
Zephyr
3d ago
So I walk, cycle, and drive about equally whenever I’m going someplace, and I’d agree with you entirely.
As a driver, I get most annoyed with cyclists, then buses, then other cars, then pedestrians, in that order. Cyclists tend to weave in and out of traffic and go slowly enough to make it unsafe to be anywhere near them.
As a pedestrian, I get most annoyed by cyclists, then other pedestrians, then any vehicles. Cyclists jump up onto the sidewalk and speed by at what feels like breakneck speeds without giving me any space, and I’ve been struck by cyclists who don’t understand things like crosswalks numerous times.
As a cyclist, I am most annoyed by other cyclists, followed by vehicles, followed by pedestrians. Other cyclists will either be biking incredibly slowly (which is challenging to safely pass in a bike lane) or instead speed by me unsafely in said bike lane (I’ve actually been shoved over by a cyclist who forced me into the curb). I do recognize the irony in my complaints, to be fair.
Zephyr
4d ago
My apologies, for whatever reason I thought they were a type of raccoon (and I have no excuse for thinking that, this was resolved prior to my birth).
I mean, if you want to make the overarching category “women,” but allow for the subcategories to be defined as “cis” and “trans,” I think that’s acceptable, as long as people can use this as an actual distinguishing factor (cis-women only bathrooms, attracted to cis-women, cis-women only sports, etc.)
Even under that mindset, I’m not sure I agree with you saying that trans women are a type of woman; in a lot of ways, they are much closer to men (larger, stronger, have traditionally male interests). The only reason we’re calling them a subset of women at all is that is the term that the activists coined. Do you consider sea horses to be a type of horse? Or panda bears to be a type of bear (edit: I have been informed that they are a type of bear; pretend I said “Koala” instead)? We could easily have said the term is “trans men” (for MTF, as they are a man who is transitioning).
The problem is that the cis/trans distinction matters a lot for most people - it isn’t like green vs red apples, more like peanut vs cow butter.
Conservatives in Canada have a really really hard time not being seen as the most regressive of the US republicans (and it doesn’t actually even matter what they say or do). There was an expression that went something like “When America sneezes, Canada catches a cold.”
I know intelligent people who were absolutely convinced the CPC was coming for gay rights and their uteruses (the leader of the CPC grew up with two dads). Combine that with our culture of TDS and you are going to have people doing anything to keep the CPC out.
Somewhat interestingly, the CPC actually got a fairly respectable percentage of the vote (around 41.5%, last time I checked) - it isn’t uncommon for the CPC to win with a percentage around 37%. Most of the reason they lost was because the NDP absolutely torpedoed their party, and most of those votes went Liberals.
Edit, because I just saw this today. https://torontosun.com/news/national/donald-trump-brags-that-he-cost-pierre-poilievre-federal-election. Take it with a bit of a grain of salt, as the Toronto Sun is definitely right wing (and honestly veers a bit hard in that direction for me personally), but it implies that Trump, at least, believes he did.
Zephyr
1mo ago
This is what I was trying to express, but much more succinct; this is what red tribe has seen over and over and over, and many of them are coming to the realization that there are no ways to enforce that the blue tribe actually keep their promises.
To be clear, I do not want a war between red and blue; I want to be left alone, and to leave other people alone. Blue tribe at the moment appears to have adopted the mindset that there can be no 'agree to disagree', and that they must instead must threaten to destroy me unless I am constantly affirming their decisions, and they are willing to use the full force of the government to make me do so. (For what it's worth, I think this is one of the reasons that the blue tribe hates Trump so much - I think he's willing to use the full force of the government to enforce his desires, and there are a number of people who voted for him specifically to do that, and because they perceive his desires as overlapping with their own).
One of the hardest lessons I've had to learn in my cold dead libertarian heart is that there can be no 'peacefully agree to not use power against one another.' Power will always go to those who want to seize it, while it exists. If you want a credible way to defuse the situation? Splinter the power that lets the sides enforce their will upon each other, so that no one can take it and use it on the other.
Zephyr
1mo ago
So although I agree with you that it would be more productive if we could write these compromises into law, I can also see the OP’s point here too. It feels like there is a never ending game of:
- Of course no one believes this, you are nutpicking.
- It’s just a few crazy kids on campus.
- Well, obviously it’s just something people are talking about, it’s not happening in real life.
- Well, those people are adults and can do what they want, it’s not affecting you.
- Bake the cake, bigot.
Where I think a lot of the frustration is coming from on the right is that these deals have been made, and made many times - and each time, the deal is expanded into merely the vanguard for the next stage of their subjugation. Gay marriage wasn’t a thing, then it was only nice respectable couples, then it became leather daddies walking their subs on a leash through downtown while you have to praise them at the threat of being kicked out of society. There was a deal to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants if the border rules were enforced - instead, over 5 million illegals were let into the United States under the Biden administration.
I think if you want to see this sort of thing simmer down, you’ll need to appease the red tribe - not just give them empty promises that’ll be rolled back the moment they aren’t watching, but actually give something up.
Zephyr
2mo ago
You don’t need to declare that hate speech, and only hate speech, warrants the death penalty- you only need to declare that it too warrants it, then fail to prosecute cases that would otherwise warrant it if against a favoured group.
I live in Canada, not in the United States - we have an extremely activist judiciary here, imposed on Western Canada by Ottawa and Quebec. It would not surprise me in the slightest if they went this route, as we’ve already seen them declare that race and gender must be considered in sentencing. If all you care about is the states, you probably know more than I do, and I defer to your judgement. However, I’m talking about what I’ve seen in non-US systems, where we have “disadvantaged” individuals who have committed stabbing sprees released immediately - I don’t know why you don’t think the left would use this, given that disparate impact is literally part of their public justification for DEI and similar initiatives.
I mean, this coalition is willing to burn cities and churches because of misinformation (the number of unarmed black men killed by cops is estimated to be around two magnitudes higher than it actually is, and they destroyed around 50 churches in Canada because of a moral panic around mass graves that never unearthed even a single bone). What makes you think they aren’t willing to use violence against their outgroup?
Zephyr
2mo ago
The issue is that the government will only perform the death penalty on those that would be the army of their opponents, not their own. A left wing government would give slap on the wrist sentences to those that perform left wing coded violence, while bringing the full force of the law down on those that commit right wing coded violence (and vice versa is true too).
The advantage to “the government can’t kill anyone” is that it removes it’s discretion to do this - there are always ways for a government to avoid prosecuting those in its favour.
Zephyr
2mo ago
I meant mean tweets as shorthand for any politically incorrect speech; and I live in Canada, not in the United States.
Remember that Britain (for example) spent state resources prosecuting someone for misgendering their rapist.
It’s actually not that hard to reach a state where the state could justify it. If words are “literally violence,” it is fairly straightforward to make the case that mean words towards a minority group is exactly what Hitler did (even without the literal violence clause, you could claim that the person in question is encouraging violence and erasure, which is literally genocide).
Zephyr
2mo ago
I’m on record as opposing the death penalty not because of any high minded ideals, nor because I want an army of thugs in reserve, but because the government is entirely untrustworthy. I can easily picture a government deciding that mean tweets warrant the death penalty, while something like assault warrants nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
In theory, not having the death penalty allows for a future government, or the people themselves, to rectify things in the future in the way that the death penalty doesn’t. If society was less bifurcated in their beliefs, I could see it being more of value (as people could more consistently agree on the targets of violence).
In general, though, I’m very much in favour of anything that limits a government’s power - people with a monopoly on violence should be severely limited on what else they can do, lest they use violence to seize all else in life.
Zephyr
2mo ago
One thing that annoys me a lot is that I don’t even think Poilievre was slow to denounce the tariffs or other Trump policies (I recall seeing articles about him denouncing them the day they were announced) - I feel like the internet (generously aided by what was probably an advertising blitz for Carney) decided to ignore it.
One thing that happens in Canadian politics is that as a conservative, you do not have any of the leeway granted to a LPC or NDP candidate. Most donations to the LPC are close to the donation limit, and they facilitate the largest transfer of wealth out of the middle class? Well obviously the CPC is the party of neo-feudalism and big business. LPC candidate literally raised from birth to be prime minister with a multi-million trust fund while the CPC candidate was adopted and raised by a middle class family? Clearly the CPC candidate is the elitist.
It’s really frustrating how little people seem to react to the facts on their own. Someone who votes for Carney because he doesn’t care for Poilievre is infinitely more palatable to me than someone who votes for Carney because Poilievre is secretly in the pocket of big business.
Zephyr
2mo ago
For what it’s worth, Japan did not have the issues with vagrants and crazy people on their trains - instead, we were packed in like sardines with people so close that I couldn’t hold my arms flat against my sides without touching someone (and I was noticeably a foreigner and a man - my sister had it far worse). I’d take time spent in traffic over the subway any day of the week.
Zephyr
2mo ago
Genuine question - how do you tangibly improve on the Doom gameplay formula?
Probably the easiest way is in level and enemy design. I’d actually say that boltgun does a good job at feeling like Doom, but with dramatically better level and enemy design.
You could also argue something like Halo was a different type of improvement over the same - the auto recovering health creates a different feel to the game. You can design encounters for someone who is always at full strength, which allows for a different feel.
You can also take the remnant approach, and add in coop multiplayer. An experience where you approach encounters as a team can lead to an entirely different feel.
Even if the core of “you are a person with a gun” doesn’t change, you can create dramatically different feels by iterating on some common variables.
The main issue I’d say that comes up with modern games is that they all feel like they’re trying to saturate the same market. Dark Souls isn’t that innovative of a design - but it was a popular enough series to spawn its own “genre”, simply because it scratched an itch modern games won’t. There aren’t enough games where you can look for secrets, overcome challenges or get lost in the world - instead, games are very focused on making sure you experience it in the exact way the developers intended.
Zephyr
3mo ago
Honestly, if Canada was 110% on board with Trudeau as our leader? Trump would drop it immediately. He hates Trudeau for being sanctimonious and a huge example of the “respectable” politicians that talk down to him and consider him a threat to democracy.
Zephyr
3mo ago
My suspicion as to why Liberalism was weak to wokeness was twofold.
- The average person believes that society was wrong about homosexuality. As such, when a new movement that professes to be like the gay movement arises, they're very eager to show they wouldn't have made the same mistakes as their predecessors. (There's a major difference between someone who is gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and someone who is queer/LGBTQ+ - I'm referring to the former group on terms of what the average person would accept).
- The right wing still carries a lot of baggage from some specific forms of christians. A very common life path is someone who is raised in a religious environment, then goes to university. People who are less intelligent who follow rules tend to enforce them without understanding the purpose behind them (for example, at work you could have a procedure to set the printer page delay to 15 seconds because the color ink doesn't dry quickly - someone intelligent would know a black and white print could have no delay, while someone less intelligent would do it every time). As a result, the kids who go to university feel that there are no redeeming factors to christianity, and feel it represents the right.
I think that if wokeness suffers a hearts and minds defeat, as opposed to what Trump is doing, it actually would be possible to go back to liberalism. We'd have in our cultural milieu a reference to leftism going insane, which would produce antibodies against the empathy spirals that the current left uses.
That being said, I don't think that we are currently on that trajectory - I think that Trump (like Biden and Obama) is projecting a culture change top down, and that we have too much of a bifurcation in beliefs to return to it yet. I honestly think that a very major country (like, G7) has to fall specifically from wokeness (similar to the fall of the Soviet Union) before we can see the potential for it to return.
Zephyr
3mo ago
I don't disagree with you in that it is definitely a skill issue; I just don't trust a government to ever do better.
Zephyr
4mo ago
If it helps, I'm Canadian, and the Indians we get are not considered to be very hard workers.
Zephyr
4mo ago
Can you provide more information on this? I'm curious what proportion is, as I'd assume it'd be fairly close intuitively, and I've never seen anything otherwise.
Zephyr
4mo ago
Also as a software engineer, I take the exact opposite approach; close the borders right up. Importing lots of people puts a strain on resources in the host country, and counteracts the will of the native population in favour of "GDP line go up" type thinking.
Indians in Canada are willing to live in situations that are a massive downgrade in QOL to the non-immigrant population - Brampton is famous for having slums with 20+ Indian individuals packed into a tiny apartment. It isn't rights that prevents them from doing better - it's that it is still an upgrade for them.
You misunderstand - I’m not claiming that jobs are a fixed number, but I am claiming that they do not track 1-to1 with population change.
To take an absolutely toy example - say 1 farmer can serve a population of up to 50. If you have an initial population of 20, you will have 1 farmer. If you add an additional 25 people to the population, you will still only need a singular farmer. If 5 of the people added are only qualified to do farming, you will have fierce competition for the farming job, as the population can’t support 5 farmers.
What I am saying is happening here is that there is a percentage of the population that is currently employable as manual labour. The manual labour jobs are kept cheap by having this population supplemented by immigrant labour. Removing the immigrant population that is currently taking these roles reduces the number of total jobs, but by less than the number of immigrants removed.
Even were the number of jobs 100% tied to the population (which I dispute, based on the percentage of the population that is NEET), you’d still see a temporary advantage for the workers - jobs are sticky. Picture it like pulling a bucket of pudding out of a bathtub - the area where you pulled out the bucket will temporarily have a void, which slowly gets replenished by the area around it, until the entire tub is back and level. This would give employees in that market tremendous leverage, as they can name their price while the employers are recovering from the shock.
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