Anthony

I think you potentially have a concern Scott. Removing the battery does help in this instance. Cell phones (or miniature personal computers) have become the new addiction for most of society. To elaborate on your points if I may, I think phones have caused a disconnection between people and encouraged instantaneous reward for a simple lazy action. Actually just having a phone box at the front door to leave your guests phone is a good idea, since distractions will be less for both parties. I specifically leave my phone in my car or office when I enter a meeting with family, friends,connections or business meetings. I am sure you are aware Simon Sinek talks at length about how phones are damaging the generation that is using them.

I did not pick on India, you did. I proposed we boycott India for the goal of freedom (giving rights to all) from your example, yet you question why I would pick such a country, a country you even chose to use as an example from your last post, on top of it you defended the very country you listed, as a problem. I picked India from your example because it is the only country, in your example, that actually makes the top 15 countries Canada trades with, India: $3.2 billion (0.8%), If you can name a mass produced product manufactured by any other of your countries you listed that imports the product into Canada for mass Canadian purchase, then we can see if it is worth boycotting. India has a slew of mass produced products on our shelves it would be fairly easy to encourage people to buy other countries products instead.

We can explore in depth whether or not you or I are equally helping the world, but we both know that does not progress the discussion. Instead of expecting others or government to follow your direction, make your own. Focus on giving yourself an attainable goal and in doing so you will find others will follow. Example: I believe in countries that support freedom for men and women. That is why I will no longer support India by buying their goods or services. Would you join this movement to provide freedom for the men and women of India Citizen_2015?

Germany is a different issue, everyone was okay with Germany being a proud nation until they unleashed there dominance over others, hence a war. To which we would be doing the same thing, unleashing our own dominance over other countries for what we would consider a moral obligation. The same could be said for North Korea, China, parts of the middle east. They have moral differences that we would tend to disagree, yet we are not fighting to bring equality to those countries. By the time you have read this post 11 kids have died from preventable causes, does this make you morally responsible for these deaths? Does this make you willing to accept their deaths? Well you are not morally responsible, but ethically you are responsible, and yes you are willing to accept those deaths otherwise you would have stopped their deaths. Is it realistic to blame you for those deaths, no, is it realistic to present you as an evil human because you did not prevent the death of another human life across the globe, no. However, do I personally accept innocent people to be shot dead on the streets for peaceful demonstrations or deprived from right and equality? Absolutely, we as a developed countries fought civil wars over equality, we died because of ideologies, we died to attain our freedoms, our history is scattered with the fallen bodies who fought to attain the rights and freedoms we share today. Does this mean that people have to die just to get to this point? I am not sure, do we have the right demand, sure, we can demand all day long, but nothing will happen unless you support your demand with action. But I would question if interfering with other countries just so we can impose our morality on another country is ethically justifiable, imagine if our situation was reversed. The way you are proposing is to use force to change people's minds, does that really work in the long run? It might change people actions, but it will not change their minds or inner morals. Another dilemma, if you say no more imports from country X because we do not like their lack of human rights, what prevents country X from selling their goods to country Y who legally has human rights, but sells the exact goods from country X to you, claiming it is their own goods? Hence you are still supporting Country X through a satellite country. Maybe by us just being in existence, proves to the women and men in those countries, that fighting for equality is attainable and preferable. It goes along the same line as, You give a poor man a fish and you feed him for a day. You show him how to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime.

A few questions might need to be answered before any action is taken, such as Does one country have the right to tell another country how to behave? If you are holding a gun to someone's head and telling them to change, is that really change? One could look at how we as developed countries came to have an equal system, was it through force? Was there an outside force pushing our own society to change our morals? Or have we advanced in our morals, over a long period of time? (assuming our morals are advanced) Do you think these countries just need time, like we had, to attain equal morals for all? I agree with your recommendation of making an economic war if our own morals are subject to change with the exchange of goods imported. But keep in mind it is using force to expect your result, hence the idea of having a gun to someone's head expecting an inner character change. To stop selling weapons to certain countries does not work since they can get it from other places, China, Russia, satellite american dealers. Canada as far as I know, does not sell a military weapons to overseas countries. Since they are the customer, preventing the sale of our own weapons does not change their behavior, since we need their money but they do not need to trade with us for useful weapons. However, I think you are on the right track, if we stopped buying goods from countries in support of a certain ideology that does not agree with our moral code, then you might be able to change a part of their ideology. A few problems may arise from such action, if you take a look at India they export a lot of pharmaceuticals to Canada. Which in turn make it cheap and accessible for the low income people. Just in looking at canceling trade with India you may be in fact causing harm to men and women in Canada. https://www.asiapacific.ca/statistics/trade/bilateral-trade-asia-product/canadas-merchandise-trade-india I agree with your premise of people assimilating when immigrating.

I am curious CITIZEN_2015 if the purpose of the thread was to gather support for women in those regions what would you have us in Canada do? What type of support do you think we can give women in those regions? What would you recommend?

Hypothetically Citizen_2015, If you wished happy fathers day on a political discussion forum, yet there was no mother's day in existence, would you expect comments on how awful it is that mothers do not get a day for themselves, irrelevant of their positive intentions to the fathers on that day? In response to your intentions, happy international women's day and happy international men's day, I hope we continue to fight for the freedom and rights for all.

“Tha sentences in caps are not meant as yelling but rather as an emphasis that the sentence is more important than others and must be especially taken note of.” (Thank you for understanding, I comprehend the idea of using all caps to support an emphasis on a important sentence, I personally like your excellent example “They do deserve a special day. They are the sources of life. “ where you switched to using bold, makes it feel strong and constructive.) By no means would I want you to feel like this is an argument, rather a discussion upon the subject at hand. I do not think we are saying the same thing, take a closer look at this sentence: Unless I misunderstood your intention, it appears that a man with the intentions of reproduction, has sex with a woman only for sexual enjoyment, without mutual enjoyment and after sexual intercourse the man leaves with no supporting role. However, especially in our current era this is not true a majority of the time.The man and the woman will both play supporting roles in the development, even during the early and late stages of pregnancy. I was pointing out there are two or more sides to pregnancy, a team of people I should say. Men who have the intentions of reproduction with a woman have a strong desire to love and take care of the woman of whom is pregnant of their offspring. There is also two sides to sexual satisfaction, this idea that women can not enjoy sex or feel just as connected as a man, is an odd perspective. Indeed it should be honored and respected, yet it is used by you as a power tactic, women can have babies thus they are special. Examine this sentence: You jumbled all women as being special for the ability to bring about sources of life, but you actively dispute that men are special, yet they have the ability, to bring about the same sources of life, to which your "special recognition" is evaluated upon. Actually look back in the thread, no one opposed the designation of international woman’s day, instead they questioned why it was in existence and why was there not an equal day for men. In fact the only person who directly opposed the idea was your response to an opposition for a designation of an international men's day. Here you jumbled together men from the middle east as a reason all men do not deserve a special day, a grossly unfair generalization of men's behavior, irrelevant of the global heterogeneous behavior of men. What about the men who act in a respectful honorable way in developed societies? What about the men who treat women and other men with respect and fight for equal rights for all? May I suggest, instead of telling people who they should not be, or accusing them of horrible behavior, point to the men and women who hold up your beliefs and values, encourage others to walk in their footsteps.

(Note : Yelling in real life might work for you CITIZEN_2015, but using all caps for an entire sentence to express a point does not work in a forum, as individuals will feel like you are attacking them personally and become defensive. If you feel the need to use all caps in a forum, maybe take a break before replying, we are here to find a general consensus on a topic or discuss viable options, not bicker between ourselves.) Sex enjoyment ( the release of Oxytocin and endorphins) can and optionally should be mutual, when conceiving a child, women do receive chemical pleasure from an orgasm. Yes women do carry the baby for up to 9 months and can experience a multitude of feelings during labor, one can be extreme pain, I respect and honor that ability. However, because the child was conceived in a relationship, the man and the woman will both play supporting roles in the development even during the early and late stages of pregnancy. Focusing on the idea that specifically one type sex is "special " or "deserves lots of respect" is dangerous, especially when it is held as a means of power, over a percentage of the population. Yes men and women can be vastly different.Yet, through a combination of those differences, that we as a collective, have been able to create ideas, complex social systems, economies and extend human life.

Every one of us is here because of men, I can understand your enthusiasm for the value women bring to society. However, focusing on the idea that one sex is superior is dangerous. Yes men and women can be vastly different.Yet, through a combination of those differences, that we as a collective, have been able to create ideas, complex social systems, economies and extend human life.

Women invented beer. - Even in history it is not know that one individual has invented beer, the nearest historical evidence is the collective of Göbekli Tepe And COBOL- COBOL was invented by a multitude of individuals and university assistance, FLOW-MATIC was invented by Grace Hopper and Remington Rand. A group of people working together. And windshield wipers- Mary Anderson hired a designer to invent the windshield wiper and it was manufactured using a local company. Again a group of people working together. And stem cell isolation.- There is no one individual recognized for stem cell isolation, but a collective of individuals who worked together through a university. A collective group of people working towards achieving a goal. And wireless technology.- Extremely broad statement, to what in particular are you referring to in this statement? Such as radio, light, magnetic,electric fields or the use of sound type of wireless technology? And dishwashers,- Invented by Josephine Cochrane together with mechanic George Butters, again another group of two people working together to achieve a goal. Refrigerators- Jacob Perkins, invented the first working vapor-compression refrigeration system along with colleges. The first refrigerator to see widespread use was produced by General Electric, a collective of employees working towards a goal. Ice cream makers.- Yes this is probably the only example given that could be considered an individual Nancy M. (Donaldson) Johnson to invent the ice cream maker, who happens to be a woman. It is extremely rare that any one individual with no outside influence or assistance invents a new technology valued to society. Instead the most common method of inventing something, is a group of like minded people collaborating together to achieve a collective goal. This idea of focusing whether a man invented Y or a woman invented X is damaging to our current successful structure. It is a collaboration of people from the past and the present that has brought about the technology and ideologies of today. What separates us from being just another pile of monkeys grazing in the forest, is the idea that we as a species work together as a collective to achieve global functioning economies and societies.

You bring up an excellent issue that appears to be growing in society. Young males who lack direction, control and who are sexually frustrate. In my opinion a few young males focus on traits that would attract women derived from fictional entertainment. They try imitate the characters in the fictional entertainment, ie shows or movies or porn, with hopes if not expectations that the results are similar to what happens in the shows or movies (ie guy get the girl). Unfortunately, this expectation is not realistic just like the entertainment. When young men are rejected by society for such strange behaviors or inappropriate advances they become frustrated. This frustration along with sexual frustration leads to anger at the social mating game to which they thought they figured out, but really completely misunderstand. They do not understand why they fail, they only know of the constant pain of rejection and loneliness. Fortunately, most of these young men do seek information possibly online, reading books (men are from mars women are from Venus for example) a dating coach or personal life coach and in some extreme cases a psychologist. For the few who do not seek assistance, after a few years of cycle rejection and anger, it can turn into horrible and inexcusable actions as such acted out by Elliot Rodger. I think part of the issue is young society presumes that men are born with the innate ability and knowledge on how to court or properly date a women. Men also tend to not converse about how to court, date or have a relationship with other men until later on in life. Possibly men find even the act of asking for dating or relationship advice to be weak or in society none masculine, since men are supposedly born with this knowledge. In my opinion if more time was spent in high school learning the behavior, courtship and dating of an individual through courses or books, then we would have less sexually frustrated young men. If there where high school studies on how each sex feels accepted, loved or emotionally connected and what motivates them in a relationship it might help. If young men purely focus on how to attract women, dress and act accordingly, it could lead to self harm and in the worst case scenario possibly lead to sadistic actions against society. However, if these sexually frustrated young men were directed from a young age to focus purely on personal development for their optimum selves, they might become highly successful and thus highly sexually desired.

I agree this is probably a much better solution than allowing teens to vote. I would agree a flat tax for high income individuals might work, I do not think a flat tax rate for low income individuals is healthy, primarily because the cost of living is significantly higher for low income individuals. I try not to be presumptuous in people's political beliefs, my intention is to discuss problems at hand globally and nationally, one of the main points of the forum is to learn from each other and find solutions as a collective. I understand it is logical that you may pay more into the system and as a result you are allotted more voting power. However, what happens when a multi-million dollar company hires people of certain ideologies, pays these individuals 150k specifically so that they are allotted 5X votes and as a result that specific ideology has 5X more power in the vote? Taking votes away from $0.00 income or low income individuals might be a problem in the future of automation. For example, the 150k individuals could vote against supporting the low income or $0.00 income individuals receiving help through the government. Because the low income individuals only have 1 vote, or in some cases no vote, it would be a landslide in favor of axing support for the low income individuals. The idea of giving more votes to people with more wealth and removing votes from people with little to no wealth is dangerous. A democratic system is not a business or company, the point of democracy is that it is fair to every citizen, 1 vote per citizen. I agree with Micheal Hardner.

I agree, but I think the point is purely that the high income individual has the ability to live a better life style, because they net more than a low income individual in reference to wage vs cost of living . Yes you get taxed almost 50 % as a high income individual , take a worker earning $100 per hour, if this was taxed at 50% the individual would net $50 per hour Take a low income individual at say $10 per hour, if this was taxed at say even 5% the individual would net $9.5 per hour This means the high income individual makes $40.5 per hour more than the low income individual . As a result the high income individual can easily go eat out at say an 40 dollar restaurant, however the low income individual would take 4 hours to attend the same restaurant. When the high income individual goes out and buys a $4 dollar tooth paste tube it represents only 9.87% of his wage, where as in the low income individual with the same purchase, comes to 42.10% of their wage. Yes the high income individual still has the ability to have a better life style than the low income individual. To be clear, I do not agree with the current taxation rates to earnings for low income individuals, low income as in $1 million annually or less.

At this time in history it is improbable that revolution would be apart of any conversation with reference to Canada, since as you said this would only "happen when people can't eat or be free". I would completely agree at this moment no such revolution would ever happen and no desire for revolution would occur over the majority. The comment was enforcing how historically what TTM was explaining, that at some point a long term Oligarchy could and usually does result in a revolution. To sit on the government panel in China you first have to be well situated both in wealth and status, like many current governmental systems. China is an example of a wealth dependent Oligarchy, yes China is significantly better off than Maoist version of communism, absolutely, I agree. However, do we want an Oligarchy in Canada? Where the wealthy casting significantly more votes than a low class individual? I would hope not, if we do, we can look to China as an example. Well thank you Cannuck, I do find the taxation system absurd. The current system rewards those that turn from income tax as an employee working for a company, to corporate tax as an employee of their own company, to bring the taxes to a more manageable percentage. Better to keep it simple and have a reasonable tax rate to earnings. I do wonder from an economists point of view, if National basic income matched with a fairly high corporate or individual wage cap, would produce better wealth equality vs our current infinite wealth system? How much is required for an individual per year to live in leisure? Would a cap of 10 million earned annually be acceptable to the majority of the population?

This is historically accurate. Most of the upper High-net-worth individuals at this point understand the importance of keeping the low and middle classes happy enough not to revolt. In general this means food, shelter and entertainment . If you look at a majority of revolutions, it is through the use of the low class, in conjunction with the middle class, that overthrow a form of Plutocracy. If you want to see a country in which the wealthy individuals who pay higher taxes rule the country-ie an wealth dependent Oligarchy- I would look to China. Although they do appear at the moment to have a strong economy, the citizens live at a fraction of the leisures we are allotted in Canada, especially through our collective social systems. I do agree with Bonam, in that income tax is far too high for the wage earners between and over 100-300K. At 29% federal income tax and 14.7% provincial (BC) for around $142,353 - $202,800 per year, this adds up to 43.7% income tax without deductions. This means that even if you are an excellent worker in the field, your reward is quenched by high taxes. As a way to mitigate the losses, most individuals look to making their position as a low paid employee within their own company, specifically set up to avoid high taxation. No private individual would want to earn over $200k per year. Instead, it would be far better to claim such earnings as a corporation, and in conjunction, a net loss for the corporation correlated to the individual's benefit. I find the idea of looking towards the low or middle class individual income tax for ways to fund social and governmental systems at large is problematic. Yes, you can look to the individual who is earning $35k a year and maybe only playing $2k in taxes, along with other benefits. Yes, you can look to the high earner, who is earning $300k in a specific field. But in both cases, these are actually not high earning individuals with reference to corporations. When you look to multimillion dollar corporations their profit values can be significantly higher. In fact, you will find, although there are many billion dollar companies who would normally pay a certain percentage of these social and governmental systems, it turns out they are instead legally lowering their tax rates to less than 5%. http://projects.thestar.com/canadas-corporations-pay-less-tax-than-you-think/ One may wonder why large corporations are not always firmly investigated for tax evasion vs individual income tax evasion. One of the most common reason is because certain tax evasion corporations have more funds and power than even the CRA. In reference to the forum topic, lowering the age of voting does not constitute better results for the future. If anything, it makes the demographic of voters larger. There is little evidence that the voting from a 16 year old is better or worse than that of a 61 year old. However, life experience may come into play. If you look at voters in general, both a 16 year old and a 61 year old can be socially or commercially convinced into a specific way of thinking. Although, perhaps because of less life experience, the 16 year old may be easier to sway. At this moment, it appears that the problem is not in lowering the age but , rather, in effectively giving voters of all ages an education on analysis and critical thinking on the ideologies presented to them by the given parties. To conclude, because we have a democracy every individual should have equal voting rights. However, more time needs to be spent on educating voters to differentiate the choice at hand. Not only because they are possibly socially or commercially swayed to do so, but instead, because the future country they invision is determined by their decision. For those who are interested, Mark Blyth does a fairly decent job , " why people vote for those who work against their best interests " ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsqGITb0W4A

I agree with you OftenWrong, there is a difference. I am trying to avoid the problems that current systems use, where a number 3322 or alias "jollyjoe" is used. Look at forum and other social media, the ability to troll or corrupt someone is based on others not being able to identify you. If real names were used online, peoples interaction online be become extremely different. I have talk with many people about the issue you brought up and I tend to agree with you. Due to certain splits between people in society and the violent chaos that might insue because of "exposing" people, it might be best just have secure recognition for identifying citizens just for the voting systems. ( most of this was examined during Plato/Aristotle time) Making Voting members identity public is probably an incorrect approach. Thank you OftenWrong, keep up the good discussion.

The reason I bring up Geomocracy is to encourage discussion on outdated governmental systems. One can to question why we have representatives when we have the technology to vote online. One can question why we need to translate through a multitude of government officials before our options or societal problems are examined decades later. Why our systems take decades to correct for issues within society or corrections to failed decisions made previous due to misleading information. Why the Canadian government feels a 2.139 + Billion dollar fund every 4 years is necessarily the optimum approach for the house of commons which fails to recognize citizen desires. How about our individual ability to see a simple or complex problem within society yet feel powerless as our only chance is to vote someone who claims to care about our lives. Hoping that the Prime minister and cabinet brings up our issues. Geomocracy may not be the answer, but do we really want to accept a 150 year old governmental system that makes decisions that are not for the benefit of Canada or Canadian citizens?

Analogous example: Lets step into a car dealership, where you have decided on your perfect car. It has everything you want from color, look to a healthy powered engine. The car, your favorite, will be delivered to you 2 weeks from now, as the lease is approved. Two weeks later a knock at your door and a flashy new car in the drive way sends you rushing outside to check out your new ride. But upon further examination you noticed the paint was already beginning to fade. Opening the door to your surprise you find no seats, not even a steering wheel. Popping the hood you find no engine installed. You quickly phone the dealership, thinking maybe they sent you an electric car? Unfortunately no. In fact you have received the "proper" car, a 4 wheeled painted frame. Months go by as you argue with the dealership, manufacture and finally try to gather enough for a class action lawsuit. But no court will hear your lawsuit, at you unwittingly agreed to a contract where it is not guaranteed that the manufacture has to provide the product you bought. In fact you are stuck with your 4 wheeled painted frame for the next 4 years paying a signification portion of your paycheck, waiting for the dealer to determine when they want to terminate the contract of 4 years. One would say this would be a ridiculous situation, that it would never happen in the real world, yet this is tends to happen with some democratic representative governments.

The reason for identification is to prevent one individual from having multiple accounts and also take responsibility for his/her actions. If the individual is afraid of voting one way because of government or community backlash, you no longer have a democracy, you have a tyrannical country. If in fact there was extreme problems with people losing their jobs or being beaten, a multitude of individuals could address the problem by introducing an issue within Geomocracy. Take your example of Trump supporters being vilified, look at the geography of voter variation, we can see that a majority of sizable cities voted against Trump. Where a majority of the population outside these cities voted for Trump. Lets replace Trump with an issue statement, say banning rifles, you may observe populations within cities voting ban rifles. But outside the major cities (suburb) you may find the vote cast to allow those rifles. In this case we can apply the 5 process in Geomocracy, geographic analysis. This would take a vote within a specific region, for instance within the city and separately in the different boarder regions farther outside the city. If it is observed that a majority of citizens within the city desire to ban rifles and outside the city a region wants to allow rifles, Geomocracy could implement the decided ban or allowance of rifles directly within each region. Although the banning or allowance of rifles in two separate regions would be a little extreme, it shows that even though there would be a national or provincial disagreement, implementation of certain none national solutions could be implemented within the specific region. This could prevent unjustified job loss and physical assault, as citizens within small communities tend to agree more often than an entire nation.

Actually you brought up something interesting Altai. Currently most, if not all forum users use an alias. It is nice to hide behind an alias where one can "like" or approve of an ideology that would be either morally wrong or socially unacceptable. However, if you go through the online Geomocracy video, each forum citizen has an identification number. You could look up that number and find the exact name of the citizen who voted for or against an issue. This would prevent most individuals voting in an absurd solution, as their identity to their vote would be socially known. Citizens are not forced to vote, you would find in general, citizens would ignore most issues, especially if it did not pertain to their life. Geographic voting analysis will also prevents one side of the country determining how the rest of the country is supposed to behave. If you find the online video to be confusing, we can walk through the six processes of Geomocracy by fallowing an issue all the way to an implemented solution if you prefer?

I understand and agree with your concern Queenmandy85, as it would take hours of your day to sift through all the data and information to make an informed decision. However, Geomocracy does solve this issue by the use of Researchers. Researchers are highly qualified individuals who have backgrounds in a multitude of fields and education. There is a detailed 3 minute video describing each step of Geomocracy online. It explains how Researchers function within the system and follows through an issue in the system quickly and efficiently. On the topic of funds allocated to operate the elected government, not only does it cost 424 million (a) just for the house of commons, but it also costs 443 million (b) to have a federal election. Assuming the costs stay the same per year, that would result in a 2.139 billion dollar price tag for the house of commons as our form of government. I believe 2.139 Billion is an exorbitant amount of funds. (a) “The total cost of the House of Commons to taxpayers was approximately $424 million from April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011” Huffington post (b) “The price tag for the 2015 federal election has come in at $443 million” CBC

Our current "democratic" system utilizes the use of representatives. However, what if we could implement a system, where representatives are replaced and instead, citizens were to have direct control over the means legislation. What if the system provided each citizen with the opportunity to express an issue within society, by the use on an online discussion and voting forum. Not only would this save exorbitant funds, currently spent on elected government, but also prevent political corruption. This type of system is called Geomocracy.