Michael Hardner
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Posts posted by Michael Hardner
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Think so? 🤔
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1 hour ago, herbie said:
1. Not griping against change at all. Read any of my post history and you can see my complaint is how others can't or won't.
2. This one's how many of them do accept change. Blindly, unaware of what is simply sold to them, without the faintest or totally wrong knowledge about what's changing.
1. Well you don't seem thrilled about self checkout machines for example.
2. There's a sweet spot in between...
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1 minute ago, impartialobserver said:
do you know what is absolutely comical about your position? You honestly think that those who attend the parades do not know that is this possible. And so then they have the choice to go or not go... they do, seriously.
I don't get what you're saying. What's possible?
Staying home from Pride? I guess so. It is too bad for people who live in the neighborhood though.. they don't have a choice
Like I don't have a choice about the f****cking Air Show or the Santa Claus parade.
But then again, I understand that you don't always get your way when you live in a community.
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1 hour ago, herbie said:
Say that next family reunion when 12 grandkids are sitting silently on their phones with the cousins they haven't seen in 3 years. Or the lady standing in a crowd talking loudly to someone who's not there. Or the Boss that texts or emails off hours and actually expects you to instantly respond.
Of course it's a natural progression of Alexander Graham Bells telephone, but tech advances are seldom monitored for societal disruption, that's just the most blatant example.
Teach kids to manage money when banking is just waving your watch, worry about online bullying etc, people who expect their Tesla to drive them through rush hour, porch pirates... etc etc etc
Still, it's not blind acceptance. Lots of people are aware of the pitfalls and mitigate it.
Your post strikes me as griping against change. The wheelbarrow had its pitfalls too. McLuhan pointed out that technology arrives in time to solve the problems that it starts causing and if you think about it, it makes sense. Social media arrived to solve the problem of information hoarding and lack of access to good information. Now look how good we have it
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TNC is troll news... if I see a story from them I pass it by the way that others pass by anything reported by CTV, CBC, Global and The Globe and Mail.
You keep your news, I'll keep mine. Eventually your news will be so thirsty for viewers that they'll tell us that weather reports are a conspiracy and will report "Truth Weather" or somesuch. -
29 minutes ago, West said:
I did already. The mayoral debate.
A few days ago some people were arrested for plotting a terrorist attack on a synagogue down east. You'd agree that this is incompatible with western civilization, would you not?
Well, forgive me but if you don't have a link I can't just accept your characterization of what was said, given that I already challenged your previous statement.
Of course violence is incompatible with culture we want to foster, but there's no way to project this incident on to mass policy if that's what you mean. -
31 minutes ago, West said:
The other day I was listening to a debate for city mayor. There's a very far left person running and that was essentially the crux of her argument.
They give out these freebies to new immigrants for business startups while the university grad who's parents are paying for said freebies get nothing and have to find their own way. If you oppose you get called names.
Just one example.
You also hear it all the time in the press. Anything less than full surrender to mass immigration is considered racist. Which isn't really much of an argument to begin with.
It's not just housing. But education as well.. where there's a shortage of EAs and teachers are expected to modify course content to students who don't speak English, placing strain on resources in the classroom.
I get it's a catch 22 especially in industries like agriculture who have issues getting their crops off in time due to labor shortages. But there's still pretty significant impacts on everything from hospital wait times to housing to classrooms that's really crippled with even a smallest percentage of an increase.
This also played a role on why we all had to muzzle up and governments got overly involved in how many people a health 30 something year old could have in their homes during covid
Well, I for one read lots of coverage that talks about the negative effects of immigration. I will give an example after you give the one I already asked for.
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17 minutes ago, DUI_Offender said:
Trumps wingman for nearly 20 years (Roy Cohn) was a closest homosexual, who was very influential on the young Trump.
Cohn was such a troll that they wrote a play with him as a major villain.
He trolled America his whole life...-
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18 minutes ago, West said:
This is what many folks like myself were saying when we started rapidly increasing our population faster than the infrastructure and housing that would allow for it.
Instead of listening, people were called racists.
Well, often people would say something like immigrants had values incompatible with democracy, or somesuch so it wasn't like people were calling economic arguments 'racist'. But if you have an example, we'd be glad to admoish the poster who said that.
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Okay but the flaws you mentioned have been there since the beginning. So why are we only seeing dissent over democracy itself now?
Got more to do with a new media form that is much more democratic than The press or The radio or TV tower.
Technology will prevail, and as with the printing press The new landscape for political interaction will be reset.
Both the left and right will be satisfied. At least until the next thing comes along.
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11 hours ago, herbie said:
You're touting the benefits of technology without realizing the reality of how it gets used in a modern capitalist society. Like thinking it's more convenient to scan and bag your own stuff at the store. Like blindly acceptiing decades ago that the bank machine that doesn't require training, cost hourly wages and benefits, coffee breakes, maternity leave etc "cost them so much" you been paying added trabnsaction fees.
And my point remains that democracy is real participation, not some half assed nuisance you hand over to SyNet to deliver some Black Mirror version of a democratic system with all that's risks and flaws. You bloody well know your name, address, SIN and how you voted will be stored 'in the cloud' and sold to the highest bidder, intentionally or by hackers.I don't think we blindly accept technology, the value is apparent to anyone who has eyes.
Perhaps true democracy would spread the benefits more equitably.
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19 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:
I would suggest that those values originate with the Scots-Irish Protestant Loyalists
The fact that all three groups work together still, and did peaceably for over 100 years speaks to pragmatism.
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1 hour ago, Perspektiv said:
Many landlords have abused of "renovictions". This is a commonly used loophole for landlords, and the unintended consequence from governments trying to incentivize renovations to properties. This is nothing new.
I don't know the exact numbers nationally, but definitely do know that there has been rampant abuse of such incentives from landlords since covid-19, seeking to both cash in on current market rates, and get rid of tenants not paying high enough for them to return on their investments quicker.
What we are seeing now are landlords abusing of these loopholes quite aggressively, which also contributed to the skyrocketing rent prices.
The rapid influx of immigrants, are only a second part to the issue, as they simply drove up the demand, further incentivizing the practice which was still happening long before.
Covid-19 sort of created a domino effect. You see governments that made it impossible for landlords to increase their rents, and painfully difficult to evict tenants.
Then those protections disappeared. What do you think is going to happen?
I don't think there is a simple solution to this problem.
Some cities are looking into more bureaucracy making harder to renovict tenants. I just see this increasing the cost of owning a property, and disentivizing repairs or renovations.
There are multiple solutions, but one of the wisest would obviously be slowing down the influx of people.
There are however, multiple layers to this problem.
Our rental bureaucracy system is broken in Canada, and you can't fix this problem, without looking into it, too.
A good summary. Don't lose sight of the corporate takeover of housing and the implications for ordinary working people.
Lobbying could achieve for housing what it did for immigration.
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23 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:
there are three founding diasporas in Canada
the First Nations,
the Quebecois,
and the Scots-Irish Protestant Loyalists
We need to be proud of our capacity for pragmatism, and value work and fairness.
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17 minutes ago, myata said:
1. Animals, who humans originated from evolved in a natural environment where scarcity was common and abundance, rare. Continuous, ongoing abundance of everything confuses and baffles them to the point where the entire system based on rational perception of the reality may fail.
1. Well, that's for sure. Our cognitive functions, and our social functions for group measure evolved to thrive in a certain framework which we can't recreate anymore. There need to be aspects of competition, cooperation, leadership and followship in balance.
A society that lies to the consumer in order to get their attention and their business is a bad breeding ground for citizenry. -
21 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:
1. 50,000 dead Canadians from COVID, although if you’re debating on this forum, the person on the other end probably doesn’t believe those numbers anyway.
2. It is not a valid comparison though, so it’s probably not a great argument to try and make.1. perspektiv isn't crazy
2. It's apples to oranges, but... it's valid to try to compare... it's just unlikely you'll convince anyone, and by 'you'll' I mean 'i'll'. I guess the fact that we're debating it speaks to the fact that Covid did have a large impact, even if you think my claim is ridiculous -
14 minutes ago, Perspektiv said:
1. You're comparing this to the mental health impact of actual warfare, where the actual threat is far greater. The damage lasts for life.
2. If it goes against their rights, no.
3. Damage. Which was overblown due to our inundation with media. Not talked about back then. You think people are getting "mental health help" back then?
4. Majority of us have moved on with their lives.
5. ... who have been hung out to dry with mental health issues, and now homeless and on fentanyl. You have a point.
Once the media stopped its fear mongering, most were back to normal. What happened isn't the same.
1. I am, and it IS an apples and oranges comparison I allow that. But 1 million Canadians 'deployed' and a fraction of that who actually saw combat is a smaller number than all 40 million or so under lockdown. Now, of course, combat is more stressful than lockdown but there are also cross-impacts.
2. I said it's "possible", not that it's correct or moral to do so. This is another example of you arguing a point that I am *not* making
3. Again, I'm not arguing that the media coverage wasn't overblown or that fear didn't result. You're right that mental health wasn't addressed as much back then, but I'm not sure that people are getting care to the point they need it today either.
4. This seems to negate your own point in #3.
5. Ok, well I am definitely not saying your points are wrong. You have good points but ultimately I still think that Covid was more impactful.
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Yes, your points are quite arguable and defensible but I just disagree on this. -
7 minutes ago, myata said:
If citizens are not involved in the function of democracy regularly, routinely and meaningfully, they inevitably begin to see it a service, shop and/or entertainment and not as a matter of their direct and essential responsibility. This setting cannot last indefinitely. The progression goes from entertainment, to circus and on to some form of tyranny/dictatorship or oligarchy.
Would that have happened in the 18th century ? "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is the book that addresses this in depth.
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5 hours ago, Perspektiv said:
1. People being locked down as long as they had been in Canada, has more to do with politics preceding medicine, especially considering Canada was one of the most vaccinated countries in the heat of things.
2. I was in China. They were informative. People thus made educated decisions, and people went about their business.
3. To draw that comparison based on a government being overprotective, vs an actual threat (when the bulk of Canada was vaccinated), is ridiculous.
4. If your desired result is population control, that's debatable.
5. You're deliberately misleading your population, creating fear that may or may not be justified.
6. You really haven't. War and an outbreak, are vastly different and threat levels are vastly different.
7. Comparing the two is laughable. You have yet to defend your point, along with any of your others.
1. That's beside the point I'm making.
2. They protested in China too over lockdowns, which is almost an unheard of thing. But again, beside the point.
3. Why ? Even if you think the lockdowns were overdone, there is still a mental health impact. It even buttresses your case if those lockdowns *were overdone.
4. Who is trying to achieve population control ? And by that do you mean population levels ?
5. It's also possible to scare your people in order to convince them to do something that you think is right.
6. Threat levels are not what I'm talking about.
7. I'd like to defend it but you don't seem to get what I mean by impacts. I'm not talking about 'threat' 'risk' and such, which you assess before the impact is known I'm talking about what happened to *us ... after the fact. Looking back. And you even agree that the government did harm, in the end. -
Huh ? 18th century and ancient democracies were a better model, and our current practice needs to reintegrate aspects of those. The same factors that streamline consumer society have been applied to democracy and it's not working anymore.
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4 minutes ago, West said:
drag queens reading stories to little girls in perverted costumes.
Why are the little girls wearing perverted costumes? 🤔
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12 minutes ago, Nationalist said:
Your point...huh...like...
"EXTRA EXTRA! MANY LIBERALS ARE AVID GUN LOVERS!"
pfft...asinine click-bait garbage.
Honestly, I don't think you understand what I'm saying.
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1 hour ago, Perspektiv said:
1. How is covid-19 worse statistically, than world War II (in Canada)?
What metrics are you using?
Death toll? How people died?
2. I think what you're eluding to, is that mental health issues were just not something that you talked about back then.
3. There was nothing but fear mongering, and lockdowns. Deliberately misleading your population by the deliberate omission of information is not passive. Its propaganda.
1. Yes, number of deaths, and the fact that the entire population was locked down unlike during world War II.
2. Maybe so.
3. To what end though? Was someone trying to actually do harm? It's strange that you say there was fear-mongering, that people we're afraid, but you weren't. So who was afraid?
I think people were isolated and there was stress and depression from that. That was a well-known, and felt by pretty much everyone.
Propaganda just seems like the wrong word in this context. I'll leave it at that.
I think I've made my case, I don't want to go back and forth back and forth back and forth with this. If you have something new to ask, go ahead.
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13 minutes ago, eyeball said:
But I think more adults still fared worse than kids overall.
Young kids have forgotten about it. To be honest, kids who seem really put off Are the teens to early twenties... That's a good chunk of your best years gone.
Harris destroyed Trump in debate
in Federal Politics in the United States
Posted
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/taylor-swift-endorses-kamala-harris-rcna170547
Far more importantly, Taylor Swift has been turned. That's going to hurt Trump, and get under his skin.
( 😅 )