Michael Hardner

Why do you think the polls get it wrong so often lately?

We will work it out as long as we understand that debate is an edifying exercise. If we see debate as zero-sum, we will never build mutually beneficial solutions.

Of course not. That's not in question. For some reason, people are under the impression that the richest nation in history is poor. And working people are desperate. But it's not starving foreigners who are picking the pocket of the working man.

Okay. I respect you for responding to my response to your request reasonably. But there it is, he did say it. So where are we with this? It's with the Canadian people and they will decide. From the Abacus poll about the debate, it seems like about half the Canadians watched some of it including me. From what I could see they were talking about important things, so maybe democracy is getting a bit better than it used to be. Cheers.

Because helping poor and disadvantaged is something to sneer at. Moral superiority? 🤔

No...

1. Yeah I have never had that question... pretty sure you could find an example in the wild... 2. I haven't seen it, how many times do you want me to tell you ? My work is almost all immigrants, mostly because all the IT people I know quit working to flip houses or surf the bitcoin wave 20 years ago. If you don't relate then maybe we just live in different worlds then.

https://torontosun.com/news/watch-poilievre-calls-singh-a-maserati-marxist

1. Then why do we have to eliminate it? They're all just lying anyway? Why won't they just hire people because of their color and say they're better? What's the point of a program? Obviously there's a big conspiracy around where HR and hiring managers all over the Western World are hiring unqualified people. 2. Since when is the question.

Yes. They say (but I don't say) that they're voting against fascism.

1. "The young do know bullshit when they see it." And also - "Young voters say diversity is good" Therefore "Diversity is not bullshit" I'm just laying it out as a syllogism, Philosophy 101 style, for you to take down as you wish. 2. DEI doesn't require "less qualified" people to be hired, though. Here are some HR articles: https://www.hirediverse.ca/blog/what-is-dei "Diversity hiring doesn’t mean choosing candidates based on identity alone—it means ensuring the hiring process is free of biases that exclude qualified individuals. Historically, recruitment processes have favored certain groups due to factors like nepotism, systemic barriers, and unconscious bias." https://peoplethriver.com/what-are-the-principles-of-diversity-equity-and-inclusion/#:~:text=The principles of DEI are,ways%2C from recruitment to profitability. "Eliminating bias and discriminatory practices from the selection process can open up the recruitment process to a wider pool of highly qualified candidates and improve the overall quality of hires. It can also have a positive effect on how potential candidates view the company." If you think these are lies then why eliminate DEI at all, since HR will just lie and hire unqualified people anyway ? Or are we just going to NOT hire minorities in case they're unqualified ? I'm asking honestly here. In my career I have never met a bona fide "DEI hire" to my knowledge

1. Not as much, no. 2. Private police, private legal apparatus and authorities. Elections are privately funded by the corporate elite and the system is now set up to respond to their needs. 3. Not eliminating but right-sizing. 1. The bureaucracy just does as they were told. If the leadership didn't agree to DEI then would not have done it, which is why it's going away now: Trump is making it happen. 2. You're stuck otherwise. 3. I'm not arguing that at all.

1. Yeah, I referred to the example that is often cited and it's not the same thing. If you can find Carney/Singh saying that the CPC are all racists, or that Poilievre himself is a racist please cite it and I will note that. In the mean time, I'm not going to scurry around chasing dust devils with you. Most of us know how Poilievre operates in the political sphere Although I maintain that it has nothing to do with how he would do as PM, it is definitely a different mode from what we've seen and there's no argument there IMO.

I was able to confirm that my two most radical leftist pals are voting Liberal so that's something.

1. I mean private services that parallel public services and even those who make rules, do lobbying to make things worse for the public. Like corporate lawyers who create interest groups, lobby groups and have their hooks in legal frameworks around Intellectual Property for example. 2. I don't think it's been done successfully yet. Maybe DOGE could ACTUALLY be a first step, but to my mind they would have to be stopped and have the organization do a regroup and try again. Maybe that actually has happened because DOGE is pretty quiet right now. I assume that Republicans are getting calls from old people who can't get through to the Social Security lines or something, who knows. How would *I* do it ? I would seed a parallel organization with top leadership from the private sector. Like a Musk but far far less crazy... they would be a mix of people with institutional knowledge, but those folks would only be advisors... and people with contemporary management experience as well as new hires. They would be instructed to try things, fail quickly, and iterate and improve... Once these organizations started to get traction, probably 1-2 years, I would grow them and shrink the existing organizations. Now... the minute ... the very second I hear someone in government, or god-forbig an actual politican, submitting a suggestion close to this I will enthusiastically support them. And in case you haven't noticed, I do not enthusiastically support any politician or party right now. I'm enthusiastic about a few popular cultural channels and platforms, and some philosophical movements but that's pretty much it.

1. Most large organizations measure productivity via metrics. To learn the systems would probably take a few weeks, then you could try to analyze it but you'd have to be careful because individual metrics for high performers might not reflect their contributions. Cross-referencing that with performance reports might be the best way. Given the speed of the reports on DOGE, I don't believe either side had knowledge of what DOGE was really doing. At least what they reported probably doesn't reflect that. 2. Maybe they have. But we can only guess based on reports. They would be stupid to tell the press what they are really doing.

This Ontario Red Tory is sick of McCarthy era red-baiting, calling people Marxists, when the two parties are ideologically similar... saying the Nazis were socialists etc. etc. Beyond the parallels to the new populism, it's just rude. And please .... please don't tell me that Trudeau calling the convoy leaders racist (in French) is the same thing. It's not. Go look up Pat King's hilarious Ching-Ching Asian impersonation video if you need a refresher. Cheers, Moonbox...

What will come after will be better, I am convinced. It's pretty clear that the current direction is not widely supported. More people disapprove than approve, and at its peak it's pretty close to 50/50 support/opposition. The simplest way forward is a change of government, through election, to something maybe a little more familiar.

So... as with the internet, we shouldn't address that other than to open the gates to charlatans and carnival barkers to step in and roam free ? I don't think you are actually saying this btw. I agree with the significance, but to me the response needs to be an improvement in the connection that the so-called leadership (intellectual, political,cultural) has with people. Right now it's tenuous at best. "People don't trust medicine and they think western medicine is racist too" "Therefore we will let quacks and ethnic medical gurus administer to people's illnesses" No.

That's crazy. What tribe are you from ?

I don't think so. If you do, then you must agree with the changes in social attitude that find significantly more support with younger folks. Adding: a true community weighs the opinion from diverse sources, including the wisdom of age and the optimism of youth. That's the core of why 'diversity' is important - it's a natural way to mitigate one-sided opinions.

Believe it or not, I approve of the principle behind it and everyone who lives in the west should. Someone needs to pull apart, simplify, and retune government so that it's simple enough for the average person to understand. It's a fundamental problem, and adds to the general strife, that nobody can authoritatively say WTF is actually happening. We end up relying on tribal authorities, and objectivity becomes too expensive. Now, the methods that DOGE are using seem (SEEM) to be infantile. As someone who has spent their career working it large organization IT, I can authoritatively tell you that the narrative coming from both sides is riddled with misinfo/disinfo. NOBODY can show up on day one and have the effect that is claimed... claimed by BOTH SIDES. And this is evidence of my point in the paragraph above. But the layoffs are real, and the cavalier approach are dully irresponsible so I would put a halt to it and restart with a process that is open, collaborative and agile. Believe it or not the workers themselves are likely to have the best ideas as to how to improve things, in my experience. But you have to change the culture.

That's what hits you like your first bong hit. 1965 gets burst apart in one second when the needle drops.

The appearance of that song in mad Men was sublime.

What it's really about is the mythology of how American political economy works. There's a massive private government that runs things invisibly. I'd be glad with a smaller government that did away with both public and private.