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Joined 28 days ago
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Cake day: March 29th, 2025

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  • The main reason China has had worsening relations with Canada and has been threatening to Canada at all is because we have been so closely allied with the US, and the US overtly wants to hamper China’s development and even to overthrow their system of government.

    The Meng Wanzhou thing was Canada purely going along with a brash US attack on a leading Chinese company, and it did tremendous and needless damage to Canada-China relations. China didn’t start that. The US did, and Canada helped them do it.

    Now, while the US has started acting towards Canada in a way a little more like it has treated countries throughout the Global South for decades, China is offering to partner with Canada to oppose the US abuses of the whole global system of trade. China isn’t devastating Canada’s economy. They’ve started buying our oil, which is good for our economy. They’ve been suggesting more open trade with us, and would no-doubt drop tarrifs on our agricultural products if we lowered our ridiculous tarrifs on their EVs, which we imposed at 100% just to please the US even though it’s worse for the Canadian consumer and has been primarily beneficial to Tesla and Elon Musk, an overt fascist enabler of our biggest threat who also says we’re not even a real country.

    The US is the primary aggressor to worry about. They’re holding military exercises this week with the Philippines on simulating all-out war with China and Trump appointed a bunch of guys who have years of advocating for war with China. He is waging economic war against China right now.

    I support Carney wanting increased economic ties with Europe and more pivoting away from US dependence, but to treat China as an enemy and speak more harshly about them than even the US is something I really dislike. Opposing the foreign interference, asserting sovereignty in the Arctic, protecting Canadian markets to an extent that is reasonable and fair, these are all good things, but they can be done without making an enemy of China, especially while China is actually offering to work with us and to help us out in dealing with our biggest immediate threat.


  • I find it interesting, and concerning, that in more MAGA-friendly corners of the internet it seems pretty common to see Canadians who are convinced the polls are all fake and manipulated and that Poilievre is headed for a sure majority, just based off of rally attendance and anecdotal observations of lawn signs.

    It’s a completely different reality from anyone who’s not in that bubble of conservative social media.









  • As far as I remember, during the BC provincial elections in the fall, Mainstreet consistently indicated the BC United (conservative) party was around 5 points ahead of the NDP in polling.

    The others generally showed it to be a dead heat.

    In the end, the NDP won a very close race and Mainstreet was shown to be the one overrepresenting conservative vote intentions as compared to the other pollsters.

    Not sure what the differences were in their methodology, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see the same thing going on here.


  • Chinese culture has the concept of ‘eating bitterness’ and it is universal. It’s about being able to take the suffering, loss, pain, humiliation, and all the other bitter stuff that life can throw at you, enduring it, and building character, strength, and resilience out of it. It’s a virtue. It’s a universally admired trait.

    North American culture is not great at eating bitterness. The culture here is more about eating sweet, or living the good life, and when people have to eat bitterness, especially those expecting to eat sweet, it is viewed as shameful and castigating rather than normal, and it easily turns a person towards grievance and a sense of injustice that makes them bitter inside instead of resilient and optimistic.

    This is why I think men in North America, especially white men, have turned to characters like Jordan Peterson, or in worse cases, Andrew Tate. Jordan Peterson at least tries to help these men develop a sense of responsibility and strength that can be constructive and meaning- making. Guys like Tate, on the other hand, exploit their grievance to make them socially nihilistic. One is obviously much better than the other, but neither is a substitute for having a common social value place upon eating bitterness.

    The “manosphere” gives aggrieved, frustrated, disappointed, and angry men stories to help them process their emotions, but they still rely upon self-centered and egotistical tropes like the hero’s journey or misogynistic worldviews. These don’t address the deeper and more universal reality that none of us (male or female) are heroes from Marvel movies, that deep, painfully-bitter experience is part of the common human journey, and that eating that bitterness with humility and without expectation of any award for being special, is a virtue that helps you develop character.




  • You know, people who aren’t very bright can usually easily make up for that by just being diligent, such as by reading a bit more before posting. People who aren’t very bright and who are committed to ignorance because it confirms their ideological biases have a much harder time figuring things out. I see that’s where you’re at, so you’re not worth interacting with further. Hopefully you overcome that hurdle some day.

    Good day.




  • It prevents tariffs on inputs, which lowers costs of goods sold for products sold outside the US. Goods sold into the US would still be tariffed, but if the inputs are largely from China, it would still likely be cheaper to manufacture outside the US, not pay the 125% tariffs on inputs, and deal with the lower tariff rate into the States.

    I mean, if your costs on inputs are going to go up from 125% tariffs by being in the US, but you can manufacture somewhere that the US is only charging 10% tariffs, it’s a strong incentive to move manufacturing to that low-tariff destination and only face a 10% tariff on what your selling.

    What works for any specific company would come down to their own mix of inputs, target markets, and other factors.