No idea how it works in London… but my concern is that using fees and taxes to reduce things sometimes practically turn into “This thing is now only for rich people”.

I knew a guy who was a giant piece of shit and would park his Lamborghini anywhere and just eat the parking tickets. He’d get like $400 a day and he just didn’t care because he had the money. The rules are just for poor people if the penalty is just a fine.

My concern is that with a simple taxation approach, Venice becomes where bezos jets to whenever he wants, and I literally can no longer go. He already had a leg up, this just deepens the gap.

There are ways to address it. A lottery system. Or at the very least make the tax scale with wealth (like how some Nordic countries do speeding tickets)

I imagine a large group of very wealthy people would be very in favour of a steep entry tax.

Culture is the aggregate of about 1 billion things.

I hear you when you’re saying there isn’t a “try this 1 simple trick!” Fix.

But just because something isn’t “fixed” doesn’t mean it’s not “better” or “getting better” or at least “not getting worse as fast”. Position, velocity, acceleration.

It’s a great start. Why concede defeat before the game even begins?

It’s been 26 years. I think it’s fair to say he’s an active participant to creating and managing a culture that keeps him where he is, rather than merely being the guy the wind blew in.

And, I’d argue that started very very earlier. He false flag bombed some apartments pretty early on.

Real missed opportunity to have forgone “neigbouring” and let readers decide for themselves if you were referring to putin in Ukraine or Trump in Iraq.

I don’t say it to argue, just to inform. What I want is for people to give it the gravity that it deserves… very little. To speak from a place of informed reason rather than emotional reaction.

“Lol, like 15% of the population would vote to leave why are you wasting your time, Danielle”

That’s what I want.

Because the uninformed emotional reaction is what Danielle wants. She is the most incompetent premiere in my lifetime. Rather than have any kind of real agenda or vision, her bizarre strategy is to just keep people upset.

No real legislation. Or plans. Or dealings. Like a Jr high mean girl trying to stay popular by starting drama. It only has any power if you buy into the drama. Don’t buy into the drama.

Worth noting that the ab government interceded to lower the threshold. Also that polling puts “leave” at low 20%. Also worth noting that “leave” support is actually declining as the months go by. Also worth noting that when pollsters ask a follow-up question (do you still support leaving if that means AB becomes responsible for its own defense, currency, passports, border control, etc etc etc) support drops to mid 10%. Incidentally, support from greenlanders joining the US when Trump said he needed Greenland was also mid 10%.

Polling shows that once push comes to shove, about as many albertans seriously support indepence as greenlanders want to be annexed by the USA.

Is it serious? Yes, in the sense that predatory bad-faith politics is serious. Foreign actors attempting to apply pressure on Canadian politics is very serious.

Is it serious in the sense of “is the idea of leaving Canada something that Albertans seriously support?”, no.

Yeah for sure. Super easy. Merely be born in 1959

4 people host libraries that my tech illiterate boomer parents access.

One login, many servers, singular interface.

That is very specifically the situation I’m in. Jellyfish, emby, you wanna whip up a persona… that’s a pretty damn clear-cut one for ya

Oh no, I hear you loud and clear.

I’m directly refuting the notion that any post, positive or negative, is a meaningful cross section of opinion on any platform.

I’m also directly refuting the idea that it’s even reasonable to expect a positive view of any platform from any other. If people really like a platform (or at the very least prefer it), they’ll move to the platform. If they don’t, they won’t. If I preferred Pepsi, I’d be drinking it by now.

I do genuinely appreciate your view, and methodical approach. It reminds me of the relationship, though, between historians and archeologists. There is reality as it is written, and there is a reality that is. Incredibly valuable to read the accounts. Entirely appropriate to consider the context in which they exist.

Whenever people speak so broadly about social media platforms, describing the prototypical user… it’s pretty bizarre. Most people post NOTHING, a handful post some, and then like 0.01% of users post like 50% of the total content. The “vibe”, even the discussion about the vibes, are made by a very small percentage of the users.

PugJesus, ThePicardManeuver, and SatansMaggityCumFart do a LOT of the heavy lifting in terms of setting a tone/vibe/discussion etc. Just those 3 accounts.

In short, making inferences about users based on platform is pretty sketchy at best. I GET that human tribalism inclines us to form strong opinions about “the other”, and to then apply those overly broadly… so im not blaming anyone.

I’m just suggesting stepping back and recognizing that a bunch of what you (and others) are thinking on the subject is informed by:

• A faulty assumption that the median content of a social media platform is evenly contributed to by the platform population as a whole (it isn’t, not even clise)

• An out-of-time instinct to “otherize” groups which isn’t super valuable anymore.

It all reeks of any other immigration discussion. Immigrants who insist they were the last good ones. Ranking which are the shithole countries. Grandstanding about how many generations one has been “here”. I’m hesitant to even call it a “parallel”, because it’s honestly the exact same thing and the exact same arguments get made.

Just instead of people trying to like… live … they just want some memes. Build a fucking wall and make Reddit pay for it. Drama for dramas sake. A complete and utter waste of energy.

I think you wildly overestimate “leftist infighting” as a reason people wouldn’t join.

It’s peripheral drama at worst. Just here for the memes. I just want to grill for God’s sake!

Post has real “you people” energy

I totally empathize with the hopeless feeling. People are feeling it all over the world.

It breaks my heart to see Americans bailing. Denouncing thier citizenship.

There are like 2 billion people who WISH they could be an American ONLY FOR VOTING DAY just to wait through thr wind and rain and ICE beatings and shootings and whatever, just to help restore some degree of sanity to the world.

But we can’t. And Americans are joking (or actually) running away to Canada. Americans get all pouty and then don’t even show up to vote. Like, even if sometimes you feel like there is nothing you can do, think of the billions on the planet affected by this man who have even fewer options than you do.

Show up, vote, get your friends to vote, don’t let them skip voting. Tell lazy stupid people who are abstaining from voting that they’re being lazy and stupid.

This guy is fucking up the planet by like every measure, but most people on the planet can do absolutely literally zero about it. You can do at least a little!! Just make sure you DO it! We are all literally counting on you. The jabs are just to keep you awake. Keep you from getting complacent.

Register and participate to push the needle to actually get a half-decent candidate and then make sure that your lazy friends actually go vote, because a ton of them said they did but didn’t. Understand how voting and registration rules may be changing in your area so you can help make sure you and your friends even can vote.

I know it’s glib, but really… get involved in your local community. You can’t really help anyone on the internet, but you can make a practical difference in your community.

And it doesn’t actually matter if you’re in a deep blue or deep red jurisdiction either. Polling does affect results, people love hopping on a bandwagon. If you can contribute to a “deep red state goes from 95/5 to 90/10” it’s an infectious shift which could move other needles elsewhere past 50.

Don’t succumb to hopelessness, or the idea that there is no impact to be made, or that for some reason you can’t make an impact.

You’re muddling a few distinct concepts like “fault”, “blameworthiness” and “responsibility”.

It’s the collective fault of the country: the guy won the popular vote.

I don’t blame you, personally.

But ultimately you share the responsibility of resolving the situation.

In my experience, people who get prickly about the basic facts (the guy won the popular vote, there is no failed system here… you literally can not blame the electoral college… merely a failure of the electorate) really are clamoring for a way to say “there is nothing I can do” and “Somehow someone has to do something but it’s not me and doing nothing is actually totally morally fine”

What is there to gain from calling people out? I want you to be honest enough about the facts of the matter that you are agitated enough to not go quietly into that goodnight. That you don’t tie off and mainline “Nothing I can do” just to sleep at night.

Well, he won the popular vote… so it’s what most people explicitly voted for, or failed to show up to vote against.

Either way: bad look. There was a leg to stand on with that argument in 2016, but not now.

Own it, don’t dismiss it, and then fix it.

They’ve secured a supermajority, if my read of the results is right. So, the latitude for serious changes is pretty wide.

I mean, the coast guard was boarding Russian shadow fleet vessels a few months ago.

I think he just thinks people have forgotten the suffering is suffering HE imposed, so he can bail on the blockade and seem like he’s being helpful.

Also, the desired strategic outcomes aren’t materializing in Cuba. He had a plan. The plan isn’t working.

Also, quite frankly, he has bigger problems. Seems like he actually is hitting his threshold of confrontation.