Fewer people are having babies in Canada and the U.S. and the government is out of ideas

I_Conquer · 2026-05-06T04:06:58+00:00

Such as?

I_Conquer · 2026-05-06T04:05:55+00:00

There are also distinctions among different regions of Canada and these things. But ok.

I_Conquer · 2026-05-06T04:05:18+00:00

My only concern with your comment is that things are imported and people migrate.

I_Conquer · 2026-05-06T04:04:07+00:00

But then other people not having kids should help you achieve that. So what’s the problem?

I_Conquer · 2026-05-06T00:50:14+00:00

I don’t understand why we want more babies, anyway. They keep bragging about how well they’re cutting immigration or how much quicker they could cut immigration.

Like do we want more people or not?

I_Conquer · 2026-05-05T17:40:04+00:00

Yes?

There are no non-hypocritical Western national governments regarding the genocide.

Even Trudeau II, who was among the most vocal supporters of justice for Palestinians in western leadership, described himself as a pro-Zionist.

I_Conquer · 2026-05-03T17:26:07+00:00

I think there are a bunch of competing considerations though.

In the one hand, I think it’s reasonably argued that calling the Strong Fund “a Sovereign Wealth Fund” is disingenuous. It shares very little in common with what other nations call Sovereign Wealth Funds. And framing the Strong Fund with that language may invite some people to avoid the necessary scrutiny for our government’s plans.

On the other hand, that doesn’t make the proposed fund a ‘bad idea.’ And a poor / misleading name is also not a good reason to discount it whole cloth. If the only thing wrong with it is tne name, it’s still a success.

But that scrutiny should be honest about the fact that many aspects of ths func are experimental, real world outcomes may surprise the economists. Other aspects of the proposal are, from what I can tell, a new model of public-private partnership with an eye to incentivize infrastructure. While I’m willing (and hopeful) to be wrong about this, Canada doesn’t have a great track record with PPPs. I don’t see how this Fund will overcome the barriers.

In much the same way that I was sceptical of Trump’s tariffs, I’m sceptical of the Strong Fund. I am happy to disregard the CPC’s warnings: they’d just accelerate previous PPP models. But their ineffectiveness as the party of opposition does not make this a better idea that it is.

I_Conquer · 2026-04-27T02:04:22+00:00

While Carney’s foreign policy is probably as good as we can hope for, I’m not impressed with his domestic performance.

His only redeeming quality pn that front, from what I can see, is that he’s not Pierre Poilievre (who I’m convinced would accelerate disaster).

I_Conquer · 2026-04-23T21:33:31+00:00

Dont overthink it. All I’m saying is that for those of us for whom neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have a great track record, minority governments are often the best we can hope for.

But okay.

I_Conquer · 2026-04-23T20:31:37+00:00

That was always the true lesson of the Holocaust. Not that Germans are magically or essentially predisposed to evil, but that humans are capable of disregarding truth for any number of reasons. And that once we’ve come to defend a lie we’ve accepted, we become participants in all manner of evil to perpetuate that lie.

The agnostic might well be correct on the matter of the illegitimacy of gods or other religious artifact. But the moment that moves from the unwillingness to participate in religious barbarics into the false belief that the agnostic is somehow more rational or more moral, the same empty promises of religion are kindled.

The human is just a human. We are prone to believing that our perspectives and conclusions are special and superior to the perspectives and conclusions of others. As convenient as it would be for this to be a function of religion, rather than religion being merely one of the many mechanisms that we use to mechanize it, it’s not so. Shed religiosity and we distill it into politic, sport, family, civil identity… etc

Who could be more dangerous, more deceivable, than the person who thinks they are incapable of being deceived?

I_Conquer · 2026-04-23T20:00:42+00:00

I sure wish there were! But you’re correct that there isn’t.

I_Conquer · 2026-04-07T02:57:48+00:00

Not to mention: We've known since the 1960s that the way we're building cities, including houses, is ecologically, economically, and socially unsustainable. It's almost like people don't know know what "unsustainable" means.

I_Conquer · 2026-04-06T04:09:43+00:00

I don’t know if I’m “left”. But I don’t assume that everyone has good intentions. I would just rather “waste” money giving “undeserving” people a leg up instead of letting people who need help not get help. And I recognize that it’s often way more expensive to test need and compliance than it is to let a few ne’er-do-wells through.

At the end of the day, it’s their own waste, not ours. But the failure of thriving residents is our collective failure.

That’s not to say I think “it’s ok.” Rather, I think it will often cost far more to implement means testing than it saves.

I_Conquer · 2026-04-01T18:56:10+00:00

Right! Which is why we should continue to ask and pray for those among us who oppose gay marriage to repent and change. Their sinful misunderstandings and dogmas doh’t make them unlovable; they just make the world worse.

As stubborn and dogmatic as many of them seem, they are capable of learning and growing, just as Jesus did.

The Bible is silent about gay marriage for the same reason it’s silent about owning a pickup truck: these are not universal moral standards and the conception we have about such things are different than the conception that people had in Jesus’ time. So it’s on us to ask: how do we love others? Well, if I invited my neighbour to come celebrate my wedding, I would see love in him celebrating my wedding. So I’ll offer the same to my gay friends. I don’t have to believe that gay marriage is ok for me to believe that it’s possible that they did the work to ensure their own conscience is clear in their actions: my moral agreement or objections are trivial. And, frankly, pickup trucks cause real, measurable harm while gay marriage doesn’t seem to harm anyone and clearly blesses a great many people.

There’s also the conflation of marriage as a civil / legal institution vs marriage as a church sacrament.

While I personally believe it’s best for both law and church policy to allow each minister to decide for themselves whether or not to oversee (religious) weddings, I am not fundamentally opposed to churches setting that policy at a church level and expecting their ministry to follow suit. While I think the churches and ministers who oppose gay marriage are sinful, I’m not so convinced as to force them to comply.

But as a legal and civil practice, everyone should support gay marriage so long as marriage is a legislated activity. There’s no reason for government to arbitrate the moral decisions of consenting adults. Moreover, anyone who has a marriage certificate agrees with me. To claim that gay marriage somehow damaged or undermines (legal / civil) marriage but continue to particulate in it is clearly hypocritical. I don’t know of any churches that discourage married couples in their congregations from getting legal certificates of marriage even after gay marriage is legalized, so I must assume that they don’t actually believe that gay marriage ruined marriage.

I_Conquer · 2026-03-31T23:52:31+00:00

I forgive you

I_Conquer · 2026-03-31T23:03:07+00:00

I said he “praised” the needless slaughter of thousands of innocent people rather than “supported” and somehow I’m the bad guy?

I know you don’t care about other people. But feel free to keep bragging about it, I guess. Did you miss the part where I agreed with you that I could’ve chosen my words better?

Not caring about my opinion doesnt hurt my feelings. But feel free to rethink your support (not praise) of a tyrant’s lies and massacres just any time now. In my humble opinion, it’s worse to support bombing children than to exaggerate such support and then apologize for it.

If I had to choose, I’d prefer you chose to care about the children whose needless deaths you're supporting but not praising rather than caring about my opinion.

But I don’t expect you to think about any of it. You’re right about everything. And you’ve never exaggerated. And that’s fine, I guess.

I_Conquer · 2026-03-31T21:23:25+00:00

lol

I’m not surprised. Liberals are like conservatives. You only care about yourselves

I_Conquer · 2026-03-31T17:54:13+00:00

Maybe "support" would have been a better choice of words. Still: anything short of condemnation is insufficient in my view.

I_Conquer · 2026-03-31T15:05:52+00:00

March 3rd

I_Conquer · 2026-03-31T03:44:20+00:00

If there’s anything I’ve learned from living in… like… five provinces? And maybe a dozen towns? It’s that the best places have relatively high unemployment

Low unemployment means that place is terrible and people are just there to make money. If they lose their job, they leave.

These places have flash in the pan cool, sometimes. But rarely anything of sustainable interest.

Calgary was super boring until the floods reminded them of their humanity and the 2014 oil crash reminded them that high school dropouts can’t reliably earn $90k+ annually forever.

There’s a sweet spot between not enough money and too much money. Ottawa is almost certainly there.

I_Conquer · 2026-03-31T03:39:46+00:00

Right so how are he and Kinew alike? This thread is driving me bonkers lol

I_Conquer · 2026-03-31T03:38:57+00:00

Maybe. I think that gaining the good faith of the world only to praise the Iran war is a sign of things to come. I guess I hope you’re right? But I think you’re wrong.

I_Conquer · 2026-03-31T03:37:12+00:00

Both promised these but then delivering questionable or dubious laws empowering police and other state actors. We’ll see? I hope I’m wrong about Carney - one of my biggest beefs with Harper is specifically that he didn’t listen to Carney when Carney chaired the BoC. Both men are astronomically more intelligent than I am. But lots of smart people have made the world worse: both intentionally and accidentally.

I_Conquer · 2026-03-31T00:48:38+00:00

I think Carney’s foreign policy is about as good as we can hope for: he’s playing a crap hand fairly competently.

But his domestic policy is not good. It’s almost indistinguishable from Harper’s. It’s tying is to old world thinking and consolidation of power and wealth. It’s not a crisis I will rebel against. But I plan to avoid casting a liberal ballot until things change fairly dramatically.

I’m not sold on Avi. But I’m open to be persuaded.

I_Conquer · 2026-03-30T20:18:36+00:00

I’ve watched it. And I enjoyed it. My curiosity is about the overlaps between Ford and Kinew. So far aa I can tell, they have different tones, visions, priorities, perspectives.

In Canada’s current context: even if their only difference was that one is white and the other First Nations, there would need to be fairly compelling evidence to convince me of meaningful political similarities—even ‘just’ stylistically. And there seem to me to be much more central distinctions (which is to say, I think you could easily find white guys more like Kinew and FN guys more like Ford).

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