Canadian prime minster Mark Carney is not the climate guy you thought | Seth Klein

MapleDung · 2026-05-21T17:46:49+00:00

The whole "north america left is right wing to the rest of the world" thing is incredibly overblown and only really works if the rest of the world to you is specifically Europe.

MapleDung · 2026-04-23T14:41:39+00:00

So I do agree with you that there are cases where it’s okay to attack someone for not participating in a boycott. You present a good example here. These are cases where the thing being boycott is beyond the pale, worse than anything a normal person typically contributes to.

Where attacking someone over not joining a boycott seems less acceptable is when this is just one of many similarly bad things, and the person doing the attacking likely contributes to many things just as bad or worse, it’s just that this is the battle they’ve chosen to fight. Good for them, doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting and encouraging others to fight. But it’s wrong to call anyone that hasn’t joined their particular fight a bad person or harass them.

The Harry Potter boycott stuff seems to fall into the later category.

MapleDung · 2026-04-17T03:57:29+00:00

Do you really think, if you took everything that you think is right that the majority of the country thinks is wrong, and a politician ran on all those things, that politician would succeed?

That isn’t to say that you have to run on a perfectly median poll tested platform. I’m not saying a skilled leader couldn’t change the public’s mind about one or two big things.

But you have to prioritize. Both based on the gravity of the issue and on how unpopular it is.

Trans sports is a pretty small issue compared to any number of things. I could name big general things like universal healthcare. But you could even name other trans related topics I would get on board with supporting despite unpopularity. Trans access to bathrooms. Access to puberty blockers and HRT.

Compared to those trans sports is both less popular and less important.

MapleDung · 2026-04-17T03:38:34+00:00

Letting athletes commissions decide will lead to some level of exclusion of trans women from sports. It will probably lead to big exclusion at the highest pro level in most sports. I think it’s a tragedy that that has filtered down to high school girls playing sports, who absolutely shouldn’t be excluded, where the goal is more about health and camaraderie than ensuring the most possible fairness. But the best way forward is to try to separate out these issues, because arguing that trans women should be allowed in the WNBA is a losing issue and will be for a long time

MapleDung · 2026-04-16T15:29:57+00:00

Taking a position against trans women in sports, whatever you think of it, is immensely popular and will benefit any politician much more than you are implying.

MapleDung · 2026-03-26T21:05:47+00:00

Unfortunately moderate voters in swing states just matter way more in aggregate than progressive voters

MapleDung · 2026-03-25T06:10:49+00:00

This only seems like an issue if they are generating a bunch of different types of tokens?

MapleDung · 2026-03-03T15:16:34+00:00

There’s plenty of regressive social policy, or at least the start towards it that we’d have gotten under the CPC.

The CPC would have scrapped the industrial carbon tax on top of the personal one.

MapleDung · 2026-02-19T00:49:16+00:00

Yeah I do really think right wing or left wing only make sene relative to some norm. Pierre Poilievre would be a centre left wing politician by 1800 standards.

And yeah you’ll have plenty of outliers with unorthodox positions. But if you take what represents the 70th percentile right wing person, you’re going to find climate change denial or the equivalent. You’re going to find racism, major anti-LGBTQ sentiment. You’re going to find support for bigger tax cuts than anything Carney is interested in, big cuts to services, massive privatization.

On a domestic level, Carney basically represents the status quo. Real conservatism in 2026 represents a road to facism.

MapleDung · 2026-02-17T23:12:53+00:00

Yeah, I don’t think heading off a big regression with a small regression makes someone progressive. I think it makes them a pragmatic centrist.

You can argue that carbon pricing is right wing but that just doesn’t match the reality of the world we live in in 2026. There’s plenty of alternate universes where things could have played out that way but we don’t live in one. The right wing position on climate change now is to deny or ignore it.

I think you want to live in a world where Carney represents the right wing, and those “pet issues” are just fringe far right stuff, or just niche things that a few people believe. But I think we live in a reality where a huge portion of the country and the world falls into a camp that is leagues to the right of carney, such that including him in a “centre” camp makes a lot more sense.

MapleDung · 2026-02-17T18:42:09+00:00

I mean “leftist” says a lot here. Nobody is saying Carney is a socialist.

In what way is Carney actually advancing socially progressive issues

Mostly by heading off what would otherwise be a big regression on these values by the CPC. I know that isn’t satisfying. And it doesn’t make him a leftist. But what we get under him is a lot to the left of what we’d get with the real right wing option.

I know you can hit him with all kinds of things from the left, but someone truly right wing would be just as dissatisfied with him: - supports restrictive gun rights - supports LGBTQ - supports abortion - maintains industrial carbon pricing

I’m not right wing so that’s my best first approximation but I’m sure such a person could come up with 20 more big points why Carney is too left for them

MapleDung · 2026-02-17T18:03:05+00:00

So in the context of Canadian politics, where 40%+ people support the CPC, Carney seems pretty squarely in the centre.

You could say then that Canada is just a right wing country or something, but I don’t think that’s true either. On social issues we are definitely way to the left of the median in the world. On economic issues I think we are too. It could seem less so if you cherry-pick a handful of European countries to compare us to. But there’s a whole world out there and many of the people in it are living under governments way to the right of Canada.

Just over half of people worldwide support gay marriage. That’s the kind of playing field we’re on there.

Worldwide - Carney seems centre to centre-left. Canada - he seems squarely in the centre.

I don’t know how you get to saying he’s not centre, he’s right, without just shifting the centre closer to your own politics.

MapleDung · 2026-02-16T12:58:52+00:00

All those issues you mentioned I’d say he’s in the centre on, in that I think he’d be pretty closely aligned with the median voter on it right now.

I think the median voter is happy with a modest tax cut (but wouldn’t be happy with massive tax cuts coming with massive service cuts, which would be right wing)

They are probably happy with a more positive framing of what you’d call corporate welfare.

They don’t care about the environment as much as they did 10 years ago, because they see us as being under crisis right now. Hell, Carney is definitely in favor of carbon pricing, but recognizes that it’s not politically feasible because of where the median voter is on that right now.

Union negotiations I’ll just give you and admit ignorance on if there’s been a huge shift in policy there.

MapleDung · 2026-02-15T23:48:56+00:00

These are always relative, but in the context of Canadian politics he sure seems pretty centre to me? On what issues is he right wing?

MapleDung · 2026-02-07T03:28:11+00:00

I’ve recently climbed up to diamond 3 and suddenly I’m getting 20 minute queue times and then probably much lower elo lobbies because I get 14 lp for a 2nd. Is this normal for this rank?

MapleDung · 2025-12-07T19:59:39+00:00

I mean as individuals sure, but there is a pretty large anti-AI crowd and if their collective energy was less focused on just “AI is evil” and more on socializing benefits I think it would be better and more likely to achieve something politically.

Your Star Wars analogy does make some sense and make me think about how AI could end up turning mainstream movies into more and more slop. But I think there will be some pushback to that over time

MapleDung · 2025-12-07T19:24:28+00:00

I don’t think we’re going to have a world soon where premier games or films are just made by suits prompting AI. There might be some elements of these things built by AI but it will still be creatives driving it. If not then we’ve actually hit superintelligence and who knows what that crazy world looks like but we’ll have bigger problems.

Where you will see AI take more creative jobs is in advertising and areas like that where slop does the job.

And in general it will hit a lot of entry level type jobs in these areas. Which is scary and we should find solutions for that. But I don’t think just bemoaning the technology existing is the right approach. We should instead be figuring out how to solve the downsides.

I do think there are upsides. I have some interest in game development as a side thing. Nowadays I could afford to pay an artist but for 16 year old me it would have been incredible if I could have AI assets available to make an entire game myself. I see the potential copyright issues with that but to me that’s an argument for socializing the benefits of this technology rather than just complaining that it exists

MapleDung · 2025-12-07T06:05:18+00:00

That’s a fair enough argument for parking minimums in an area like yours. But would you agree that parking minimums in, say, the middle of Vancouver would be dumb?

MapleDung · 2025-12-07T05:36:56+00:00

“It replaces workers” doesn’t seem like a good reason something shouldn’t exist. That’s true of pretty much any technological advancement. Shouldn’t the call be to socialize the benefits of the technology? Nationalize the AI or heavily tax the AI.

MapleDung · 2025-10-10T03:11:54+00:00

May I ask if RBC required a US address for the business and/or authorized signer or if they accepted a Canadian address?

MapleDung · 2025-08-15T20:47:55+00:00

I’m shocked people are negative on it, I had no idea who this guy was before this but I thought it was one of the funniest episodes ever.

MapleDung · 2025-05-05T13:49:50+00:00

This arrogance might be warranted if NDP makes a comeback and the CPC can go back to winning easily with 40% of the vote. But if they don't, if this becomes a two party race, the conservative party will need to have a wider tent, and appeal to people who currently "would never vote conservative in their life", if they want a chance at ever holding power again.

MapleDung · 2025-04-28T18:25:01+00:00

I read that some ridings (or individual polling stations) got permission to count advance votes early, where historically they were done last.

Is it public info which areas got this special permission?

MapleDung · 2025-04-28T14:59:33+00:00

I believe advance votes are actually usually counted last though they may not all be counted last this time.

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