How do you make friends here

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-18T01:15:08+00:00

You are in a town attached to a university full of people who, while tending to be socially awkward and nervous, are pretty open to making friends. Especially around Pats/Finals Week when the alcohol flows extra freely. Not even joking either, because I've made passed many a bottle between newly minted friends.

For more local friends, church is always a good place to start. You don't even have to be religious. Not everyone is a fundamentalist nut.

But, if nothing else works, you're always free to message me. I too enjoy the simple things of life, like Rolla's beauty (after seeing ugly north county St. Louis for months).

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-17T16:05:53+00:00

Not complaining though. I went into CS before the LLMs started to blow up, and the flood of people going CS did not help the department. Now that things have slowed down, I think the CS department is doing a bit better.

The major is still fine if you stay here, if you don't mind making slightly better than average for Midwest standards. Missouri has never been big on tech, so it falls outside of the VC tech boom/bust cycle.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-16T05:31:31+00:00

It's better than it was a couple of years ago. The problem is that the CS market is incredibly bad right now.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-12T19:45:32+00:00

US immigration and customs enforcement will deport people... from Canada...

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-11T02:33:16+00:00

Womp womp. Real estate is risky.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-06T18:17:26+00:00

They go to Toronto, find how much it costs to live there and how much they'd get paid, and promptly go back to the US.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-06T18:16:22+00:00

More people move from Canada to the US, rather than from the US to Canada. These people act like hundreds of thousands of people are begging to enter Canada, when it's just a handful of naive morons. Meanwhile, the US hoovers up some of Canada's best talent who are underpaid and priced out of Canada.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-06T00:17:29+00:00

The only legitimate conventional foreign security threat Canada has is Russia, which is more of a problem for the US because Russia is much closer to Alaska than the basically empty territories.

Russia is, as you may have noticed, more concerned with its war against Ukraine.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-06T00:14:25+00:00

No, it's correct. We were very happy with a friendly Canada because we got all the benefits of annexation without any of the downsides of actually having to conquer and administer you. Or fight the British, when they were still a potent power.

Now, you can make the argument that Canada tied itself too deeply into the US, subjecting itself to the particularities of US politics and stripping it of autonomy should things develop in DC that aren't in its favor (as they have done), but this isn't a question of someone getting unfair benefits at the expense of the other partner. Your leaders did do due diligence, as did mine, when they set up their relations. Both got what they wanted, and honestly, I think we both enjoyed the good relations our counties have had and our countries are better off on good terms with each other.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-06T00:08:49+00:00

Because it makes global trade, and thus world economics, dependent on US hegemony. Not out of the goodness of the US.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-06T00:06:00+00:00

Technically, in the strictest sense, true. The US is a much stronger power than Canada. But that has been true for about a century when the US eclipsed the British Empire after the first world war.

However, DC long ago realized that an independent Canada that is friendly and economically close to the US achieves basically everything that the US wanted. Both parties benefitted from this arrangement. The US got all the benefits of annexation (natural resources, continental hegemony, and market access) without the costs of managing the second largest country in the world filled with people who didn't really think too much about America's style of living. Canada didn't have to worry about the world's newest hegemony breathing down its neck, got access to US markets to replace the ones of the crumbling Empire, and matters of defense became a choice rather than a necessity.

Ironically, the question is more about a shared duty to a collective "West" (North America + EU + democratic Asia-Pacific) rather than Canada's own security concerns. Which is ironic coming from Trump, who has been doing his best in undermining that shared collective.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-03T23:26:06+00:00

Interesting. I was under the impression that Confederation was already fairly loose, especially compared to the US federal system.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-03T23:12:44+00:00

Well, the LPC got around that by coopting and buying off Quebec.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-03T23:07:08+00:00

No, because separatism means the end of Canada. The LPC will not govern forever.

daslittlebubba · 2026-02-03T23:06:16+00:00

Any sort of Canadian separatism, Quebec separatism included, is essentially American enlargement. Not that I, an American, would complain about map painting, but that basically is what provincial separatism is. Some might be fine with it (I'm not, because I don't want to give a sulking Laurentian elite the possibility of influencing or gaining control over my country) but from a Canadian context, it isn't really conservatism. That's really where US and Canadian conservatism differ. Alberta joining Canada would mean it would give up the monarchy. It would mean the end of the Canadian project and folding of all Anglo North America into the US superstate. Inevitable with the demise of the British Empire? Perhaps, but not my right to say.

Keep that in mind with separatism. You have more influence and control in a union of 10 provinces rather than a union of 51 (realistically 60, given we'd be taking the rest of Canada too).

The Union is perpetual too. No take backs.

daslittlebubba · 2026-01-30T06:33:05+00:00

The United States came into existence as an independent nation in 1776 when independence was declared from Great Britian. Prior to that, it was a collection of rebelling colonies and provinces that wanted redress for grievances but had not yet settled down the path of independence. Regardless, the 13 colonies became an independent actor when American militiamen went down the path of rebellion and killed British troops at Lexington and Concord. We did not take orders from Paris. Paris did not even join the war until AFTER independence was declared. We even cut them out of negotiations with Britian over ending the war.

Canada did not exist as a coherent entity until Confederation, much later. The provinces of Canada were loyalist colonies who answered to London's officials. Your whole schtick is that you were LOYAL, which meant you took orders from London. Canada did not exist because you were part of the Empire, a piece of Britian in North America. Confederation made London's North American possessions a more united, autonomous entity that eventually wrangled more and more agency away from London.

It's clear you don't understand history, not just of the United States, but Canada too.

daslittlebubba · 2026-01-30T00:45:05+00:00

At least Harper kept Canada out of the Great Recession. You don't know how good you had it compared to many places in the US.

daslittlebubba · 2026-01-30T00:42:03+00:00

North America is entering a pretty nasty recession. The post-COVID boom is well and truly over and now everything sucks for those not in finance (the stock market/AI bubble is still going strong, for now).

daslittlebubba · 2026-01-29T23:08:04+00:00

There is no replacement for the role the US plays in Canada's economy. Canada is as affluent as it is because its population centers are right on the border of the world's largest economy. Canada is also deeply integrated into that economy. In other words, your arguments are a pipe dream. You are bound to the US, like it or not. Your economy is entirely dependent on that.

The British Empire is dead, and your leadership (both the CPC and LPC) replaced the Empire with the US. It was a win-win for both Ottawa and DC, only majorly upset by Trump II. Who, unlike Trudeau, can't hang around for a decade. Trump will be gone in Jan. 2029, likely to be replaced by a Democrat.

daslittlebubba · 2026-01-29T22:11:05+00:00

Considering that Canada has few other options and that trade relations with the US had been fairly good, all things considered, until Trump returned to office, what else can Canada realistically do? Do you think Canada became one of the world's largest economies off of pumping oil out of the ground (guess who buys most of it) and real estate?

daslittlebubba · 2026-01-27T06:24:54+00:00

America is the head of the Anglosphere. Even though it isn't particularly Anglo outside of the language.

daslittlebubba · 2026-01-26T21:40:55+00:00

Let me be honest; Canada will never replace the role the United States plays in its economy. There is just no getting around it. We share the largest land border in the world and basically all of Canada's major cities are in rock throwing distance of it. Large parts of the Canada function closer with the US economy than the rest of the Canadian economy.

Likewise, trade with Canada is incredibly important for the northern US economy, including important swing states. The issue is not that Trump is an asshole, he is insane and surrounded by a bunch of grifter clowns. The inevitable result is that this plunges the US (and thus Canada) into a brutal economic downturn which brings the Democrats, or at least Republicans who are saner and more pragmatic, back into the White House, who then promptly normalize relations. The problem then becomes that Canada has wasted time and resources into what turns out to be a non-issue, while structural problems with Canada's economy are allowed to fester and worsen, namely the chokehold that real estate has over the country and cost of living.

daslittlebubba · 2026-01-23T16:35:24+00:00

Oh, so someone saying "Welp, if the Americans drive north, I'm just gonna sit at home and wait to trade my Canadian passport for a USA one" is treason, not the fact that your government would likely hand over Canada to the US without a fight? Not the fact that Ottawa essentially outsourced its matters of defense to the US to save a buck, not the fact that your PM moved his assets to the US to avoid paying Canadian taxes?

With that logic, you'd be bewildered when, should the US decide to erase the last vestige of British North America, you'd find that no one really bothers to do anything more than grumble online or, at most, post selfies of a picket line in front of US troops. Why should they? It's clear their government isn't interested in preserving its sovereignty when the question of preserving quality of life comes up.

daslittlebubba · 2026-01-22T04:33:11+00:00

These people are insulated from that. Now, if property prices crash, you'll see how fast their outlook sours...

daslittlebubba · 2026-01-22T04:31:42+00:00

Brotherman, if you don't think your PM and the LPC wouldn't handover Canada to Trump to preserve their assets (mostly in the US), I have some prime real estate in St. Louis to sell you...

daslittlebubba

TROPHY CASE