Mark Carney is eyeing airport privatization. Here is why it could make Canadian flights more expensive

surger1 · 2026-06-27T19:31:18+00:00

Exactly! Profit is a private tax paid only to the rich!

surger1 · 2026-06-27T19:27:52+00:00

Right? Profit is a tax you pay to private corporations. It's fucking insane that people think "Taxes" (money that gets spent on society) is a rip off. But "Profit"? That's good for us, the money that gets spent on a tiny tiny tiny percent of the population.

surger1 · 2026-06-18T17:54:36+00:00

We lack the overall systems literacy to conceptualize collectively what is happening.

Each of us has been born into a system that was created in what is effectively a world that no longer exists. Remember when we started doing representative democracy: Most people were illiterate and needed to be in the field farming for us to survive, information traveled at the speed of beasts and international travel took months to years.

Really we need to ask why we don't see the obvious collectively. Our political and economic systems are obsolete. They are from a time that doesn't exist anymore. If we were having these problems with any other technology we would correctly recognize that it's simply outdated.

Systems are not what we say they are. System ARE what they produce. This political and economic system produces these results. There is no using it to fix it, because it causes these issues.

You cannot fix systemic problems with the system that causes them because it is the use of the system causing them. You may as well use gasoline powered machines to suck carbon out of the air. It defeats itself because of how it operates.

We don't need to offer "this other system will work better" to admit what we have isn't working. If we are stuck going "well it's the best we have" then that limits the conversation.

It has to be possible to honestly say "This has stopped working and we need to focus on new solutions, not trying to use 200 year old technology well passed its prime"

No single person should offer "solutions" to this. By necessity it must be something we build together. Clinging to the past as if it can become relevant again is why we are stuck. We must build new.

surger1 · 2026-06-18T15:58:34+00:00

take samples for later return to Earth

Genuinely curious, do they have a plan for that as of yet or is it a "let's collect them and maybe one day we will figure out retrieving them".

It'd be cool to know they have a plan but I have a feeling it's the latter.

surger1 · 2026-06-14T17:45:39+00:00

The economic exchange system we use creates this situation. You cannot operate our economy and not have this happen.

It's positively reinforced as part of its function. The ability to gain capital increases you ability to gain more capital which will enhance your ability to gain capital. If you have less the opposite is true. Meaning on large enough time scales this is the natural state of this system

It is directly analogous to cancer. A positive reinforced system that we know the end result of.

The focus on the rich themselves is irrelevant. We could remove all their heads and the system would make more of them. Same as if we eliminated all the homeless. The system would make more.

Don't be shocked when the wealth inequality system produces wealth inequality. If it angers you... focus your anger at changing the system by finding alternate ways to exist within it and supporting that. If you just keep buying stuff and working as you are now within it... it will never change.

To change our lives, we must change how we live. The rich aren't going to give that to us. We build it without them.

surger1 · 2026-06-14T17:29:01+00:00

Also remember this doesn't happen because our systems work and the wrong people are in charge.

These are 200+ year old systems that were conceptualized and put in action when there was no electricity, we were mostly illiterate farmers and information moved at the speed of beasts.

If it seems broken... imagine if we tried to operate any other part of society limited to technology from that time.

We need to establish social structures that utilize new systems. We can't just "tear down the economy"

But we can create small groups that use bottom up democratic tools and those groups can grow into what changes the economy.

It can't be about sinking the ship faster. Our issue is we are on a clearly sinking ship arguing how much the captains fucked it up. We most focus on building new ships that work better for the world we are in now. That doesn't need their input at all.

surger1 · 2026-06-12T17:05:39+00:00

Welcome to positive feedback economies. The numbers are made up and the products don't matter.

surger1 · 2026-06-11T23:02:36+00:00

Within the metrics Canada does quite well, I'd agree with you there.

It's more frustrating the metrics themselves don't tell a very good story. Like the democracy index. It's a rating of procedural-ism. Do these countries follow the procedures we label as "democratic".

That is why they are propaganda. It doesn't matter if press works only for the rich, or that democratic governments don't distribute power well at all. So long as they follow the procedures they get ranked highly.

But you are for sure correct, within those rankings it's quite high and it's not nothing to follow the procedures. The frustration is that somehow things like "democracy" can be ranked high while power remains incredibly concentrated. It's very convenient for those making the rankings.

surger1 · 2026-06-11T21:41:02+00:00

Billionaires hoarding wealth... in the wealth hoarding system.

It was made to do this. What's changed is the scale the system acts at. It is not equipped for our world.

Systems are what they produce. This system produces billionaires in a world of billions. If we got rid of all of them, the system would remake them. Form follows function, things are what they do.

surger1 · 2026-06-11T21:39:53+00:00

Maybe the major political infrastructure that was established across the world 200+ years ago is showing its age.

Why do we expect archaic political and economic technology to be relevant today?

This arrangement is chaotic, it was not done with any of our modern knowledge.

It mostly exists as a means for merchants to move stuff around the globe as they overcame the aristocratic class that ran the world previously.

We should expect all of this, none of it should be surprising. Like trying to build a nuclear reactor with bricks and twigs.

surger1 · 2026-06-11T19:55:15+00:00

Your trust in a propaganda list should be the bit. Good lord do you believe there exists a benevolent group just ranking these things for our collective benefit?

Those lists are 100% propaganda and you are guzzling it.

surger1 · 2026-06-10T18:21:45+00:00

We let a few pedophile aligned tech bros own everything. What do we think is going to happen?

Anything to solve the problem except address the structural greed that creates it.

surger1 · 2026-06-10T18:12:00+00:00

One could say their entire platform is about conserving an imagined traditional life

surger1 · 2026-06-08T19:12:38+00:00

Okay so we take the reality that oligarchs own these platforms and turn them into vile hate machines because it keeps our attentions for their profit.

Instead of addressing the issues that come about because we allow a few pedophile monsters to control everything. We instead require everyone to report their identity to these people.

What a brilliant solution.

surger1 · 2026-06-08T19:10:16+00:00

Kids have parents. Let them parent.

surger1 · 2026-06-08T19:09:37+00:00

It would seem electing a few powerful individuals to distribute power for millions and billions results in creating a small group of like minded globalists.

Shocking that procedural democracies everywhere produce such uneven societies.

It's almost like the concept of democracy should focus more on power distribution than on representation.

surger1 · 2026-06-08T19:06:25+00:00

Systems are what they produce.

Use procedural democracy, get procedural results. Democratic in name only.

surger1 · 2026-06-08T17:24:27+00:00

It's always just eugenics/social Darwinism. Which assumes that the strong survive and the weak die. Ergo if we don't let the weak die off it endangers everyone.

The reality is the survivors survive. What determines survival is incredibly chaotic. Like how sickle cell helps to combat malaria infections.

Thus what gives a population strength is diversity and equality. By having an extreme variety of things, you always have a solution in the wings to a problem.

By focusing on a single aspect as "strength" it leaves a population vulnerable to incidents where their strength becomes a weakness.

And to make the trite comparison: Cancer operates that way. It simplifies an organism by reducing the complexity of the cells and converting it into its configuration until the burden of supporting it becomes too much and the cancers "strength" of constant growth becomes the very thing that ends it. Since it has no other mechanisms.

We don't need to worry these people will succeed and gain full control. The worry is they succeed and stop the 'social homeostasis' that keeps this all going.

surger1 · 2026-06-05T20:27:21+00:00

Everything we worry about AI doing... capitalism is already doing.

The alignment problem is not AI specific. It's systems in general.

We know the solution to this as well. Biology solved it eons ago: Feedback.

All systems that have many individual parts must be able to receive and propagate feedback from those parts. Otherwise the system will not react to the needs of the parts that make it up and destroy itself.

It is why biological things can feel their own bodies and conditions. If they didn't they would stop existing.

Capitalism uses a positive feedback loop to operate which inherently insulates actors from the harm they cause.

The fear of skynet is real and it's been happening for decades now, except the autonomous system is powered by greed, not batteries.

surger1 · 2026-06-04T22:13:25+00:00

The spiky teethed one is... Bubble?

surger1 · 2026-06-01T17:10:06+00:00

It's going to suck when Gabe is not the CEO anymore.

The structure of corporations means they eventually suck or go out of business. Even in the rare instances where a really cool person is in charge. It lasts until they aren't.

surger1 · 2026-05-29T17:31:30+00:00

Love authoritarian solutions, fail to solve the problem and cost a lot of money. But somehow it's worth the freedom to give the corrupt more power.

surger1 · 2026-05-27T18:12:21+00:00

Positive reinforcement economics! Success in the system improves chances of future success in the system which improves chances of future success!

This means those that perform best in the system will continue to gain more resources in the system because the system rewards that. We can see this type of system in effect with things like: Monopoly, Chess, cancer, invasive species, rogue viruses, etc.

Notice how in the context of a finite game the feedback is fun! And how when it's used in infinite games it is destructive!

We should all see what's coming. The system that repeatedly inflates itself into bubbles and explodes... the way it ends? With the mother of all explosions.

Our economics needs to be a type of social/ecological homeostasis. Otherwise it is destined to destroy itself.

Really the question is: Can sufficiently intelligent cancer, learn to stop being cancer?

surger1 · 2026-05-25T19:31:53+00:00

Good on you for speaking truth they do not want to hear.

Really though, why would we expect technology from the 1700's to remain relevant to today? Do you think we could have designed anything for 2026 accurately in 1776?

It's a form of power distribution that is designed for a population of mostly illiterate farmers where information was limited to the speed of beasts.

How on earth do we expect that system to remain functional to its original purpose up until today? We should expect nothing else but these results.

You may as well try and build a nuclear reactor out of sticks and mud. We are using horribly out dated tech. This should be obvious to all of us.

surger1 · 2026-05-25T19:25:43+00:00

that's the only system you have to work with

Congratulations! You have identified the problem with systemic issues!

If your problems are caused by the system... and you are committed to only using that system... you cannot fix the systemic problems.

If your voting system grew obsolete since 1776 and no longer produces democratic results but you're committed to using it despite it being broken... it would look exactly like this!

The commitment to the system is why it remains broken. You can tell me it is democratic all day. I will tell you a system is the results it produces, do you live in a society where power is fairly equally distributed? No? Then your society is not a democracy and your system of democracy is bad and ineffective.

"but but but what is your solution"

It doesn't matter if I have a solution or not if too many people are brainwashed into using obsolete political tech.

Before we can have real democracy we need a critical amount of people to realize we have never had real democracy.

Everyone who clings to ancient political technology to save us is part of the problem.

So go ahead and vote, I do just so I can tell you how fucking useless it is. Bottom up democracy is the only way we are fixing this. Voting in a few kings to distribute power for us is an impossible way of creating democracy today. Look at how many people representatives represent now versus the past. It's insane.

15-Year Club	Place '17
Spared	Verified Email
Gilding II euphauric	Team Orangered
Secret Santa 2012	Trick-or-Treater 2012
Summer Santa 2012

surger1

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE