wraekscadu

joined 4 months ago
[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 3 points 1 hour ago

While modlogs leave a paper trail, they make investigation easier. However, few have the time necessary to routinely check the logs, right?

Removal of a mod and a mod leaving on their own are very different things. Removing a mod is a drastic action. There has to be declarative transparency regarding this instead of people randomly happening upon this piece of information sometime in the future.

Also, a removed mod could be bitter. If they hit first with accusations, then things get complicated.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 3 points 5 hours ago

He should be on fire, not "under fire".

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 3 points 5 hours ago

A definite yes by people close to me. Not so much by strangers. I'm good at masking.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 6 points 5 hours ago

Thanks for the transparency :)

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 7 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

A moderator holds quite a lot of power. Which is why sadly, power hungry people tend to want to become moderators.

A way to ensure that power isn't being misused is by being extremely transparent. This is the 196 mod team being transparent. I like it.

Does it stir up some drama? Maybe. Is this outcome more preferable over the Tesseract case, where "moderation action" wasn't being made aware to the the user? 100%.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 1 points 5 hours ago

Ehhh naming stuff after individuals just sounds very icky to me

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 6 points 5 hours ago

This is why consumer coops are so so important for stuff like this.

The insurance of a person I'm close to from their coop is around 9% cheaper than other non coop alternatives.

Consumer coops (irrespective of sector) always tend to have top notch customer service in my experience.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Proportional representation is a bad idea, and in every case where it's been examined on a provincial level when the voters take a long hard look they walk away from it

Won't present the case for PR, as I don't think I can make a better case than the ones already presented by other people. Don't have the energy for it.

As for public support, 68% support it nationally according to an EKOS poll conducted in 2025.

I know this isn't a provincial poll as you stated, but still. Also, if other important bills can pass without majority support of the electorate, why not PR? If we agree that the current FPTP system is fair, then why can't reform passed through the same system be considered "fair"?

Would be better for sure to look at the reasons why you want it

  • I don't to be forced to vote strategically.
  • I don't want to be totally unrepresented in parliament and my LA.
  • I don't want a government that DOES NOT have majority support of the electorate passing laws as if it has majority support.

And you had a coalition between the liberals and NDP for 4 years, and that didn't help.

True, sadly. It is also true that the NDP wasn't that strong, and the Liberals weren't that weak.

A precondition for this is a weak liberals, where an annoying snap election ends up drawing votes to the CPC or the NDP from the Liberals. If it's the other way round, where NDP votes go to the libs, then electoral reform ain't happening.

there's been nothing to stop someone in the future from going back to first past the post

Not true. It is very very difficult for a single party to get a total majority in PR. No junior coalition partner would be stupid to roll back to FPTP.

Once PR happens, it would be very very difficult to get it rolled back.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 2 points 7 hours ago

BC has rejected PR three times now

The first time, the majority voted FOR it. The BC Liberals however, set an arbitrary threshold of 60%. Also, in both of these cases STV was specified instead of the simpler and more representative MMPR. The second time, it was STV again. The third time, there wasn't any specification from what I understand.

That being said, there is no moral obligation for PR to be passed through a referendum. PR empowers voters in ridings that sway heavily towards one side. Right now, these voters have absolutely no representation. This isn't "representative" democracy.

If a government can form and make policies without majority support of the electorate, it can also pass electoral reform. Why do we need a referendum for it? Do we have referendums for all controversial policies?

"But a following government can easily roll back PR".

Not really, no. Unless a really really massive wave comes in, PR almost always guarantees no single party majority. No small party would be stupid enough to accept the roll back of PR.

Unfortunately, the implementation of PR is full of misinformation, people not understanding why it is better, and pet desires rather than a desire to improve the status quo.

True. But my question is, do we truly need the people to "understand"? If we do, then we ought to have direct democratic practices for other important bills too (like budgets) like they do in Switzerland. Selective direct democracy for electoral reform, while abusing structural loopholes to pass bills without majority support is hypocritical, is it not. I'm directing this at the BC NDP btw, not you.

 

We desperately need proportional representation at the federal and provincial levels of government. What can we do to get it passed?

From what I understand, a coalition between the Liberals and the NDP (and more parties if the libs have that poor of a performance), where the Liberals aren't really strong electorally speaking is probably how we would get PR federally (right?).

How do we do it provincially though? Ontario seems to be moving towards that direction, with opinion polls being in favor of PR, and the Liberals and the NDP being wiped out due to a lack of PR.

What about the other provinces? Eby's being a little bitch in BC about this. Same goes with the Alberta NDP. There is no strong third party with enough leverage in either of these provinces to ram this demand through using a coalition. Not so familiar with the politics of other provinces and territories, so no idea what the status there looks like.

What do you think we should do instead? Fairvote's "email a sternly worded letter to your MP/MLA" sounds woefully ineffective.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 2 points 18 hours ago

Hmmm, good example.

Although this is kinda different, is it not? From what I understand, the vote withholding was purely one sided.

Republicans: Majority were pro Israel. Minority were apathetic, and preferred that the US stay out of the "Israel-Palestine situation" entirely.

Democrats: Half were pro Israel, half were pro Palestine, cuz the IDF was genocidal.

Even within the Democrats, a huge chunk was fiercely pro Israel. A pro Palestinian stance meant that this section would either not vote/flip red.

BUT

The electoral reform thing is quite different from what I understand. No faction in the NDP, Liberals and Greens is absolutely anti electoral reform, right? Half is pro electoral reform while half is just apathetic. There will still be a big and powerful pro electoral reform faction in a "big tent" party, which all of them are cuz of fptp.

If the "we won't vote till electoral reform is promised to us" group is diverse in terms of political affiliation, then EVERY party has to make and keep this promise (assuming at least one large political party accepts the demands first).

Let's take the case of Alberta. The NDP and the UCP are the big parties. The electoral reform block is made of progressive conservatives and maybe separatists too on the UCP side, and Liberals and Greens on the NDP side. Let's say the NDP blinks first (as they have a greater numerical disadvantage due to the electoral reform block than the UCP) and accepts the demands. From the UCP's standpoint, only their own voters will have lower turnout now that the NDP has given in to their side of the block. This is bad. Internal pressure from PC and separatist politicians would force them to eventually accept the demands as well.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org -3 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Do you have examples of this? Not debating you, just want to know if "vote protests" or whatever were held before and the effects they had/did not have.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org -4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Isn't it a voter block that DOES come out to vote usually, but isn't doing so this time, and the only thing that a given political party has to do is to promise and deliver reform to get them to come out?

A given political party would want to maximise turnout of its own members, yes? But if say, a subset of members says, "hey, we won't come out to vote unless you make this promise", that's holding the party by its balls, isn't it?

Usually, getting people out to vote takes a lot of effort. Canvassing, repeated adverts and so on. BUT, if a simple inclusion in the manifesto is going to increase turnout by even a percentage point, then well... that's not so insignificant for the party to just ignore.

 

No large political party has shown intention of electoral reform, and no large party ever will. The Liberals betrayed electoral reform. The BC NDP has abandoned efforts for PR. The Alberta NDP isn't going to do shit.

This is purely because electoral reform doesn't benefit large parties in a given election race.

So here's just a quick idea. What if a single issue group is made, that's independent of party lines with a single affirmation:

"I am person X, and I'm a member of party Y. I will not vote in the upcoming election unless my party promises to enact MMPR within 365 days of forming government. If they betray this promise, I will not vote in any given election until electoral reform is passed".

While I don't have data, I think that people irrespective of parties, AND non leading factions within political parties would like PR. Why?

People: Most people I've encountered, hate what their party does. The only way they vote is to keep the "worse guy" out. I've observed this in the Federal liberals, Alberta and BC NDPs and even the Alberta UCP. If we frame this correctly as "people vs politicians" instead of "party A vs party B", then there could be some non partisan momentum to this.

Politicians: As a politician in the current system, either you join the two largest political parties in a race, or you never win a seat. The Alberta NDP for example, is made up of quite a few politicians who ideally should've been Liberals or Greens. Same with the UCP, who should've been everything from Liberals, progressive conservatives to straight up separatists.

Splitting up into independent parties without fear of vote splitting gives more power to these politicians as well. I can't see why a politician would be against gaining more power.

Also, the movement doesn't even have to be THAT large to be a pain in the ass for political parties. Seats are won on razor thin margins. If even a single digit percentage of the electorate identifies as the "MMPR or we won't vote at all" bloc, then political parties are forced to address these demands if they have any desire to win.

 

Just some late night curiosity. I was wondering which Roman republic/empire leader resembled Trump the most in terms of:

  • stupidity
  • narcissism
  • harm done to the republic/empire

Basically, someone who was hilariously stupid, narcissistic and just really harmful to the state. Byzantine emperors can be considered as well, okay?

 

Again, I don't mean studying religions from a religious standpoint. But just studying different philosophies of these religions, different stories, their gods, their prophets if any...

I recently read about how the God of the Abrahamic religions developed. Apparently he started off as "Yahweh", who was some D list god of storms in some Canaanite religion. The early Israelites adopted him as their God initially. He was angry, dangerous and not "loving". But then, over time, this character got combined with another god "El", who was the bearded, wise "god of gods" that capital G God is often depicted as. The history of this is so cool!

Apparently Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet, which seemed to be a trend then? Apparently there were OTHER failed Jewish prophets who claimed to be messiahs who would rebuild the temple of God in Israel (which the Jewish folk wanted to do for a very long time?).

Then Muhammad comes in, claims that God's word was eventually corrupted throughout the centuries by humans, and that the Quaran is the uncorrupted word of God himself. Also, the "I am the last prophet, and that anyone who claims to be a prophet after me is a false prophet" clause was quite interesting to me!

Then you have the Hindus doing their own thing. Apparently there's more to Hinduism than just mythology and the Gods. Apparently certain schools of Hinduism are kinda atheistic too???? Quick clarification though. Atheistic does not necessitate scientific thought. Buddhism largely does not proclaim God too???

I used to view religions as unscientific explanations of the world and an attempt to assert objective morality. I mean this isn't wrong, but religions are so much more than that! They're thousands of years of human stories and mythologies, usually quite creative! You can see how cults form, how different cults are appropriated, how they are used by the ruling class to keep on ruling...

I dunno, it's just fun to read about and learn about!

 

Hey, sorry, I tried looking up a case study of this for myself, but couldn't find anything substantial. Do you guys have anything like this?

I'm wondering about the new pipeline purely from an economic sense.

Essentially stuff like:

  • Projected taxpayer funded dollars to build the entire thing (a projected bell curve of expenditure).
  • Projected oil demand, and price for the time that the pipeline remains operational.
  • Finally, a bell curve of ROI for us.

I know I know, the environmental damage this would do is horrible, blah blah blah. I agree. I just want to know if this is at the very least a good financial decision or not.

Again, I'm looking for actual quantitative projections. Not stuff like, "but Asia is moving toward renewables".

 
  • Kingston route being considered.
  • Farmers' groups opposed due to concerns of farmland being divided in 2.
  • CPC leader Poilievre opposing ALTO.
  • Parti Quebecois promising withdrawal of Quebecois provincial involvement in the project if elected in the province.
 

"You fool... You conquer a mudball and think of yourself as exceptional? You believe you can negotiate? Bargain? Perhaps you need to reassess your position more carefully. A blade of grass does not get to negotiate with the river when it decides to change its flow. A tiny grain of sand does not get to debate tides. I have to say, human. Your arrogance is quite amusing."

"So what will you have us do? Just not defend ourselves? Just allow you to roll over us and let you do whatever you want to?"

"I don't care about what you do. But I am a messenger. My only duty concerning you is to inform you of the single directive that cosmic sociology works on. And I have fulfilled it."

"Do you despise us?"

"More than you can imagine."

 

I have quite a few creative ideas, but am too tired to write them down rn. I'll go the easy, lazy way (and write about more legislation ideas tomorrow):

Proportional representation like Germany. In every election, the voter votes for an individual and a party. The individual is chosen to represent the riding through STAR voting (my version). After all MPs are elected, to ensure proportional representation according to the party votes (the second vote that voters cast), individuals from party lists are put into parliament.

This way, we get riding representation and party representation.

 

Ozempic will get cheaper! Good news

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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by wraekscadu@vargar.org to c/canada@lemmy.ca
 

Doug Ford keeps on getting reelected, his brother was the mayor of Toronto despite the drugs and overall unseriousness... I mean why do people elect these guys? Is it for the memes and laughs?

I'm being totally serious when I ask this btw. What does the average Doug voter's rationale for getting this guy in office? Same with former Rob Ford voters. Who voted for Rob Ford? Why?

Edit: TLDR of the answers seem to be:

  • Horrible effect of fptp, vote split between liberals, ndp and the greens
  • Low voter turnout
 

Today, I operated on a little girl. She needed O- blood. We didn't have any, but her twin brother has O- blood. I explained to him that it was a matter of life and death. He sat quietly for a moment, and then said goodbye to his parents. I didn't think anything of it until after we took his blood and he asked, "So when will I die?" He thought he was giving his life for hers. Thankfully, they both died.

 

Meaning, crown corps, where equity is 100% state owned, but operations are wholly managed by a consumer coop where every Canadian resident is a member by default.

Crown corps in the traditional sense are kinda the same as normal corps, but where the board of directors is appointed by the respective minister/minister's office instead of shareholders.

What I'm talking about is a crown corp where the board of directors responsible for operations is voted in by Canadian residents.

I like to do business mostly with consumer coops (credit unions, grocery coops and so on). For the majority of things, they're managed very competently in my opinion, so "public is too stupid for more democracy" is pretty much a redundant critique.

I come from India, where state owned corps are notoriously corrupt. Direct accountability to the taxpayer instead of indirectly via Parliament would be a better way to represent taxpayer interests imo.

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