bayesianbandit

That's all well and good until the electorate revolts by putting the CPC in charge next cycle. No thank you, if only for the fact it's politically incompatible with anti-fascism. You can't make such broad moves and expect there won't be backlash. Canadians are NOT immune to the same thing happening up here that's happening south of the border.

This is why I say it's not the American people who are to blame. I wish more people understood this. Canadian society isn't immune from the exact same thing coming up here, especially if the CPC wins and sells us out to the US. Lord knows too many of our population is culturally indoctrinated by US social media platforms.

70% of the US population DID NOT vote for Trump—they were either disillusioned with democracy (abstained) or voted for the least-bad option (Kamala). And of the remaining 30%, many of them don't necessarily like Trump so much as they were duped enough into thinking he was less bad than the alternative.

Real talk: is there such a thing as a non-tariff response to what the US is doing that doesn't amount to, essentially, rolling over while the US to curb stomps us? What's the alternative? Because 70% seems low.

Clearly, you do. And they've convinced you to blame your neighbor for the boot on your neck.

Right? I feel like this is so obviously not about sex & my life is a clear example to that.

For context, I'm a trans woman who works in tech.

Five and a half years ago I was miserable as hell from relying on external validation. I'd never been happy with my birth sex, but I'd stuck it out for years, duct-taping my happiness together with academic or career achievements, working myself to the bone just to achieve some degree of stability at the cost of my mental health, relationships, happiness, sex life, etc.

For all intents and purposes, I was treated by society as male during that era of my life... albeit of the gay sort of feminine and very depressed variety. I also had a laundry list of accomplishments each year and could not fathom being happy with myself unless I collected them all like pokemon.

Sex changes are like the world's most opposite thing to external validation. I went from being a white cis male to... well look at what society thinks of trans women. There have been many many times in the past half-decade in which I felt like I'd jumped off a cliff, that I might lose my career, that I'd struggle harder to get ahead, that I wouldn't be taken seriously anymore.

And some of that was true—I definitely deal with misogyny and transphobia now in a way I never would've before. I do feel I have to perform 2x better than before in order to achieve the same sorts of recognition... and I have to now for some reason look good doing it (whereas before I could basically ignore my body, wallow in dysphoria/depression, and still be given credit).

But... what have I done career-wise during the past 5 years? I've flatlined. Honestly? I "met expectations" for a half-decade straight. No awards, no accolades, just "did that thing and went home." I was too busy both emotionally and practically with a whole freaking sex change outside of work. And nobody has come to eat me, even though at this phase of my life most coworkers don't even know I was once male. Heck, if anything, I look at a lot of my cis female peers and they're having kids which (unfortunately/unfairly) amounts to practically the same thing.

Before my sex change this would have been unthinkable to me. My entire happiness and sense of identity was pinned to my career. And that was was literally THE duct tape on the joke that was my life. The thing I only way I could manage to keep myself male. Literally the biggest lesson career-wise that my sex change has taught me is that it's okay to have eras in your life where your career just vibes for a bit while you short your shit out.

So... I just don't think this is a male vs. female thing. It's a running away from oneself and trying to cope with your misery via external validation thing. It IS true that when you're read as female you DO have to push ahead. Chances are, similar to how I felt I had to alienate myself for my career in order to get to a place where I could afford a sex change, this woman felt she had to do the same in order to establish herself as a woman in tech. The barrier to entry is higher.

But once you're there and established it's like, girl you can chill now, it's gonna be fine if you're fine, maybe with a bit more stability and a bit less pay.

Your logic only makes sense if you completely ignore we're in the middle of a class war...

If you think this is standing up for human rights then, let me tell you, as a trans woman, I'm cooked.

I do hope you enjoy your ban. Liberals are far from the only political group that cares about human rights.

TL;DR I'm a piece of shit because

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I mean, this is just factually wrong. Usually these days when people refer to liberalism it's shorthand for neoliberalism & understood as such. The only way you can make the reply you just made in good faith is if you are somehow blissfully unaware of the main tenants of the modern liberal movement for at least the past 30-40 years... and even then it's not like classical liberalism was anything other than favourable to free market capitalists.

I always found it funny in the mid-2010s when the central bank was struggling to meet inflation targets why nobody seemed to suggest UBI could help fix that... seems to me that giving people money directly is at least as stimulating to the economy as dropping interest rates. Difference is one benefits capitalists, while the other benefits the working class...

In my opinion, this is an issue that can be avoided by implementing UBI gradually.

Shortages and inflation don't just arise from people having more disposable income. If that were true, inflation would've been worse and supply chains would be facing shortages decades ago when everyone had more disposable income in real terms.

Rather, these issues are more a function of three factors:

• Rate of change in demand
• Price collusion among large companies
• Supply chain disruptions

During COVID, we saw all of the above, for example. Supply chains disrupted, people had more disposable income due to CERB and changed their consumption behaviours dramatically during lockdowns/work from home (rapid shift in demand), while large corporations such as Loblaw's & Sobey's engaged in well publicized price-fixing schemes.

This lead to the inflation crisis we are just now recovering from.

However, there's no inherent reason why UBI needs to include any of these things. You could instead, for example:

• "Boil the frog" when it comes to demand, by starting with small payments and phasing them in so that consumption habits do not change too rapidly
• Promote anti-trust measures against large companies to prevent price fixing (bonus: proceeds can go toward UBI)
• Similar to point one, if you take the boil the frog approach it will be less disruptive to supply chains, as people leave jobs gradually & companies are slowly incentivized to pay their employees more in order to stay competitive

At the end of the day I don't see it as all that different from setting interest rates, for example. Like YES the central bank COULD tank our economy by raising the interest rate 2000 basis points tomorrow. And YES they COULD also drive inflation through the roof by setting the interest rate to 0% as well. But they ain't gonna, because it'd cause... inflation/deflation and supply chain shortages.