News from thatbakedpotato

montreal

You really can’t see why having a world-class university in a city is a good thing?

It’s not going to be francophone. It’s in North America, English is the world language, it is inevitably going to attract both English speaking Canadians/Americans and Quebecois who wish to expose themselves and learn an extremely important language. Quebec is in Canada. There is no reason for McGill not to be able to operate as mainly English, and it’s status as a major North American and anglosphere school is much of its draw bringing money, tourism, etc. into the city.

Do they present them as “just as bad”, or do they simply show that the Vox have serious issues as well?

The game’s protagonist directly says that the only difference between the racist, theocratic dictator who runs the city and the leader of the revolution fighting against them is how you spell their names. This statement goes unchallenged. Elizabeth says the two of them are “just right for each other”. This statement likewise goes unchallenged.

Oh wow, that is stupid. I was hoping it was a reflection of depth that both sides had nuanced; that’s just laziness and cowardice.

Sorry, I should clarify.

Nono, apparently we should judge presidents on historical averages. If you’re black you’re fortunate because almost half of Presidents were slave owners, so no modern Pres can be racist.

Apple was never like that before but unfortunately that's what they're turning into. One of the things I can't stand about a company is when they have a product they do not give a fuck about. Apple never used to have that product in their lineup. If they had features, they were fleshed out and they worked. If they had a product, they cared about it.

The ship is taking on water and Cook is trying to point it in the right direction.

They don't waste it, they just give it to their friends. We could make a whole tv show about Macron's tendency for corruption, his governments have funneled millions to "consulting firms", which coincidentally are led by close friends of theirs, and sometimes commit tax fraud or evasion, because why the fuck not.

Adding together all of macrons corruption wouldn’t pay for one day of pension services. Pensions are mind-bogglingly expensive

No, taxing the rich would though. Easily.

If it didn’t spectacularly backfire like the last time it happened.

What is true is that if we assume the assumptions of the COR are correct, then we get the result that they get. The fact those assumptions are correct is not obvious itself, especially when you read what they actually write : that until 2027 assumptions are government-dictated. Dictated, as in : forced. Baked-in.

Thank you for your response, those are good points. Personally, what do you support doing in this case?

Thank you. Tough call. I'm a worker. I support a combination of lowering the richest retirees pensions (we have the retirees with the most purchasing power compared to workers basically), so flatten the pension curve at the top by some amount, and also raise overall a little bit the amount of money worker put to retirement fund overall, again with a negative bias towards richest. Age should be same or almost the same.

That sounds reasonable. My prime issue with Macron’s handling of this was his head-in-the-sand attitude in which he refused to even entertain other options, told unions to fuck off, and rammed it through in a Gaullist manner. That doesn’t suggest prudent policy making to me, it suggests that he took the path of least resistance and didn’t like the more nuanced proposals which could have been cooked up.

Aren't Canada banks oligopoly?

A heavily, heavily regulated oligopoly. So they don’t fail and have to meet standards. Canadians are, on average, much happier with their banks than Americans are.

I don’t know about happier, but definitely more secure. Nobody worries about bank runs or failures up here - the last time a bank failed was 1996, and there hasn’t been a major bank failure since 1927.

I mean happier in the sense of content, secure as you say, etc. Nobody on planet hearth is genuinely “happy” about their bank haha. That’s just the term used in the data collection.

How about diversifying away from lawyers?

Politicians being lawyers isn’t the problem, in fact, it’s quite a useful skill for law making. And it isn’t that high a percentage these days anyway.

What is the percentage of lawyers in parliament vs former CEOs, and finance bros?

Higher. As I already addressed, it isn’t in itself an issue.

I get that but there is nothing cold about this war.

Such practice continued uninterrupted throughout proxy wars with far more direct eastern vs western bloc conflict than this war in Ukraine, like Korea and Vietnam.

Dumb question: Why do governments give out details of what they are sending to the media? Doesn’t this tip off the enemy? Doesn’t this invite controversy?

A lot of announcements about weapon shipments, new technologies, etc. are intentional demonstrations in public both to boost morale at home but also to telegraph to enemies what you have so they can respond/be on the same page.

No but it favors them

I agree that any system that favours confident speakers, low scruples, etc. will benefit psychopaths. See it with many CEOs, though still a minority obviously.

Yeah exactly, it's the same logic with politics, CEOs and any other job/hobby/activity where you have some power

Certainly. Which is why we need to all the more elevate those in power or seeking power who have a record of genuine principles, empathy, etc.

Good decade for pharma stocks, eh?

Yes, it helps to produce things that are in demand. What’s the point of this comment exactly.

Man I can't believe we can just say that they "have to cull their entire flocks" like it is just business as usual, some losses on a spreadsheet, just a casual mass killing of sentient beings on a grand scale without bothering anybody at all. I understand why things are the way they are now, but isn't that just a little bit fucked?

Because it’s better to cull chicken flocks than permit humans to die en masse of avian flu?

Respect people's choices. Calling someone an anti-vaxxer is played out.

Why should someone respect a choice founded on being a moron, especially if they (as anti-vaxxers tend to do) proselytise their misunderstandings to others.

I am 1000% against moving to a presidential system. They suck.

How do we determine “fall”? Even during Roman domination the Greek city states were an order of magnitude richer and more splendid than Rome. In fact by Caesars time Rome had built hardly any of the architecture we associate with the city today. Romans remained over awed whenever they went on assignment in the East and saw the vast palaces of the Eastern client kings.

That is only true for the pre-imperial period. Rome far outclassed the Greek cities by the 100-200s AD.

Won’t someone think of the shareholders!!1!

You’re in an investing subreddit. Furthermore, “shareholders” could be your grandmother.

That's only because rich fuckers decided to tie everyone's retirement to their own personal and institutional profit. They're the cause of both the problem and the vast scope of the problem

The very value added to retirement accounts and whatnot is due to its relationship to institutions and rich fuckers.

na, every CEO it's just laws preventing exploitation in many areas

It is not “every CEO”. Many CEOs are the ones with the very ideas and long term strategies that grow their company, pay workers, etc.

CEO is a super demanding job! So demanding and time consuming that someone can be CEO of 4 giant mega-corps! Do you think you can handle all those meetings? All those lunch meetings? And dinner meetings? And drinking meetings? And golf meetings? It's super hard! /s

Having known CEOs, it is often an extremely demanding job. The people who are CEOs of multiple companies either have literally zero down time or more likely are shifting their work onto everyone else and being lazy fucks.

I've no problem with Irish-Americans celebrating their ancestry, I just wish it wasn't in such a cheesy way.

As an Irish-Canadian (ha ha), we usually just celebrate with some pints and my granddad’s stew he brought over from Kerry in the sixties. Cannot stand the plastic hats and green t shirts personally.

Its turned into a Guinness promotion.

What?

Alcohol is objectively horrible for your health (I have more than 2 a week)

The health Canada report was based on a massive increase in relative risk, not outright risk. A massive multiplier of a small number is still a fairly small number.

Peace Corps was Humphrey's idea.

The alliance for progress accomplished massive increases in standard of living.

Lobbying.

If you live in an democracy, I basically guarantee your country has lobbying/“legal bribery”

He's not saying "ancient aliens" at all. He's implying that "independent" bronze age cultures were likely in some form of contact with each other, enabled by astronomically-based navigation.

But we already knew this. Bronze Age civilisations were in very entwined financial, artistic, and scientific relationships with their neighbours. It’s much of why the late Bronze Age Collapse likely happened; where one fell, so did the rest.

You know who make the best managers?

Well unfortunately we cannot compel people to rule who don’t want to.

I absolutely refuse to make any exceptions for any branch or level of politics. I'm not only talking about senators, nor am I only talking about politicians in countries with a Senate.

You think literally every single politician is a bad person? That’s idiotic if so.

Think it was Carlin, talking about history & who controls the information that said, "What year are you living in? 19XX AD! That's right, anno domini, year of our lord."

Sorry, it’s still early in the morning for me and my brain isn’t working, what do you mean by that?

He meant who was it that won a bunch of wars and took power. It being 2023 AD (anno domini) the year of out lord. it would appear that Christianity won out in most places as the dominant religion and powerhouse. The catholic church dominated Europe for centuries.

That doesn’t change that the sentence “winners write the history” is incorrect.

Stop firing off warnings and DO SOMETHING.

They’re limited in power

E-transfers can also be clawed back days/weeks/months later after you've successfully received the funds if the sender was fraudulently using somebody else's bank account to send the funds and the real account owner reports fraudulent access.

As noted elsewhere, Interac tells people not to use e-transfer for transactions like this.

They do now, but such warnings are written in blood as it were.

But they have had those warnings for years. Basically since e-transfers began. It isn’t how the service was meant to be used.