These articles and polls, framing trump’s deranged russo-imposed plans as a legit proposal, do not help at all.
They just normalize this fucking insane shit
Yeah, it’s frustrating to see anyone even bother spending time on this nonsense. It does just normalize the absolute insanity of what is going on - it’s more damaging to publish this poll than to ignore it altogether imo.
Reporting on this just helps him.
Four in five Canadians strongly oppose the idea of joining their neighbours to the south, and a majority, 78 per cent, are concerned with the rhetoric Trump keeps pushing.
So 20% of Canadians are traitors and/or idiots. Probably the FUCK TRUDEAU flags and bumper stickers crowd who complain about their first amendment rights.
There’s a baseline 20-30% of all polls taken over the world that is made up of hateful nutjobs and conspiracy theorists
There could be someone running for office who has figured out how to solve all the world’s problems for free, and that 20-30% will vehemently oppose them.
“Why should we solve the world’s problems for free? The rest of the world should pay us!”
I have long said that even in a Utopia you would have people unhappy about the way things were.
This is the premise that makes Iain M Banks’ Culture series of novels so compelling.
Even though it is a massive interstellar Type2 society that is “fully automated luxury communism” many people are going to be problematic, angsty, and childish. The result is an always interesting plot.
A more thorough exploration of someone living in a relative utopia but being a long streak of misery by nature is Delaney’s novel Triton. Main character is a jerk and you get to explore why, while extremely cool things are happening all around.
I love that about the Culture novels: they are socially coherent. Banks is very keen on telling us about the psychology of this utopian society.
I once tried some Delaney but dropped it as psychedelic hippie scifi. I hope I wasn’t unjust in doing that, but afair it was from that time. Maybe it even was Triton. It was all confusion (“tripping”) and exploring a completely desire-based, erm, exploration.
Recently I read (and barely managed to finish) Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, which seems to fit into a similar category (Beatnik scifi?). It had way too many shortcomings, plus it was an old translation that only managed to make the latent racism/sexism more prominent. But it was also very inventive and captivating.
Yeah the hippy sexy Delaney novel was probably Dhalgren, which I don’t think I have actually finished despite a few attempts, and for reference I enjoyed Finnegan’s Wake in its entirety so it’s not like I don’t have stamina. I like all the other Delaney works, though. Triton might be a slog because the main character is self centred and childish and it’s from their point of view. It has some banger scenes, like the visit to a novelty restaurant with a nostalgic capitalist theme, and the wacko performance art at one point, and details like every candidate who gets any votes is elected and represent those voters, however few they maybe. Also main character gets a sex change to run from their problems but of course they’re still a jerk lol.
Glad to hear that. Would you recommend an easy entry into Delaney’s opus?
Sure, I guess it depends on your style preferences… I prefer science fiction, so can’t remember much about the sword and sorcery novels, but they’re readable, and like anything Delaney does, underpinned with exploration of the power of words, ideas, power, desire.
Stay away from Dhalgren.
Nova is probably the most space opera novel with a standard structure. Good starting place.
Babel-17 is intense and weird and fairly short, about language as a weapon. Sometimes you find a copy doubled up with Empire Star which has a plot and structure that loops back on itself.
Probably my favourite is Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand which is probably the most alien yet approachable family portrayal in SF. Sadly it’s the first half of a duology that didn’t get finished, probably because it stands alone really well.
The short story collections vary but are mostly wins for any reader.
Yeah… These headlines are always so optimistic (probably because our media is owned by americans)
“Overwhelming support for canada. Nothing to see here folks!”
Uhhhh… 1/5 canadians are literal traitors to the nation. Stand on guard against these morons. Elbows up.
Polls generally are complete garbage.
If I become Supreme Leader of the US (it seems a lot more probable than it used to) I will make public polls illegal. If you want to poll people you need to do it in the privacy of your own home with the curtains drawn.
I can believe it, I know one of them. They’re the incel, manosphere idiots, the 4chan, never trust the government, flat earther alien conspiracy theorists who think they’re smarter than everyone else because the mainstream media always lies and they get their news from - that ‘altmedia’ you might see and think who the fuck is watching this shit??! YouTube channel etc. It’s them.
That stuff is spreading into the mainstream too. A young person in my family recently told me they don’t believe in the moon landing. Why? It doesn’t seem like that technology could exist back then. Lol.
On the positive side, I knew a Canadian couple where she was an evangelical Christian home-schooling their kids and he was a massive conspiracy theorist. They were both suspicious of vaccines and “mainstream medicine”, and he strongly disbelieved in the moon landings. 15 years ago there was no way to persuade them out of any of this. But over time, with the rise of the far right, QAnon, the antivax movement and MAGA, both of them realized they want nothing to do with those people or their insanity. She correctly identified the church as a bad influence and left it, she stopped preaching at people, they sent their kids to regular schools, they all got their vaccines, and he abandoned his conspiracy theories and now accepts that he was an idiot about the moon landings and laughs at his former self. Now you can have a perfectly normal conversation with them. So it is possible to travel in the other direction.
Now that is the kind of reality I want to believe in! Those people should share their story and try to ‘save’ (oh the irony) some more of the crazies.
I keep hoping people see the insanity and turn around like this but it never seems to happen. We’ll see if it happens this time.
But the technology to fake it clearly could? Idiots…
Yeah not only in the USA for sure.
What irks me most is that it’s often people who claim to be unpolitical. But they aren’t really, they just don’t bother to inform themselves and react on gut feelings instead. Those gut feelings can be dumb anger or dumb “Peace & Love”, but if they lead to someone saying that “Putin does not seem like he wants to harm Europe” it doesn’t really matter anymore, it’s just dumb. What can you say to such people? “Inform yourself”?Meet them on their level. Tell them the more salacious details about what he’s already done, and that he’s basically an evil bond villain playing the long game. I tell them about the radioactive poisoning, nerve agent poisonings, troll farms, election interference. Throw in a bit of nationalism, after all Putin’s been goading us for years, he basically rubbed our faces in his misdeeds… Previously this was all the west, not just Europe.
So yes, inform them. I do that. More or less - time permitting. And take care that their eyes don’t glaze over.
But what about the freedom to lose one’s life savings to an insurance company?
78% is considered almost a statistical impossibility for these kinds of things. This is the polling equivalent of “every last person”.
It’s needs to be 100% of Canadians. Those who don’t oppose us becoming the U.S. aren’t Canadian, and can kindly GTFO of this amazing country.
20% Russian bots/Elon bots
I’m hoping that the 20% includes mostly people who are just opposed (but not strongly). Still idiots, but not likely traitors.
I’m having a hard time finding the link to the poll itself…
But I suspect that the poll had distinct categories for “strongly oppose” and “oppose”.
So either the article is lumping the two responses together (which would be shitty because they explicitly say “strongly”) or it’s likely that the number of Canadians who are open to it is <20.
From previous polling I’ve seen, it was around 13% who were open to it. Not even saying they would, but merely open to the idea.
Can we stop posting this headline? Again and again and again?
It’s not news.
If a sizable portion of the population did want to do something stupid, that’d be news.
This is… It’s not even propaganda. It’s just a waste of our limited time and emotional capacity for idiocy.
It made me lol, and not in a good way: why would there even be a poll?
Its noise. The media eats it up. Meanwhile the economy is tanking and government spending is worse than it is under most democratic presidents. It’s the Trump administration flak shield. It was tested last administration and it works very well unfortunately. Kick up enough dust around the well and people will talk about how bad the dust is instead of the fact that somebody just drank the well dry.
We should poll how many americans are willing for their state to be the 11th canadian province.
Americans also overwhelmingly oppose Canada becoming 51st state
I for one support my state becoming part of Canada
Hell, I wish my own state wasn’t a US state.
Which state is that?
All of them I believe.
I miss boring liberal America where our absurd bullshit was just ours and not leaking out into the world.
Surprised its only 78% that oppose. What the hell are the 22% smoking?
They’re all from Alberta
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Well No Shit. Why would anyone want to buy into the hot mess we’ve got going right now?
Sovereign country not keen on being annexed by psycho neighbour, more news at 6.
No shit, no one wants this. Why would we??
The guy down the street from me with a giant “Trump 2024” flag probably wants it. Fucking traitor.
Sounds like a great target for egging. Bonus points for being topical.
As a US-ian, I really wish you guys would keep reminding us that if you did join the US, you’d be a 51st state slightly larger and left of California.
The GOP wants nothing to do with Canada. They cringe every time they think about ya’ll voting in our elections.
Fr - who, with the minimum amount of decency, would want to be part of this?
What sane person would want to be under the control of the Orange Turd.
Meanwhile Puerto Rico sitting over there like what about us!? We’re supposed to be the 51st state!
would they take us as the 11th province?
Sorry, you’re already the 47th oblast.
No
How about just Oregon, Washington, and California? Please?
No
Develop a public healthcare system and we’ll talk.
Hell. Don’t take the whole thing. Just move the boarder to the 45th parallel as opposed to the 49th.
45 and flight?
I mean. Imo that’s only fair. Sure they are getting one of the world’s larger economics (WA state + Portland), they are also getting Montana, Idaho, and a good chunk of the Dakota’s…
No shit!
There shouldn’t have been a poll in the first place
The reasons for opposing becoming the 51st state were loss of Canadian identity, culture and sovereignty at 81 per cent, the difference in health care systems at 68 per cent, concerns over safety with the differences in gun laws and the legal system at 60 per cent, and concern over U.S. politics and governance just below with 58 per cent.
Fellow canucks looking out for our material conditions.
Do 22% of Canadians live in Alberta?
