I agree but we don’t even have to get that far. No institution should rely on SIN secrecy. It’s as simple as that. It should be treated as semi-publicly available information like birthdates and important stuff like opening a bank account should require more factors of authentication.

Several countries don’t create these secret numbers that “no one should have but you” without having to rely on revoke-able tokens and whatnot. Like many things, crypto has a clever solution for this but the current status quo is so bad that a not-stupid approach would already be quite the improvement.

Not voting doesn’t signal that people are happy either way, it could as easily signal that people are sad either way.

Being “sad either way” is equally stupid. Feel free to argue that both options are bad but anyone with two braincells should be able to understand that one option is worse. Choosing to abstain is choosing to enable the worse option. Vote independent if you want, but fucking vote.

One in three Americans voted for Trump

Or in more effective terms, only one third of Americans voted against Trump. Counting votes against eligible voters instead of votes cast isn’t the win you think it is.

No one here needs a reminder that 2/3 isn’t 3/3, thanks.

So smart. Lots of big words

Is that sillier than forcing people who are not interested in owning a car to get a place with parking spots anyway? Because that’s where we are today. It is hard to find a building like this, and I’d love it.

If only we could decide whether having a place for people to live was more important than dedicating public spaces for storing private vehicles

I would be an embarrassment in one of these interviews. First of all I’m not a very musical person. Secondly I have terrible memory and I don’t even remember much about pre-college life. Being a charismatic politician really requires a different type of being.

I think no one disputes that we need a clear separation of electric bicycles and electric motorcycles and the presence of pedals ain’t enough.

Presumably once that’s sorted out, e-bikes can and should become the norm. They’re the “all ages and abilities” equalizer.

I’m going to keep being a renter and maybe never retire

If you want to fix building lines, I think JOSM is the best tool. You do need a few hours to get acquainted with it.

If you want to contribute with points of interest, apps like StreetComplete are the way to go. The most active OSM community is on Discord, I think.

protesters carrying signs yelled insults at people entering the North Kamloops Library

was arrested for trespass and mischief after refusing to leave

Yeah, no. Don’t let them. These people aren’t there just to film and their belligerent presence makes the whole thing uncomfortable for everyone else. Fuck these people, they don’t deserve any amount of goodwill. Good on the RCMP for doing the bare minimum.

Not with that mentality! lol jk

Trains competing with planes don’t have to win by speed. Even if it takes 5x longer, I’d prefer taking the train. And that’s a feasible speed for HSR. The current state is >20x longer, so yeah if we don’t put in the effort of building HSR through the rockies, they will never compete indeed.

What? What is real news then? Meta is also Instagram btw

Reuters bad headline fails to dent click-through ratio

It is a hot take because a big chunk of the population takes a real QOL hit on every gas price increase. Even though I agree that gas should not be this cheap because we’re subsidizing car dependence, I can understand that someone that has been cutting back on groceries due to recent gas increases might find this take fuming hot.

It has to be done, the sooner the better, but it does hurt some people out there who already have it rough.

Finally, I’m eager to breath some fresh air

I did not downvote, but I’d like to offer my point of view.

Owning a home IS an investment. Renting is not.

I think this is a superfluous distinction. Purchasing real estate can be an investment vehicle if you aim to recoup the investment through appreciation (land speculation) or income generating usage (like rentals). It may also not be an investment if you just want to purchase a property to live in it - this is a passive asset, much like a car. You can “rent” your car (and time) to the gig economy, and car prices can rise and you can make a profit by selling one, but in a stable supply market that’s not the norm so cars are generally not regarded as investments. Conversely, renting retail space for commercial usage is an obvious example of income generation on top of a rented property, so rental costs are a factor in other types of investments.

Nobody would want to own a home if they didn’t get some kind of return on investment when it came time to scale down/retire/put it in your will, etc.

Plenty of people want to own a home regardless of financial returns. Ownership has its perks, there are plenty of people willing to pay for it. It is a bit of a luxury good nowadays, but one that is very entrenched in most cultures as a symbol of “making it”.

I’m not even sure I mind low speed rail. I just want more and cheaper lines to everywhere. It’s way nicer than busses.

Comparing to buses, sure, LSR is fine.

Vancouver to Toronto takes 4 days by train, though. So if we want trains to compete with airplanes, it has to be HSR.

Sounds about right, but there are plenty of mechanisms for ensuring that special purposed government funding passed between different spheres are to be spent in specific ways. Anyway, I don’t think it’s a problem to be solved with funding.

I think it is hard. All their platforms look the same, it’s difficult to find their voting records. Even their promises can’t be trusted.

Here’s the key to democratic participation: you have to keep paying attention to politics. Even if voting records were easy to find, it’s SUPER hard to form an opinion because you’d need to recover all the context and discussions during the voting times. Sometimes good politicians will vote against decent laws due to practicalities that you’ll miss if you just glance at a table.

So it is hard to filter for candidates who “do good for regular Canadians”, not because it’s hard to find information, but because most people are trying to cram the elections, and you really can’t. If you’re not willing to spend that energy keeping up with politics, find someone you trust that do and just ask that person for a detailed opinion.