* https://thebeaverton.com/2026/01/canada-chooses-lawful-evil-...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_(Dungeons_%26_Dragon...
Edit: A comment in /r/canada:
> TBF I would much rather work for Lex Luthor than The Joker if I had to choose one.
The US has turned into something much more vindictive and unpredictable, including threatening to invade Canada.
Probably about the same as the US when it was a developing nation. "How the United States Stopped Being a Pirate Nation and Learned to Love International Copyright":
> From the time of the first federal copyright law in 1790 until enactment of the International Copyright Act in 1891, U.S. copyright law did not apply to works by authors who were not citizens or residents of the United States. U.S. publishers took advantage of this lacuna in the law, and the demand among American readers for books by popular British authors, by reprinting the books of these authors without their authorization and without paying a negotiated royalty to them.
> Despite political independence, the United States remained dependent on imports for manufactured goods. The conflicts between the European Powers and the Embargo of 1807 severely disrupted trade between the United States, Great Britain, France and Asia. Lowell reached the conclusion that to be truly independent, the United States needed to manufacture goods at home. In June 1810, he went on a two-year visit with his family to Britain. ... Lowell developed an interest in the textile industries of Lancashire and Scotland, especially the spinning and weaving machines, which were operated by water power or steam power. He was not able to buy drawings or a model of a power loom. He secretly studied the machines. In Edinburgh he met fellow American Nathan Appleton who would later become a partner in the Lowell mills. As the War of 1812 began, Lowell and his family left Europe and on their way home, the boat and all their personal belongings were searched at the Halifax port to ensure that no contraband was being smuggled out of Great Britain. Lowell had memorized all the workings of British power looms without writing anything down.
Or Samuel Slater - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater
> Samuel Slater (June 9, 1768 – April 21, 1835) was an early English-American industrialist known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution", a phrase coined by Andrew Jackson, and the "Father of the American Factory System". In the United Kingdom, he was called "Slater the Traitor" and "Sam the Slate" because he brought British textile technology to the United States, modifying it for American use. He memorized the textile factory machinery designs as an apprentice to a pioneer in the British industry before migrating to the U.S. at the age of 21.
---
Industrial espionage and acts that would be considered patent infringement in today's timeframe were key parts of the early independence for the United States.
Neither case would be considered patent infringement as the original inventions were too old to be protected by patents even had the British filed for patent protection in the US.
Moreover, Lowell made substantial improvements which would have been considered a new invention anyway - which is the whole point of the patent system.
Besides sibling comment, see "The Spies Who Launched America’s Industrial Revolution":
> Long before the United States began accusing other countries of stealing ideas, the U.S. government encouraged intellectual piracy to catch up with England’s technological advances. According to historian Doron Ben-Atar, in his book,[1] Trade Secrets, “the United States emerged as the world's industrial leader by illicitly appropriating mechanical and scientific innovations from Europe.”
* https://www.history.com/articles/industrial-revolution-spies...
All current AI companies are closed. What benefit?
Most things from Uni are published openly.
BTW, did people in US pay royalty to China for inventing paper?
Problem has always been ensuring that people who have brilliant ideas get appropriately rewarded for their contribution to humanity - but not disproportionately.
This doesn't happen anymore, and the sooner the contributors to our industry learn this, the sooner we can start fixing it.
the claim is that chinese people in china must follow US law. presumably US people in US should also follow chinese law.
Also does China publish it's companies IP publicly or is it just a one-sided relationship?
To steal is to deny the original owner access to their property. That is true for physical objects, if I steal your wallet or your car you no longer have it.
But if I illegally copy some of your IP you still have access to it. Sure you may experience some financial prejudice from that but you still have it.
The fact that IP is unnatural and relatively new is probably the reason why so many people can't seem to apply the proper terminology around it.
Couldn't the poor companies have simply chosen to not do business in China?
Does it surprise you to find out that a lot of old money families in the US made their money smuggling opium and other similarly unethical things? We are a nation of crooks and thieves and always have been.
I ask anyone reading this comment to please study history more frequently, it will help you understand the world better.
As it's often said, "There is no honor among thieves":
https://www.nber.org/digest/mar18/confiscation-german-copyri...
How many humans were stolen by USA alone?
Does it make it better? No.
But that's it. Everything is shit but while USA got rich through manufacturing in the past, now it's China turn
Stealing IPs from universities almost look quirky in comparison.
My "not comparable" comment was in regards to my post about the rules, not specifically the "you're not Han" issue.
And thanks to genAI, it will soon be obsolete.
Oh no, the poor trillion-dollar multinationals and multi-billionaires, whatever would they do?
You would have to know all the above for it to be real.
The thing about China is that they are basically hard on the up slope of their advancement as a society/economy/nation, just like US was post ww2.
US on the other hand, has flatlined to the point where we think stuff like trans athletes in sports are a drastic enough reason to elect a president who is a convicted Felon.
China is def gonna outpace US in the next 10 years as the strongest economy, but the interesting thing is gonna be is if they are gonna fall in the same trap as US does in 20 or 30 years.
The population pyramid for 2045 for China is not favorable ( https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2045/ ). Currently the 30-39 bracket is 121 million, but by 2045 it will be about 83 million.
You could be arguing that the percent of skilled labor workforce in there will be going up over the next 20 years - but the size of the bracket is drastically decreasing while it becomes more and more weighted to the 65-85 age bracket.
1) Workforce is 20-60yos, conservatively ~600m (more with retirement reforms) in 2045, roughly 2-3x US workforce with disproportionate STEM bias. If current tertiary trend keeps up, that's 6-8x US STEM workforce backed by RoW combined in automation synergy, which will slowly decline over decades, and since white collar they can hang around much longer past retirement unlike blue collar. Now the 2045 demo pyramid is not favourable for 2065 talent generation and if no fix, trend towards disastrous by 2080s, but in terms of actual absolute high skill workforce advantage vs competitors, it's almost unassimilable amount combined with industrial density for like 50 years. That's within the timeframe of building hegemons.
2) For 2045s 65-85s - they are overwhelmingly old/poor (undereducated, left behind by modernisation). They "weigh" SUBSTANTILLY economically less than their actual headcount. The bottom 2 quantiles of PRC constitutes <10% of GDP, each skilled young-rich workforce making just median income replaces ~6 low productively elderly. People fixate on the 4:2:1 dependency ratios as if each generation is weighted the same like in advanced economies - they're not - PRC's income disparity is huge buffer against dependency ratio. Those 65-85s are tail gen of worth "less" cohorts who will also die magnitude richer than any generation before them. This also not considering PRC has 90%+ home ownership rate, some of the highest savings in the world, i.e. the 4:2 generation is brought up to depend on themselves. This is a very different cohort to caretake for - PRC is not advanced economy demo composition, where paycheck to paycheck new gen are increasingly less rich/young than previous gen but still has to prop up onerous social welfare net for rich/old. PRC is unequal society where new gen massively more productive than old gen, has high savings culture, many geographic income disparities to arbitrage COL, and high home ownership, i.e. you can throw all the elderly in a nicer tier4 city where COL is peanuts. People don't realize PRC old before rich is a FUCKING BLESSING, i.e. they're not even JP/SKR where old is now rich and a high burden, where they tapped out on skilled workers as % of workforce with lower home ownership and savings rate, and uniform geographic economy means they can't dump old in substantially cheaper COL regions.
Finally flip side of 4:2:1 ratio, where the 4:2 has high savings + property) is once older generation starts to croak = multiple wealth transfers to younger gen (at least in terms of property). If extrapolated (this is speculative but mechanically likely) much of current PRC TFR issues is combination of excess competition and delayed family formation due to absolutely brrting tertiary in compressed period where talent:job supply:demand are mismatched. Current cohorts are growing up in fucked period where 20m new grads were competing for 15m jobs, vs near future where 10m new grads are pick and choosing from 15m+ jobs. By 2030s, aka when most current skilled cohorts are established it's going to be MUCH easier justify having kids, because projected involution pressure will be gone, no need to be top 1% of gaokao etc, unless AGI and crazy automation because their kids will be guaranteed to enter society with stupid amount of job vacancies / opportunities, and likely multiple properties. Like the natural outcome of current demo structure is most PRC new gen will have roof over head, not live paycheck to paycheck, and once cost of competitive child rearing goes, because every child guaranteed job, all current factors stalling family formation disappears. Of course other factors can throw this off, but this is likely where current PRC demo + social economic factors will converge.
You see broadly different outcomes in many authoritarian countries, for example Russia. You might also argue that much of the short-term decision making we've seen from US industry lately is driven by the need to produce returns to stockholders, at the cost of long-term investment.
This is very one-sided and unfair. The trans stuff is indicative of a larger social movement. For example, in the U.S., it would be illegal to use IQ tests to hire employees while in China, that's practiced. China is far more meritocratic. The U.S. is driven far more by ideology, and the trans stuff is an example of that.
And someone on the other side of the aisle would point to the prosecution of Donald Trump as politically motivated, where opponents found an obscure law that he violated and charged him with 34 counts based on the 34 forms he submitted with the expense mislabelling.
I'm guessing you never lived and worked in China before? People who get jobs because of guanxi are not rare, even today, and ideology is far more important in China than in the US, it is just that the ideology is very different from what people are used to in the states.
Hobbesian self-interest refers to the idea that human actions are primarily motivated by the desire for personal gain or advantage. This concept is central to Thomas Hobbes' political philosophy, where he argues that without a strong governing authority, individuals would act solely out of self-interest, leading to a chaotic and violent state of nature.
- Adopting new science-based ideas for "innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development".
- Improving people's livelihood and well-being is the primary goal of development
- Coexisting well with nature with "energy conservation and environmental protection" policies and "contribute to global ecological safety".
As an American I keep trying to surmise what we're going to need to do to start repairing the damage from this massive self-own. It's kind of hard because we don't know where the bottom will be, but we at least need to start having these discussions on what constructive approaches might even look like - we can't have our milquetoast opposition party phoning it in yet again with entitlement as the less-bad option.
External context is key - one of the main goals of this hybrid warfare attack on the western world has been to disrupt our relationships with our allies, and also because other countries have developed Democracies that function way better than ours. So please know that at least some of us are listening.
Term and/or age maximums might also help.
Well, if you ask my other wishes, once Europe has gotten its act straight and decides to tax/tariff/regulate/whatever (american) big tech to hell and back, I kind of would expect that any decent person on that side of the pond would just humbly nod their head and note that, yes, we/they deserved it.
We also need some kind of antitrust enforcement against the forced bundling of products from the distinct categories of hardware devices, network services, and client software.
Those should leave us with a similar environment to the EU. Beyond that, sure tax away, whatever. If we've done our job right domestically, these services should be a lot easier to value in terms of subscription fees rather than nebulous values siphoned away from surveillance subjects.
The problems with the USA political system are: electoral college, senate being 2 votes per state, and the supreme court being 7 people for life. But nothing can be done about the last two now. Especially now that the Supreme Court made a decision limiting how amendments can be ratified.
Every branch of the federal government has experienced a decline in democratic accountability.
The House is so gerrymandered that only 10% of seats are remotely competitive each year, and it hasn't kept up with population growth.
The Senate is permanently gerrymandered, with state population differences that are far more disproportionate than what was originally designed for and intended when the Constitution was written.
This combined with hyper-partisanship prevents the US from accepting new states like Washington DC (population 700,000+) and Puerto Rico (population 3.2 million), depriving millions of US citizens from Congressional representation (no, non-voting representatives don't count).
The Supreme Court has become hyperpartisan, and appointments are a high stake circus that rely on arbitrary retirements and deaths. They need to be elected at this point to preserve democratic legitimacy.
As for the Presidency... the Electoral College has resulted in the election of the loser of a popular vote twice in 25 years.
I don't know how reform will happen, or if we'll ever see it in my lifetime but we desperately need it. The US government needs to be accountable to the people again.
Democracy is precious, and it's so tragic to see how much it's declined.
States with a total of 270 electoral votes agree to award their electors to the winner of the national popular vote. The effort appears to be stalled, but there are 209 votes from states who've already passed the law (which is in effect only once 270+ electoral votes are reached).
The Supreme Court's composition can be changed with a law, and the most popular option appears to be 18 year terms, staggered so that there are two appointments for each presidential term. The court can also be expanded, and should be to 13 (one for each circuit).
Gerrymandering is a serious problem, and would properly be solved by coming up with some algorithmic way of drawing districts. But for practical purposes this unlikely to ever happen. But I'm hopeful because of the effort of Democratic states to recognize the gerrymandering and turning it into a standoff of sorts. To date, there's been no reason not to gerrymander if you can do it, and Republicans have seriously overreached.
The American two-party system gave massive power to a tiny fraction of the population, which the large Republican party then retconned into most of their members as their party platform. Now they're a large fraction of the population. I'd choose the approach where the small faction remains its own small faction, even if they occasionally get to pull the levers of power.
Is it? Many western countries are having more or less prominent populist right wing movements, and the two countries I can think of where that movement has gotten its hand in power on really significant issues during the last decade or so are UK and US. Both strongly two party systems at the time of the "interesting" developments. And I do not think a two party system is typical, I am sure there are some countries happily trodding along with their two political parties, but they are not the rule.
without quebec and the bloc, i think canadian politics would similarly devolve into brokenness
No, its not, as anyone who has paid even a slight amount of attention to the study of comparative government among modern nominal representative democracies would recognize.
> We have to be honest about the fact that parliamentary systems can give massive power to a tiny fraction of the population when that small party becomes the deciding vote.
Parliamentary systems can be two-party and multiparty systems do not need to parliamentary, so you are starting with a false dichotomy. And the problem you describe is less often a problem with multiparty systems (parliamentary or otherwise) than two-party systems, because the reliance on ad hoc coalitions means that there is much more likely to be the option of replacing a faction that is leveraging its marginal role in creating a majority to wag a coalition that is a small part of, whereas a small faction within a major party in a two party system that is crucial to maintaining a partisan majority cannot practically be defied without the rest of the party surrendering its majority, giving it much more power than a minor coalition partner in a multiparty system.
(Parliamentary or semi-presidential systems are also generally better than presidential systems, but that's a whole different issue from the multiparty vs. two-party issue.)
> The problems with the USA political system are: electoral college, senate being 2 votes per state, and the supreme court being 7 people for life.
The first two of those are also problems (though actually being a Presidential system is a bigger problem, and a problem without which the electoral college would be moot.) The third is simply inaccurate.
> But nothing can be done about the last two now. Especially now that the Supreme Court made a decision limiting how amendments can be ratified.
The Supreme Court decision on how amendments can be ratified (basically, however Congress decides) does not substantially limit what amendments can be passed. And it is the first two are set in the Constitution, the third (even using the correct current number of 9) is not, and can be changed (that the Supreme Court exists and that federal judges have lifetime tenure as federal judges are set in the Constitution, the number of seats on the Supreme Court, whether that number is fixed or floating over time, and the tenure of judges on the Supreme Court separate from their tenure as federal juddges is not; all of those can be changed by statute. If Congress wanted to make Supreme Court justices appointed for a fixed term of years from among the set of lifetime federal judges, that would be possible. If Congress kept lifetime tenure for justices, decided to have one appointed every 2 years regardless of the current size of the court, and have the Chief Justice appointed for 4 year terms from among the sitting justices, that would work too.)
No, the US, through its government (which is not just the executive branch) as chosen (in theory, via election) and, in practice, tolerated by its population at large.
It's not just Trump. If the US decided not to follow him he would have no power.
The lesson is finally sinking in, in ways that it did not during the first Trump term. People wanted to believe that is was a one-off. During the first Trump term the argument could be made that it wasn't, but it was debatable. But during the second Trump term it's simply an observable fact that it's not a one-off.
Economic decoupling is a rational response.
Being "right wing populist" won't change that response. The caveat is that populists are not very rational.
If they are successful in destroying democracy, I will reevaluate my view. We don't know what's going to happen in the midterms or 2028.
But again, and I say that as a European, we don't really care: what we see is the position of the US no matter if it is coming from your congress, president, secretary or whatever.
- Trump voters 2024: 75m
- US population 2024: 340m
- US population >18 2024: 265m
- % pop Trump voters: 22%
- % pop >18 Trump voters: 28%
You set the bar in your original comment, I didn’t raise it.
> they won't be in a debt spiral like most people here who have no advantages.
Ant tribe life is debt free, but it isn’t really living by our standards. At least we can say it’s better than living on the streets even if such housing isn’t allowed in the west.
I strongly disagree with most of what Trump says and does, but I can't root for an outcome that would make my kids' quality of life be much worse. I'd much rather see us right the ship.
You have already lost. We are far past the problems you're worried about. The worst case is already here. It's happening now.
I think this "China evil" framing is a smear, like how Republican conspiracy theories used to say Democrats are pedophiles. Guess where the real pedophiles were hanging out the whole time.
I find it deeply ironic that for some, the vibes have shifted towards "hey maybe the CCP isn't all that bad" just because...what, the solar buildouts make them look more competent and long-sighted compared to your local upstart authoritarian party? Such is the nature of vibes, I suppose.
> The US killed a million Iraqis not that long ago.
That estimate is about as reliable as western estimates in how many died during TS 1989 (but you did mention "foreign soil", not Chinese soil).
There are an estimated 1 million Uyghurs in concentration camps currently [1], but you are correct - neither that, nor the invasion of Tibet, nor whatever process they used to turn a diverse part of a continent into a Han ethnostate [2], or block the NYTimes app from their phones, involved dropping bombs on foreign soil.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Chin...
[2] Spare me the "56 different ethnic groups!" - 91% is Han, the next highest is 1.4%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China
> There are ~ 2 million black men incarcerated in the united states
In 2019, whites+hispanics committed 0.92x as many homicides as blacks [1], but their 2021 incarceration numbers were 1.72x that of blacks (0.75x for non-hispanic whites alone) [2]. Using homicide to estimate criminality, because it is immune to over-policing.
So, per crime committed, blacks are less, not more, likely to be jailed. But it sure looks pretty damning if you ignore behavior, and don't compare to others!
Now maybe you still think the US incarcerates too many people in general, regardless of race. Well, then I welcome you to calculate the ratio of the incarceration and homicide rate, and compare the US one to that of some other countries.
[1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...
2021. People incarcerated in state or federal prisons by race and ethnicity. Race, ethnicity % of US population % of incarcerated population Incarceration rate (per 100,000)
White (non-Hispanic) 59 31 181 Hispanic 19 24 434 Black 14 32 901
Did you just ignore the data where the whites are 181/100,000 and blacks are 901/100,000. From an absolute perspective they are close but as a percentage of ethnic population it's not even close.
I feel like this is why its hard to have a convo on the internet. Even when we have data, it's impossible to see it the same way.
Only that's not what I did. Read again - "per crime committed, blacks are less, not more, likely to be jailed".
What I compared was prison population, divided by number of homicides committed, for whites and blacks. It's strange how rarely this is done, because without it, it must look like the courts are fantastically biased against men, with how many more of them there are in jail than women.
Honestly a bit disgusted to have even read what you wrote here. Shameful.
Edit for more substance: your use of homicide numbers belies the common racist American stereotype of blacks as not only a violent, but coddled minority. The fact that your mind would even begin to think that it’s fair to compare 2 million incarcerated black people to the 3-5% of people who are incarcerated for murder for a statistical gotcha is despicable.
America still wants to play hegemon, but since Bretton Woods 2.0 didn't happen, they're going to lock up the entire North and South American continents from Chinese and Russian influence. And it'll be fierce.
The next salvo is going to be US statehood for Alberta and Saskatchewan. There is already partisan support within those provinces, and Trump is going to offer money to push it. If that happens, Yukon and the Northwest Territories are next.
(Side note: these are Republican voters, which gives Republicans the Senate for years to come.)
Venezuela wasn't about drugs or oil, it was about China. And it wasn't Trump's thing, it was the career DoD folks. (Venezuela is within medium-range missile range of 50% of US oil refineries. The US doesn't want foreign basing there or in Cuba.)
The DoD is pushing Greenland too as it'll be a centerpiece of Arctic shipping in the coming century. And Cuba, as it's both extremely close to CONUS and a choke point for the gulf.
You can see the plays happening if you watch. The Chinese-owned Panama Ports Company being forcibly sold to BlackRock, the increasing trade and diplomatic ties between China and South American countries, etc.
My bet is that a Democratic president would continue this policy, just with less rudeness and more "cooperation". The Department of Defense -- apolitically -- doesn't want China to have the US within arms reach.
Trump is going to try to speed run it, though.
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edit: downvotes rate limit my account, so I can't respond.
> I would love to hear how you think Trump will manage to get Alberta and Saskatchewan to become US states within this century.
It's going to nucleate from within Alberta and Saskatchewan.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11615147/alberta-separatists-prai...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_separatism
This has been spoken about for years, but look at how much the conversation is starting to come back up recently:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/alberta-primetime/article/al...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-separation-po...
I see a dozen other articles about this published in the last week.
If Trump adds fuel to this fire, it's going to take over the headlines. The DoD is definitely whispering it into his ear.
Also, the downvotes are silly. I'm not advocating for this. I'm just pointing out what the US is doing and why it thinks this way.
The Albertan separatism thing is largely drummed-up due to American aggression towards Canada, it slots right into the news cycle alongside threats of annexation that Canada was getting not that long ago. That being said, even in a province as conservative as Alberta, it remains a fringe view, even though some politicians are now willing to say the quiet part out loud. Consider how hard Quebec had tried to secede on multiple occasions, and yet despite having a far stronger case and far more supporters, still failed every time. Talking about Saskatchewan is just trying to lump them in with the Albertans, where in reality that group is even more niche.
But then talking about Yukon and the Northwest Territories just makes this look like enthusiastic map-painting. The reality is, both of these places are overwhelmingly indigenous, and they'd have no reason to ever want to not be part of Canada. Also, they're both territories, which in many ways means they're ruled directly by the federal government, a.k.a. you won't be getting those short of a military invasion or completely ruining the rest of the country to the point where they can just cut it all up.
My understanding is that US is going to shrink back a bit, takes care of its neighbours first, but keep its probing bases intact, so that it can slash some costs and be more flexible in next decades. China is going to reluctantly expand its power base gradually -- but I think it's going to be a slow expansion because any rapid one would either fail, or create a new power group within China, that may threaten the existing players.
Not sure about EU though, it better gear up quickly.
Greenland is happening, and will be underway soon. It's just a matter of how much international support it will have initially, and how the USA will strong arm support.
Canada is on the back burner after the realization that a country with a leader who was the Governor of the national banks of two major countries might know a thing or two about economic warfare.
That's where i think France have dropped the ball with its last presidents. Any pre-2007 president would have already declared Greenland as "EU, thus France sovereign interest" and reiterated French nuclear doctrine since 1964 (One warning shot, then tactical nukes, aiming for the army/supply and not civilian infrastructure). Macron will never do that, because if you say it, you have to follow up.
They want it, but can't take it because it would be too shocking for the public (aka violating narrative continuity.) If they can prepare the public to accept it then it might happen, but most magas I talk to treat it like a joke, trolling the Europeans to make them invest in defense or something. I don't think the American public earnestly believes it will happen, and for that reason I think it won't happen.
Time may prove me wrong, we'll all find out eventually.
Other priorities.
Plus, they need to arrange some international support to ensure that enough countries recognize the transition. That takes time to put into place both the carrots (weapons for Middle Easterners) and sticks (tariffs for Europeans).
Once this happens, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and maybe Egypt, Japan, SK, will recognize the transition as official.
If I asked you 2 months ago 'do you think Trump will steal tankers of Venezuelan oil using the US military, sell the oil, and deposit the funds in accounts setup offshore in the middle eastern country that gave him a free jumbo jet?' would you have said 'there is no way that will happen'?
I'm sick of the 'it's just Trump being Trump' when no one would treat any other politician that way. No, it is the US President, who sent an official US delegation, which, when it left (after reducing Greenlands official delegation to tears) continued to say 'we are taking Greenland'. Fuck off with 'it's just Trump being Trump'. It is the United States President.
I hope I'm not talking to a wall here, because I already clearly explained this above: "most magas I talk to treat it like a joke, trolling the Europeans to make them invest in defense or something. I don't think the American public earnestly believes it will happen, and for that reason I think it won't happen."
W.r.t "other priorities", logistically it would be trivial. Their problem is political.
Meaning to or not you are running defense for it, as news coverage/sane people have done continuously for Trump with the 'it's just Trump being Trump'. Don't do that. Don't let them do that. This is the United State President sending an OFFICIAL delegation. It IS ALREADY OFFICIAL POLICY, we sent an OFFICIAL United States delegation that had official talks with Greenland's OFFICIALS. That is not just memes so I don't know how you accept people telling you it is. That is OFFICIAL UNITED STATES POLICY. Again, OFFICIAL DELEGATIONS meeting with FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS ARE NOT MEMEs. That half the country says they are means zero. It is in part how they empower Trump to get away with what they want.
That you accept 'official US policy that American diplomats are actively engaged in, right now, is just memes' is wild to me.
Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and in particular:
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized.
You've got a legitimate reading comprehension problem right now, because I am not saying that, have not said that, and have explained this to you three times now. Kindly calm down and read.
Active United States diplomacy trumps random Maga feelz. I'm not waiting for time to tell. I'm calling bullshit out, today, now. You can keep waiting for things to work out.
Disagree.
1. If any Canadian province becomes an American state (with electoral votes), the Republicans won't win an election for the next 100 years. Even if it's Alberta.
2. Alberta likely won't secede unless they get full statehood. Nobody wants to be another Puerto Rico.
3. I think if you did a referendum in Alberta today (even with full US statehood on offer), the votes to secede would number over 10%.
Remember, Quebec in 1995: 50.58% voted to stay, with a turnout of 93.52%. And they were all but ready to leave to the point of engaging in IRA-style terrorism.
Also, the famous failure of Brexit all but precludes any such referendums from getting serious wind in our lifetimes.
*They did kidnap him but didn't intend to kill him, they were dumb revolted teenagers who fucked up.
there's less talk about separation here than there is in Washington for splitting out to form cascadia.
Controlling all of these foreign lands is pointless if the country collapses then Balkanizes. The past decade has brought so many events that nobody thought could ever happen that we need to be rearrange our beliefs. It's very possible that those of us around in 10 years will see this time period as being part of the Second American Civil war.
The only thing keeping people almost pacified is the economy is not total dogshit yet. But that's tenuous at best.
There's going to be a post-trump power vacuum. It will likely be much more bloody than our current situation.
The polling puts it at 20% support and 80% opposed. This is not going to happen. As a Canadian who was born in Alberta and has lived in Alberta all my life, I will be remaining in Canada.
They aren't republican voters - there is sizable difference between the Canadian right and the US right. I think many Americans make this mistake (and Canadians too) - the republican positions on many things aren't that tenable to center of right (Canadian spectrum).
Also - There aren't many more things that are more toxic in Canada politics than Trump and Annexation. He single handedly handed the Federal election to the Liberals - it was the Conservatives who were going to win until he but his thumb on the scale.
Watching these discussions from the outside are statistics like four in ten (43%) Canadians age 18-34 would vote to be American if citizenship and conversion of assets to USD guaranteed [1]. I don't think the political similarities or differences between the American right and the Canadian right are what can result in one or more Canadian provinces joining the US; I think it's economic discontent.
[1]: https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/43-percent-canadians-would-vote-...
So Canada is already fractured. And there's a strong chance Québécois offer support of Alberta and Sas succession. Perhaps there will be some reciprocity and all three provinces leave Canada at the same time.
Which leaves western Canada in a bit of a pickle.
[0] https://ca.news.yahoo.com/first-reading-quebec-little-notice...
There are some cultural factors in Alberta which draw it closer to the US than to Ontario and Quebec. Libertarianism, pro-fossil fuels, differences wrt firearms, differences in attitudes to crime and punishment, etc... The perception is that previous compromises around these items are slowly frayed to appease voting blocks in other provinces (mostly Quebec).
Then, the dirty reality; the Canadian economy has never been "great", at least in my lifetime. Nearly my whole class at university wound up going to the US, because one couldn't get a decent paying job in Canada in a lot of fields. Even our current prime minister did a ton of his work abroad. If separating (IE: joining the US) was only an economic question, only a tiny elite would support remaining a part of Canada.
The question Alberta separatists wish to ask is much less dishonest than the Quebec separation question in 95, which leads me to believe they are much more confident about their success. I wouldn't rule it out.
There is small but loud group of chronic whiners who hate everything (often including each other) pushing the former.
Almost nobody is pushing the latter.
There is a good 20% of people in Alberta who would vote for separation today. Take a close look, they aren't voting to be an independent country surrounded by a hostile country around it and a superpower that hijacks oil tankers to the south.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/red-deer-alberta-ind...
It is a stupid idea because the level of changes that would have to happen to everything would be much, much more than people realize. But Brexit has shown us that people will vote for stupid things if they are sold by trusted-but-dishonest actors
Of course it is a loony idea, but that is what they're pushing.
the are still actively pushing to try to get the US onboard at the same time.
you can also look to crimea as an example, independence and annexed by russia happened within a day or two
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-referendum-q...
Then Danielle moved the goalposts to make it easier for the Independence folks:
Signature collection period: January 3 to May 2, 2026 Number of signatures required for a successful petition: 177,732 (10% of the total number votes cast in the 2023 Provincial General Election).
That said I do grudgingly admire Lesvesque and felt he was much better than all of his successors. You could tell he had a philosophy of a Quebec that could be an actual nation, not merely a collection of childless people who spoke French and simply emulated France.
There is no Lesvesque in Alberta and that is why Alberta will never be a nation; only a gas station for the US. Still, if the only thing people value is income maybe that's the better outcome.
Venezuela happened because it makes him look good on TV, that's it. There's no grand strategizing, it's a petty, vain person doing shitty things to make himself look great. He believes he is entitled to rule as an absolute monarch and acquiring territory (Greenland, Canada, etc) is just a way for himself to make himself more grand. Sorry, no grand strategy there either. I'll go further and say that part of what makes him so successful is that there's a large contingent of people that can't see him as he is and instead engage in this strategy larp like your various theories.