As someone in a high income bracket, I'd gladly pay more in taxes in exchange for a low-overhead direct equalization program such as UBI.

Something that's always bothered me about these discussions, however, is how it always seems to be treated as a binary choice. As if they only two options are to do nothing or flip on the UBI lightswitch. But this is IMHO stupid given the way economies work. Something like UBI would take 3-5 years to fully influence the economy, and anyway, economies tend to do better with stable long-term changes rather than sudden shocks.

So, if it were me, I'd instead implement a UBI program like so:

• Create a crown corporation similar to the Bank of Canada
• Mandate the crown corporation to set UBI rates with an eye out for the health of the economy and the population
• The UBI rate would imply a rate of taxation as well as set forth monthly payments to every Canadian citizen after deducting some (externally audited) operating budget (which should be relatively low given the program will never be means-tested)
• Begin UBI with some small-value sum such as $50/mo per person—enough to look nice hitting people's accounts, enough to make a real difference to the poorest of the poor, but not enough to realistically cause economic problems
• Let the Crown corp adjust the UBI rate yearly and have collection handled by the CRA at tax/paycheck time

In my opinion, if the government did something like this, we'd have a long-lasting program that is agile enough to adapt to economic conditions or things breaking along the way. There is likely a sweet spot for UBI similar to that of an interest rate, and we'd be able to find where that line is empirically, without having to risk serious shocks to the economy, inflation due to supply chain shocks, etc.

I would expect such a program would gradually increase over the span of 10-30 years until basic needs like food and shelter are covered for everybody, but luxuries and "comfortable" lifestyles remain out of reach for those who are out of work. But, if I am wrong, it wouldn't matter anyway... the UBI rate would just wind up settling higher or lower according to the needs of society.

any year is better than a future year

Not true for everybody. Sometimes people decide to put off transition for practical or safety reasons. They aren't necessarily wrong for doing so. Earlier is not always better.

We should be explicit about some things:

• It is the project of capitalists & the new regime to divide and conquer Canada by stoking the flames of western alienation
• Danielle Smith is merely the next step in a media pipeline that we've unfortunately allowed to progressively rot our country for the past 20 years
• She is openly admitting to the fact she incited a foreign leader to interfere in Canada's sovereign elections
• The everyday people of Alberta are not to blame for this situation—their disillusionment and vulnerability to grifters like her did not come from nowhere
• When fascism rears it's head, the working class must band together, and that includes reaching out to Albertans

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.

Long time user of that sub here. I’ve been chatting with them lately and they seem quite reasonable but very burned out.

I don’t think you should interpret this as negativity so much as being all out of spoons and needing people to step up so the burden is not so heavy.

Please we need people to step up. Start communities here and find instances that are welcoming.

One of the biggest points worth considering is the sheer volume of hate from certain segments of the internet that sub gets. Mods on whatever instance need to be willing to tackle that.

For my part I’m currently working full capacity taking the lead on another initiative (also involving Lemmy and the trans community) and I am new to Lemmy so I cannot take the lead on making communities here but am happy to facilitate however I can.

People born in 2005 are now 20 years old and I'm not okay.

It’s clear that PP is starting to go down the drain I think given all this recent polling. Idk wtf is going on with the NDP

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given the complexity of the problem. But all of these points in one article seem quite overwhelming.

Personally I think access to family doctors and stronger communities (get people off their phones and talking to their neighbours) would fix the lions share of these issues.

Reproductive health needs to be protected. Well honestly it’s insane to me that it’s not a given. What the hell sort of dystopian society are we devolving into.

I’ve been in talks with them and I believe you are right. They are not being negative they are in need of people to step up. That whole sub has been a one person crew for years. One person. Years. On that topic.

I would do more but I’m already working full capacity taking the lead on a similar initiative and am new to Lemmy so not familiar with admins or different instance cultures. HiddenStill had really good advice to help me on what I’ve been working on and quite supportive to the extent they can be.

I think we need people to really consider which instances are best to help out with this and how to work to make them hospitable. We also need people preparing for the influx of hate that this mod has been dealing with via Reddit tools and brute force.

As a long time user of the sub I can’t express to you how much this person has done for our community and how thankless it’s been. They’ve changed the lives of so many of us and it’s beyond reasonable they are burnt out.

H1-B visas. They keep working there because they don’t want to leave the US. Often they have entire lives and family in the US and have not simply been there for a few short years.

I am still new to the fediverse but I figured that smaller constellations will federate without connecting to the largest federation.

It’s harder to manipulate 500 disjoint federations than 1 really large one. Especially when some of those federations rely on heavy verification.

Of course those smaller federations are likely organized around specific purposes or organizing interests rather than broad public discourse.

I’m a millennial trans woman who sometimes fucks cishet Gen Z men I feel that’s pretty much spot on in my observation

There’s basically two generations of Gen Z: those who were adults pre-pandemic and take after millennials & those who were not.

The ones who came of age in the pandemic have a lot more hangups about social interaction, have consumed a lot more misinformation, and generally have baggage about being criticized for their (admittedly shitty and ignorant) views they’ve clearly been fed by the algorithm and their friends

These guys ARE NOT bad people but they caught serious brain rot during the pandemic and it’s gonna take time/empathy for them to fully recover. It does not help that there’s a certain type of moral superiority to millennial activism that they clearly are reacting to

I just have to say, HiddenStill is a legend in our community for having made that subreddit what it is today. Changed tens of thousands of peoples lives while receiving virtually no thanks for it.

It’s been a thankless job, full of hate from unsavoury parts of the Internet, and largely handled by one person who has been ridiculously active for the past 8 years.

I have no idea how they haven’t burnt out yet. And I can fully understand that it must feel overwhelming to then have people look to you and expect to do more while having no idea who to trust on this entirely new platform.

Other people have to step up here and earn some respect before pointing fingers. I’m working on it the best I can but I’m at full capacity myself and new to lemmy.

Thank you for this! It’s helpful to have a rough guide of how things move over.

First off, I’ve definitely been telling them! And I’d suspect they’ll also read it here. I definitely agree that moderating is a really thankless job. It’s also not something I have the temperament for.

Long story short I think we need a landing place for point 1. Whatever server hosts us to start might not need to be the one that hosts us forever.

I’m in the background working on a project relating to point 1 but don’t want to speak too publicly about it given the unsavoury parts of the Internet that stalk trans communities.

If blahaj or some other instance could host us that would be great but also I can think of several reasons they might not want to & I don’t know them so it’s hard to say it’s the right spot long term. If my project works out and brings more helpers to the community maybe that’s not an issue.

Recruiting mods I don’t know. I could do it for a bit but it’s not my strength. Past a certain point in growth it’d need others to take over.

I have quite a bit of knowledge and am happy to seed discussions. There are really no articles to post on this topic. It’s people sharing experiences and asking questions. I think a bot to cross post new threads and then some active users posting their replies on Lemmy then letting OP know “I answered on Lemmy” is a better approach.

For the wiki I really don’t know what’s going on with it. I was seeing people say they were scraping it for backups. A lot of the wiki links to Reddit. I’m personally like in favour of letting other people handle it for now. The loss of community to my mind would be worse than the loss of the wiki (though both are bad).

Of course there is a whole other issue here in terms of how prepared Blahaj would be to handle the incoming heat from certain parts of the Internet that watch our subreddit.

This is one of the best initiatives I've seen from a government in a long-ass time. Such a railway would be a boon for our economy. As a Montrealer, the only thing I can say is I'm pissed it didn't already happen three decades ago.

$80 bn is chump change for something this critical. It will in the long run pay for itself via increased productivity and other benefits to our Canadian economy.

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...

I don't know these people but even just reading that already made me so tired. I'm so ready for everybody to forget we exist again.

2020-2030 is really making 2000-2010 seem like paradise out here, which is something I never thought I'd say, as a trans woman who barely survived 2000-2010. 🙃

Alex.

I’m a trans woman with a problematic attraction to any man who would’ve bullied me in high school.

Before you ask—yes, I am aware this is the only reason anybody ever marries Alex.

Some of us are trying to work on it but in the mean time it would be great if people more familiar with Lemmy could help us out by taking initiative.

We’re all running on very little here it’s a trans surgery support sub that’s had one mod doing everything for years & almost none of us from the user base no anything about where to migrate which admins are open to helping etc

I posted a thread in lemmy.blahaj.zone the other day and the consensus was “ask the admin” but also it sounds like she’s on vacation. Some other instances seem to have had discussions with no conclusion

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.