Notices by M. Grégoire (mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca)

@evan "A bet is a tax on bullshit."

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/11/a-bet-is-a-tax-on-bullshit.html

#PredictionMarkets
#MarginalRevolution

@evan Qualified yes. Social media can be a good way of spreading news (as well as falsehoods), but as is it's not so good at the creation of news. Some other mechanism is required to pay reporters to do their work.

I should also mention @yuanyi_z , who last posted here over a year ago.

Well, the community I want to follow is mostly at Twitter, and the model I support is here on the Fediverse. Not much point in adding Bluesky at this point, as it lacks both so far as I can see.

3/3

But I wonder if I'd have more fun on BlueSky? The discussion of #CanPol on the Fediverse is almost entirely conducted by people convinced that Mr. Poilievre is a mini-Trump and that conservatives in general are evil.

When I read posts like: https://mementomori.social/@rolle/113498548923897764 , I wonder, Where's my crowd? I'm not that interested in Messrs Hamill, King, Torvalds or Sir Tim. Where's #RossDouthat? #TylerCowen? #AndréPratte? #GlennLoury? #LeahLibresco?

@acoyne is here, but he posts rarely.

2/2
#cdnpoli

I'm on the Fediverse because I don't think a global moderation policy is desirable. People want different things, so they ought to be able to form different communities, each with its own policies and ethos; the communities should allow interconnection as a rule, but it's right and natural that some communities don't want to interact, and that some should be shunned... Little platoons, subsidiarity.

1/2

#Fediverse

Whenever journalists report on labour disruptions — strikes or lock-outs — they ought to tell us what current salaries are. How can the public come to any view about the disruption in the absence of such key information?

#news #journalism #strikes #LockOuts #labour #labor #unions

@evan Whenever I work from home. I ought to set one up for personal use as well, but haven't done so yet.

@pjohanneson
Might be more expensive; might not be. I'm not saying that that's the model we should use, only that it's a feasible way of providing postal services in rural areas.

We shouldn't pretend that Canada Post is working well as is though: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-post-748-million-loss-2023-1.7193944

@davidculley @parismarx

@evan Probably worse than Berlusconi; maybe closer to Chavez.

@janneke
Wonderful! What are you planning to do next, if I may ask?

@bugaevc

@evan Strongly agree.

But also we frequently confuse "democracy" with "liberal democracy". A society can be liberal without being democratic, and a society can be democratic without being liberal.

@evan Overall, I'd rate the first Trump Administration as chaotic neutral, so I predict the same for the second. But it will be more chaotic this time, since he'll be less restrained by his aides.

@jmcrookston Global poverty has been declining over the last thirty years: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/reconstruction-of-historical-global-extreme-poverty-rates-1820-2017-roser-and-hasell-2021-and-world-bank2020

#poverty

@evan I wonder how frequently spouses vote differently? In the case of my parents and grandparents it was nearly always; I always assumed that was very common.

@evan One that sticks out in my mind was a rally for the Congress of the People party in Trinidad. Trinidad being a diverse society, but generally religious, the rally started with blessings from a Catholic priest, a Hindu pundit, a Muslim imam, and then a group of Spiritual Baptists.

(I was purely an observer. At the time I had informed opinions on politics in #TrinidadAndTobago , but I wouldn't necessarily have supported the CoP.)

@evan In US presidential elections, most states send strong majorities for one or the other of the two main parties. In such states voters who are dissatisfied with the Ds or the Rs should vote not against a candidate they dislike, but in favour of the candidate they most support, secure in the knowledge that their votes are highly unlikely to tip the race in an undesired direction.

@evan Qualified yes. Human civilisation is unlikely to end in the next few decades (though there are existential risks). Not sure we're passing through a period of "far-right" politics at the moment though: "far-right" isn't a well-defined term.

@evan Strong no. The people who believe Mr. Trump is a fascist are already not voting for him, and the people who are planning to vote for him will consider the term hyperbole and tune her out — it won't gain her any votes.

Instead she could say that Mr. Trump dishonours the military and that the people who worked with him oppose his re-election. Those are more effective arguments to persuade likely Trump voters.

#uspol

@evan After WWI, the League of Nations was set up to enhance international co-operation and to make the world more peaceful. But all countries were equal in the League, and consequently the Great Powers ignored it when they found it inconvenient.

The creators of the UN wanted to avoid the new Great Powers (the victors of WWII) by-passing the organisation, so they were given special rights as permanent members of the Security Council.

#UN #SecurityCouncil

@dgold
I was busy in 2018, and didn't follow the discussions very closely at that time. As I recall, there was a desire by many that the GNU project adopt a code of conduct, and those people were disappointed when the Kind Communications Guidelines were released instead. But my recollection is that people felt the guidelines were insufficient, not that they were bad in themselves.

If you know of a post with detailed criticisms, could you please send a link?

@civodul