SkepticalButOpenMinded @ SkepticalButOpenMinded @lemmy.ca

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2

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506

Joined

2 yr. ago

We waste a lot of immigrant talent in Canada by not recognizing foreign credentials.

As an interesting side note: I have heard multiple times that Gen X is the Trumpiest and most conservative leaning generation, even more than Boomers or Silver. I find it plausible. The silver generation has old progressive labor movement diehards, and boomers have hippies. But Gen X never really had a progressive culture movement. They came of age during Reagan and Clinton.

8 hours to be seen is possible in greater Vancouver, but definitely not typical. Current wait times are about as bad as they’ve ever been, but avg wait times are still about 1 to 4 hours. I think it’s the rural hospitals that get really bad.

That theory doesn’t make much sense to me. The military conflicts have been political losers for Biden. Polling consistently shows that Americans believe (for some insane reason) that the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts wouldn’t have happened under Trump. Gaza in particular has split Biden’s base. The best thing that could happen for Biden is if all the conflicts end before the election.

As an American who moved to Canada, there are similarities but Canada is still one million times better than the US.

The CRA (Canadian IRS) allows digital access to all tax info. Whatever software or service you use, just log into your CRA account and everything auto-fills. Done in a few minutes. My US taxes have never taken less than an hour, and often multiple hours if there’s anything remotely complicated.

Can't follow directions?

What is this, tax advice from Stack Overflow? I don't understand why people like you don't save your criticism for the system, instead of at the people using the system.

Yes, the system is fucked up... because the instructions are intentionally designed to be complicated to follow. I don't know a single person stupid enough to waste their time doing their own taxes by following the directions on the IRS documentation. Horrible advice. Not even professional tax accountants do that.

The IRS free tax-filing service is in limited trial in a few states, eligible only to simple returns within limited income ranges. Most people, including 1099 people like OP, can't use it.

Your response is tone deaf. The American tax code is intentionally complicated to protect tax filing companies and to allow the rich to take advantage of loop holes. I can't believe how housebroken some people are that they defend the shitty tax system instead of sharing in OP's anger.

When I looked into it a few years ago, I found that, contrary to the stereotype, Japanese homes are surprisingly big. Smaller than the US or Canada, which are some of the biggest in the world, but actually bigger than most of Europe.

The result of a quick search: the average Tokyo apartment is 65.9 sq m (710 sq ft). The modal apartment size is 19.7 sq meters (212 sq ft), so maybe that's what you're referring to. But that's only 21% of Tokyo apartments.

Yes some people are going to change their mind because most Americans aren’t paying close attention. You say “these people are already convinced”. This is just black and white thinking. Some are convinced, but many don’t feel informed enough to have strong opinions.

The lesson from the Dobbs decision is that, sure SCOTUS can ignore public opinion, but it matters when they do. After that decision, voters, including many independents and even conservatives, revolted, leading to many surprising victories for Democrats.

I’m honestly puzzled by your comment. Is this a call to stop spreading anti-fascist ideas? To stop making arguments and spreading concern? Why? Your theory seems to be that talking about ideas doesn’t matter. Fascists, on the other hand, keenly understand the power of ideas!

I think that, more likely, they'll plump up healthcare services for only themselves. Boomers don't vote against big government social services for everyone, they only oppose it when it's not for themselves. That's why both Republicans and Democrats defend Social Security and medicare for the elderly. Even DeSantis is campaigning on defending SS.

Happening in Canada too. For the last decade, virtually every province has been led by Conservative governments (except BC and that was just half a decade ago). Healthcare and housing has been slowly falling apart.

Looking at the polls, what’s amazing is that most Canadian voters seem to think the problem is insufficient conservatism!

There are legitimate worries concerning the commodification of people’s bodies. We already do not allow people to sell oneself into slavery, and many countries do not allow the selling of one’s own body parts (which is why organs must be donated in many countries).

I’m the only one here who knows anyone who’s used surrogacy, and it was for a legit health reason.

I’m not sure why you think it matters, but my sibling recently had a child through surrogacy. No one is disagreeing about the health case. But more exploitative cases can exist. Not everything should be made into a product.

Are you two substantially disagreeing?

When surrogacy is merely a luxury to spare the rich mother the discomforts of bearing a child, it can be bad, and for other reasons such as health and infertility it’s totally fine?

In context, I clearly meant “most apps people use and need”. Almost all the streaming apps, all the corporate social media apps, all the payment apps, etc seem to be problematic.

Remember that the larger discussion is about the viability of protecting your privacy on Android vs iPhone. Sure everything is “possible” if you futz with it enough, you could even code your own OS and all your own apps, but the more you have to futz, the less viable it is for most people.

No please read my comment again. I know there are alternative stores. In practice, many mainstream apps are not easy to install using these stores. If you had done a 1 minute search, you’d find tons of people complaining about trying to degoogle their phone. I think almost everyone just gives up on at least a few apps.

The Trolley problem doesn’t go away in the air (not that it’s that big of a deal to begin with). In fact, it might even be worse. Your car is falling. Do you crash into the crowded street or the crowded building? Which one? The destructive potential is much higher. If safety is really a concern, don’t you worry about giving every person a missile?

Flying cars “solve” a non-problem, because long distance highway travel is already the least dangerous. Most accidents are at intersections and points of conflicts. But eventually flying cars need to land and be near other cars and people. There will still be traffic jams, vast fields of parking lots, and cities made uncomfortable to actually walk or exist in.

Not all liquid moving near the throat is drinking. Drowning, for example, isn’t drinking. It has to be ingested using swallowing muscles, etc. Molten lava would disintegrate the perimeter of your mouth and throat. That’s “drinking” like a shotgun to the face is “eating”.

Yeah, flying cars are even worse than land cars. Imagine how much less efficient parking and take off would be. Imagine all those cars circling the sky waiting to park. Would we need to cut down all the urban trees? Would we build even bigger parking lots? Huge runways and landing pads everywhere? It sounds like hell.

Drinks tend to be drinkable.

Is there a punchline to this I’m missing?