With their market share they are by definition of monopoly. Monopoly doesn't mean "only store front", it just means majourity market share to the point they control the market.
People forget there's nothing inherently wrong with monopolies. It's only when they abuse their monopoly position that there's issues.
Steam's customers aren't really the end users, though
Steam's customers are game publishers. Steam provides a service to connect publishers to their audience. Their business model is not "takes money from customers in exchange for goods". It is "takes a cut of each sale that a publisher makes on their platform"
Given that there is no real friction for end users to install Epic Launcher or GoG launcher, is Steam really a monopoly to their customers, the publishers?
If Steam tries to muscle a publisher, they can refuse to publish on Steam and still have options. When popular games aren't on Steam, it does seem like people have absolutely no problem installing another launcher/storefront to access it
Look at the massive success of Fortnite, which is only on the Epic Launcher
Potash, Uranium & Oil are from Saskatchewan & Alberta. Those provinces won't put on an export tax because that would be "unfair" to those two deeply conservative provinces. There are a lot of MAGA supporters in those two provinces.
However Trudeau has repeatedly emphasized working closely with the Premiers to ensure that tariffs aren't discriminatory against some provinces and favouring others. It seems to imply that despite his legal power, the federal government would not impose those tariffs as it would come at the cost of Canadian unity.
You still might be right. Ontario might be able to adjust electricity export prices because it's a highly regulated provincially regulated market. Alberta might not be able to unilaterally add an "export tax" to oil the same way.
OTOH, if Alberta asked for one, the federal government would comply.
The problem with Trudeau's government is he didn't/doesn't consult with provinces very much. They continue to announce programs and initiatives that live in the territory of the provinces without provincial buy in.
If it was one or two provinces you would be correct, but when every province is facing the same issue(s), then the turd starts to stick to the feds... The immigration issue is a prime example, he announced higher than normal targets but didn't consult or work with the provinces about this, which caused many provinces to be taken by surprise and have their social systems overwhelmed by the influx of people. Many of these same systems where still recovering from covid... so yea recipe for disaster.
It seems like every other week I hear a news article about a joint announcement between BC & the federal government having to do with housing or health care. It takes 2 to co-operate.
This is the crux of the issue honestly. Trudeau should have had the humility to read the writing on the wall in the fall, and stepped down so we could have a stable government to deal with the incoming US administration and give his party a fighting chance next election.
He could have rested on his laurels knowing history would likely forget his shortcomings & scandals, and be remembered as the prime minister who got us legal weed, navigated the covid pandemic, brought clean drinking water to FN reserves and advanced social programs (childcare, dental care).
Instead he's likely going to be known as the prime minister who had to be forcibly walked to the door by Canadians and his party, while leaving the country in a precarious position during tumultuous times.
Here's the primary problem with your argument: the current front-runner to win the next election is the Conservative Party of Canada, with Pierre Poilievre as leader, and pretty much a shoo-in for the next Prime Minister.
Poilievre is a career politician who's only professional experience has been as a politician, has no work history to speak of (don't take my word for it, his wikipedia entry details only a job as a collection agent, and that he started a business in 2003 focused on political communications, and then was elected in 2004).
Poilievre has spent the last several years in the lead up to becoming the party leader for the CPC cozying up to the alt-right, supporting the anti-vax movement, and hasn't published any meaningful policy documentation.
Poilievre is basically the last man standing from Stephen Harpers administration (in terms of policies and practices), and has failed to drive or pass any meaningful legislation or policy changes in his 20 year career. His victory in the 2022 CPC leadership campaign was a landslide, but also suffered from allegations of foreign interference from India and China. There is still an outstanding report on foreign interference due on January 31st.
Trudeau's greatest mistake was not implementing the electoral change he campaigned on, which likely would have marked a long term shift toward more left leaning social policies along side centrist fiscal policies, which have typically characterized Canadian society. Unfortunately, unless a very compelling alternative to the CPC emerges in the next 3 months, we will most likely get a government lead by a sock-puppet who lacks any real strength to negotiate with a presumably hostile incoming US administration, and the official party line from other Conservative groups in Canada appears to be appeasement and concession.
> Trudeau's greatest mistake was not implementing the electoral change he campaigned on
Agreed. In an over-simplification,
- first past the post is the best for the Conservatives. (It was best for the Liberals before the Reform & Conservatives merged).
- single transferable is the best for the Liberals
- mixed-member proportional is the best for the NDP
Trudeau thought the electoral commission would give him the STV he wanted, but it was going to deliver MMP that would pretty much guarantee that he would have to coalition with the NDP. So he nixed it. He ended up with an NDP coalition anyways, so he didn't gain anything through the nixing. Instead FPTP is going to result in a Conservative landslide in 2025.
I wish you and others had just considered the NDP platform which has always supported electoral reform (MMP) and cannabis legalization. Two planks the Liberals "stole" in order to win (and one which they then promptly threw away).
Mulcair was ahead in the polls first half of that election. Trudeau came out of third place to win with his lie about electoral reform and by refusing to answer the question about the religious discrimination laws being introduced in Quebec.
Things could have gone very differently. Mulcair was a much more competent politician than Trudeau, and the NDP platform was more balanced. Though it may have been a challenge for him to assemble a fully competent cabinet.
Look at the NDP party this last term for their true colors. A leader who in his own words votes against a no-confidence vote made up of his very own words. Is an equal partner in every decision the liberal government made this term with their coalition.
A wolf in sheep disguise. I didn't want PP to be the next prime minister for comments in parent of the thread, but who else is going to win this running now?
I guess I'm not sure how you can fully square the two statements here.
- You don't want PP to be PM
- You're angry at the NDP for not voting to bring Trudeau down (and effectively make PP the PM)
I share your frustration with the NDP under Singh. But I'm not sure what alternative he has, tactically. Voting down the government at this juncture would only have led to an election that would have brought PP to power as PM. Which is notably not in the NDP's interests. (Or, I'd argue, the public's)
But, yes, I understand it tactically. But it's strategically inept. For 4 years the NDP has "won the battle but lost the war" -- all the policy planks they forced the Liberals to adopt will simply be dismantled by the conservatives now.
What they were hoping for is some recognition from the public that the progressive moves made by the Liberals in the last parliament were in fact NDP initiatives forced on them. Instead they're just tarred and feathered with the same image that Trudeau has.
Justin Trudeau was a ski instructor before becoming Prime Minister.
Ronald Reagan and Zelenskyy were ridiculed as an actor in their election campaigns.
Poilievre is a career politician and unproven at the highest office, but that by itself should not disqualify him. Knowing who to delegate to is 90% the job of a good leader -- the other 10% is public speaking and being charismatic.
Sure, Trudeau was a ski instructor. You will also note that I neglected to mention that Poilievre had a paper route; that's because paper routes aren't professional experience.
Trudeau was also a secondary school teacher, acted in a tv movie. He also reputedly worked as a bouncer and worked in various (heavily politically affiliated) non-profits. He had a career before politics.
That said, my primary point is that Poilievre hasn't been a particularly effective politician, and his reputation is largely that of a blowhard who's main appeal is that he is not Trudeau.
Trudeau should have resigned after getting a second minority government. I mean, actually he should not have run that election at all. But in general in our history, failure to get a majority can be forgiven once... but twice? The knives come out.
I'm amazed at the dominance he has over his party that has made it possible for him still to be hanging on. Even his resignation is slow motion.
Neither Freeland nor Carney want to be the next Kim Campbell. The Liberals are going to lose the next election badly whether or not Trudeau is leading it. I'm sure that Trudeau made the decision to step down ~6 months ago and is now just playing with the timing to maximum effect. Stepping down now basically pushes the election three months further out than it would otherwise be due to a prorogation to pick a new leader. That gives Pollievre 3 more months worth of rope and Trump time to sabotage Pollievre.
Yeah my expectation is this next leadership campaign will be half-assed and "fought" by people who know they will never be PM. Instead they'll expect 4-5 years of PP and somewhere in the middle another leadership campaign that they'll then try to win.
I do think Freeland is too tainted by Trudeau now to be a success. Very intelligent woman, but I think her political career is ending. (I should check back on this comment in 5 years)
I agree she's tainted which makes her a bad choice to be his successor. But people have short memories and I think in 3-4 years the Trudeau stains will have washed off. In that time she'll have a chance to make a name for herself.
I think if she wanted she could very well be a contender in the next election cycle.
Canada is updating their model to be the worst of PM2.5 and their traditional models of common pollutants.
Part of the issue is the existing model does an average over 3 hours, where PM2.5 can change rapidly (fire, traffic surge, &c). So they have a second metric that is averaged over an hour.
When the arabs colonized the levant? or the many massacres of native jews? The wars of aggression by arabs? This conflict is awfully messy and each side has a laundry list of legitimate grievances.
Not really. It’s absurd to draw the line into ancient history of Arab’s colonizing the Levant. Early 1900s to 1948 are more reasonable given that people actually exist that lived in this time or at least meaningful records of history.
The fact is the British/UN gave a bunch of land to people that wasn’t really theirs to give. Nakba happened (which is illegal to even talk about in Israel) which was already a mass genocide/forced displacement). People alive today saw this happen. Watch the documentary Tantura to see some of the horrors by early Israelis (rapes, torture, killing people and feeding them their own genitals).
The point is: throughout most of modern history “Israel” has been invading Palestine. The fact that the UN recognized Israel in 1949 doesn’t matter… because that recognition required mass displacement and horrors to actually materialize.
Arab wars etc are a consequence of this. Sure maybe Israel won some of those. But one has to accept that the very conceptualization of Israel is rooted in genocide and displacement from the start. Many (or maybe most) states throughout history were formed this way I guess … Israel had the bad luck of doing it during a time that the human rights and morality of modernity was beginning to fully form.
You're correct it was not genocide.
The other side carried out quite a few massacres of its own and tried to displace the Jews (or worse) - so it was pretty much just a war.
The Nakba is ongoing, and fulfills the definitions (a)-(d) in Article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention to the letter.
You can call it a "small" genocide if you want. But you won't get anywhere denying either the facts of what has been happening to the Palestinians, or their relation to genocidal acts as defined above.
Indeed! For instance, Kuwait Nabka'd about 400,000 Palestinians in the wake of the Gulf War. And Syria just Nakba'd another 300,000, with barrel bombs dropped from helicopters.
I’ve seen you use the word Nakba alot when describing events other then the Nakba. For example a counter-Nakba to describe the Jewish exodus from Middle Eastern and North African countries which followed Israel’s unilateral deceleration of independence.
I don’t think this is fair, nor helpful. It is kind of like saying that the ongoing Gaza Genocide is another Holocaust. The Nakba is a unique historic event, by calling other historic events the same name it kind of reduces the effectiveness of giving names to events, and what made them unique enough to be named in the first place.
The Palestinian exodus from Kuwait for example was nothing like the actual Nakba. To begin with the victims were already refugees, so they had a place that they could flee to. Second the exile orders were a limited time (I think a week), as opposed to permanent in the case of the actual Nakba. The exile orders were not enforced with terrorism and military occupation.
While the exodus from Kuwait was a terrible human rights violation, it is actually much more like ongoing refugee evacuations from Europe and North America than the actual Nakba. Calling it a Nakba is either denying the horrors of the the Nakba, or exaggerating the Palestinian exodus from Kuwait.
I respectfully disagree with you about this, and don't see the distinction you're trying to make. I am, in particular, responding to a comment --- from a commenter you agree with generally --- who himself referred to the Nakba as ongoing.
Since this is just a rhetorical point, I don't think it's much worth arguing. I could come back at you with the Holocaust comparison, but what do we get out of that?
So, I'm going to continue using the wording I'm using, but with respect to your objection: heard.
When I hear people describing the Nakba as ongoing, I generally take that as to mean that the practices and policies of the Nakba have never been reversed, that the expulsion orders are still in effect, the refugees are still as such, partitions, occupation, and land grabs are still ongoing and expanding, the right of return has never been granted.
I think this is valid because the same government entity keeps these practices and policies onto the same victims. There is also a distinction to be made on the original event which we call The Nakba and the ongoing policies which followed. It is kind of like saying that the Korean War never ended. We have this original event, and then we have the aftermath which is still unresolved (not making a comparison though granting the right of return to displaced Palestinian is a million times less complicated than the Korean reunification).
I also hear people talking about the Gaza Genocide as a second Nakba. I also think this is valid (although The Gaza Genocide is a descriptive enough name IMO) since it mirrors the original event in scope and horrors, in policies. This would be akin to calling a second world war following The Great War World War II.
The Palestinian exodus from Kuwait, or the Syrian reign of terror against Palestinians are, however, not a direct followup or a continuation by the same entity of the same practices and policies of the original Nakba.
At most I can understand the use of the word Counter-Nakba as the Jewish hostile policies of e.g. Iraq were a direct response to the original Nakba. However the scale and horrors of that policy were nowhere near that of the original Nakba (even though the scale of the results [somewhat] did). And the practices and policies of Muslim majority countries did not mirror those of Israel during the Nakba, quite the contrary.
But we have to keep in mind that none of those people would be forced to live in such inhospitable places were it not for the bold, decisive actions of that man who got an airport named after him.
... or, as we've talked about before, the bold, decisive actions of people throughout every MENA country who expelled their own Jewish populations in the wake of the 1948 war --- those specific people are the core of the right wing in Israel.
Hate to point this out -- but this really is just whataboutism, here.
The MENA expulsions (which we have already acknowledged) didn't have anything to do either with Nakba '48 or the expulsions of Palestinians in other countries in subsequent years. Let alone with the topic of subthread we've all jumped in at here. (Which started with the Nakba after all; I didn't introduce it to make some broader moral point).
I thought about what you said. I don't think this is whataboutism. The people most responsible for the policies you most disapprove of in Israel are precisely the people who were victims of reprisal pogroms and ethnic cleansings in other countries.
I don't think my thesis is "Israel is right". My awareness of Israel started with them killing that activist with a bulldozer, and didn't go better places from there. I'm guessing we 80% agree about Israel.
I think my thesis is "no simple argument about Israel or Palestine will ever be true". Which is, to me, kind of fascinating, if you can get past the horror, which I understand people (on both sides) not being able to do. Also: I sound like a Bond villain right now.
The people most responsible for the policies you most disapprove of in Israel are precisely the people who were victims of reprisal pogroms and ethnic cleansings in other countries.
So ... if Palestinians are still going through what they're going today, at home or abroad, it's ultimately (or to large extent) a delayed result of the MENA expulsions, and the slight electoral tilt among the descendants of those affected (we're talking 2 full generations later, heading up on a 3rd by now) within Israeli electoral politics?
That is to say, ultimately an outgrowth of -- external antisemitism?
“We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly”
Right. I can find a collection of quotes by current and previous Palestinian leaders that make them appear to be a bunch of genocidal, religious fanatics and holocaust deniers. But I'm not gonna do that because the day is short and I'm not sure what its going to achieve.
So is it mutual acts of genocide between Palestinians/Arabs and Israelis?
Oh, absolutely. If the Nakba falls under the modern definition of genocide (as per the Convention), then the MENA expulsions and of course the Oct 7 pogrom do as well, in my view.
My intent is not to isolate blame on one side for this mess (which I see as ultimately symbiotic, the result of provocations by both sides). But to identify the common fabric between these events -- in the hopes of finding some way to stop if from continuing perpetually, ever forward.
Are Jews living through an ongoing holocaust now? Perhaps, since the term genocide lost all meaning why not.
Neither side is going through a true Holocaust in the sense of what happened to the European Jews (and certain other groups at the time), of course. We are very far from that, and I see your point here about a possible dilution of the term, and of the (nearly but not entirely unique) trauma and anguish related to those events (which I spent a certain phase of my life obsessively studying, BTW).
Again the overall intent is to identify sources of harm done to people, at scale and on the basis of group identity -- intended to diminish their numbers, destroy their spirit, and threaten their long-term survival as a people.
The word "genocide" (and many other terms) means very little nowadays. Well you can tell at least the parent isn't trying to be neutral in providing history there.
> 4. Referring to the Israeli Independence Day or the founding day of the country as a day of mourning.
So you are not allowed to call it the Nakba, or describe it as anything but something to celebrate as long as you receive funding from the government.
I don’t know how the media, libraries, schools or other institutions work in Israel, but in Iceland this would pretty much amount to a ban, as almost all media, and institutions receive at least some funding from the government, and the most important ones actually depend on it.
I also find it curious how this flies in Israel’s participation in Eurovision. Russia was banned for using state media to spread misinformation. Meanwhile Israel has laws which bans their state media from recognizing previous state atrocities, and is not banned.
The speed of light, or C, is the max speed information can move through our 3d space.
Having objects moving away from us at a speed greater than C, isn't weird. The observable universe is a 3d subspace of a higher dimensional object. A good analogy is a balloon, where there's a 2d subspace on a 3d object that's being inflated. Even if you can only move at a certain velocity, the balloon can inflate such that the 2d surface expands faster than the max velocity we prescribe for it, and would grow faster at the beginning even if we pumped a constant amount of air into said balloon.
Great analogy for gravity too! because you could create dimples in the balloon (gravity wells) which would curve a straight trajectory, while being unnoticed to an observer on the 2d subspace.
I've wondered: Do we know that the balloon has always been inflating at the same rate? Do we know if the dimples on the balloon expand as fast as the rest of it? Do the areas around the dimples expand faster?
I'll get to your questions below. If you want any of the preliminaries or the non-tl;dr answers explained a bit more simply, say so in a reply and I'll do my best in response.
Your questions (if you pardon the expression) poke holes in the balloon analogy. The latex or other stretchy balloon material is denser and under less tension around dimples. Local experiments by a (spatially) 2d observer could determine these features experimentally, and is likely to determine that there is a shear force that is not confined to its 2d "world". The 2d observer could in principle also do geometry and discover the amount of large-scale positive spatial curvature of its "world"; when we do that at cosmological scales we find flat or even slightly negative spatial curvature. The 2d observer could also discover the gravitation of our world: put a drop of water somewhere on the surface of an inflated ballon, and that drop will tend to roll downwards. We haven't found anything like that.
Humanity has looked for forces that give even the slightest evidence in favour of extra spatial dimensions, but there is no experimental evidence that favours having more than our familiar three. We've also looked at many many ways in which space could be some sort of medium comparable to the balloon latex, and practically none of them has survived contact with experiment (and those that survive are mostly hard to analogize with stretchy latex, even when entropic forces -- those are why you can scrunch or inflate a balloon and when you release the scrunching-pressure or internal air pressure the balloon relaxes to pretty much its original shape -- are relevant gravitationally).
> Do we know if dimples on the balloon expand as fast as the rest of it
tl;dr: yes: the material of galaxy clusters collapses gravitationally; galaxy clusters expand away from each other.
The scale of cosmology is such that galaxies are considered so small that you can treat the entire collection as a set of fluids or a dust that dilutes with the expansion of the universe. The part of any given galaxy that's mostly protons is a mere "dust mote" that floats in free-fall. And the entire dust expands, we don't capture local gravitational collapse.
However, physical cosmologists can also take gravitational collapse into account, for instance to study structure formation ("why are there filaments of galaxies"?). Typically we would take the cosmological expanding spacetime and embed within it "vacuoles" which are collapsing spacetimes, i.e., where the dusts tend to concentrate to a single point over cosmological times. These would typically represent a galaxy cluster. We have some mathematical techniques to figure out what happens at a "junction" between the collapsing spacetime and the expanding spacetime, and the junction is usually at the point where the influence of the collapsing mass is very small. This approach accords well with a lot of observations of how radiation leaves galaxy clusters, and how matter might fall into galaxy clusters from "the great beyond" represented by the expanding matter fluids.
It also lets us use much more complicated models of matter ("enriched chemistry" is the jargon) within the vacuole while ignoring it in the mostly-diffuse-hydrogen extragalactic space, which is useful for figuring out how galaxies assemble and how their first stars ignite.
> Do we know if the dimples on the ballon expand as fast as the rest of it?
> Do the areas around the dimples expand faster?
tl;dr: (1) yes, we know, and are improving accuracy and precision (2) space expands between clusters of galaxies, and matter out there dilutes away; matter within clusters of galaxies tends to concentrate into stars, black holes, and the like, so the behaviour is really opposite.
The "areas around the dimples" are analogous to the expanding cosmological spacetime. The dimples themselves are analogous to a gravitationally bound galaxy cluster, best represented with a collapsing spacetime. So, it's practically a question of the sign of the expansion changing near galaxy clusters, rather than the magnitude.
> Do we know that the balloon has always been inflating at the same rate?
We know it hasn't been.
The universe's expansion history isn't uniform. For illustrative purposes there are two interesting "eras", while I'll take in reverse:
The dark matter dominated area, which we are in, has an relatively quick expansion rate, which appears to be getting quicker. This is captured for most practical purposes by the cosmological constant, although we're looking for more complicated representations of the increase of the rate of expansion during this era.
The matter dominated era, which ended about 4 billion years ago, had a relatively slower expansion because the universe's matter was dense enough to overwhelm the acceleration of the expansion.
The ESA article linked at the top is essentially about improving our understanding of the expansion of the universe in these two eras.
The Cosmic Microwave Background formed fairly early in the matter dominated era, then there's a gap of a few hundred million years before we get stars and galaxies. That gap is the "dark ages". We have very little data about the expansion history during the "dark ages", but good data from after them and good data from before them. The early and late data imply slightly different things about the expansion history of the universe, and that presents everyone with an interesting puzzle with lots of ways it might be solved.
One possible solution was, "The Hubble space telescope (HST) data was wrong or misleading because of the instrument's history or what part of the spectrum it looks at". That solution (like similar ones) now seems much less likely since the JWST (newer, not known to have ever broken down or been in need of repairs, sensitive to longer wavelengths than HST, and farther away from Earth) data supports the HST results.
I am not a physicist or cosmologist so i won't pretend to understand all of your answers but this has given me a great starting point to learn more and i greatly appreciate you taking the time to write it. I had a pretty theory that we were seeing galaxies accelerate away from each other due to the rate of expansion being greater outside of gravity wells. I will reread your answer a couple of times until i get off there is any support for it but my initial reading suggests it's up there with light needing a medium to travel.
Police incompetence has a way of being disproportionately common depending on your race. Knowing definitively that is what is happening here without a lot more context is difficult, but it's entirely possible this is textbook racism.
But as you say, based in the information provided that conclusion is speculative at best. The sensible conclusion based on the information provided is incompetence. I think hanlons razor is applicable here
Yes, I do not think one can draw conclusions. However, much as one might wish to apply Hanlon's razor, Occam's razor also applies, and from a lot of people's perspective it cuts towards racism.
But surely the fewest assumptions here points to incompetence? Or more kindly a lack of knowledge about the way the fraud was commited? Based on the information provided I'd side with belligerent incompetence.
Based on the information would you conclude it was racist if the accused person was white? Would you conclude it was racist if the cop was also a first nation/aboriginal? I doubt it. What would your conclusion be then?
A little bit of column A, and a little bit of column B. Remote postings don't get star officers. And the RCMP has a famously ugly history with the natives of Western Canada. And some officers at a remote detachment might feel freer to act against some than others. What do you think the RCMP was even for?
What parts in those columns (I'm on mobile and only have one column, do you mean paragraphs?) show this was racist? I fully accept historical injustices occurred, and the possibility that remote places might not attract "star" officers and maybe that some remote officers could feel that a remote posting is an opportunity to enact their racist desires. But even if these are true it doesn't make this interaction racist.
> What do you think the RCMP was even for?
To police their communities? Or, based on your preceeding sentences are you suggesting that the RCMP's purpose is racism?
At the time, there was no significant population of settlers in the area. Most people were either fully or at least partly Indigenous like the Metis.
The goal was to protect First Nations from American settlers and prevent violence between the two which would trigger US military intervention.
This occurred in the wake of the Cypress Hills Massacre:
> The Cypress Hills Massacre occurred on June 1, 1873 [...]. It involved a group of American [...] hunters, and a camp of Assiniboine people. [...] The Cypress Hills Massacre prompted the Canadian government to accelerate the recruitment and deployment of the newly formed North-West Mounted Police.
> [Canadian Prime Minister John A.] MacDonald's principal fear was that the activities of American traders such as the Cypress Hills Massacre would lead to the First Nations peoples killing the American traders, which would lead to the United States military being deployed into the NWT to protect the lives of American citizens on the grounds that Canada was unable to maintain law and order in the region.
> The creation of the police force also had a political motive. The investigation into the massacre was to ensure that First Nations in the area were able to trust the Canadian government. The investigation would require international cooperation of two federal governments, and the North-West Mounted Police would take measures to make examples out of international criminals. Although ultimately no prosecution took place, the willingness to seek justice for any Canadian contributed to the establishment of peace between the NWMP and First Nations.[9]
Establishing trust and security with the First Nations was a key motivation:
> The creation of the police force also had a political motive. The investigation into the massacre was to ensure that First Nations in the area were able to trust the Canadian government. The investigation would require international cooperation of two federal governments, and the North-West Mounted Police would take measures to make examples out of international criminals. Although ultimately no prosecution took place, the willingness to seek justice for any Canadian contributed to the establishment of peace between the NWMP and First Nations.
The North-West Mounted Police was established in 1873 by the government of John A. MacDonald. The Cypress Hills massacre as well as the increasing number of conflicts on the U.S border due to alcohol smuggling are often cited as the main reasons the MacDonald government passed the bill creating the new military-style police force. However, most historians agree that the primary reason for establishing the force was to control First Nations and Métis populations, as the government sought to populate the West with settlers. Under the central authority of Ottawa, the NWMP marched West in 1874. The NWMP served as an arm of colonial control for politicians and lawmakers in Ottawa. For Indigenous communities in the Northwest, it represented an additional source of repression. The newly formed para-military style force was entrusted with wide-ranging powers and duties. Officers acted as Justices of the Peace, able to apprehend and sentence offenders, as well as impose Indian Act polices such as the Pass System. Since western courthouses did not exist at the time on the Prairies, NWMP barracks were often used for court proceedings and as temporary prisons. The NWMP assisted Indian Agents with the ration system, as well as enforcing laws obliging Indigenous students to attend residential schools. Government policies such as the Residential School system, the Sixties Scoop and gender discrimination in the Indian Act subjected Indigenous families to violence, cultural dislocation and land dispossession. The NWMP was successful in instituting a system of surveillance and curtailment, restricting Indigenous people to their reserves, regulating their land use and criminalizing livestock theft to benefit settler farmers and ranchers.
> But surely the fewest assumptions here points to incompetence?
Don't call me Shirley. ;-)
As I said, that's very much a matter of perspective about which is more prevalent or more likely to be prevalent in the RCMP: incompetence or racism. If you include the context of the RCMP's history, racism does indeed seem more prevalent.
> Based on the information would you conclude it was racist if the accused person was white? Would you conclude it was racist if the cop was also a first nation/aboriginal? I doubt it. What would your conclusion be then?
I said I don't think one can draw a conclusion from the information provided, so I'm not sure why you are asking these questions. No, nothing you said would lead me to draw a conclusion.
Halon's razor applies to the totality of the evidence, not just instance by instance. If you have a pattern of "incompetence" when dealing with First Nations issues that doesn't arise when not, that's really no longer adequately explained by incompetence.
Hanlon's razor is "never attribute to malice that which could be attributed to stupidity". However racism itself might be stupidity and not malice - much of everyday racism isn't the malicious KKK kind, it's much more similar to stupidity.
Sigh. No, it doesn't mean that both sides of Hanlon's razor equal racism. It does mean that Hanlon's razor doesn't rule out racism. Hanlon's razor isn't about proof. It's about recognizing that one often projects intent onto circumstances where none exists. While racism can fuel malice, it is entirely possible for racism to exist without any malice.
We'll have to agree to disagree on your first point. Though...
> Hanlon's razor isn't about proof. It's about recognizing that one often projects intent onto circumstances where none exists.
Exactly. That is my point. I'm not denying that racism can exist with or without malice, though I'd argue intent has to play a part. My point is based on the information from the article you cannot determine the interaction was racist and calling it so is projecting an intention on it that you cannot say exists.
I don't think incompetence is something that can be deployed evenly or not. The article provides no information that I can see that makes it a racist cop targeting a minority. Or is it racist for any first nation/aboriginal person to be subject to a police investigation?
So theoretically the police chief is racistly deploying non-racist but known incompetent officers in the hopes their incompetence is going to adversely affect those specific regions or cases. That's leaving an awful lot to chance. I can think of more efficient and surefire ways to ensure those areas/cases are racially targeted, you could take Baltimore city as an example. But we're surely getting beyond any reasonable speculation of the information provided in the article?
I think they are saying not that it is some grand plan by racism at the highest level, but that it is people at the higher levels not caring about certain people and the justice they get.
People hear 'racism' and they think of that speech in the 60s 'segregation now, segregation forever' and firehoses, but it can be much more insidious than someone hating a subsection of people. It can be systemic in the sense that some people are not afforded the things most of us take for granted, like the protection of law, or due process of law, or innocence until guilt is proven, because there j isn't a will do it at the levels that matter.
Fictional example: a cop is a problem, he tends to be heavily aggressive in his actions but he is also stupid and unlikeable. People he works with complain and he pissed off some people in the district. District administrator decide it is easier to transfer him to bumfuck, where if there are any complaints they can ignore them because they have no political power or pull, rather than let him mess with people who have the ability to get the media or politicians involved.
This isn't even a conscious decision -- people in bumfuck don't complain because they are used to shitty treatment and no recourse, so they don't bother, whereas people like you or I would treat it as a travesty and get worked up and make a huge stink. The fact that it works like this makes it easy and the admin doesn't have to worry about it any more. Wash hands, done deal.
I can fully appreciate what you are saying. I'm not denying racism, (structural, systemic, or otherwise, conscious, unconscious) exists. Or that you fictional example might play out in reality. What I'm saying is that we can speculate until we are blue in the face, but based on the information in that article you can't simply conclude racism.
A good number of people here can read that article and incorporate a decade or more of past knowledge of reported interactions between the RCMP and indigenous communities in Canada.
Call it one part racism, three parts utter indifference, with an occasional dash of one or two exceptions actually giving a damn and attempting to do the right thing.
You're correct that no simple definite conclusion can be reached here on logic alone, however from context many can distinguish a hawk from a heronsaw given a favourable wind.
I think you have a good point. There are definitely historical wrongs that may influence someone's reading of a situation. Unconscious bias is a thing that we should all try and avoid, hard as is may be.
I get it, but your response regarding incompetence being weaponized to me demonstrated a reductive and unsophisticated understanding of the causes and effects in 'racism'[1]. I get that you were most likely being hyperbolic to make a point, but unfortunately many people who are not personally familiar with such things tend to think in that way.
I know that this is frustrating and sometimes can look very much like opportunistic virtue signaling, and many times it can be, but I would caution against immediately dismissing such claims when they are made and defended by parties that otherwise would not have reason to do so.
[1] I wish we had a different word that didn't have all the loaded connotations inherent in 'racism' especially with its use in the past as a excuse for slavery, but we don't...
I don't think I advocated anywhere about "weaponizied" incompetence. I believe I was arguing that weaponizied incompetence is far fetched. My whole point engaging here with the many people I have has been to bring it back to what we know from the information we have. I'm more than willing to accept racism is the primary factor if racism was at all obvious from the article or even further information provided. The initial post I was replying to was a blanket statement that the accused person was first nation/aboriginal so the incident was racist. What has followed is ever more far fetched reasons for why it might be racist but no information to say it is so.
I was enjoying reading what you'd previously written but changed, about domain knowledge and how domain experts can guess based on the outcome what was likely going on inside the system (EDIT: paraphrasing from memory, so I hope I got it right). I'd never thought about it like that before, very interesting perspective. But even then you'd have to be careful to make bloody sure your assumption, experience based though it is, was actually factually correct before tarring someone with racism.
I hope my interactions here don't coming off as me dismissing people concerns/claims. I'm simply trying to take an objective view of the situation as presented. I'm aware that some people consider objectivity a problem in and of itself.
Sorry for my edit but I didn't want to get into a conversation about something I am not actually comfortable trying to be an authority about. I realized I was reaching past what would be reasonable for me to represent in a substantive way.
I hope you understand my hesitancy in such a public medium, and I appreciate your feedback.
Definitely no need to apologise at all I can fully understand. I have edited my own responses in this conversation, given the topic, so as to show (I hope) I am being reasonable and open minded. I am myself no expert in these topics and can see that it's divisive enough for the reply button to be delayed in appearing on posts (I'm assuming for moderation purposes, though this might be something that always happens but I've never noticed before).
Either way I've enjoyed this discussion and have learned from it. I wish you all the best.
Im possibly as far removed a personality type as you could find from your typical woke crowd of fanatics who see racism behind every shadow, but truly, you'd have to be blind to miss the RCMP's seemingly endemic indifference to seriously investigating crimes in the native canadian community. Even right up until the present day, the RCMP has shown a glaring, almost shocking level of seemingly willfull ineptitude when their investigative resources are applied to any major sequence of crimes involving ntive canadians (what in canada are often called aboriginals). The list of persistent RCMP fuckups is long and storied, but just for one crucial example, I suggest your read about the "highway of tears".
The average person isn't aware of how endemic racism and abuse of indigenous people by the police and government is in the US and Canada.
It's obviously not certain that racism was a factor in this case, but the assumption is anything but ridiculous or unhinged. If you aren't white, malice always has to be a factor to consider in any interaction with the American or Canadian government.
Stated that bluntly, yeah. But not outlandish one you add some Canadian context.
The RCMP is a national service, and the kinds of officers posted to a remote reserve like Duncan's First Nation might not be the best of the best. They are paying their dues in a para-military organization, with no union (unlike most cops). They are over-scheduled, and likely far from their homes. An adversarial relationship between the members of an RCMP detachment and local band is sadly common.
I don't think this is true any more. From what I've read, weak primes are rare enough at current RSA sizes that software generally doesn't check for them.
They should bar Fox News from using the "entertainment" loophole, and apply news regulations to them.
"News regulations" should include all the stuff the comment you replied to listed, for everyone (as they used to, at least in the US). Ideally, they'd also include a few more good ideas the US used to enforce: Limits on market share, and bans against foreign ownership.
Steam is also a monopoly but it doesn't abuse it's monopoly. E.g. impose terms like games can't release on other stores for a lower price &c.
Nothing stopping a competitor from coming in with a superior game store.
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