You can either support the status quo or you can support change. You seem to have chosen the third option, blanket cynicism, which is more like opting out. Yes, there are bad examples of every-single-thing in the world, and you can choose to cling to those bad examples and throw your hands in the air instead of engaging more critically and looking for ways to build instead of mock. The cynic's path accomplishes nothing and, frankly, poisons the world for those who give a fuck.
The Trump presidency, and his absurd trade wars, are deeply unpopular in the US. I'd be shocked if most Canadians don't understand this fully and see Trumpism for the personality-driven anomaly that it is.
It isn't an anomaly. He was elected twice. He has done real damage. Hell, 1/3 of Americans don't even vote. Whether or not most Americans feel bad about it doesn't matter. Actual damage is being done.
Tariffs may be more politically feasible moving forward, but not these extreme tariffs and sudden trade wars that are driven by Trump's temper tantrums and benefit no one.
Pollsters estimate that Republicans still have >30% chance of retaining the Senate majority. (Better than what pollsters gave Trump before he won in 2016.)
This isn't a deeply unpopular anomaly. This is a significant chunk of America, and they may easily regain the majority if the economy improves in a few years (or if it worsens further under a Democratic president).
I agree. I would also say America is the way it's always been. With good and bad. America is not homogeneous. It is not simple. It is complex. It has and have always had, Neo-Nazis, and human rights champions. Poverty and wealth. Amazing educational institutes, and schools where kids stab each other. Conspiracy theorists, and smart reasonable people.
Reducing America to one simple statement is not possible.
The democrats have shown little desire or ability to reverse GOP foreign policy once they get into power. They normalize those policies and keep the seat warm for the next mad man.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me".
American re-elected him, despite the cronyism, jan 6, mental decline, etc. Combined with the democrats are so self defeating and they also repeatedly poked at trade issues (the loooooong running softwood lumber disputes, Keystone XL, "buy American" provisions that ignored NAFTA/USMCA for projects that were going ahead w/o the provisions, etc).
We know what populism is (we've experienced and are experiencing it ourselves) and know that it is usually fleeting, but we don't trust another "smarter" nativist president to come along and screw us again.
Also, there's an internal game going on here. Canada has (institutionally) took the "easy" way out of controversial projects, often due to our proximity to the US. This has meant that when some projects run into a greater than normal amount of political resistance (eg environmental fights against pipelines or LNG terminals), the default has usually been to back off. But Trump has in a way given cover to actually move forward.
I don't expect the next president to "cave" so easily. Even before he was sworn in, republicans had their messaging in full swing against Obama about the deficit. I fully expect the same thing to hammer the next president on trade if they're a democrat.
"most Canadians" as a demographic is unable to grasp complexity. They are being rallied to the flag and they rally. Like everyone else these days they all have their echo chambers. It's an easy sell. This is just human nature.
Current day politics are about polarization. More so than ever. There is no room for nuance. This is what worked for Trump and this is what worked for Carney and the Liberals in Canada. The Liberals didn't win on some brilliant policies they simply won on anti-American feelings.
This is not a statement on who is right or wrong. There are certainly many aspects of Trump's behaviour here that most would say are wrong. The problem is when we lose nuance and debate we can't make progress. But a leader in today's world that introduces nuance loses to the leader that polarizes. Dragging us all down.
The difference between gambling and any other compulsion or addiction is that only gambling can leave you broke and destitute in a single day, without regard for starting wealth. Maybe findom, but going completely broke is generally not the purpose.
The difference between drugs and other addictions is that (certain) drugs greatly increase the risk of death.
So I say let's divide it in two - addictions that can kill you or leave you in financial ruin in a single evening, and those that cannot.
f2p games and tv shopping network addictions absolutely leave a significant number of people destitute.
There are many other hobbies/forms of entertainment that can easily consume significant resources and leave some % of their userbase in serious financial trouble/ruin their lives.
Also you seem to want to define whether a hobby/form of entertainment is moral or immoral based on how expensive it is. So if a slot machine had a lower max bet it would become moral?
F2P games can absolutely be made to exploit the same mechanics as real gambling, and are often designed to do so. But no matter what they do, they're just not as potent as real money gambling. The pull isn't the same when it's not done with real cash, they tend to be less ruthless and it seems that a smaller proportion of people is potentially susceptible to F2P addiction compared to real gambling. For the right people, they can be very wallet-draining but it doesn't seem many go into homelessness like with gambling.
What's a "TV shopping network addiction"? I tried searching it, and I can only find isolated news articles from 5-15 years ago that report on it purely because of how unusual this is. Going to file this under 'people can get behaviorally addicted to anything', what a strange example. Do you even know anyone who has bought anything from a TV shopping network, let alone a 'significant number' that are left destitute?
The reason why people disagree with you is because the hair-splitting between different types of addictions seems very pedantic. Clearly people think that gambling addiction is not even on the same scale of addiction than the other examples. If F2P games are cocaine, then gambling is heroin. There is a reason why gambling is taking over Western economies so rapidly, but not any of those other things - it's just too good at exploiting people's brains. So when gambling addiction is so potent that it goes off the chart compared to any of the dozens of other things that can be psychologically addictive, people aren't particularly interested in finding the exact point where it's too much for society to bear - they just know that gambling is far beyond that point.
I'm not splitting hairs. It seems like we are just talking about outlawing things if we decide too large a % of the population engages with something in a problematic way.
This is certainly pragmatic, but not a framework based on morality or freedom. We're just being a nanny state forbidding the vast majority of people from doing something because a small minority of people don't have self control.
Maybe that sounds harsh, but it is accurate.
I'd prefer people were honest about it instead of trying to wrap it in the clothing of morality, when it has nothing to do with any kind of morality that makes sense.
Big Tech has accumulated too many grievances across too many segments of society and made too much money in the process, so let's not act surprised at a backlash. And data centers are remarkably well-suited as a focal point for people to express those accumulated grievances. So I wouldn't look too hard at all the many and varied reasons that data centers are being opposed, but instead at the quickness and ferocity and consistency with which they are being opposed. It reminds of the movement in the US and Canada in the 90's to oppose unfettered globalization - though this already feels larger and more widespread (and less late to the party).
