• 2 Posts
  • 19 Comments
Joined 22 days ago
Cake day: April 13th, 2025
  • considerealization@lemmy.catoCanadaPolitics@lemmy.ca•Trump ‘delighted’ by his influence on Canada’s election: U.S. journalist
    7·
    1 day ago

    (Sorry, I got carried away trying to process my thinking here, and this is longer than I meant…)

    Base narcissism may be the entire explanation here, but I think we should also be considering other possibilities. They are playing raw power politics, unanchored from norms and laws, and they have a long-term strategic vision: they know exactly what they are planning to do over the next 10 years and it is the culmination of plans that have been in motion for at least the last 50+ years. Obviously it includes extending the American empire.

    Trumpism has so far been based on driving division and then weaponizing resentment and propaganda to mobilize, pacify, or mislead their side of the divide. But they also feed off the outrage of the opposing side: Trumpism wins by replacing rational discourse and fact-based consideration with partisan outrage and impulsive agitation.

    The fact that Trump has been able to drive our country to increasing its own internal discord – bi-polarizing the electorate, sapping the left, stirring up fringe actors to trumpet factious images and rhetoric, while we have allowed our information systems to be overrun by deliberately manipulative propaganda campaigns from domestic and foreign reactionaries – All of this shows that the tactics of Trumpism work here. His reach can determine outcomes. This current election we were able so squeeze out a slim majorty win rejecting Trumpism. But it was indeed Trumpism on the ballot and there is ~2% difference in the popular vote! The fact that they were able to make the election about their divisive program, and then nearly win, seems worth celebrating in the context of a multi-decade program.

    Now, that doesn’t explain why they would celebrate this particular outcome. But, had PP won now, it would be very awkward to move towards annexation, since it is wildly unpopular, and it would make no sense from the US side for the Trump admin to be demonizing a leadership and party who was obviously aligned with their values. Moves to that affect, and the reality that conservatives tend to make life worse for most people, would mean a likely backlash against the Cons in the next election.

    However, with Carney and the liberals leading (by the slimmest coalition), Trumpism will be able to:

    • Develop a deepening sense of grievance and outrage against liberal, “woke”, “socialist”, “left” within the large, benighted swath of our domestic population.
    • Move more aggressively to increase animosity towards Canada in their base in the US (it will take years to get to the levels they will need to mobilize for more aggressive annexation attempts. But it is coming along pretty quickly: ).
    • Every hardship that they force upon thru their economic warfare they will blame on Carney on the Liberals, and the Cons will join in this Charade.

    So, in short, I am worried that his satisfaction here is fully justified, based on their strategy.

    I am not saying it would have been better for us in any way had the Cons won, tho. What I am saying is that this may be a move both sides needed for their best strategy, and I just hope we can fix some of the systemic dynamics that they are counting on driving our system into their hands.

  • considerealization@lemmy.catoProgramming Languages@programming.dev•Unified Condition Expressions
    1·
    5 days ago

    Isn’t match already such a unified expression? Especially once you extend matches with guards, it seems to me like this is a solved problem. E.g.,

    if x == 1.0 then "a" else "x"

    is

    match x with | 1.0 -> "a" | _ -> "b"

    and

    if x ==
  1.0 then "a"
  2.0 then "b"
      else "z"

    is (and IMO reads much clearer this way):

    match x with
| 1.0 -> "a"
| 2.0 -> "b"
| _ -> "z"

    and

    if xs
  .isEmpty then "e"
  .contains(0,0) then "n"
  else "z"

    is

    match () with
| _ when x.isEmpty -> "e"
| _ when x.contains(0,0) then "n"
| _ -> "z"

    and

    if person
  .age < 18                 then 18
  is Person("Alice", _)     then person.age
  is Person("Bob", let age) then age
                            else -1

    is

    match person with
| _ when person.age < 10 -> 18
| Person("Alice", _) -> person.age
| Person("bob", age) -> age
| _ -> -1

    .

    Finally,

    if person is Person("Alice", let age) then age else -1

    Would be the simple

    match person with
| Person("Alice", age) -> age
| _ -> -1

    Seems to me this reads more clear in general and has less magic. Plus, it’s already implemented in a bunch of languages.

  • considerealization@lemmy.catoCanada@lemmy.ca•Mark Carney makes final pitch to voters: ‘Is Pierre Poilievre the person you want sitting across the table from Donald Trump?’
    18·
    9 days ago

    Uh… do you know what contribution he made to 2008? Or are you just free associating “banks” and “2008”?

    Carney’s actions as Governor of the Bank of Canada are said to have played a major role in helping Canada avoid the worst impacts of the 2008 financial crisis.

    The epoch-making feature of Carney’s tenure as governor remains the decision to cut the overnight rate by 50 basis points in March 2008, one month after his appointment. While the European Central Bank delivered a rate increase in July 2008, Carney anticipated the leveraged-loan crisis would trigger global contagion. When policy rates in Canada hit the effective lower bound, the central bank combated the crisis with the non-standard monetary tool “conditional commitment” in April 2009 to hold the policy rate for at least one year, in a boost to domestic credit conditions and market confidence. Output and employment began to recover from mid-2009, in part thanks to monetary stimulus. The Canadian economy outperformed those of its G7 peers during the crisis, and Canada was the first G7 nation to have both its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment recover to pre-crisis levels.