I don't see how Canada can trust us again without a major cultural and legal shift in the US. The fact is that any president can, apparently, unilaterally shred international friendships, and 30%-40% of Americans will cheer it on.
I would love a return to normalcy, but Americans need to make sure, really sure this can't happen again.
The real problem is not just that, but that america chose to re-elect him. One time can be dismissed as a fluke or temporary situation. The reelection showed that this will be the status quo moving forward.
I'd agree in the context that this wasn't necessarily a case of driven by natural forces of the universe rather than some key events that could have been better addressed to hold them off. And the best way to do that is lots of sunshine and awareness.
IMHO politics is two distinct things: control of law and the circus of those who vie to take that power. Everybody focuses on the circus because that's where the media points to and is the most engaging.
But it's the former that actually matters, and it's boring, slow, and opaque, but literally a matter of life and death to every citizen of the union.
One final thought: the creation of literal Red vs Blue was a masterclass in division and distraction. It's crazy-making to watch it play out from the sidelines.
Things were still pretty normal for a long time after all that and pretty stable. No matter what side you were on, when your side lost at least the winner, at least for major offices, was competent.
Conservative commentator P.J. O'Rourke summed it up nicely in 2016 when as a panelist on NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" announced
> I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises. It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she's way behind in second place. She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters.
That's how it was up to 2016, long after those things you cite had been in effect. Even if you thought some candidate with a chance at winning national office was wrong on everything they were at least wrong within normal parameters.
Something happened between 2008 and 2016 that enabled the current situation.
Oh sure, I was less than happy to have her be my candidate. That said, she actually was one of the most qualified candidates considering her previous experience in the Whitehouse, Senate, and State Department. Add to that her training as a lawyer and the fact that she was likely the smarter one in the marriage.
For all of that, she did lack Bill's charisma.
Sure she was a finger in the air politician but there really was no contest as far as fitness for office. But then again, the typical American voter only cares about what's ostensibly immediately in it for them.
2016 was a populist referendum, and I still think Bernie could have won it (not that he's perfect either).
It's not just the president. Trump is at least the 3rd senile president we've had, (there were probably more). The difference is that Biden and Reagan generally appointed competent heads and advisors.
How is anybody on the sidelines with this? Every single person in the world is affected by it in some way, thanks to globalization. An Iran war wasn't inevitable. (Other than the uncontacted tribes, which are still affected by the effects of global warming.)
Yeah, as a Canadian I was willing to accept that 2016 was some sort of screw-up, but 2024 really sealed the deal. It told me that many Americans desired the constant chaos and classless antagonism.
> without a major cultural and legal shift in the US
The legal shift is the key part. We've now discovered that the US has a very well thought-out separation of powers on paper, but it only exists on paper. There is no enforcement mechanism if a president decides none of that applies to them and they can role-play dictator. That means every future president can also do the same. So there is no way to trust anything the US says or does.
Unless there is a major constitutional reform soon that assures in absolute terms that no future president can ever overstep their constitutional authority. This is the legal reform necessary for any other country to ever trust the US.
As a Canadian, I love the American people but I feel like making these changes is a matter of national security. It's not really about TRUMP or Democrats or Republicans, it's a bigger directional change in Canada.
I think this was a much needed wake up call, perhaps a way to shed our naivete.
For years we have coupled ourselves to United States without thinking twice and it turns out that this was not a good idea.
I think we are going to see a very different Canada in the next decade or so. We will always maintain trade with United States but operate under another foreign policy.
I still feel like Canada is vulnerable, hopefully our government accelerates securing the nation on all fronts: military, trade, cyber and borders.
I'm Canadian. (Full disclosure: an immigrant, like many others here)
Are 30%-40% of Americans really cheering for shredding of the friendship with Canada? Is that supported by some specific survey or are we just looking at approval ratings or some proxy?
Isn't this more or less normal for the USA in the broader perspective? Certainly had some very weird presidents in the past? We had things like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_movement
I feel like we're just not living in normal times. The lack of normalcy is social media, conspiracy theories, politics. This isn't simply a US-Canada relationship question and "return to normalcy" isn't really just about "how do we ensure a certain level of quality of leadership". I'm not even sure what's normal any more ;)
"Our latest survey finds that 41% of Canadians now consider the United States an enemy country, up 15 points from June 2025. At the same time, 64% say their impression of the United States would change if Donald Trump were no longer president."
I find this insane. Also the weighting towards 55+, male, Quebec, is interesting. It says something about how humans are easy to influence IMO. Not exactly a surprise I guess looking at humanity as a whole but something I would have hoped we had some immunity to in free western societies.
US foreign policy has been pretty consistent since the end of world war 2. Whatever you may think of what is going on, it is a significant departure from traditional us policy.
And if you go to the 18th century we were both owned by Britian. idk what the point is of going that far back. The point is that America was pursuing one policy for about 80 years and now is pursuing a different policy. As a result everyone is re-evaluating the relationship in light of this.
I fact checked with AI as one does these days and at least the AGI supports you with the first Trump admin being what it identifies as a real change in policy since WW-II:
"In 2018, the Trump administration used Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962—a rarely used Cold War-era law—to declare Canadian steel and aluminum a "national security threat" to the United States. These tariffs were not applied because Canadian steel companies were breaking dumping laws. They were deployed as broad, sweeping coercion to force Canada to the table to renegotiate the entire NAFTA agreement under threat of economic damage."
So yes. I agree there is an actual change vs. the post WW-II trajectory. At least in the public sphere. I don't know what used to happen behind closed doors. AI here says a lot of power struggles have happened (some specific examples but I'll spare you) but not in public. But argues that the shifting of those into the public sphere is a real change. And I agree with the AI overlords.
Most don’t see it as Trump’s fault. The trade agreement between the US and Canada allowed both sides to renegotiate the terms every six years. It also allowed both sides to withdraw if those negotiations failed. Trump simply took that option and proposed to renegotiate, which Canada rejected. So Trump took the obvious next step, exactly as anticipated by the treaty itself, and withdrew from it. Nobody should have been surprised by that.
Most Americans don’t have a problem with the content of Trump’s proposed treaty either. It would have lowered Canada’s tariffs on US dairy products down from 400% to whatever the US charges on Canadian dairy products. It would have allowed US banks to enter the Canadian market just as Canadian banks are allowed to operate in the US. Etc, etc.
Canada's effective tariff on dairy products is 0%. If your strongest complaint about the agreement is a tariff that has never been collected and has no prospects of ever being collected for the life of the agreement...
I wasn’t complaining about the agreement specifically, merely recounting what those who support Trump see.
That said, saying that the tariff is never collected is itself misleading. The importers know about the quota, and naturally they avoid going over it. It’s a restraint on trade either way and Trump proposed getting rid of it.
Quite frankly that’s even worse, if true. It looks the same to Americans who hear about it, and the Canadian government would have no reason to balk at a trade negotiation over it. They could let themselves be talked down to completely eliminating the tariffs without losing anything. The Canadian response looks more and more irrational the more I hear about the details.
The whole idea behind tariffs was to replace income taxes with them. The bonus was realizing that he could weaponize it.
Tariffs today have one real value only: protecting domestic industry. And to do that correctly, it needs to be thoughtful, consistent (legislated rather than by executive order), and coordinated with the industries they are designed to protect.
USMCA/CUSMA has an exit clause. Trump has not exercised that. The treaty is expected to be honoured by both sides during the reevaluation phase. Trump did not do that either. He simply violated the treaty.
As Carney has said, this President's signature is apparently in pencil. If you violate agreements you yourself signed, don't be surprised if people stop trusting you.
Finally, if the current trade deal was so awful... Trump negotiated that. One has to ask, what would it take for you to hold your glorious leader accountable for something he did?
The US hasn't withdrawn from CUSMA. On July 1st it declined to extend the agreement past 2036, which isn't the same thing. The deal stays in force until 2036 with annual reviews, and no withdrawal notice has been given.
It was also the US, not Canada, that declined to renew. Canada and Mexico both pushed for extension with the same administration that renegotiated NAFTA into CUSMA only a few years ago. So what changed exactly?
Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice. As I understand it the treaty doesn't set up "if negotiations fail, then withdraw" mechanism but IANAL.
The 400% dairy figure is incredbily inflated. The steep tariffs, roughly 200-300% depending on the product, apply only above quota, and in quota imports come into the states without duty. The US also runs its own dairy quotas, and it's incredibly disingenuous to portray Canada as the overbearing protectionist entity in a scenario where Americans twice elected a leader running on an overtly and relatively unprecedented (in modern times anyways) protectionist policy.
> The Canadian government made the soup themselves.
On this we are in full agreement. The integration of the Canadian economy into the American one has placed Canada in a precarious place and only further decoupling from America and seeking trading partners abroad will change that.
> The US hasn't withdrawn from CUSMA. On July 1st it declined to extend the agreement past 2036, which isn't the same thing. The deal stays in force until 2036 with annual reviews, and no withdrawal notice has been given.
> Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice.
These are good corrections; I was merely oversimplifying. The main point is that what Trump is doing is not some kind of horrible betrayal, he is simply using the terms of the treaty as written. The treaty explicitly specifies how and when either party can renegotiate, decline to renew, and withdraw. You could argue that the treaty ought to have been more permanent than that, but then your beef is not with Trump but with the Canadians who agreed to the treaty as written.
Sure - some of what you have said has merit, however Trump has also initiated trade wars with pretty much every other country at the same time. He took advantage of the allowance to renegotiate and then instead of just keeping it within NAFTA, has expanded to a global scale.
Come on this is not just about trade disputes, though that side of things is also deeply screwed up.
Maybe some Americans don't take all the "51st State" and annexation talk that's become a full-on party line seriously, but Canadians are perfectly in their rights and sense to take it seriously and literally.
I actually disagree with you there. Trump is an open book. Literally, he published a book called “The Art of the Deal” where he described exactly how he negotiates. Anyone who doesn’t know at least the outline of what’s in that book is working at an extreme disadvantage. Go check out a copy from your local library!
First, he decides what he wants. He does this in advance specifically so that he can avoid agreeing to any deal that gives him less. Then he asks for the moon, knowing that the other party won’t want to give it all up. Instead he wants them to negotiate him down. He will agree to almost any deal that gives him what he wants, but of course hopes that they’ll give him more than that.
So when Trump says that Canada should join the US he is asking for the moon. He knows that Canada would never actually agree to it. It’s not an unjustifiable position; he can offer arguments about why they should (it simplifies the defense of the continent, it eliminates the expense of maintaining the border, it eliminates the possibility of trade barriers between us, etc, etc), but he expects to be talked down from that position. Obviously Canada should at minimum demand to be brought in as multiple states rather than as one oversized one. Or Canada could just offer to lower tariffs instead. It’s up to them.
So Canadians who took these statements “seriously and literally” were in fact overreacting.
I think you're operating in enough bad faith that normally I wouldn't respond, but on behalf of my northern friends, I gotta say
> Obviously Canada should at minimum demand to be brought in as multiple states rather than as one oversized one. Or Canada could just offer to lower tariffs instead. It’s up to them.
This is quite something. Trump does not think in any kind of structured axiomatic way at all as of his decaying health in 2026, and the framework you've put this in is so far outside of any coherent diplomatic framework that it's outright an offense.
No, Canada should not be put in a position where they consider the choice of being multiple U.S. states! What is wrong with you!
> I think you're operating in enough bad faith that normally I wouldn't respond
No, I am being completely straight forward about Trump. Go read the book.
> Trump does not think in any kind of structured axiomatic way at all as of his decaying health in 2026…
There’s where you make your mistake. There’s no evidence of that at all. Well, he’s physically somewhat frail, but that’s pretty normal at his age.
> No, Canada should not be put in a position where they consider the choice of being multiple U.S. states! What is wrong with you!
I think that Canadians are strong enough to rationally discuss any idea. We don’t need to shield them. Besides, apparently Canada is going to join the EU now. And they won’t even get to be a full member; they’re opting to be a junior partner instead. Will they even be allowed to vote on things, or will the EU expect them to meekly adopt whatever new rules they are given?
If Canada decides instead to team up with the USA then they should insist on becoming as many states as they can get away with. They are 10% of the US population and will therefore have about 10% of the seats in the House, but they should aim to have about 10% of the seats in the Senate as well. 13 new states would probably be a hard sell but you might be able to swing it.
If it makes you feel better, Trump and the ambassador to Canada probably never actually brought up the idea with the Canadians. They were negotiating in the context of the existing trade agreement so they were just talking about trade. The quip about the “51st state” was merely something Trump said on television.
> The fact is that any president can, apparently, unilaterally shred international friendships, and 30%-40% of Americans will cheer it on.
That's not the problem.
The real problem is that the political establishment let things get so out of whack that someone like Trump could enjoy a large amount of support and get elected. If actual issues experienced by Americans were getting addressed in a satisfactory way, none of this would have happened.
But instead of that we got TINA and Trump.
> I would love a return to normalcy, but Americans need to make sure, really sure this can't happen again.
Easy: just repeal democracy. Make elected officials advisors at best, and vest all power in unelected officials that will uphold the status quo.
> If actual issues experienced by Americans were getting addressed in a satisfactory way, none of this would have happened.
That might be america's problem but its not my problem. It doesn't really matter on the outside what dynamics lead to trump. It only matters that US foreign policy has taken a turn, the turn seems permanent, and we can no longer trust that our interests are aligned with the new management.
> That might be america's problem but its not my problem.
I was responding to a self-identified American wishing America would return to the prior status quo. It seems like you're in the wrong subthread.
> It doesn't really matter on the outside what dynamics lead to trump.
It's worth noting those dynamics aren't unique to the US.
> It only matters that US foreign policy has taken a turn, the turn seems permanent, and we can no longer trust that our interests are aligned with the new management.
It's also worth noting that many countries were probably taking advantage of the US's old management (e.g. most of the rest of NATO severely under-investing in their defense, expecting the US to spend to pick up the slack). Some of the vibes I pick up around those topics come off as entitled, which is is not a good look.
> It's also worth noting that many countries were probably taking advantage of the US's old management (e.g. most of the rest of NATO severely under-investing in their defense, expecting the US to spend to pick up the slack).
It's sounds just like you are believing your own propaganda. This behaviour was intended and encouraged by the US. They would still prefer for it to stay that way, even if they are saying otherwise domestically. Look how they try to sabotage the other countries, now that they try to actually uncouple from the US.
> It's also worth noting that many countries were probably taking advantage of the US's old management (e.g. most of the rest of NATO severely under-investing in their defense, expecting the US to spend to pick up the slack)
yeah, that is how being a hegemon works. There are benefits and drawbacks to that, but lets not pretend like USA didn't get a lot of benefits out of the arrangement.
In any case, seems like that era is mostly coming to an end.
> The real problem is that the political establishment let things get so out of whack that someone like Trump could enjoy a large amount of support and get elected.
I agree with you and I wish more people would understand that Trump is only a symptom of the issue.
Its the same in Europe where everyone is somehow discovering in 2026 that the far-right and far-left parties actually want to do what they say they will do if they get in power.
Instead of addressing the concerns of the population, all they do is talk about how bad these parties would be and try every which way to contain them except never trying to even understand or fix the issues these people are complaining about.
It was the same strategy used by Macron in France in 2017 and 2022.
Step 1: Pretend you care and tinker on the margins but fundamentally don't change anything.
Step 2: Paint the opposition on the left and right as monsters that will bring chaos and disorder to the country.
Step 3: Present yourself as the only one capable of containing said chaos.
In one word: TINA
Except TINA is no longer working and the mainstream parties are being challenged a lot more because people have trusted them for so long and they are no longer interested in waiting for them to actually deliver on what they promised to do years ago.
So you get Reform in the UK, One Nation in Australia, National Rally in France, the AFD in Germany, Swedish democrats in Sweden and much more....
The parties in charge could have tried to address the issues that are fueling the rise of the far-right across Europe, they could have listened to the concerns of their citizens even if they did not agree with their ideas.
Instead, they have let the situation deteriorate and portrayed themselves as the only solution to the problems they never addressed and it backfired spectacularly.
The only country in the entire world that has a name that contains the word ‘America’, the United States of America.
I don’t know why people think they’re clever when they pose this rhetorical question, particularly when someone is stating their nationality. The demonym ‘American’ refers to a citizen of the United States of America.
Maybe you don't read the news so I'll fill you in: the "Americans" think they own the Americas (Monroe Doctrine, etc, etc). My statement is a mild rejection of this idea.
The USA needs to be rejected in all it's imperial actions and ideas. And more generally any nation that seeks empire over others should be rejected and isolated.
Because I coincidentally lost access to my main account recently (never put in the e-mail field lol) and had to make a new one. This is the same name with the vowels removed - so not just keyboard-mashed username.
Better to just believe everyone who disagrees with you must be a bot, though.
When your population reaches 100 million, as is the plan... how much nostalgia could there even be? 70 million of those people won't remember any previous era, because they just stepped off the plane. For that matter, what sort of livelihood could there be? Are you planning on some resurgence of Canadian manufacturing? Steel maybe? Textiles? Maybe a film industry? Will you all be lawyers?
Sure, last year and the year before it slowed down, after several years of increasing record highs. 2021 - 2024 all had higher rates. We had over 2% for consecutive years.
More than 20% of Canada's current population was born outside of Canada. That's a substantial block of people!
I'm not against immigration by any means, but still. Immigrant Canadians are strongly likely to outnumber born Canadians in my lifetime
I asked some of my Indigenous friends here how that worked out for them and they said not great
So someone Carney knows believes something, but no indication whether carney agrees? That is weak sauce.
More importantly, they are talking over a time frame of 2100. Doubling the population over the course of 75 years is probably fine. The economy can handle it over that time frame.
It's closer to tripling your population. Which is impossible if your fertility rate's below replacement... well, unless you import enough people that those imported outnumber those already there by 2 to 1.
I first learned of it here on HN, someone submitted it last year.
>The economy can handle it over that time frame.
What economy? Are you planning on finding jobs for tens of millions more people? One might say that you don't have enough jobs to go around as it is.
Over the next 50 years, Canada is set to benefit immensely from climate change. Trade routes will open up, huge amounts of land will become arable, and resource extraction will become easier.
>For that matter, what sort of livelihood could there be? Are you planning on some resurgence of Canadian manufacturing? Steel maybe? Textiles? Maybe a film industry? Will you all be lawyers?
That's right only America is capable of providing a livelihood and productive economy for its citizens. Silly Canada, just become a client state and let America make all those hard decisions for you.
It's not at all clear to most Americans what the consequences are. This pipeline, for example, sounds like something Americans should welcome because it will finally allow Canada to offer its oil to the world market in significant quantities. It will allow Canada to export significantly more than they do now, pushing down prices. It wasn't built until now purely because of internal Canadian environmental concerns. If Canadians think it's a good idea to now destroy vast amounts of their forest to get to some of the most difficult to process oil in the world, then that's what it is and they get to make some money as a benefit. But it doesn't seem at all like some kind of rational reaction to American foreign policy.
The pipeline will both increase the price Canada gets for its oil by reducing the share the railways get from the price, and (very slightly) decrease the world price because of increased supply.
Splitting the earnings differently between Canada and Canadian railway companies is a zero–sum game. It just changes which company makes what percentage of the profit. The real win for Canada will be additional production. The Prime Minister of Canada stated that the new pipeline would allow them to “export an additional 1 million barrels a day to growing markets in Asia.” That’s a net benefit for everyone. It’s additional profits for Canadian society and increased supply on the world market.
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.
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.
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.
"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 reality of trade and geography will shorten the timeframe.
Remember that the Canadians claimed to care a lot about climate change, and sending goods to Asian or Europe has a greater environmental cost than shipping to America.
Do you really think the Canadian government will stop advertising on YouTube and Facebook? The Canadian PM mainly does news with American companies...
as a canadian, i'd suggest that reestablishing a healthy relationship might require more than hope.
but from what i can see, the american reaction to this, even from the anti-trump crowd within america, is to basically shrug and assume that canada will quickly forgive and forget.
Yeah, I don't think they understand that we're not "with them" either, and while ending hostilities would be viewed favorably, no one here is sympathizing with the American left either. You can only be so patient with the idea that parading around with protest signs is actually doing anything.
>As a US citizen, I just want to add that I hope some day we can reestablish a healthy relationship with our neighbors. These articles are saddening.
Canadian here. It'll be at least a generation, if it ever happens at all. I have two kids in elementary school and every single one of their peers is talking about America as a threat. More than once I've had one of my kids ask me if it's true Donald Trump wants to take over Canada. It's a whole generation of children growing up resentful of America, viewing it as a threat rather than an ally. Those attitudes aren't going to just evaporate after Trump leaves office.
I took no end of downvotes and snarky comments from arrogant Americans on this fucking website for suggesting that the old days are not coming back, largely because Canadians have realized that Trump is broadly representative of Americans. He is a symptom of an underlying sickness. The problem is Americans themselves.
To wit: Harris got 75 million votes in 2024[0]. The total voting-age population is roughly 270 million [1], which means less than a third of the US electorate voted against Trump. The remaining two thirds either voted for him or were sufficiently unbothered so as to not vote at all. So we see a bunch of Americans in the media or on socials crying crocodile tears about how tHeIr AlLiEs ArE sO vAlUaBlE tO tHeM and traitors in the Alberta government notwithstanding I think broadly speaking Canadians realize it's bullshit and have moved on. Any treaty the US signs is not worth the paper it's printed on.
This schism is permanent, and I think Americans have yet to comprehend just how much foreign attitudes towards America have moved over the last year and a half.
Many Americans fail to realize that this isn't merely about trade, or even primarily about trade. Trump has continually made belittling comments about Canada, posted AI videos of him beating up Carney, threatened to annex the country, etc.. This plays well to his base, but has derailed what would have otherwise been a discussion about trade.
Canada has continually accepted bad trade deals from the U.S.. They've been imposed on us by both democratic and republican governments. If the U.S, for example, says "Canada, you have too many trees. Our tree farmers can't compete so we're tariffing those.", there's not much we can do. We do have rather a lot of trees. If Trump had been respectful, he'd have his updated treaty by now and Canadian goods would likely be under some degree of permanent tariff's. Thanks to Trump running his mouth, the trade dispute became a matter of national sovereignty that has been under a microscope for the last year and a half. Trump's rhetoric has made it impossible for Canadian politicians to capitulate. Trade is, ideally, about both sides winning, but Trump has formulated things so that the U.S. can't win if Canada doesn't lose. Canadians are now unwilling to accept another loss. The result is an impasse.
The problem going forward is that Trump is still continually insulting and threatening the U.S.'s closest allies, and Americans have done nothing to stop him. Not one thing of substance. You can have impeachments like hobbits have breakfasts, but nothing ever seems to touch Trump. He does what he wants. The U.S. needs to have its Magna Carta moment and rein in its king. Your system has failed to the point where we'd rather not live on the same continent as you. If we could saw it off at the 49th and paddle our part of the continent closer to either Asia or Europe, we would.
As a US citizen, you should be angrier than Canadians are. Your nation is poorer, embroiled in unnecessary wars, and has lost significant international influence because of Trump. The consequences of what he has done will take decades to play out, and there's little the next president can do to mitigate them. Donald Trump is Making America Go Away, and Americans are continuing to let him do it.
I'm a little worried all of this recent pawpaw fame will make them harder to find or worse, blight them in some regions. Some people will keep their pawpaw patches secret for this reason..
These visualizations are cool, but I feel only a little misleading. Any 2D relation can be plotted in 3D, and setting z=0 shows the original line in 2D. The whole notion of fuzzy is really just saying "let's make a heat map of how far z is from 0". That said, I can see how for some people, thinking about the roots of a function in 3D this way _could_ help unlock deeper understanding of where your roots are at than just staring at 3D graph.
Also, the visualisations are to some extent an artifact of how you arrange the equation: rearranging terms between the left and right side won't change the line but it will change these visualisations. The first example illustrates it nicely: the 'hole' only exists because of a redundant division by (x^2 + y^2) on either side of the equation.
> The predictor is like a barista who starts making your usual order the moment you walk in. If you are a regular, this is fantastic: the coffee is ready when you reach the counter. If you order something random every day, the barista keeps pouring drinks into the sink.
I laughed out loud reading this. Interesting writeup. I wonder what kinds of tricks like this exist for computation graph compilers like JAX.
We purchased a Chinese-made projector from Amazon, which was surprisingly inexpensive (~40 USD). Upon connecting it to the internet, it placed a constantly running feed of ads on the corner of the screen, even while movies were playing. There was no way to disable it either. Even though it's not a stick, it's a similar principle.
I remember reading an analysis on one of those projectors; the author found a residential proxy running on their device. I would recommend keeping these things off the internet.
Dunno if this is the same issue, but someone found malware in their projector. I'm not sure about the accuracy since the report is blatantly AI generated: https://github.com/jrm360seclab/aodin-vo1d-malware
To be fair, everything is Chinese made. I would be even the Apple TV and NVIDIA Shield are made in China and if a state actor is determined to get a malicious payload in....
To play devil's advocate, when someone says "Chinese made" they're usually well aware of your point, and are more using it as a common way to describe product mills spitting out countless devices with dubious quality or configuration.
Of course theres good products made in China, and plenty of entirely Chinese brands killing it doing their thing.
It's not racism at all to be weary of (any) political system, its overreach and the incentives of the people living in it, be it China or America or Russia.
Its based on the most common heuristic people have developed in regards to the phenomenon. What do you think about 'alphabet soup company' instead, referring to the tendency for names to be a mix of random letters? Otherwise, you can try and create a better term for 'unaccountable third parties using US platforms to dodge liability for their product made out of the cheapest components and software possible' and see if that catches on.
Yes it is also the US companies that are a problem but these are two separate problems and need different terms.
This isn't about state actors though. There's a world of difference between a name brand (possibly even a Chinese one) versus what I would term "chineseum". It's nothing to do with China per se and everything to do with purchasing from the extreme low end of the market. It just so happens that the vast majority of that segment is manufactured in China at present.
I think normally when people say Chinese made in this way, what they're really communicating is that there's no (meaningful) brand. All they know about it is that it is from China.
I dare not ask why you would do such a thing, instead, I will simply ask if you now think the reason was good, and I will hint at you that if the reason was "convenience", then you should answer "No".
The streaming sticks the article is discussing basically need network access to function. They might support streaming from local media sources and file shares too, but that is also done over WiFi. Unless you have a properly firewall controlled home (very few people do, I'm pretty nerdy and most devices on my network can just NAT to the outside these days) then just giving it a WiFi connection gives it access to the wider network from your location.
You'll probably find the projectors are pretty much the same hardware and OS as the sticks except with the projection device added where the stick just has an HDMI output. It might have HDMI-in too so it can just be used as a screen for another device, but there are definitely some units out there that are network-play-only.
You aren't wrong about giving cheap crap like this access to your network (and via that the public network) is risky, but that convenience you (and I) would say no to is exactly what they are bought for.
At least in capitalism you have the choice to look for a malware-free alternative. 100% USSR, had it survived to the IoT era, would penalize you for not having a state-mandated surveillance device on at all times.
I agree fully with your assessment of USSR but basically any nation state with the power does such things.
Show me a COTS smartphone where the end-user can burn the OTP fuses for his personal public key, so they can have it boot their own custom signed firmware, and control exactly what runs in TrustZone's SW Secure World?
You can flash yourself GrapheneOS with your own keys for the bootloader. Then again "I can't make sure all manufacturers aren't in collusion" when FBI sues Apple and others (and fails) over suspects' phone access is quite different from "every device sold in the country must have government malware", as it is in China.
I can't find a device in the USA that doesn't come with government malware. Is this another instance of the USA accusing China of everything the USA is doing (like with the credit scores)?
For instance, if you use an Apple phone and the government wants to see the pictures you took, they can just get a copy of them from Apple using iCloud.
Yes, using a warrant from a court. If the government wants to break into my house they can also do that with a warrant. Not exactly the same as having a key to my house though, and very far from a malware.
Also to be more specific, In apple ecosystem I can opt for encryption where they can't
You're free to opt out of icloud/gcloud and the government will have a tough time extracting the pictures from your phone, as multiple lawsuits have shown.
Get the sarcasm, but of course there is scam outside of capitalism. Its just that the capitalistic model almost turns it from an inconvenient bug into a mainline feature.
Not saying there is an absolute perfect alternative, anyone who says that is usually shoveling smoke, but there are flaws with this economic model to be addressed.
Not true at all. I'm from Poland which was occupied by communist for a long time, and I can guarantee you - the amount of scam we had under that rule was orders of magnitude larger than what we have now.
Yeah I did forget about that. When you flatten the pay structure across the board, it makes bribes and scams so much more desirable. But also, communist structure in practices is sort of the total opposite of capitalism at a distance.
It was said that Karl Marx was completely right about Capitalism and completely wrong about Communism. And that is fairly accurate, both have big flaws.
Most times, the opposite of one bad idea is another bad idea.
I think it's really far fetched to say capitalism is bad idea. It's great system, it has some problems, but the upside is so big and alternatives are so bad that it's really unfair to call it bad system.
I think that encouraging corporations to destroy our environment (e.g. climate change) as fast as possible to maximise profits is a very good reason to call it a bad system. Yes, some goods and services become much more efficient, but now we're all going to have to pay the price for it.
Yh, the end of civilisation is a good thing after all, so enabling greedy fuckers to accelerate all life on Earth ever more rapidly towards destruction has to be good ...
Most American ex-pats don't really understand that the thing that makes ex-pat life so attractive is that, for most of people's lives, being American in a foreign country has traditionally conferred a wide range of benefits (this is most clearly exemplified by the way Americans living in a foreign country refer to themselves as "ex-pats" not "immigrants"). The ex-pat solution assumes American exceptionalism as its foundation.
Historically Americans have benefited from income asymmetry and a fairly wide-spread desire by foreign nations not to cause too much legal trouble for US nationals abroad.
I have quite a few friends that do live, quite happily, abroad. But the common pattern for them is a.) fluency in the native language b.) historical association with the country c.) fairly large cash reserves so they can ignore any economic problems these countries are facing.
That sounds more like FIRE / geographic arbitrage than expat in the traditional sense.
What people often mean by a "true expat" is something completely different: someone sent abroad by their employer, usually with a generous expatriate package (home-country salary, local allowances, housing, private schooling for children, etc.)
More broadly, though, expatriate simply means someone living outside their native country. Ex means "out of", and patria means "native country" or "homeland". It's that simple.
So the word itself isn't limited to wealthy retirees or corporate transfers. All immigrants are expatriates, although not every expatriate is necessarily an immigrant.
Most places have their own politics. What differs is how often they come up. As a foreigner you're usually spared the involvement in those discussions because people think you're not interested and don't want your outsider opinion anyway.
People also embed themselves in different communities when they move anywhere, even to a different city or state in the same country. It's a clean reset.
It doesn't always last forever. I know several people who tried to move somewhere, including internationally, when politics got heated in 2016. Most of them came back eventually with a realization that politics is everywhere, it's just a matter of how much you're embedded into the places it's discussed.
Politics is everywhere, but the state of US politics today is exceptionally bad by Western world standards. I hate the government in my country, but their corruption and incompetence is nothing compared to the Trump administration.
In that sense most EU countries are a positive upgrade.
I (American) worked in Spain (Cáceres, Extremadura) ~2015-2017 in tech. It was a wonderful experience. Extremely talented, hard-working, and friendly co-workers. Great health-care and education systems. I think since then rising housing prices partially due to migration have become an issue, but it's a really, really nice place.
To add context Extremadura is a member of the "poor" Spain. To US people could be useful to think on a sort of New Mexico.
Pros: Great food, interesting cultural past, only one language to deal with and not complicated accents to grasp (more important that most people think), gorgeous wild areas, uncomplicated people, maybe a little on the introverted side at first, but solid gold after a while.
Cons: Risk of poverty sadly high, bigger than many US states (but with better government support and healthcare). Harsh continental climate very hot and very cold. Not for everybody (but US has plenty of places with similar or worse weather). The trains and communication roads are also under-average for the country and many people don't really speak English.
In many of the non highly touristic places you can live well if you can adapt to the cons. Housing prices are lower, life expenses cheaper and buying a house should be affordable with a decent job (Don't try this in Barcelona or Madrid). Portugal is close, and is even cheaper, to the point of some people living there and working in Spain. To support the same standard of living in Barcelona, Valencia or Madrid you need to plan in advance, to stomach the stress that unavoidably come with big cities, and earn much more.
In Spain if you can speak English well you will be automatically seen as a great researcher.
More pro: Spain may be one of the best places in Europe to raise kids (culturally, especially), though a good chunk of the country has emptied out of its young people - so it can vary by region. It's a shame that their birth rate has gotten so low. Crime overall is very low, especially if you're not tied directly to it.
More cons: You will eventually have to shift to a very different customer service climate and hours. The development levels can vary quite a bit, especially "modern" infrastructure like internet outside of the major cities (maybe that's gotten better in the last 5 years). Bureaucracy of some institutions (government/finance) can be extremely frustrating.
Regarding internet infrastructure, the fiber optic network seems to be quite robust these days. There are still places where it isn't available, but compared to e.g. the US it's another world entirely. Even small cities typically offer 1 or sometimes 10 Gbps hookups in many areas.
Regarding bureaucracy I'm afraid that there has been no such progress. Extremely frustrating that even when I do everything right, I get told to come back another day for my trámite because they just...haven't done it! Sorry!
Also American, and I'm interested why you praise the education system. I have a child who will be entering the Andalusian system at some point and although it seems better than my Oklahoman system, that is, uh...damning with faint praise.
Some of my non-Spanish European colleagues also have commented that the education system is kind of "good not great" especially compared with other Western/Central European countries. However, I understand the Spanish system to be somewhat federated; perhaps the difference between Extremadura and Andalusia would explain the difference in opinion.
gotta be ready for the crazy heat in the summers, they don't call it extremadura for nothing. unironically best lodging is rooms that were dungeons in the castle.
Recently, I made an Arduino UNO that I showed to have better switching characteristics than a commercial board. It was a great project to help me understand how seemingly inconsequential routing practices can lead to issues down the line.
You should be able to improve it further with a 4 layer board, as you can have the signal lines closer to their reference planes, and can more easily avoid signals crossing each other and breaking reference planes.
Liquid crystal elastomers will most likely never be used in humans because, in order to drive the phase transition (mematic mesogens going from isotopic to anisotropic phase) necessary for macro scale work, the LCE has to be heated well beyond 100C. Even in non-thermal contexts, you need kilovolts to influence a doped bulk LCE. I just don't see it happening.
to be fair, the approach is usually covered in snowpack for most of the year, so impact is minimal by foot traffic. However, most of the protection is fixed, which could have lasting effects if something were to rip out.
For other mountains with dry summits in the summers, I would agree: the effects of erosion are frightening
As a US citizen, I just want to add that I hope some day we can reestablish a healthy relationship with our neighbors. These articles are saddening.