top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 119 points 2 years ago* (25 children)

Four in five Canadians strongly oppose the idea of joining their neighbours to the south, and a majority, 78 per cent, are concerned with the rhetoric Trump keeps pushing.

So 20% of Canadians are traitors and/or idiots. Probably the FUCK TRUDEAU flags and bumper stickers crowd who complain about their first amendment rights.

  • source
  • hideshow 25 child comments
  • [–] 82 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    There's a baseline 20-30% of all polls taken over the world that is made up of hateful nutjobs and conspiracy theorists

    There could be someone running for office who has figured out how to solve all the world's problems for free, and that 20-30% will vehemently oppose them.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    I have long said that even in a Utopia you would have people unhappy about the way things were.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    This is the premise that makes Iain M Banks' Culture series of novels so compelling.

    Even though it is a massive interstellar Type2 society that is "fully automated luxury communism" many people are going to be problematic, angsty, and childish. The result is an always interesting plot.

    A more thorough exploration of someone living in a relative utopia but being a long streak of misery by nature is Delaney's novel Triton. Main character is a jerk and you get to explore why, while extremely cool things are happening all around.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I love that about the Culture novels: they are socially coherent. Banks is very keen on telling us about the psychology of this utopian society.

    I once tried some Delaney but dropped it as psychedelic hippie scifi. I hope I wasn't unjust in doing that, but afair it was from that time. Maybe it even was Triton. It was all confusion ("tripping") and exploring a completely desire-based, erm, exploration.

    Recently I read (and barely managed to finish) Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, which seems to fit into a similar category (Beatnik scifi?). It had way too many shortcomings, plus it was an old translation that only managed to make the latent racism/sexism more prominent. But it was also very inventive and captivating.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Yeah the hippy sexy Delaney novel was probably Dhalgren, which I don’t think I have actually finished despite a few attempts, and for reference I enjoyed Finnegan’s Wake in its entirety so it’s not like I don’t have stamina. I like all the other Delaney works, though. Triton might be a slog because the main character is self centred and childish and it’s from their point of view. It has some banger scenes, like the visit to a novelty restaurant with a nostalgic capitalist theme, and the wacko performance art at one point, and details like every candidate who gets any votes is elected and represent those voters, however few they maybe. Also main character gets a sex change to run from their problems but of course they’re still a jerk lol.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (3 replies)
  • [+] 23 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 children)
  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    On the positive side, I knew a Canadian couple where she was an evangelical Christian home-schooling their kids and he was a massive conspiracy theorist. They were both suspicious of vaccines and "mainstream medicine", and he strongly disbelieved in the moon landings. 15 years ago there was no way to persuade them out of any of this. But over time, with the rise of the far right, QAnon, the antivax movement and MAGA, both of them realized they want nothing to do with those people or their insanity. She correctly identified the church as a bad influence and left it, she stopped preaching at people, they sent their kids to regular schools, they all got their vaccines, and he abandoned his conspiracy theories and now accepts that he was an idiot about the moon landings and laughs at his former self. Now you can have a perfectly normal conversation with them. So it is possible to travel in the other direction.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

    Yeah not only in the USA for sure.
    What irks me most is that it's often people who claim to be unpolitical. But they aren't really, they just don't bother to inform themselves and react on gut feelings instead. Those gut feelings can be dumb anger or dumb "Peace & Love", but if they lead to someone saying that "Putin does not seem like he wants to harm Europe" it doesn't really matter anymore, it's just dumb. What can you say to such people? "Inform yourself"?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    I'm having a hard time finding the link to the poll itself...

    But I suspect that the poll had distinct categories for "strongly oppose" and "oppose".

    So either the article is lumping the two responses together (which would be shitty because they explicitly say "strongly") or it's likely that the number of Canadians who are open to it is <20.

    From previous polling I've seen, it was around 13% who were open to it. Not even saying they would, but merely open to the idea.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 62 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Can we stop posting this headline? Again and again and again?

    It's not news.

    If a sizable portion of the population did want to do something stupid, that'd be news.

    This is... It's not even propaganda. It's just a waste of our limited time and emotional capacity for idiocy.

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 48 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Americans also overwhelmingly oppose Canada becoming 51st state

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 35 points 2 years ago

    Well No Shit. Why would anyone want to buy into the hot mess we've got going right now?

  • source
  • [–] 29 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    These articles and polls, framing trump's deranged russo-imposed plans as a legit proposal, do not help at all.

    They just normalize this fucking insane shit

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Yeah, it's frustrating to see anyone even bother spending time on this nonsense. It does just normalize the absolute insanity of what is going on - it's more damaging to publish this poll than to ignore it altogether imo.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 28 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    No shit, no one wants this. Why would we??

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    As a US-ian, I really wish you guys would keep reminding us that if you did join the US, you'd be a 51st state slightly larger and left of California.

    The GOP wants nothing to do with Canada. They cringe every time they think about ya'll voting in our elections.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 10 points 2 years ago

    What sane person would want to be under the control of the Orange Turd.

  • source
  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    Meanwhile Puerto Rico sitting over there like what about us!? We’re supposed to be the 51st state!

  • source
  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    Sovereign country not keen on being annexed by psycho neighbour, more news at 6.

  • source
  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Surprised its only 78% that oppose. What the hell are the 22% smoking?

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    would they take us as the 11th province?

  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [+] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
    [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    There shouldn't have been a poll in the first place

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Do 22% of Canadians live in Alberta?

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    The reasons for opposing becoming the 51st state were loss of Canadian identity, culture and sovereignty at 81 per cent, the difference in health care systems at 68 per cent, concerns over safety with the differences in gun laws and the legal system at 60 per cent, and concern over U.S. politics and governance just below with 58 per cent.

    Fellow canucks looking out for our material conditions.

  • source
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Reminder that a few states could do the funniest thing possible and try to secede.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    What?!? Why don't they want to have most freedoms?

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    load more comments
    view more: next ›