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2019 Canadian Federal Election

lenaitch said:
^ Which means Norway funds 100% of its security, defence, social programs, etc.
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Yes, that's part of why I lol at the state of these two funds in comparison.

Maybe it has something to do with how much royalty money goes to the federal government?

Still, the disparity between the two is too enormous for that to be the deciding factor.

Again, anyone want to throw in their idea on where the quality of life is better, Alberta or Norway?

Or, let's put it this way, would you rather live in Lethbridge or Trondheim (forgetting for a minute about the water in Trondheim)?
 
SunriseChampion said:
Yes, that's part of why I lol at the state of these two funds in comparison.

Maybe it has something to do with how much royalty money goes to the federal government?

Still, the disparity between the two is too enormous for that to be the deciding factor.

Again, anyone want to throw in their idea on where the quality of life is better, Alberta or Norway?

Or, let's put it this way, would you rather live in Lethbridge or Trondheim (forgetting for a minute about the water in Trondheim)?
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I didn't even hesitate - there is absolutely not even the slightest question that Norway is a better place to live than Alberta. Not even close.
 
I watched the frontline special on AI. It validated a lot of things I’ve been musing about lately. There are serious political angles to consider on this topic. The very notion of what left and right mean politically, the very notion of free will, and the future of democracy itself are all starting to become clouded with an ominous uncertainty.
 
Towered said:
I didn't even hesitate - there is absolutely not even the slightest question that Norway is a better place to live than Alberta. Not even close.
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I would also rather live in Norway than Alberta, but then I'm half-European and the cultural differences are enough to attract me, so it's half quality of life, half culture....for me. (For example, I would never again have my patriotism be based on whether or not I patronise a certain shitty coffee establishment).

So, what is "The Alberta Advantage" exactly? Paying 8% less for TVs and socks?

Also, I had a question regarding Wexit: if the primary piss-off is not having pipelines be built, how does an independent Alberta go about getting its oil to water through a foreign country that is hostile to pipelines?
Have they thought it through or is this some emotional response to not getting their way? Trick question.
 
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SunriseChampion said:
Also, I had a question regarding Wexit: if the primary piss-off is not having pipelines be built, how does an independent Alberta go about getting its oil to water through a foreign country that is hostile to pipelines?
Have they thought it through or is this some emotional response to not getting their way? Trick question.
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They're hoping they can pipe it to the US.
 
Towered said:
I didn't even hesitate - there is absolutely not even the slightest question that Norway is a better place to live than Alberta. Not even close.
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I don't really know if it is that easy of an equation. Norway is a very expensive country, a cup of McDonalds coffee is like $6 CAD.

Alberta is very livable if you have good salary. Norway is still expensive even if you have good salary.

Like @SunriseChampion I naturally lean towards European culture, but both Calgary and Edmonton top international livability standards for a reason. Plus a lot of Norway doesn't get much sun for much of the year.

I also feel that Alberta is a more inclusive culture. Norway is a very insular society, if you lack an established network of friends and family, life in Norway might feel pretty isolating.

I think unilaterally declaring Norway a better place to live than Alberta is too much of a case of perceiving the grass as being greener on the other side of the pond.
 
Yes, yes, @WislaHD, that's the response I was looking for.

Wait.....I see you mentioned Edmonton and Calgary as being top-of-the-ranks material. What about the rest of the place?

Norway as a whole fares pretty well in these quality of life surveys and equality surveys and freedom surveys and etc.

Also, somebody please: What is the Alberta advantage?
 
So why is AI so important to this discussion? The first roll out of basic AI we could call getting from A to B using machine learning. This is to distinguish from later phases of AI implementation where the boundary conditions of A and B or definitions of A and B are not done by humans. With machine learning you feed a program data and get it to solve a problem of how to get from A to B. In the political sense you feed it all the data you can about a population and get it to solve the problem of how you persuade people to vote for what you want in a democracy. In places with dictatorships and one party rule you get it to make sure that your power is not threatened. The political implications of this are real and disturbing. Contrary to earlier sunny sentiments on technological innovation you can see that this technology is arguably more valuable and powerful for dictators than democracies. For the first time in history human populations can be predicted and controlled at the personal level and the safeguard of free will can be overcome with advances in understanding of human behaviour.

For example machine learning will and probably already can determine how you would vote based on your interactions with the web. Not just what you say on forums by analysing your typing but by analysing other factors like how you type or when you eat or how often you go to the bathroom etc. all of which is recorded and analyzed (for instance financial apps analyse how low you let your phone battery charge go to help determine your credit worthiness). Not only that but it will be able to predict how you will vote before you're even old enough to vote or if you are going to vote or maybe even how you would vote before you are born. In other words you become a predictable commodity. As a predictable commodity your actions can then be shifted or nudged towards desired outcomes. Not only does this create the perfect police state in autocratic countries but it can be played here in democratic countries and worse played by dictators IN democratic countries.

Your talking points and information feeds and vote intention may not really become yours anymore. That also says nothing about general social disruption such as massive acceleration of inequality etc.
 
Welcome to the age of Psychohistory. Having said that, there are was around this - and I forsee creation of fake personal data to salt the miners will be a growth industry. To quote a certain Chairman Yang - "Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output "

And maybe - just maybe, it isn't such a bad thing to have a bit of predictability and modifiability to human society in a positive way. The question is - to what end, and is it just?

AoD
 
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TrickyRicky said:
So why is AI so important to this discussion? The first roll out of basic AI we could call getting from A to B using machine learning. This is to distinguish from later phases of AI implementation where the boundary conditions of A and B or definitions of A and B are not done by humans. With machine learning you feed a program data and get it to solve a problem of how to get from A to B. In the political sense you feed it all the data you can about a population and get it to solve the problem of how you persuade people to vote for what you want in a democracy. In places with dictatorships and one party rule you get it to make sure that your power is not threatened. The political implications of this are real and disturbing. Contrary to earlier sunny sentiments on technological innovation you can see that this technology is arguably more valuable and powerful for dictators than democracies. For the first time in history human populations can be predicted and controlled at the personal level and the safeguard of free will can be overcome with advances in understanding of human behaviour.

For example machine learning will and probably already can determine how you would vote based on your interactions with the web. Not just what you say on forums by analysing your typing but by analysing other factors like how you type or when you eat or how often you go to the bathroom etc. all of which is recorded and analyzed (for instance financial apps analyse how low you let your phone battery charge go to help determine your credit worthiness). Not only that but it will be able to predict how you will vote before you're even old enough to vote or if you are going to vote or maybe even how you would vote before you are born. In other words you become a predictable commodity. As a predictable commodity your actions can then be shifted or nudged towards desired outcomes. Not only does this create the perfect police state in autocratic countries but it can be played here in democratic countries and worse played by dictators IN democratic countries.

Your talking points and information feeds and vote intention may not really become yours anymore. That also says nothing about general social disruption such as massive acceleration of inequality etc.
Click to expand...

Now I will be the first to admit that I am old and most of this is Swahili to me, but regarding things like going to the bathroom or the state of my phone battery; (a) how does cyberspace know about these thing, and (b) how do thing like that relate to anything important about me? I realize that networked platforms and programs (I suppose now called 'apps') can mine all sorts of data, but I'm wondering how whether I pee standing or sitting or the fact that I often can't be bothered to plug my phone in is somehow telling in a meaningful way to somebody else.
All the more reason to abandon social media.
 
While Scheer probably never should have been the leader, does anyone - considering what happened with the PPC movement - think Bernier would have been more viable? Conservatives probably got the best outcome they could have hoped for for being basically shut out of MTV and the Atlantic.
 
Videodrome said:
Are we talking about 2017 Bernier or PPC nutjob Bernier?
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Maybe Bernier, or his movement, will be vindicated.
Remember 3 years ago how opposed Liberals and Media were with Kellie Leitch's values test.
Now they have no problems at all with it because it's proposed by Quebec.
No idea is bad if it has the right spokesperson.
Who would have thought that groping and racism would become mainstream?
 
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