Thanks, everyone, for the education. This was very helpful, and I learned a lot.

The discussion around MAID in Canada is obviously complicated, but there’s something that’s pretty obvious: the system seems to be set up for people who don’t have the money or resources to explore other options. To be blunt, it looks like a way to save costs. Instead of providing better healthcare, mental health support, or improving people’s lives, the program seems to give them an easy out—especially for those who are struggling and don’t see any other way forward. It’s kind of scary when you think about how vulnerable people could feel like this is their only option just because they can’t afford better care. If doctors could prescribe money, friends, enforce therapy, or a dietary coach/trainer, it seems like a lot of these cases would be solved.

At the same time, trying to make suicide illegal is ridiculous. People are going to make that decision for themselves no matter what the government says. It’s a fundamental choice over your own life, and no law can stop someone from doing it if they really want to. What MAID does is offer a more humane, less traumatic way to do it, and that’s important for those who need it. So in that sense, it’s a good thing. It just feels like the bigger problem is how we’re getting people to that point in the first place.

The Canadian government doesn’t seem to want to deal with the real problems that push people to feel like they have no choice but to die. Instead of making euthanasia the easy answer, they should be working harder to fix the system so fewer people feel like that’s their only option.

I know America is fucked – and, indeed, per capita suicide rates in the United States, where it’s almost entirely illegal, are much higher than in Canada – but what the heck is going on up there, yall?

Honest question: I thought Canadian healthcare is subsidized? How did you go through your entire life’s savings from illness? And why don’t you now have medial, dental, or vision coverage? This totally sounds like American healthcare, but I’m surprised to hear it in a Canadian context.

And I’m no way doubting you, just to be clear. I was just wondering if you could educate my ignorant, dumb ass.

No thank you please

What the hell is an Australia? Is that like a German Best Buy or something?

This is like basic common sense that is drilled into you from a young age if you’re not white.

Got a problem and you call the cops? Now you’ve got two problems.

Yeah, but in this case, there was an apparent evolving credible threat on his life and his security detail probably told him to keep the interview brief and then move.

I imagine his (new) secret service detail is a little jumpy after that whole incident in Pennsylvania.

This is a hyperbolic article to be sure. But many in this thread are missing the point. It’s not that photo manipulation is new.

It’s the volume and quality of photo manipulation that’s new. “Flooding the zone with bullshit,” i.e. decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio, can have a demonstrable social effect.

You quasi-leftist internet nerds and “the guillotines.” It’s the new Guy Fawkes mask. So cringe. 🙄

Hate to break it to you, but most guillotines won’t fit in your mom’s basement. You’ll have to go outside.

I think you’re overestimating the staging and emplacement for a drone attack of these types. They don’t need a static “drone base station.”

If someone was bragging about the thousands of hours of television they watch and was then later complaining about their dissatisfaction with life, I would feel the same way. It isn’t watching TV, playing video games, or training for climbing everest that’s the problem, per se. It’s how much a given activity consumes of your finite time, how much of an effect that has on the rest of your life, and your level of satisfaction with that exchange.

Learning to play music, having friends and a social life, being really good at video game X or Y, having a significant other, excelling in your career, educating yourself, and so on: these are all time-intensive tasks and there are only so many hours in a day. Letting any element of your life consume a majority of your time necessarily comes with sacrifices in other areas.

I get sad when people can’t seem to connect the sacrifice of having thousands upon thousands of hours invested in various video games with the dissatisfaction in their lives caused by not giving time to other areas. Again, I know people who balance video games into their life and are satisfied. I also know people that basically game and work and that’s it, and they’re satisfied. I’m not judging how “full” someone’s life is, as far as that goes.

I just sometimes see people that think it’s unfair they don’t just automatically get those other aspects of their life, but they are simultaneously unwilling to give up some gaming to spend the time working on them. Sure, gaming is easy, immediate, and can be fulfilling. But, it can also feel like “what did I do for the last ten years that weren’t in-game accomplishments in games I don’t play anymore?” That’s really up to the individual.

People can spend their time how they want, but when I hear people bragging about spending literally thousands of hours on game X and/or Y, it kind of makes me sad.

That being said, sometimes they’re well adjusted and satisfied people and that’s just what they want to do with the majority of their free time.

I do hear people make those kind of comments, but then in other conversations I hear them talking about how they’re dissatisfied, life is unfair, their life sucks, they can’t find a girlfriend, school is stupid, they hate their job, they have no friends, etc., those are the people that make me feel sad.

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The United States is a wealthy country. It’s on the precipice of political and social disaster WITHOUT the above described problems occurring. The idea that wealthy countries will be fine seems wildly optimistic. Perhaps you meant wealthy people.

Canada is beautiful frankly, and it has some great cities.

I’m pretty sure they lent him $12B and he largely put up the remaining $30B.

Wanted to be pedantic so bad that they became the pedantee.

I’m sure this will amount to precisely fuck all.

Well they’re kinda against white kids getting elite educations because then their kids might stop being fascists.

What they really want is less brown and black kids getting elite educations. In that, it seems, they’ve been somewhat successful.

Incidentally, for college-aged folks: Asians make up about 6% of the U.S. population. Hispanic or Latino are 24%. Black folks are 14%. White kids are 52%.

Those numbers are as of 2023. So, depending on what you mean by diversity, i.e. should that mean reflecting the current diversity of the country’s population or something more vague (or more arbitrary), the effect of the supreme court ruling definitely seems to be turning some colleges into bi-racial institutions.

Interestingly, the two most represented racial demographics here are coincidentally the two demographics having the least amount of children by far.