[Canada] What are your plans for civil unrest?
2919 sats \ 24 comments \ @nkmg1c_ventures 26 May 2023 bitcoin
I know some people might find this discussion topic sensational, but I'm curious what Canadian stackers think about this? I am a refugee from a place that succumbed to violence / civil unrest, and I've been in Canada since early childhood. I do not see the current financial / housing / demographic situation in Canada ending in anything other than civil unrest, endemic crime and violence...
  1. Do you guys see things ending well at all? What scenarios do you consider possible?
  2. If you don't see things ending well, what are your plans? "Wait it out, hope for the best?" Go up North away from cities? Move to another country if able? I've heard variations of the above, the former stuff from friends who are born in Canada and might have someplace "up north" to go..
Concretely, what are your plans (without doxing yourselves)? I am curious to see where other people are at and if there is something I had not considered.
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577 sats \ 11 replies \ @IHL 26 May 2023
If we go all in on nuclear and have almost free electricity things can be not quite as bad as they look like they will be. Actually a bunch of promising moves in that direction.
As for dealing with a worse situation, financially prepare and prepare by getting used to a very minimalist lifestyle. The lifestyle part has always been my natural disposition anyway. Won't stop difficulties but will make living through them a less trying experience.
Sorry, I have no secrets to reveal on how to skate through living in a prolonged or continuous/open ended/indefinite period of economic decline.
Edit: No time to really add much about how bad it could get. I guess just pick a country that has seen some decline by various measures and compare it to that. Highly unlikely we are going to be Zimbabwe anytime soon but not sure which country's experience might be the most likely parallel. Maybe Greece?
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71 sats \ 0 replies \ @nkmg1c_ventures OP 27 May 2023
The thing that concerns me, that makes it much worse than Greece imo, is that Canada is a highly divided country, with a huge immigrant population. There are have-nots both in the immigrant and "old stock" Canadians, and the political class is essentially out to lunch, highly corrupt.
People are getting squeezed so hard, and the money is devaluing so badly against housing that we're not only going to have homeless encampments, you'll have widespread poverty based crime. That will not be one big happy cultural mosaic, either.
In Greece, as I recall reading, you had a highly homogenous society that was basically not declaring taxes, the government taking ill advised loans etc (everyone was kinda playing that game) and so when IMF / West called in loans, there was likely more solidarity amongst the Greeks.
In Canada, based on my early life experiences, I can foresee like a "powder keg" of resentment-based violence and it's not a pretty picture. This is the kind of thing I worry about and why I brought up getting the fuck outta here lol... I don't actually want to move to a whole new place for a second time in my life, not sure where I'd go even. Grumble grumble
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0 sats \ 9 replies \ @DiracDelta 27 May 2023
Almost-free electricity is one of the most retarded things a person could say.
Tbh, usually I try to get more people into bitcoin, but I would actually prefer you sell all your coins than learn why you are an arrogant retard (arrogant for thinking your thoughts are coherent, let alone that they have any merit!)
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464 sats \ 3 replies \ @skreep_ 27 May 2023
I'm curious how much money it is that I have to want to pay for my energy bill in order to not be considered retarded? 🤔
What would be so bad about grinding down energy costs to the cost of production in order to attract manufacturers and other economic utilization of said cheap energy?
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @DiracDelta 27 May 2023
You are no better than commie leftist authoritarians with your libelous non-sequitor nonsense. Be gone arrogant and disingenuous scum pretending to be a human!
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @skreep_ 27 May 2023
@DiracDelta, I understand that you strongly disagree with the concept of almost-free electricity. Is your concern primarily rooted in the fact that nuclear energy, being state-affiliated and centralized, gives the government power and control over the citizens? If I understand correctly, you may be more inclined towards decentralized, non-state-affiliated energy sources. It would be helpful if you could elaborate on your perspective so that we can have a more informed discussion about the potential implications of cheap nuclear energy in Canada. However, resorting to insults and offensive language detracts from the conversation, so let's try to focus on exchanging ideas respectfully.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DiracDelta 27 May 2023
Free energy is more obviously absurd, but almost-free is also equally absurd.
Take a starving person from a developing nation and get them working construction in America where they can shop at Walmart and they might tell you they are "infinitely rich".
Similarly, compared to wood burning, petroleum is "almost free energy" yet you still hold bitcoin because you actually do know that it is an ill-posed concept.
Has absolutely nothing to do with government. There is always a cost. When you deviate from that understanding, you sound like the people who talk about a "post-money society."
The wealth of the world is very much related to energy, so it's not unreasonable to think 1 bitcoin may have several billion of today's dollars worth of effective purchasing power in a century... and yet, if you want that several billion 2023 USD equivalent of joules, you will still need to pay up that entire bitcoin!
A bitcoin does not know what a joule is and a joule does not know what a bitcoin is... there is no amount that is sensibly "almost zero", there is just a shifting exchange rate.
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437 sats \ 1 reply \ @nkmg1c_ventures OP 27 May 2023
Kinda harsh and unnecessary
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DiracDelta 27 May 2023
As unnecessary as bitcoin! Look at the world growing tremendously under fiat and everything real getting cheaper in real terms. Guess you are satisfied with that!
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381 sats \ 1 reply \ @IHL 27 May 2023
My language was imprecise so let me change it to amazingly cheap if it will help advance the conversation.
I was thinking specifically about the EROI of nuclear generated electricity. It is actually staggering. I know it doesn't scale up and down with demand and we would still most likely use natural gas generated electricity to fill in the gaps during peak usage. That or just power down all the ASICS!!
It is my understanding that over the life cycle ICE are less energy intensive than electric batteries and it is more or less destined to stay that way so I don't see us moving away from fossil fuels. Also, there seems to be no alternative for the chemicals/fertilizer and other uses. So, I'm in no way suggesting we start to meaningfully move away from fossil fuels.
To return to my point in the original reply, I am hoping Canada can make smart decisions with respect to generating nuclear power—a technology we are a actually a leader in—that gives us a huge competitive advantage against economies that don't turn to this technology. If that is the case, our decline relative to the alternative scenario where we do not fully embrace it may be much less dramatic.
Hopefully that makes my perspective more clear for at least some people.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DiracDelta 27 May 2023
Now we are shifting from utter nonsense to ill-conceived, excellent, here we are finally able to move past ad-hominen responses that are all the other comments merit.
"Amazingly cheap": compared to today, but consider, what does it mean for something to be "cheap" or "expensive"? It is actually not an inherent or objective property the way wheels of today are "round" and wheels 1000 years from now will continue to be "round".
Everything gets cheaper whether you have fiat or bitcoin, things just get cheaper faster with bitcoin.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DiracDelta 19 Dec 2023
@k00b I keep getting a "failed to copy link error" when trying to copy link above
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401 sats \ 0 replies \ @spraveenitpro 26 May 2023
I feel you bro. The young people/millenial have basically checked out at this point. For those without parental help it is just a hand to mouth existence and trying to keep a roof over head. So many things are broken: the healthcare, day care situation, housing etc.
We can only build our way out of this. Take care of your family, Take care of yourself, proof of work, Low time preference etc. One day at a time, one poutine at a time.
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26 sats \ 6 replies \ @kr 27 May 2023
there are a number of concerning trends in Canada:
  • crime in Canadian cities is definitely ticking up
  • housing continues to be some of the most expensive in the world
  • the Bank of Canada holds no gold or Bitcoin
however, there are also reasons to be optimistic:
  • hard-working immigrants are flocking to Canada in hopes of a better life
  • a pro-Bitcoin candidate has a great chance to become prime minister
  • we have so many natural resources that can protect us from certain commodity price increases
overall Canada certainly isn’t perfect, but i think the fear and uncertainty being shared on social media in the last few years is significantly exaggerated… often by Americans who have never even visited Canada.
imo Canada is still one of the best countries in the world to live in, hopeful that it will continue into the future too.
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19 sats \ 2 replies \ @nkmg1c_ventures OP 27 May 2023
The violence is directly related to the unrelenting immigration scheme and lack of meaningful social advancement outside real estate lottery
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3 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr 27 May 2023
what would you like to see Canada do to improve social advancement opportunities?
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19 sats \ 0 replies \ @nkmg1c_ventures OP 28 May 2023
... stop mass immigration. It's not helping young people or the immigrants already here.
The currency is already highly devalued against housing and real costs. Fixing that will take generations and likely also require some kind of citizens movement against excesses of central banking, fractional reserve banking.
Also across the board corruption purges, I don't mean in a partisan way. The political class is very much out to lunch, on both sides of political spectrum, and statistically profiting off their own real estate ponzi. It looks completely corrupt from my point of view as an immigrant, and platitudes about how hard immigrants can work are not cutting it. It's also pretty inexcusable if you're a young person who "did everything right" and is still screwed.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @nkmg1c_ventures OP 27 May 2023
Your first reason for optimism is one of the biggest problems, and I say that as an immigrant. It's kind of pandering / pablum at its finest.
This country has suffered under the past high levels of immigration, the immigrants themselves bearing the brunt of the lack of opportunity and low wages. Secondarily the people who were hoping for pressure on labor market to move in their favor. |
There simply needs to be a moratorium on immigration if anything is to improve. The literature from labor studies, MIT/IEEE on tech labor trends has basically shown there is not labor or skills gap. It's just a ponzi
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @nkmg1c_ventures OP 27 May 2023
To be clear, I'm criticizing the reflexive "gee we love immigrants, immigration is good!" attitude. The first part is kind of social signalling / fear of criticism, the latter part is simply not true beyond a certain threshold.
This is not a criticism of individual people or cultures, but more the idea that you can treat people as economic widgets and assert that bringing millions into an economy that can't support them... that it's somehow good... it's not. There are many TikTok / Twitter feeds from immigrants who are fed up with the quality of life and are basically sick of hearing how much Canada loves immigrants. It's a structural econ / numbers problem, not an argument based on "I don't like group <x> I want more of group <y>." We are literally at the much ruder point of "Fuck off, we're full" except it's the immigrants saying it now
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr 27 May 2023
i’m speaking about my personal experiences growing up among Canadian immigrants… many of my high school classmates went from low-income housing to getting software engineering jobs at Google & Facebook right out of university.
i truly believe they worked harder on balance.
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @faithandcredit 27 May 2023
I don't believe there will be civil unrest but things are going to get progressively worse and people are going to get more and more desperate. So organised crime gangs are likely going to increase in power while "the government" looks the other way or does things that does not help, like restricting your freedom and privacy. Nevertheless the result is more and more inflation and eventually you will just be living within a single square mile. No car, no travel, just you and your fellow neighbours either screwing each other or getting screwed by gangs or maybe both.
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @DiracDelta 27 May 2023
I am an American traveling throughout Canada and I have zero intention of giving money to these commies who keep begging me for cash with notes left on my windshield threatening me with violence!
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 26 May 2023
Good luck. The signals coming out of Canada have been pretty bleak for a while now.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Mootap 27 May 2023
Hmm
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