if i were the eu, i would tell canada upfront that it's proposals are driven by eurocentric identity politics, are economically irrational and that there's no benefit to either party in signing a free trade agreement.

canada may benefit by greater integration into a kind of nordic union that includes russia, the us and the uk, excludes southern europe and is focused on arctic cooperation but that will have to wait until the stupid war is over.

the historical luddites, like the historical populists, were really not precursors to marx or bakunin (the populists were chronologically later, but you get the point). they don't even fit under the definition of "utopian socialism" that engels contrasted against the "scientific socialism" of marx, which has been a misnomer to this point but is still the direction that proper socialists and anarchists need to take to be proper. it's a little bit hard to get it right, but if your socialism isn't scientific, it's not proper socialism.

the luddites were brownshirts. they were nazis. they were fascists. like the historical populists, they were very religious. they were a late medieval, pre-modern (if just barely) development of historical barbarism and one of the earliest demonstrations of what we refer to today as the extreme fascist right.

luddite ideas showing up in fake leftist circles should be raising alarm flags. when this shit gurgles up, it's not a left, it's an extreme right. worse, it's consistent with other extreme right ideas infecting and co-opting the fake left, to produce what has become an increasingly ideologically coherent extreme right.

chomsky saw this coming a little but he avoided taking it on. chomsky was pretty hard-headed and not afraid to get into a debate, but he didn't want this fight. the person that really took this issue on, and whose writings on the topic are invaluable at this point, was hitchens, who was almost prophetic at points, despite getting the basic point wrong in iraq. dawkins has been wrong about hormone science and women's rights, but he identified a lot of the fake left issues before they were serious concerns.

the broader society should see these fascist attacks on the use of technology as dangerous and as an extreme warning signal that we're on a path towards collapse and self-harm.

socialists and communists and anarchists would not have any opposition to the increased use of technology in society at all. that is not a left-wing position.

the left would support socializing the production of technology, increasing automation and the eventual jump to the superproduction of consumer goods for the benefit of the working class. the basic idea on the left is that increases in technology will lead to decreases in costs (including via economies of scale) and that this, combined with the elimination of profit and the abolition of private property, will ensure that the consumer goods made in the factory are accessible to the proletariat operating the machines, so that we don't have this depressing reality where we enslave a dominant portion of the population to make goods for the elite, which they can never afford. the auto workers should be able to afford to buy the cars they make.

luddite nonsense expressing a fear of change about the "dangers of technology" is as right-wing, as backwards and as conservative as you can get. it is in direct opposition to any sort of leftist theory and has no remote resemblance to it.

if we can get a non-confidence vote, we should. like, now.

i certainly wouldn't vote for the right.

but i'd like to see the liberals removed from power. i'm concerned that they signed a backroom deal with donald trump to sell us out.

i mean, carney claims he wants to replace the united states with other countries through expanded trade deals.

but then he attacks the domestic industry with these outrageous tax hikes and sells it by wrapping himself in the flag, and pushing this chauvinistic nonsense about competing. how does he expect them to compete in foreign markets? they won't be able to, because of the local tax policies.

but he's then opening up our markets to goods from horrible places like indonesia and the uae, that literally have actual slaves in their production process and put actual poison in their food. those are going to flood the market at rates similar or lower to chinese goods, and they're going to displace the canadian goods that can't compete because of the tax rates.

these trade deals he's signing, in conjunction with the counter-tariffs, are just going to contribute to the effects of the trade war, not mitigate it. then he clarifies by pointing out that what he actually wants is "foreign investment", which is newspeak for selling canadian assets to foreign investors. it's apparently intentional. the policy is apparently designed to make canada for sale.

i couldn't create a worse policy for canadian businesses and canadian workers if i tried.

but if you're invested in some indonesian palm oil exporting agrifood company, you just got a foot into the canadian market, and preferential conditions that could even start to harm the canola industry.

we're under serious attack by our own government in ways that trump could never do by himself. all trump can do is tax his own people, which would have a minimal effect on us. but the policy path canada is choosing is going to severely damage profitable, successful canadian economic sectors with the apparent intent of opening them for sale to foreign investors, at minimal harm to the american exporters.

in the canexit analogy, alberta and saksatchewan are actually emerging as a kind of scotland, that is resisting the exit and wants to stay in the cusma. and, in the process, they are implementing more academic and less populist policies, that will lead to less self-harm, although they are bound by the foolishness of the federal government's new hidden consumption tax policy on capital inputs and capital investment.

if we're going to do this with seriousness, we should also abolish the gst.

...because the gst was created to replace a similar historical tax that existed before the fta, and was taken out as a part of the trade negotiations.

as it is, the net sum is that we've doubled consumption taxes, because we have both the gst and the thing the gst replaced in place, simultaneously. that's like a 70% consumption tax on some items. nothing could be more regressive than that. that's going to make us far less competitive, globally.

i would consequently support a policy shift by the opposition parties to completely get rid of the gst, so long as these tariffs look like they're long term. it's not a good policy, but it's a lesser evil.

the anti-technology luddites of today are the conservatives of the digital economy and should be attacked the same way as any other conservatives, by drawing attention to their immense ignorance.

these kids are going to grow up into useless, anti-technology pothead hippie idiot retard adults that are incapable of doing anything useful in the actual economy and then complain that they can't get ahead no matter how hard they work at it because their idiot parents wouldn't let them use computers when they were kids. 

i will take the opposite position: restricting kids' access to technology should be seen as a form of child abuse and kids should be removed from those environments and placed in foster care instead.

this is the most anti-intellectual form of luddism that i've ever seen.

if you don't want your kids using computers at school, go fuck yourselves, first, and then get the fuck out of canadian society, and go live with the amish. i have no respect for your opinion at all and i don't want you living in my society. i don't want to hear from you at all. just shut up and go away.

if you don't want to exist in modernity, kindly remove yourself from it and leave everybody else alone to live in peace.

studies are clear that the use of technology increases educational results. it's not ambiguous. i don't want to live in the dark ages and i will very aggressively resist any groups trying to drag me back into them.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/back-to-school-techlash-9.7327303

canada doesn't gain anything from a strengthened economic relationship with the european union. it is neither a likely market for canadian goods, nor a likely supplier of goods to canada. canada is further from europe than africa or russia and has higher labour standards than both. canadian goods exported from canada to the eu will be prohibitively expensive and unable to compete with russian or african  goods, and european goods imported to canada from the eu will likewise never be competitive with american goods, even with high tariffs.

a basic application of ricardan theory would suggest almost no level of trade between canada and the eu makes economic sense, which is why almost none exists.

rather, it would appear to speak more to the cultural affinity of mark carney and his family, including his wife, than to the legitimate economic needs of canada as a country.

canada would be better off seeking a stronger trade relationship with mercosur and building stronger relationships with other south and central american countries. ricardan theory would suggest a stronger trading relationship with these countries would be mutually beneficial to both of us, as we can each specialize in the production of goods that the others cannot.

again, the point of putting carney in power was that he was supposed to be an economic egghead, but he's turned out to be a kind of populist dumbard, instead - a centrist version of nigel farage that puts his personal cultural preferences ahead of the country's economic well-being, and is repeatedly making mistakes that you'd expect a prime minister educated in economics would not make. he is essentially adopting the theory promoted by the don coyote school of economics, that tariffs make us rich and create jobs, which has been repeatedly rejected by repeated failed application. the point of getting an education is to learn from the mistakes of the past. carney seems to have learned nothing from the past.

what's going on in canada right now is not some brave show of independence. that is nonsense. canada is in actuality undergoing a kind of canexit for purely cultural and populist reasons out of an emotional kneejerk reaction that is going to severely harm it for years to come.