Subscript5676

It’s not that simple though. People who live in rural areas already have resources that they trust, and that’s outside of the Internet, and with their local communities, churches or not. The way we, as humans, look at information is highly dependent on what we already know, with all our biases and know-hows shaped by our past experiences. And as much as people on Lemmy think it’s easy, knowing how to lookup the Internet is a skill: just work with someone who doesn’t use the Internet much, and you’ll see how some amount of investigative skill and patience is needed, and it’s not just a “ask whatever you want into the search bar” kind of deal. Even we don’t just do that: the Internet has a ton of trashy websites that can’t be trusted, and we have to learn how to filter those out.

It’s easy to just say that these people are gullible, but I see their gullibility as something that is shaped by people with malicious intents. Keep the education system badly funded or ran by likeminded people, add that with a community that seems to be doing well without outside knowledge, and you have an environment that’ll churn out people who are likely to believe whatever their circle of people peddles to them, especially if they’ve created an environment where you don’t trust anyone from the out group.

This whole thing is just sad to read, though I think I’m rather naive to reasons why the ideas of separatism was even there in the first place, if not just because some small group of powerful individuals wanted impunity when it comes to resource extraction, and, over the years, gained governmental powers and installed a useful and twisted mouthpiece as their their Premier, and started using recent alt-right tactics to look for any points of dissatisfaction turn that into a bludgeon against Ottawa.

I feel sorry for rural Albertans cause their lives and worldview have been shaped to have little to no options but what O&G execs and extreme religious leaders want.

That’s not just an anti-trans playbook. That’s THE playbook used by many politicians around the world today to garner support while breaking their political opponents’: pick on small issues that target some minority groups, talk about them as if they’re rampant, just so that they can get enough of a majority behind them so that they can push their own agenda.

Every time I see Hespler Stroad I wince.

That said though, 4.5B is a really big ask. I think I sorta have an understanding as to why it’s so expensive: Stage 1 was already expensive, so using that as a point of reference and inflation, walla; crossing the Grand River requires infrastructure that’s more complex and involved than almost everything we’ve seen in Stage 1; lots of land acquisition, etc. None of these are easy, but man, 4.5B :(

RM Transit made a somewhat emotional video after reading this article, if anyone has followed that channel. IDK if it’s on YouTube, but it’s on Nebula.

This is definitely a sad one to read. I can’t say I’m incredibly privy to the matters there, so I’m saying these based on the article and Reese’s (from RM Transit) comments. Metrolinx brought in foreign transit companies, with decades of experience under their belt, to advise and help build our transit system, but execs and seniors are somehow just stuck with their own idea of what transit looks like and wouldn’t budge on it. It’s such a disgraceful episode of working with people from other countries. Regardless if the people at Deutsche Bahn were actually insensitive to local sensitivities and have their own working style, you’ve signed that contract, so at least show that you’re willing to take in that advice and argue constructively. And heck, where is the public input on this?

That’s such a dumb statement from an exec member at Metrolinx. Let’s take an example here. The Kitchener line connects some of the most populous cities in Ontario after the Lakeshore line, and is, optically on a map, the closest point to expand all the way to London, another populous city. Many people have to frequently go into Toronto for work, family, education, etc. Do they think that number’s gonna go down in 30 years’ time? What the heck gonna happen to make that number go down?

And the GTA is not even bigger than the Greater Tokyo Area by both its urban and metro land mass. Sure, it’s 3x denser in Tokyo, but it’s dense not cause people have nowhere else to live, but cause the infrastructure IS there to facilitate it. Induced demand works for railways as much as they do for highways.

I wish there’s a better meme to describe the current Malaysia-China relationship lol

The Malaysian political class has always played the strategic hedging game with more powerful nations. In the case of China, they’re super happy to take Chinese investments and even take their aid in building out large-scale infrastructure (just earlier this year, I learned that Penang accepted the large above-water power transferring cables on floats, from China, in order to replace the existing old power cables underneath the first Penang bridge), and meekly complain about China encroaching on the South China Sea. I sometimes wonder if they’re happy to play that game just cause of how little they care about East Malaysia, which is more dependent on the South China Sea. Overall, Malaysia is playing a risky and IMO losing game against China.

In Canadian context, the Eastern Malaysian states are kinda like BC and Alberta in some ways: a lot of political decisions are West-Malaysian-centric, so separatist sentiment rises from time to time. East Malaysia more rich in off-shore oil fields, but West Malaysia don’t particularly lack them. In terms of political culture, all of Malaysia’s considered culturally conservative so both sides aren’t too different in that sense (but at least East Malaysian governments aren’t jerks, unlike the government in that one province we know of). Their local cultures differ quite a lot though.

Could we share this with MPs or even Carney so that they’d see this? Cause I really wish they can see this to know that this is what we’re facing, and we really hope they’ll do the right thing. I’m probably just trying to feel hopeful though.

If more people can actually care about the lives of others, the problems that our world and humanity face right now would’ve been much easier to solve.

Oh I’ve heard of this, but for a different country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Malaysia_Plan (for years 2021-2025) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleventh_Malaysia_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Malaysia_Plan And you can find older ones from there. The first one started in 1966, just about 10 years after Malaysia’s independence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Malaysia_Plan

There’s also a 13th plan in the making from various news sources in Malaysia, for the next 5 years from 2026.

Most of these plans have some amount of controversy that come with them.

• In the first plan, they’ve been happy to even support the US in the Vietnam War, in order to get some money out from the US for economic development. It was a rather unpopular move, but here we can already see how Malaysia chooses to play in the international scene, which generally continues even today.
• Throughout many of the plans, there are sections that clearly give preference to the Malay race and the indigenous people, typically grouped under the term bumiputra; though this sort of affirmative action is actually enshrined in Malaysia’s constitution as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_153_of_the_Constitution_of_Malaysia; and from the word of mouth passed through generations of the Malaysian Chinese, there’s a strong belief that the ancestors of the Chinese and Indians there made this concession so that their people may stay in Malaysia, as many of them left their home countries due to strong push factors back home, and they aren’t welcomed back either.
• If you’re wondering what other sorts of preferential treatment have they given to the Bumiputras over the years: a percentage of enrolment in universities, a percentage of employment in sufficiently large enterprises (from somewhere medium and up I believe), and attempts at essentially emboldening rich Malays to own even more of Malaysia’s wealth in terms of percentage (there’s a common theme where previous governments will use the word Bumiputras when they really mean the Malay people, almost as if it’s a useful facade or shield against criticisms from non-Bumiputras and sometimes even foreigners; the indigenous people are fractured and generally don’t care about Malaysian politics).

Whether these plans are inspired by Soviet Union plans, I don’t know, as no one seems to talk about that. The Malaysian government’s approach to international relationships has never really changed throughout the years, despite changing governments recently: they will deal with the country regardless of whichever side of the power struggle they’re in, be it the US, Europe, Soviets, Russian, and today, China, as long as they would throw money at it without seemingly hurting the country, as well as other Islamic countries. So there’s a good chance that these 5-year Malaysian Plans are very much inspired by the Soviets.

Recent news all really just make me wonder if we just voted the Conservatives into power.

I played the first Nioh and really liked it. Been planning to play 2, but dang there’s now a 3 upcoming?

Really hoping their recent mixed records won’t carry forward here though.