protectionism is what kills your economy because it cannot raise aggregate output. You can't "save jobs" in total, only a minority at the expense of the majority. When you raise tariffs on Chinese imports every consumer takes an economic hit, which otherwise would have gone to.. job creation and consumption. You'll have on net fewer jobs because you've made your country poorer.
Not to mention, Canada being largely a service and resource extraction economy doesn't even really compete much with China.
It worked for Australia (which has a fairly similar economy to Canada).
It has led to a "Dutch disease" reliance on the resources sector in Australia, but that isn't radically different to the Australian economy before (mostly proportionally more coal & iron ore exports, less wool and grain)
That is a policy choice. Why do we need jobs if we're getting unlimited free stuff? The laws of physics aren't requiring us to - we are requiring us to.
The point is total economic dependence on _no one_, because we had basically had total economic dependence on the US and they fucked us into learning our lesson.
But other people are giving you everything you want for free. Why do you need to afford it? What does it even mean to question whether you can afford something you already get unlimited amounts of for free?
You said "everything you need". I need shelter, I need food and water, but I want powerful computing, fast internet, a phone with cell service, treats and snacks and etc. I want games to play with my friends, I want gifts to buy for my friends. I don't need those things, but they greatly contribute to my quality of life.
Also:
> What does it even mean to question whether you can afford something you already get unlimited amounts of for free?
If I had unlimited money, my limiting resources would quickly become time and energy instead. So affording something would mean fitting it into my day/week/month/etc, and finding the energy for it. I have severe ADHD and executive dysfunction, so I don't always have the capacity for things I should be able to do.
It is genuinely impossible to compete in a market where alternatives are cheaper enough, just look at how Amazon Basics squeezes competitors out of business.
This is why free trade is important. We had a decent setup where countries were specializing in their own manufacturing/services specialties, and then we all paid each other for what we needed.
Then some greedy fools decided they needed more, and started trying to charge more on the way out or on the way in. Now the ones that specialized in the 'must haves' of today have insane leverage over everyone else. Then the 'easy' answer is to prevent those goods from coming into your country.
It's all so incredibly shortsighted, it deflates me.
The reality of the world is that when the US sets e.g. environmental or labor standards, we basically end up offshoring the affected industries to other places. Because those standards increase the cost of production which makes it more economical to produce stuff in a country that doesn't have such standards. With completely free trade, everything would be made in whichever country has the lowest standards, which is rather contrary to the implied values when passing environmental and labor standards in the first place.
You could then try to make laws that countries we import from must abide certain standards, but just gets gamed endlessly. For instance cacao/chocolate makes extensive use of child slavery [1]. There have been numerous lawsuits over this until the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that you could no longer sue Nestle/Cargill/Hershey/etc over child slavery in their supply lines. They were being sued because their oversight came down to asking, 'Hey you're not using child labor right?' 'Nah.' 'Cheers then, carry on.'
When a company's goal is to not see something, they do a very good job of becoming blind.
Labor costs are orders of magnitude more than costs added by environmental or labor standards.
The average hourly rate in the US is $42.50. In Vietnam is is $6.30, in the Philippines it is $5.40[1]
These aren't people living in poverty - they live well.
OTOH environmental legislation costs are harder to come by, but [2] estimates around 10% in a number of case studies. To be specific, that would mean US cost would be $4 less - that's still around 6 times the cost of Vietnam
That paper discusses only the effect of increasing energy costs, and seems highly dubious as well. Their conclusion is that increases in energy prices would have a small effect that could even be positive. We got to see what happens after increasing energy prices since 2022. The effects have been neither modest nor positive. They studied only modest changes from the past, but they were speaking of energy costs shifts on a scale aiming to shift Earth's climate, which is not modest. The cost is going to be much more than 10%.
Also the US economy is increasingly polarized so averages mislead. The median hourly is a bit under $21. [1] You also need to account for what happened to the economy after we start shipping these affected jobs overseas. That's an entire segment of the economy which is going to influence wages, consumption, and other distributions. I agree wages are always going to be a major factor, but we can also afford a premium because shipping stuff half way around the world isn't free, the broader economic impact of having less control over your supply line is itself also a significant cost, and so on.
What are you saying? If people all choose a shitty version from China, there will be no market for a good local version and businesses will stop trying. The investment required to match China's manufacturing capability in any area is simply impossible unless you say it is an AI data center.
Real life isn't just "the shitty version from China", especially in 2026. Some of their products are better, some are worse. Nearly _all_ of our clothing comes from Asia, from low to high-end brands.
I'm saying there's value in specializing, not every country needs to be able to make everything. The real issue is people weaponizing their specializations, in this case specifically the USA with its stupid trade moves.
What is "quality"? What is the objective test of it?
I have made my definition clear: if people are choosing a product consistently, it must be of some value to them. What is your definition?
Often i think of a novel idea or solution to a problem, but use AI to communicate or adjust what I already wrote out so it’s more comprehensible. Sometimes when I write, it’s hard to understand.
The more you write, the less this will be true. The more you write, the better you will become at it. Using an LLM to write is like sending a robot to the gym for you.
The more you use an LLM to write for you, the worse you will become at writing yourself. There is simply no other possible outcome. It's even true of spellcheck - the more you use a spellcheck the worse you become at spelling. I know this for a fact because I can no longer spell for shit. However, spelling is to writing as arithmetic is to mathematics. I also can't add up, but I have a degree in pure mathematics.
LLMs are a cancer on human thought and expression.
> LLMs are a cancer on human thought and expression.
LLMs help to express what many people dont have the energy or ability to express. It also has a broader scoped view of protocol...It does not have emotions, which often leads to less than optimal discourse.
In many ways, it help those who are challenged in discourse to better express themselves...rather than keeping silent or being misunderstood.
So if you want to reply to a comment you read today, and you don't feel like your writing skill is up to snuff, you should be content with expecting to wait the requisite weeks or months or years of practice before even considering replying to it?
This seems especially relevant for non-English-fluent commenters, who are increasingly using LLMs to be able to communicate more effectively on an English-only site like Hacker News than they'd otherwise be able to do.
I've noticed a considerable drop-off in HN commenters who are unable to deal with the substance of a comment if it contains errors in spelling or grammar, so I don't think this is the issue it used to be.
It's still daunting posting in a second language, and LLMs are an attractive solution to that (depending on your definition of 'solution').
Is that an actual drop-off in commenters, or in comments? The latter is readily explainable by “commenters who would previously call out the errors now choose to not engage with those comments/posts at all”.
In any case, I don't think it's a bad thing to want to communicate as clearly as possible, and if an LLM helps you do that, I ain't one to judge. Sure, ideally I'd want to read folks' thoughts without the LLM-induced layer of vaseline smoothing them over, but even that's better than not reading them at all :)
The difference is that I will retain what I drew out from the dictionary the next time. If people use Ai this way for writing, great! What many of the "enhanced-by-ai" arguments sound like is that this will be an indefinite outsourcing.
Use them to get better, like how reading good writing directly (not summarized) will also make you a much better writer. Learn from the before and after so next time there isn't a need to reach for Ai.
"I can vouch for myself and others - that we are there to just buy cool shit and not ‘connect’ with the artist."
Who is "we"? Art, to me, is about pouring your heart and soul into something in a way that AI can trivially emulate, which makes it dangerous when placed next to art that actually has a lived experience attached to it.
I can slap a prompt into AI and get some graphic design slop that to the untrained eye looks "close enough" to the vendor next to them that actually made the art themselves. This is dangerous and spits in the face of people who pour themselves into their work.
At best, put the AI art generators into their own little special corner. But don't put one-shotted AI art next to actual crafted human created art right next to one another and say that they're equal. The brush strokes are imaginary. That's a grift.
Wouldn't it be possible to privatize space in some way like land, and then enforce any damages to neighbor's 'land'/orbit?. Might involve some easements for 'right of way' into higher / intersecting orbit.
I mean you could... but good luck getting global agreement on that and realistically no. It is a thing that sounds nice and could look nice on paper but real world complications will result in issues pretty fast. Sounds like a great way to start a war as treaty violations will be inevitable and unavoidable.
If you divide up by altitude: it requires significant negotiation to place a vehicle (an arbitrary spacecraft or satellite) in any location.
If you partition by location (e.g. project current airspace upwards): your vehicles can't abide by these rules. They must orbit the planet. They will eventually go over most countries.
If you partition by orbit: you have to contend with precession. Craft drift[0,1]. This is because Earth is an oblate spheroid and not a sphere. It is also caused by angular momentum itself, so your orbit rotates. You will start in one and over time move into another. There's not much you can do about this and it is quite costly to maneuver (constant orbital maneuvering means an exponential increase in weight, complexity, and cost). Remember, the Earth does not rotate around in its axis in a fixed period of time, nor does it around the sun.
So really the laws of physics have you in a bind. Things are constantly moving and changing. So even the best laid plans will eventually lead to violation (and thus conflict) even through no ill-intent.
This is actually why a lot of (especially "hard") Sci-Fi has treated space travel as a global unification period. Because it becomes necessary in order to avoid conflict. This was a bigger discussion in the 60's and 70's when the initial space ventures were occurring and in the public eye, but has naturally drifted out of conversation as the underlying motivation similarly did. Though it stayed in conversation for domain experts who frequently content with this still.
Raw milk is often touted for its health benefits, including higher levels of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that can be destroyed during pasteurization.
Raw milk supports better digestion due to the presence of natural enzymes like lactase, which can help lactose-intolerant individuals.
It also contains beneficial bacteria that can enhance gut health and boost the immune system.
Homogenization, a process where milk is forced through small openings under high pressure to break down fat molecules and create a uniform consistency, is another step in milk processing.
This process alters the structure of fat molecules, which some believe impacts the nutritional quality and digestibility of milk.
Raw milk avoids both pasteurization and homogenization, retaining its natural separation of cream and milk, and preserving its original nutritional profile.
Pasteurization and homogenization reduces some nutritional content and alter the milk's natural state.
It’s the difference between cold pressed juices and the fake orange juice that has been heated millions of times and the manufacture re-adds vitamin C because the processs killed off its natural vitamin C
(Meta note: I vouched for this comment because it provides precisely the reply I was looking for, not as a endorsement of what it says or the person saying it)
Back then, all they knew was hunting. Probably became masters at each species and teach the young how to master it.
Now we don’t do that and teach are young about math and science. We don’t need hunting because we can just shoot them in the face. Or drop on nuke on their species.
That's almost certainly wrong. The amount of things they must have known, both individually and collectively, to survive was probably pretty big! They had to know:
- what plants are safe to eat, where to find them, when they come into season.
- what plants are medicinal, and their uses.
- heck, medicine in general. how to treat certain injuries and illnesses, how to help mothers with childbirth.
- navigation, by the stars, by local features, etc.
I have heard this apocryphal idea before: Modern people have to know more to get through a single day than someone from X time period would have learned in their entire lives.
This is why you think ahead and price this in the market - so to speak. Take everyone’s advice lightly as they could be corrupted and make your own critical decisions
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