Its difficult to see " free" anything, in the new Post National State of Trudeau. I believe there have been many "hateful" people, such as myself, saying just that for sometime. I am sure this will ruffle a few feathers on here as we have dedicated "just" ifyers cheering everything that Trudeau does on . After all it's necessary and in the best interests of all Canadian's. Nothing could ever be further from the truth. Trudeau is a tyrant and is interested in controlling everything. When I was young we called it Communism but today the justifiers call it making things safe and inclusive.
tps://www.britannica.com/topic/utilitarianism-philosophy. I thought I might share this for all of those on The Line to Read.
I am a great believer in personal accountability and one thing I learned through my life is that we each are responsible for our actions, good or bad. Those who continually blame their situation on others, become victims in their own thoughts and actions. When people do not reflect on their own behaviour and contribution to the place they find themselves in, they will stay chronic victims throughout life. Being a victim is a choice. Learning from it, understanding it, and ensuring it never happens again, is the only solution to end victimhood.
Happiness is fleeting and Short lived for the majority of people. If happiness is dependent on the actions of others, then it's impossible to find.
As for the Prime Minister, who is surrounding himself with brilliant minds and perhaps they are brilliant, that is not for me to decide. When people of like minds, philosophies, and ideology, come together and work as a group , they all think they are brilliant. Unfortunately, as we have witnessed, without someone of a different mindset to intervene and question that "brilliance", do a feasibility study, and connect good monetary policy to back up that brilliance, it ends in energy shortages, people unable to keep warm, food shortages, starvation and massive death around the world. Brilliance, like happiness, is usually counter to opposition.
Sort of like the scientific brilliance of those who like playing with viruses in order to save humanity. There are consequences to all brilliance without opposition. Silencing those who speak out against those ideas is what will cause catastrophes.
As for the new monetary theory of spend until the banks are empty is not a theory, it's another disaster to which it will be us peons who pay the largest price. That is non negotiable.
Marc Carney is neither brilliant nor does he have good ideas, unless of course your speaking of how to rape Canadians of thier money to make himself and his business partners more wealthy. For the record. Gore is a politician, not a scientist, and Carney is a banker, not a environmentalist. They are in this, created this, only to make themselves more wealthy. It has nothing to do with good, right happiness, or any other virtuous ideology. They are selfish and greedy. Sort of like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Walmart. Anyone who believes these global conglomerates are going to share with anyone, is delusional. They want power through wealth, just as every elite behind this ideology does. Follow the decision makers, the money, and the reason for implementing any of it. I guarantee you , it's not for your happiniess nor for any equity. That can only come and will only come from your fellow citisens. The elites will keep all theirs.
My depravity, that’s rich! I am not the unethical tyrant, that label goes to Trudeau. Of cause he is not bound by any ethical standards as that has been plain from the beginning. I found that line in your opinion piece hysterical.
I am ok with immigration but as someone with some common sense it would perhaps be helpful to build our healthcare up from rock bottom first. If we can not care for the majority of Canadians now, how does Bringing in millions more people, aid our health care. Same can be said for putting in for health reforms like dental and pharma. How about we try and build up our health care system before throwing money at other programs. I suppose you and Trudeau call Health Care a Utility and your correct as it’s been over utilized for many, many years and it’s being utilized to death now. People are dying due to other reasons at a higher pace than they are of Covid.
Wow if you want to go into past transgressions of parties you have opened a huge can of worms. Unfortunately, I have better things to do with my time so I wont indulge you of the malfeasants of past Liberal corruption as Trudeau alone would require me to write a book. Its not me who has issues sir, that title belongs solely to you. I am not playing your twisted little games any longer. Lets just agree to disagree and leave it at that. I will ignore your posts and you just ignore mine. I have lost all desire to converse with your lunacy any longer. Keep on trolling as I would expect nothing more.
I will have to think about what you have said here so I will refrain from a comment now. There is a lot to take in and I want to be fair and give this a honest response that is not as you call "hateful". I want to be clear why I have serious issues with Trudeau, his cabinet, his supporters, and those he surrounds himself with, along with his policies and plans for Canadians. I want to be respectful and yet make sure you know why I have such difficulty with him and his ideology. I appreciate you writing this as it is hard for me to understand the thought process behind those that support him.
(?) If there's anything "rigorously intellectual" in Mr. Quinn's transparent masquerading of his own political preferences as a "utilitarian ethical framework," it's certainly well-disguised. While the concept "the greatest good for the greatest number" can make a plausible case for being ideology-independent, the concept "the greatest good for the greatest number I don't deem bigots and radicalized idiots" manifestly cannot. How convenient it would be if virtue, pragmatism, efficacy, and even what qualifies as "the people" (the ones who count) could be categorically defined politically and ideologically, as Mr. Quinn has attempted here (even 'uppity' is politicized for him).
There's nothing ethical about such subterfuge; the real question is whether the subterfuge is a conscious effort on Mr. Quinn's part to conflate and deceive, or whether his motives are so opaque to him that he doesn't suspect the extent to which he's been 'radicalized' himself. In his account the legacy of Bentham and Mill has been bequeathed solely to ideological soul mates like Freeland, Trudeau, Morneau and Carney (what luck!), not to anyone in, for example, the Freedom Convoy--there's no possibility they could have any "empirical" grounds for their grievances with Liberal policy. If these aren't purely ideological convictions, kindly give us another name for them (no, not 'utilitarian,' 'pragmatic,' or 'efficacious;' those meanings are already taken, and 'Liberal' forms no part of their definitions).
Fast reply... maybe too fast. You might have been better off taking time to digest some of the above observations, with a view to better understanding their import.
For a supposed champion of the empirical, Mr. Quinn, you show a strange predilection for jumping to evidence-challenged conclusions. For the utilitarian edification of everyone here (including me), kindly point out what my remarks owe to hatred or bigotry and I'll manfully acknowledge the debt. Right now, I'm unaware of it: I thought I was drawing attention to your errors in reasoning--most egregiously the conflation of concepts better kept distinct. As for "my" party--the NDP, which I've supported for decades--it just concluded a pact with the Liberals.
I think you need to make up your mind whether you're making a case for utilitarianism and/or pragmatism as ethical guides for policymaking, or for the political wisdom of the (supposedly ideologically-unconstrained) Liberal Party and its current leader. Not only are these not the same projects, they aren't even related. Every party and every party leader crunches empirical data, with a view to maximizing whatever is valued in its polity. This process has nothing to do with people's ideological commitments. It's compatible with any ideology, or with none at all.
By the way, marketing utilitarianism as an ethical system is by no means a slam-dunk. You seem blithely unaware of some of the ethical conundrums faced by utilitarians. What if it could be demonstrated that utility in a particular society would be maximized if ten percent of its people were slaves--what then? "The greatest good for the greatest number" logically authorizes tyrannizing minorities, if necessary. Are you really okay with that?
You might consider thinking this over before writing again, and maybe even revisit the first post with a view to determining what's truly at issue in it, the alternative (preferable, in my view) to swinging blindly at straw men of your own fabrication.
Okay, my mistake... there's no point sending out signals if the receptors just aren't there. I might have deduced as much from Mr. Quinn's initial post: he doesn't write like someone who's ever benefited much from the good advice of others, and whatever sense of logical relevance he possesses has clearly deserted him in this pseudo-exchange.
Still, there's something to be said for pointing out philosophical confusions, just for the record, even when dialogue with the confused themselves proves impossible. Mr. Quinn, it turns out, has no real interest in utilitarianism, and quite possibly none in ethics either (the basic ethic of getting things right in print is evidently a blank to him). We're left to conclude that his paean to utilitarianism was a mere cover for the ideological convictions that are his true concerns.
This move is orthodox among ideologues, but also transparent; the wonder is how they ever came to imagine it's persuasive. If they simply disclosed their convictions and argued for them honestly they might not win assent, but at least they'd merit the respect we accord sincerity over deviousness. Unfortunately, since ideologues tend to 'know what they know' (including, magically, what's in the minds of their interlocutors--typically bigotry and hatred), you can't have much of a dialogue with them. Dialogue for the true believer isn't an exchange but an exercise in threading his way to the non-negotiable conclusions he knows he has to reach.
I'd agree with you, except for Canada under this Utilitarian regime isn't getting the big things right.
One of the lowest productivity and productivity growth in the OECD. Some of the lowest health care results rankings in the OECD. Some of the highest cost housing in the world while having incomes in the middle of the OECD pack.
Canada has a reputation for being "all hat and no cattle" as even our response and help to the Ukrainians can attest to.
It seems like the consumer is the last person thought of here. I don't want a subscription to one or multiple organizations for a year. I just want to buy a paper or article of my choice on a given day. I want to scan world, national, provincial, and local content depending on my mood or interests. I want commentary to be unbiased or at least balanced by the other side. Social media was never made with a news model in mind and the tide of opinion reflects this.
In a perfect world, articles through independent journalists would be posted reviewed, and ranked by readers. The winners would be compensated through a per view compensation and the losers would fall off the edge of the stack. It. seems as though we are alright to let coal die. but not big mass media based journalism.
Google News used to give you all news coverage of an event. Now it only gives me 3 or 4 mainstream Canadian sources which, are essentially, all the same coverage. I decline stories from certain outlets, yet I still receive them. It's almost as if I'm not allowed to know other points of view...
I think Google news started out as an interesting model but because there was no subscription, it is probably being manipulated by proprietary journalism and activist organizations. No money = no support.
Hold on a second...do you understand what modern Facebook is, though? It is no longer a simple webpage, as it and other platforms like it are essentially a combination Web Portal/Browser. Imagine if you took old school late 90s AOL or Yahoo homepages and combined them with a custom build of Chrome/Firefox branded after them.
As such, everyone and everything has to have a presence on Facebook, including posting their own stories or "links" in their Newsfeed.
What then happens is Facebook's browser/template not only has their own advertising around the Media Company's post in the individual user's News Feed, then when you click on the story and expand the window, Facebook has autoplay ads throughout the Media Company's article.
See, it's not exactly "links" Facebook posts, they actually don't even do that. A Media Company posts their CONTENT to the platform using a link to their own hosted site, which Facebook then auto creates a "Facebook specific" URL that basically redirects the user not outward to the World Wide Web, but internally to Facebook's mirror of the Media Company's site.
This is essentially theft of content, traffic AND advertising revenue, although as Facebook is potentially providing value it could be argued they should be eligible for a share of advertising revenue, but not all of it.
Is this relationship not unlike the one YouTube has with it's content creators? One they eventually had to begin paying So why is Facebook allowed to just create an environment that gives them not only direct control over creators and users, but the chance to profit massively by creating a bubble/lens around content that allows Media Companies to post it & you to view it. Yet provides Facebook with absolute control over what advertising you see while consuming said content, thus 100% of the associated profits from someone else's content.''
Facebook is a Multii-Billion Dollar grift, and it, and all other similar Social Media Scams, need to be forced to treat their content creators fair compensation for their work.
Free speech is great. Free speech with "alternative facts" is an abject disaster. There could be a balance, but that's not how you make the most money.
Ugh. Of all the policies this government has proposed, this is the one I think they've got the most wrong.
First, the entire business model for news and entertainment has changed. Rather than trying to help the industry through the transition, finding new business models and potentially audiences beyond Canada, we're actively propping up the old model. The means these businesses will be forever reliant on revenues from others (government mandated rents) and have zero reason to innovate. If you want to hobble an industry, that's a good way to do it. Dumb.
It also mixes up the challenge the data giants present. They are seamless distributors of data who -- via their algorithms -- decide who sees what. We could require some algorithmic transparency. We might even require them to rank Canadian content higher than they would otherwise. That addresses the desire for Canadians to access local content. But, rhat doesn't solve the advertising question.
We do have a precedent for that, though. When cassette tapes made it easy to copy music, the government put a levy on cassette tapes and distributed the money based on a formula that (IIRC) looked at sales and radio plays. We could tax the data giants based on the revenues generated in Canada and simply distribute the money based on readership. That's closer to addressing the near-monopoly data giants have on advertising. Not ideal, but way less convoluted than the government's proposal.
Ideally, we'd see news organizations come together and create an advertising network to rival the data giants, leveraging local content and readership. I'm not confident the incumbents are innovative enough to pull that off, but then propping them up limits entrepreneurs in Canada who might.
Somehow, this feels like a really badly constructed policy that's trying to address a legitimate issue. The Geist criticism has been quite good and I've yet to read a good defense of this policy approach. It really feels like the government fundamentally doesn't understand the brief and is just grabbing other policies (Australia) and trying to stretch them to fit the Canadian context (and doing it badly). This it way too important to screw up this badly.
For those people who don't have a subscription to The Atlantic, Bari Weiss talks about this article on her Honestly with Bari Weiss Apple podcast. She thinks Jonathan Haight's article is dead on.
I really appreciate articles like this, where the author has access to far more detail/context than I know about. I've developed a very strong dislike for the CBC over the past few years as I've moved more from the left to the centre, while they've joined the Woke Cult/Let's Emulate The USA In Most Things mindset.
I have written a multitude of comments over the years that attack the idea of what this type of policy does.
First off, I assume that the various internet organizations (hereafter, "VIO") will not take these monies out of their own profits and will therefore find a way to cause me - literally, me! - and you to pay extra. That means that I would be supporting Le Journal de Montreal, the Toronto Star, the Vancouver Province, etc., etc.
I don't want to support the Toronto Star, et al!! Not whatsoever. If I do want to support them and if I want to read their content I will purchase a subscription to those publications. I already subscribe to The Line, a number of Canadian newspapers and a variety of Canadian online publications because they interest me. But, but, but, I do not subscribe to the Toronto Star, et al because they do not interest me and I damned well do not want to be coerced into paying them.
So, if these publications want money from me, let them provide content that appeals to me or to others and we will pay to get past the paywall. There. Problem solved. If they cannot appeal to sufficient number of people to be able to be financially viable then they are deemed unnecessary by the population at large and should fail. As I say, problem solved.
Please, Sir, do not deflect and talk about Jason Kenney. As it happens, I also do not like him but what on earth does that have to do with the Peter Menzies article or your original comment on that article or my rebuttal of your comment. Again, please stop trying to deflect.
Terry, if various readers prefer the National Post and the Sun then that is fine. If they don't prefer those publications, then that is fine also. In all cases, however, allow the public to vote freely with their wallets.
I am simply saying that I don't want to be forced to pay for various publications that are not of interest to me.
By the way that you phrased your query I infer that you oppose US based owners, making money and the US right wing.
To that (inferred) position, I note that, (apparently) unlike you, I really don't care about the nationality of the owners. Further, I am content to read both publications with both a left wing and a right wing orientation; I don't like the Toronto Star because it was created to support the Liberal Party and continues to rabidly do so. By contrast, the other "national" newspapers have supported the Liberals, the Conservatives and even (gasp!) the NDP, all of which make them of interest to me - very much unlike the Red Star.
Why do I despise the Red Star? Well, it is more that I absolutely despise, abhor, dislike, etc., etc. the Liberal Party. Both Trudeau 1 and Trudeau 2 have repeatedly tried to destroy Alberta, so I say, F**k them, their political party, their supporters, the horses that they rode in and the publications that were created to support them.
And, oh yes, I am quite pleased when a publication can make money. Speaking of making money, if the National Post, et al, are making money for their "American owners" why, or why, do they need money from this new "internet tax"? If they are not making money for their "American owners" then what is the basis of your opposition - is it simply that you don't like their politics? Their nationality? Oh, if you don't like their nationality, does that mean that you have violated various aspects of hate law? Just wondering.
Terry, you say, "AB hatred of the Trudeau name is a sickness." Oh, where do I begin ....
First off, Terry, you say we have a sickness but I say that the Trudeaux have a sickness as both Prime Ministerial iterations [would that be idioterations??? just wondering...] have deliberately undertaken to destroy Alberta. [Trudeau 1 had two energy wars with Alberta, the second of which was the National Energy Program; Trudeau 2 is currently trying to destroy the Alberta economy] I therefore reject your assertion; we don't have a sickness but a well founded fear of a destroyer of our industry, our way of life, our culture.
You then say that "this version of the family" [i.e. the current idiot in chief in Ottawa - there! my bias is finally showing] purchased TMX "... against a lot of odds from many sides ..." Well, he and his ilk went out of their way to drive the original proponents out of business in Canada. They then vastly overpaid for that ongoing business - incompetence showing it's face, you know. Finally, they still are showing their incompetence by the dramatic increase of the estimated cost to completion. Of course, they also went out of their way to shut down other pipelines proposed and approved; well, until said idiot in chief came along.
I do know that when complete, TMX will be useful but if the Trudeau cabal had not delayed and obstructed and finally forced the owners out of the country, the pipeline would already have been completed and producing benefit for Alberta.
Now, as for Alberta having benefited from CERB, what precisely - I mean what the hell, precisely - does that have to do with anything? Alberta was on it's economic knees due to the oil price collapse - which we have dealt with many times in the past - which was dramatically, dramatically magnified by the attempt by the current chief idiot to drive our industry out of business. At one point, we had over 100,000 people unemployed here so it is no wonder that our businesses needed assistance. 100,000 people out of work and not a word from the feds; 2,500 possibly, maybe going to be out of work at GM in Oshawa A YEAR HENCE and it was a national tragedy! Nothing from the feds for us. So, yeah, we were economically weakened.
But, then again, what does this have to do with Peter Menzies' commentary, your original comment or my rebuttal to that comment.
You say we have a sickness of the Trudeau name. Yup - he sickens me! He disgusts me! On the other hand, it seems to me that you also have a pathological hatred of we in Alberta.
Trudeau 1 set out to drastically reduce Alberta's influence in Canada as he felt that we "were getting too much influence" because we were becoming wealthier after the first oil price shock. His solution was to change the Income Tax Act to deny the deduction of payments to the provincial governments [if I recall, it was the 1974 budget] - this is a matter of history; look it up. Subsequently, he brought forth the National Energy Program to try to bring about more drilling / production / etc. on what were known as "Canada lands" i.e. the territories, off shore, etc. where the federal government would control the industry and he would thereby dramatically reduce the influence of the provinces.
Trudeau 2 has used the cloak of "Climate Change" to find ways to pressure Alberta industry. He also has been quoted as wanting to phase out the oil sands [see https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/justin-trudeau-oilsands-phase-out-1.3934701]. He has clearly been preventing pipelines from being completed - look at the number of pipelines completed during the Harper years and the number completed during the Trudeau 2 years. So, yes, he does want to destroy Alberta.
So, you cannot "dialogue" with me, well, it is no surprise that a supporter of the "peoplekind" mastermind cannot handle the truth.
Rather than simply offering criticism of a particular plan, perhaps this or another contributor could deal constructively with the actual issue. Menzies mentions “a free and independent press” a couple of times, but only in passing. Does trying to do anything to retain such a thing have merit? Why or why not? Should there be such a thing as journalistic standards – or should it be “reader and/or viewer beware”?
If Menzies believes that a free, independent press which strives to maintain journalist standards is an unnecessary luxury in a society, then he should make the case. If it cannot make its way on its own, it should die – we are better left with creative writers and algorithms that are able generate income by appealing to our personal biases. Using manufactured and distorted information to make a buck is fair game.
If that is his view, I would like to see it articulated – it would make any discussion of government concern over journalism irrelevant. If that is not his view, then what is here is only someone sitting in an ivory tower throwing stones. Critique away, but offer something by way of a solution.
What these criticisms of Bill C-18 have me asking is how will Bill C-18 influence the quantity and quality of the news available to me, an interested citizen? It seems to me that it will improve the news environment for me.
I note that none--and I mean not a single one--of Bill C-18's critics have addressed the effect of the bill on interested citizens. All the criticisms are in the hyperbolic 'the sky is falling' category, it seems to me.
Its difficult to see " free" anything, in the new Post National State of Trudeau. I believe there have been many "hateful" people, such as myself, saying just that for sometime. I am sure this will ruffle a few feathers on here as we have dedicated "just" ifyers cheering everything that Trudeau does on . After all it's necessary and in the best interests of all Canadian's. Nothing could ever be further from the truth. Trudeau is a tyrant and is interested in controlling everything. When I was young we called it Communism but today the justifiers call it making things safe and inclusive.
Personally, I think we're less of a tyranny and more of a nanny-state on steroids...
a tyrannical nanny state on steroids...
tps://www.britannica.com/topic/utilitarianism-philosophy. I thought I might share this for all of those on The Line to Read.
I am a great believer in personal accountability and one thing I learned through my life is that we each are responsible for our actions, good or bad. Those who continually blame their situation on others, become victims in their own thoughts and actions. When people do not reflect on their own behaviour and contribution to the place they find themselves in, they will stay chronic victims throughout life. Being a victim is a choice. Learning from it, understanding it, and ensuring it never happens again, is the only solution to end victimhood.
Happiness is fleeting and Short lived for the majority of people. If happiness is dependent on the actions of others, then it's impossible to find.
As for the Prime Minister, who is surrounding himself with brilliant minds and perhaps they are brilliant, that is not for me to decide. When people of like minds, philosophies, and ideology, come together and work as a group , they all think they are brilliant. Unfortunately, as we have witnessed, without someone of a different mindset to intervene and question that "brilliance", do a feasibility study, and connect good monetary policy to back up that brilliance, it ends in energy shortages, people unable to keep warm, food shortages, starvation and massive death around the world. Brilliance, like happiness, is usually counter to opposition.
Sort of like the scientific brilliance of those who like playing with viruses in order to save humanity. There are consequences to all brilliance without opposition. Silencing those who speak out against those ideas is what will cause catastrophes.
As for the new monetary theory of spend until the banks are empty is not a theory, it's another disaster to which it will be us peons who pay the largest price. That is non negotiable.
Marc Carney is neither brilliant nor does he have good ideas, unless of course your speaking of how to rape Canadians of thier money to make himself and his business partners more wealthy. For the record. Gore is a politician, not a scientist, and Carney is a banker, not a environmentalist. They are in this, created this, only to make themselves more wealthy. It has nothing to do with good, right happiness, or any other virtuous ideology. They are selfish and greedy. Sort of like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Walmart. Anyone who believes these global conglomerates are going to share with anyone, is delusional. They want power through wealth, just as every elite behind this ideology does. Follow the decision makers, the money, and the reason for implementing any of it. I guarantee you , it's not for your happiniess nor for any equity. That can only come and will only come from your fellow citisens. The elites will keep all theirs.
My depravity, that’s rich! I am not the unethical tyrant, that label goes to Trudeau. Of cause he is not bound by any ethical standards as that has been plain from the beginning. I found that line in your opinion piece hysterical.
I am ok with immigration but as someone with some common sense it would perhaps be helpful to build our healthcare up from rock bottom first. If we can not care for the majority of Canadians now, how does Bringing in millions more people, aid our health care. Same can be said for putting in for health reforms like dental and pharma. How about we try and build up our health care system before throwing money at other programs. I suppose you and Trudeau call Health Care a Utility and your correct as it’s been over utilized for many, many years and it’s being utilized to death now. People are dying due to other reasons at a higher pace than they are of Covid.
Wow if you want to go into past transgressions of parties you have opened a huge can of worms. Unfortunately, I have better things to do with my time so I wont indulge you of the malfeasants of past Liberal corruption as Trudeau alone would require me to write a book. Its not me who has issues sir, that title belongs solely to you. I am not playing your twisted little games any longer. Lets just agree to disagree and leave it at that. I will ignore your posts and you just ignore mine. I have lost all desire to converse with your lunacy any longer. Keep on trolling as I would expect nothing more.
I will have to think about what you have said here so I will refrain from a comment now. There is a lot to take in and I want to be fair and give this a honest response that is not as you call "hateful". I want to be clear why I have serious issues with Trudeau, his cabinet, his supporters, and those he surrounds himself with, along with his policies and plans for Canadians. I want to be respectful and yet make sure you know why I have such difficulty with him and his ideology. I appreciate you writing this as it is hard for me to understand the thought process behind those that support him.
(?) If there's anything "rigorously intellectual" in Mr. Quinn's transparent masquerading of his own political preferences as a "utilitarian ethical framework," it's certainly well-disguised. While the concept "the greatest good for the greatest number" can make a plausible case for being ideology-independent, the concept "the greatest good for the greatest number I don't deem bigots and radicalized idiots" manifestly cannot. How convenient it would be if virtue, pragmatism, efficacy, and even what qualifies as "the people" (the ones who count) could be categorically defined politically and ideologically, as Mr. Quinn has attempted here (even 'uppity' is politicized for him).
There's nothing ethical about such subterfuge; the real question is whether the subterfuge is a conscious effort on Mr. Quinn's part to conflate and deceive, or whether his motives are so opaque to him that he doesn't suspect the extent to which he's been 'radicalized' himself. In his account the legacy of Bentham and Mill has been bequeathed solely to ideological soul mates like Freeland, Trudeau, Morneau and Carney (what luck!), not to anyone in, for example, the Freedom Convoy--there's no possibility they could have any "empirical" grounds for their grievances with Liberal policy. If these aren't purely ideological convictions, kindly give us another name for them (no, not 'utilitarian,' 'pragmatic,' or 'efficacious;' those meanings are already taken, and 'Liberal' forms no part of their definitions).
Fast reply... maybe too fast. You might have been better off taking time to digest some of the above observations, with a view to better understanding their import.
For a supposed champion of the empirical, Mr. Quinn, you show a strange predilection for jumping to evidence-challenged conclusions. For the utilitarian edification of everyone here (including me), kindly point out what my remarks owe to hatred or bigotry and I'll manfully acknowledge the debt. Right now, I'm unaware of it: I thought I was drawing attention to your errors in reasoning--most egregiously the conflation of concepts better kept distinct. As for "my" party--the NDP, which I've supported for decades--it just concluded a pact with the Liberals.
I think you need to make up your mind whether you're making a case for utilitarianism and/or pragmatism as ethical guides for policymaking, or for the political wisdom of the (supposedly ideologically-unconstrained) Liberal Party and its current leader. Not only are these not the same projects, they aren't even related. Every party and every party leader crunches empirical data, with a view to maximizing whatever is valued in its polity. This process has nothing to do with people's ideological commitments. It's compatible with any ideology, or with none at all.
By the way, marketing utilitarianism as an ethical system is by no means a slam-dunk. You seem blithely unaware of some of the ethical conundrums faced by utilitarians. What if it could be demonstrated that utility in a particular society would be maximized if ten percent of its people were slaves--what then? "The greatest good for the greatest number" logically authorizes tyrannizing minorities, if necessary. Are you really okay with that?
You might consider thinking this over before writing again, and maybe even revisit the first post with a view to determining what's truly at issue in it, the alternative (preferable, in my view) to swinging blindly at straw men of your own fabrication.
Okay, my mistake... there's no point sending out signals if the receptors just aren't there. I might have deduced as much from Mr. Quinn's initial post: he doesn't write like someone who's ever benefited much from the good advice of others, and whatever sense of logical relevance he possesses has clearly deserted him in this pseudo-exchange.
Still, there's something to be said for pointing out philosophical confusions, just for the record, even when dialogue with the confused themselves proves impossible. Mr. Quinn, it turns out, has no real interest in utilitarianism, and quite possibly none in ethics either (the basic ethic of getting things right in print is evidently a blank to him). We're left to conclude that his paean to utilitarianism was a mere cover for the ideological convictions that are his true concerns.
This move is orthodox among ideologues, but also transparent; the wonder is how they ever came to imagine it's persuasive. If they simply disclosed their convictions and argued for them honestly they might not win assent, but at least they'd merit the respect we accord sincerity over deviousness. Unfortunately, since ideologues tend to 'know what they know' (including, magically, what's in the minds of their interlocutors--typically bigotry and hatred), you can't have much of a dialogue with them. Dialogue for the true believer isn't an exchange but an exercise in threading his way to the non-negotiable conclusions he knows he has to reach.
Excellent analysis.
What colour is the sky in your world?
I'd agree with you, except for Canada under this Utilitarian regime isn't getting the big things right.
One of the lowest productivity and productivity growth in the OECD. Some of the lowest health care results rankings in the OECD. Some of the highest cost housing in the world while having incomes in the middle of the OECD pack.
Canada has a reputation for being "all hat and no cattle" as even our response and help to the Ukrainians can attest to.
It seems like the consumer is the last person thought of here. I don't want a subscription to one or multiple organizations for a year. I just want to buy a paper or article of my choice on a given day. I want to scan world, national, provincial, and local content depending on my mood or interests. I want commentary to be unbiased or at least balanced by the other side. Social media was never made with a news model in mind and the tide of opinion reflects this.
In a perfect world, articles through independent journalists would be posted reviewed, and ranked by readers. The winners would be compensated through a per view compensation and the losers would fall off the edge of the stack. It. seems as though we are alright to let coal die. but not big mass media based journalism.
Hopefully, substack will allow you to agglomerate your favourite writers and even outside substackers into a digital broadsheet or tabloid :)
Google News used to give you all news coverage of an event. Now it only gives me 3 or 4 mainstream Canadian sources which, are essentially, all the same coverage. I decline stories from certain outlets, yet I still receive them. It's almost as if I'm not allowed to know other points of view...
I think Google news started out as an interesting model but because there was no subscription, it is probably being manipulated by proprietary journalism and activist organizations. No money = no support.
I'll just give my money to the line and others, and let the vultures sort out the swamp.
Me Too! And thanks to all of you who make such insightful comments. I find that I learn as much from fellow readers as I do from the articles...
Hold on a second...do you understand what modern Facebook is, though? It is no longer a simple webpage, as it and other platforms like it are essentially a combination Web Portal/Browser. Imagine if you took old school late 90s AOL or Yahoo homepages and combined them with a custom build of Chrome/Firefox branded after them.
As such, everyone and everything has to have a presence on Facebook, including posting their own stories or "links" in their Newsfeed.
What then happens is Facebook's browser/template not only has their own advertising around the Media Company's post in the individual user's News Feed, then when you click on the story and expand the window, Facebook has autoplay ads throughout the Media Company's article.
See, it's not exactly "links" Facebook posts, they actually don't even do that. A Media Company posts their CONTENT to the platform using a link to their own hosted site, which Facebook then auto creates a "Facebook specific" URL that basically redirects the user not outward to the World Wide Web, but internally to Facebook's mirror of the Media Company's site.
This is essentially theft of content, traffic AND advertising revenue, although as Facebook is potentially providing value it could be argued they should be eligible for a share of advertising revenue, but not all of it.
Is this relationship not unlike the one YouTube has with it's content creators? One they eventually had to begin paying So why is Facebook allowed to just create an environment that gives them not only direct control over creators and users, but the chance to profit massively by creating a bubble/lens around content that allows Media Companies to post it & you to view it. Yet provides Facebook with absolute control over what advertising you see while consuming said content, thus 100% of the associated profits from someone else's content.''
Facebook is a Multii-Billion Dollar grift, and it, and all other similar Social Media Scams, need to be forced to treat their content creators fair compensation for their work.
Thank you, I was wondering if there would not be something akin to copyright in this issue & I think you have set that out.
Free speech is great. Free speech with "alternative facts" is an abject disaster. There could be a balance, but that's not how you make the most money.
Ugh. Of all the policies this government has proposed, this is the one I think they've got the most wrong.
First, the entire business model for news and entertainment has changed. Rather than trying to help the industry through the transition, finding new business models and potentially audiences beyond Canada, we're actively propping up the old model. The means these businesses will be forever reliant on revenues from others (government mandated rents) and have zero reason to innovate. If you want to hobble an industry, that's a good way to do it. Dumb.
It also mixes up the challenge the data giants present. They are seamless distributors of data who -- via their algorithms -- decide who sees what. We could require some algorithmic transparency. We might even require them to rank Canadian content higher than they would otherwise. That addresses the desire for Canadians to access local content. But, rhat doesn't solve the advertising question.
We do have a precedent for that, though. When cassette tapes made it easy to copy music, the government put a levy on cassette tapes and distributed the money based on a formula that (IIRC) looked at sales and radio plays. We could tax the data giants based on the revenues generated in Canada and simply distribute the money based on readership. That's closer to addressing the near-monopoly data giants have on advertising. Not ideal, but way less convoluted than the government's proposal.
Ideally, we'd see news organizations come together and create an advertising network to rival the data giants, leveraging local content and readership. I'm not confident the incumbents are innovative enough to pull that off, but then propping them up limits entrepreneurs in Canada who might.
Somehow, this feels like a really badly constructed policy that's trying to address a legitimate issue. The Geist criticism has been quite good and I've yet to read a good defense of this policy approach. It really feels like the government fundamentally doesn't understand the brief and is just grabbing other policies (Australia) and trying to stretch them to fit the Canadian context (and doing it badly). This it way too important to screw up this badly.
I see this as one more problem the government recognises but has no idea how to address, but feels they have to be seen to be doing something. "Canada’s struggling newsrooms may soon be permanently wedded to the Silicon Valley web giants they blame for their economic demise". Without finding some method to generate revenue, these newsrooms will not exist. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/?fbclid=IwAR2dMbHp7PBtZmL8KfDSJZjOLxbCInwJAsjPSoIlJYlbPn9OSopO58X6_Go
For those people who don't have a subscription to The Atlantic, Bari Weiss talks about this article on her Honestly with Bari Weiss Apple podcast. She thinks Jonathan Haight's article is dead on.
Love Bari Weiss, she is brilliant.
I really appreciate articles like this, where the author has access to far more detail/context than I know about. I've developed a very strong dislike for the CBC over the past few years as I've moved more from the left to the centre, while they've joined the Woke Cult/Let's Emulate The USA In Most Things mindset.
I have written a multitude of comments over the years that attack the idea of what this type of policy does.
First off, I assume that the various internet organizations (hereafter, "VIO") will not take these monies out of their own profits and will therefore find a way to cause me - literally, me! - and you to pay extra. That means that I would be supporting Le Journal de Montreal, the Toronto Star, the Vancouver Province, etc., etc.
I don't want to support the Toronto Star, et al!! Not whatsoever. If I do want to support them and if I want to read their content I will purchase a subscription to those publications. I already subscribe to The Line, a number of Canadian newspapers and a variety of Canadian online publications because they interest me. But, but, but, I do not subscribe to the Toronto Star, et al because they do not interest me and I damned well do not want to be coerced into paying them.
So, if these publications want money from me, let them provide content that appeals to me or to others and we will pay to get past the paywall. There. Problem solved. If they cannot appeal to sufficient number of people to be able to be financially viable then they are deemed unnecessary by the population at large and should fail. As I say, problem solved.
Please, Sir, do not deflect and talk about Jason Kenney. As it happens, I also do not like him but what on earth does that have to do with the Peter Menzies article or your original comment on that article or my rebuttal of your comment. Again, please stop trying to deflect.
Terry, if various readers prefer the National Post and the Sun then that is fine. If they don't prefer those publications, then that is fine also. In all cases, however, allow the public to vote freely with their wallets.
I am simply saying that I don't want to be forced to pay for various publications that are not of interest to me.
By the way that you phrased your query I infer that you oppose US based owners, making money and the US right wing.
To that (inferred) position, I note that, (apparently) unlike you, I really don't care about the nationality of the owners. Further, I am content to read both publications with both a left wing and a right wing orientation; I don't like the Toronto Star because it was created to support the Liberal Party and continues to rabidly do so. By contrast, the other "national" newspapers have supported the Liberals, the Conservatives and even (gasp!) the NDP, all of which make them of interest to me - very much unlike the Red Star.
Why do I despise the Red Star? Well, it is more that I absolutely despise, abhor, dislike, etc., etc. the Liberal Party. Both Trudeau 1 and Trudeau 2 have repeatedly tried to destroy Alberta, so I say, F**k them, their political party, their supporters, the horses that they rode in and the publications that were created to support them.
And, oh yes, I am quite pleased when a publication can make money. Speaking of making money, if the National Post, et al, are making money for their "American owners" why, or why, do they need money from this new "internet tax"? If they are not making money for their "American owners" then what is the basis of your opposition - is it simply that you don't like their politics? Their nationality? Oh, if you don't like their nationality, does that mean that you have violated various aspects of hate law? Just wondering.
Terry, you say, "AB hatred of the Trudeau name is a sickness." Oh, where do I begin ....
First off, Terry, you say we have a sickness but I say that the Trudeaux have a sickness as both Prime Ministerial iterations [would that be idioterations??? just wondering...] have deliberately undertaken to destroy Alberta. [Trudeau 1 had two energy wars with Alberta, the second of which was the National Energy Program; Trudeau 2 is currently trying to destroy the Alberta economy] I therefore reject your assertion; we don't have a sickness but a well founded fear of a destroyer of our industry, our way of life, our culture.
You then say that "this version of the family" [i.e. the current idiot in chief in Ottawa - there! my bias is finally showing] purchased TMX "... against a lot of odds from many sides ..." Well, he and his ilk went out of their way to drive the original proponents out of business in Canada. They then vastly overpaid for that ongoing business - incompetence showing it's face, you know. Finally, they still are showing their incompetence by the dramatic increase of the estimated cost to completion. Of course, they also went out of their way to shut down other pipelines proposed and approved; well, until said idiot in chief came along.
I do know that when complete, TMX will be useful but if the Trudeau cabal had not delayed and obstructed and finally forced the owners out of the country, the pipeline would already have been completed and producing benefit for Alberta.
Now, as for Alberta having benefited from CERB, what precisely - I mean what the hell, precisely - does that have to do with anything? Alberta was on it's economic knees due to the oil price collapse - which we have dealt with many times in the past - which was dramatically, dramatically magnified by the attempt by the current chief idiot to drive our industry out of business. At one point, we had over 100,000 people unemployed here so it is no wonder that our businesses needed assistance. 100,000 people out of work and not a word from the feds; 2,500 possibly, maybe going to be out of work at GM in Oshawa A YEAR HENCE and it was a national tragedy! Nothing from the feds for us. So, yeah, we were economically weakened.
But, then again, what does this have to do with Peter Menzies' commentary, your original comment or my rebuttal to that comment.
You say we have a sickness of the Trudeau name. Yup - he sickens me! He disgusts me! On the other hand, it seems to me that you also have a pathological hatred of we in Alberta.
Too bad that you could not see past your bias.
Trudeau 1 set out to drastically reduce Alberta's influence in Canada as he felt that we "were getting too much influence" because we were becoming wealthier after the first oil price shock. His solution was to change the Income Tax Act to deny the deduction of payments to the provincial governments [if I recall, it was the 1974 budget] - this is a matter of history; look it up. Subsequently, he brought forth the National Energy Program to try to bring about more drilling / production / etc. on what were known as "Canada lands" i.e. the territories, off shore, etc. where the federal government would control the industry and he would thereby dramatically reduce the influence of the provinces.
Trudeau 2 has used the cloak of "Climate Change" to find ways to pressure Alberta industry. He also has been quoted as wanting to phase out the oil sands [see https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/justin-trudeau-oilsands-phase-out-1.3934701]. He has clearly been preventing pipelines from being completed - look at the number of pipelines completed during the Harper years and the number completed during the Trudeau 2 years. So, yes, he does want to destroy Alberta.
So, you cannot "dialogue" with me, well, it is no surprise that a supporter of the "peoplekind" mastermind cannot handle the truth.
Rather than simply offering criticism of a particular plan, perhaps this or another contributor could deal constructively with the actual issue. Menzies mentions “a free and independent press” a couple of times, but only in passing. Does trying to do anything to retain such a thing have merit? Why or why not? Should there be such a thing as journalistic standards – or should it be “reader and/or viewer beware”?
If Menzies believes that a free, independent press which strives to maintain journalist standards is an unnecessary luxury in a society, then he should make the case. If it cannot make its way on its own, it should die – we are better left with creative writers and algorithms that are able generate income by appealing to our personal biases. Using manufactured and distorted information to make a buck is fair game.
If that is his view, I would like to see it articulated – it would make any discussion of government concern over journalism irrelevant. If that is not his view, then what is here is only someone sitting in an ivory tower throwing stones. Critique away, but offer something by way of a solution.
This could all be solved if we just stopped using facebook. If we do, it will also prevent climate change. ..
Here’s a simple minded question: what would be the model, in your view, of payment for my favourite journalists if traditional news media disappeared?
Isn't it "The Line?"
Well yes! As long as they can make a living. I guess that’s where subscriptions come in right?
Canada's 2022 Freedom Index Ranking is going to be very interesting.
What these criticisms of Bill C-18 have me asking is how will Bill C-18 influence the quantity and quality of the news available to me, an interested citizen? It seems to me that it will improve the news environment for me.
I note that none--and I mean not a single one--of Bill C-18's critics have addressed the effect of the bill on interested citizens. All the criticisms are in the hyperbolic 'the sky is falling' category, it seems to me.