Heh. I gave up trying to figure out voting a long time ago. I find it both fascinating and disturbing that there are people out there who see anything I write as worthy of a dowvote. :)

While I don't disagree with the sentiment, there is more to duty to than showing up to vote. What about the duty of the political class to offer real alternatives and then pursue the realization of those alternatives? If the only choices are in the details of how we get screwed over, it's not exactly that big a deal whether we vote or not.

I like it!

If it's serious enough or there are repeated offenses, the directors might have to resign from all boards and the C-suite prohibited from taking equivalent positions elsewhere. And eventually actual humans get prison.

I might still be apartment living in Saskatoon if there had been high density housing that met my needs.

Close enough to the river that going for a walk was more about walking along the river than getting there and back.

A reasonably safe place to keep a canoe or something close to the river.

Enough public toilets with hours of operation to support things like going fishing (or walking or running or canoeing or snowshoeing) at sunrise and sunset or even in the dark for stargazing.

On site or nearby shared shop space so I could maybe build a chair or a chest of drawers or a jewelry box. Or a canoe, even!

As long as the focus is on the lowest common denominator or, worse, basically warehousing people, high density housing will always be an uphill battle.

But you have/had a job, which suggests that the house was really purchased as a capital asset in which to use to profit.

Umm, no. Shelter is a requirement, whether employed or not. Given that I have never changed where I live in order to take a job, my choices regarding shelter have always been independent of my choice of income generating activity. Just the opposite, in fact, given that I've had to change my shelter based on loss of income, but have never had to change my shelter when income increased.

That you can still derive benefit from it later in life is just a nice side benefit.

No that is just one of the actual reasons for making the housing choices I've made. I have never had a house so that I could work, but have always had to work in order to stay sheltered.

Another reason for my housing choices is related to hobbies. It's hard to do hobby manufacturing or host band rehearsals in a condo.

I suspect you're not moving to a location where there is no job market to free up the productive asset for younger people when you retire?

Why would that be necessary or desirable either individually or societally? I didn't choose my home for it's proximity to work. I didn't move when I changed jobs or when my employer moved to a different location. I developed my garden and built a shop for recreation and don't see how anyone will be served by pulling up stakes and moving somewhere else, especially given that my choice of housing had nothing to do with proximity to employment, but proximity to outdoor recreational activities.

Rentals would sort of work. One important thing I learned during the period of time we rented was that it left too many important decisions in the hands of people whose interests did not align with ours.

Add an elevated platform for the feet to get the knees up a bit and you have the best of both worlds.

I'm genuinely failing to see the downside here of facebook, twitter, and the like ceasing to exist.

Me neither. I should have been clearer. Despite all the bad things they do to make things worse, the problem is not the existence of the platforms. The problem is people. I was alluding to the fact that if there were enough people who recognized the problems of these platforms and acted on that, those kinds of platforms would never have arisen in the first place.

The various nasty types have always found ways to spread their messages, convert people to their cause, and convince others to do the actual dirty work.

Throughout history, every time a technology was introduced to increase the speed and geographical distribution of a message, extremism founded on false conspiracy, propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation has at least temporarily increased. There are really simple explanations for why that is. First, we have the problems of human cognition. Our brains are really lousy at identifying cause and effect, separating meaningful patterns from useless ones, and creating and maintaining accurate memories.

Second, truth requires verification. Verification cannot happen without investigation and communication among investigators. This means that verification will always happen much slower than message distribution. That is why a lie can circle the globe before the truth can get out of the starting blocks.

As bad as these platforms are, it's important to remember that their problematic algorithms are little more than codification of the methods that propagandists have used for centuries. Rush Limbaugh brought these concepts to a peak before most people had ever heard of the internet. Usenet was filled with the same stuff we see on Facebook, and there were no algorithms or central systems, just people doing what people do.

Stuff The British Stole is an interesting podcast. It looks like they have a video version on Gem, too.

I would imagine that you could assume that other colonial powers did much the same.

TIL. The village in question is in southern Saskatchewan and I never met anyone at the water treatment conferences that was running an unmetered system. That I know of, anyway. I just thought metering was standard procedure.

I've heard of unmetered water but thought it was pretty much a thing of the past. The village where I worked has been metered since the water was put in in 1962. I was part of the 3rd meter replacement and upgrade they went through and we installed radio meters that can be read with a from the street while doing street sweeping or snow clearing. Current population is about 280, but I don't think they ever had more than 500.

Of course it's like that. Why would anyone properly fund a school? Drives me nuts.

Good point.