Libraries should evolve to play a larger role in the internet, theyve been trying to reinvent themselves and i think this best aligns with their spiritual purpose. Some ideas:
Caretakers of digital archives.
Caretakers of relevant open source projects.
Could I get a free domain with my library card?
Could I get free api access to mapping or other localized data?
Should libraries host local fediverse instances for civic users? (think police, firefighter alert, other community related feeds)
Some liberals did vote in favour of electoral reform, and supported the motion, and had it as part of their platform. But I get your point that they are ultimately responsible for not passing reform. Maybe time to try again.
Ideally it would be put to Canadians on whether we want to move forward with PR or STV/ranked ballot. Status quo not being an option. Arguably democracy is eroding, this a meaningful pro democracy reform.
My biggest concern with PR is that it would give a platform to extremists, but I'm less concerned about that these days as they seem to have a platform anyway. The next thing I think we need to consider is whether PR makes sense in the context of Canada, we aren't a small country geographically and we aren't homogenous. Local representation matters.
Is a change to our voting system something the NDP can ask for to continue propping up the liberals? Or would that be too political?
Yes, confiscation of illegal and dangerous substances and drunk tank for public intoxication. Why is this outlandish?
If I go through an airport I'm frisked and water can be confiscated. Open liquor at a beach can be confiscated.
If I get drunk to the point I'm out of control I can be placed a drunk tank.
Crystal Meth, fentenyl etc... are very dangerous drugs. And people on these drugs are very antisocial.
You may just be saying that those policies won't help an addict. Addicts have different profiles and so would behave differently. Having consequences on actions would be helpful for some.
Conversely, a complete laissez faire attitude is propelling addiction for some. We are implicitly condoning their behavior.
It's OK for there to be consequences to an addicts behavior, while also providing more support.
Their behavior disproportionately impacts the poor. Consider addicts tend to poorer neighborhoods, but only a very small portion of the neighbourhood are addicts. And it's the poorer families who can't use their parks, or have their kids run to the corner store or maybe even play outside. Their public amenities are trashed, and local funding doesn't go as far. The normalization and access to drugs is certainly not helpful either.
What about a third choice of confiscating their very dangerous drugs?
Or a fourth choice of putting them in a drunk/drug tank for 24 hour hold with optional invite to a treatment center? I get it's certainly not ideal to use force on people.
Why is thinking of the children not valid? Certainly they have some right to be able to walk around their neighborhood without fear.
Maybe tough to get a concensus on where the economy is going to be, a bit of reading tea leaves.
Regardless, agreed on extended 0% being problematic. Out of all the factors dragging us down:
interest rate history, pandemic, demographic shifts, climate change, global instability...
It could be interest rates that are having the largest impact today. Considering it caused such a large wealth transfer, equity inflation, and a drag on productivity.
The economy is important. Rates will go lower to protect that.
Central banks I think need to consider a higher neutral rate. Interest rates were too low for too long to try and move GDP growth. In retrospect not a great policy, as it led to a decade or so of inflation in stocks markets and housing.
Why do anything of value if I can just leverage at low rates and dump borrowed money into stocks and real estate?
Central banks tend to be arms reach from government, but maybe they should be doing less and the government more.
GDP growth low? Invest in infrastructure and research. High inflation? Increase taxes.
CPI inflation is reported higher than 'all items' though...
Grocery is seeing lower inflation. Seems to have come back down to earth.
We need wage growth to continue to outpace inflation like it has been for the past year or so.
I like this - as a fan of democracy.
Democracy costs, I think it's OK that it takes a bit of time, more representatives, more votes is OK.
More civic engagement is a positive. Hearing the viewpoints of your neighbour is positive.
A really interesting dynamic, is that you would be creating a strong pipeline of leaders/representatives developing bottom up.
A lot of things of value are very hard to measure.
X degree influences can be very hard to measure.
You may hit your target metric, but secondary effects may be making the whole system worse.
Ideally you could A/B a parallel universe to isolate your specifc change, but that is challenging.
The library is appealing to me because:
Precedence: pre internet I could connect to the library over a landlines and access the library and community news.
Expertise: not necessarily deep tech expertise, but with information retrieval, curation, education.
Community access: libraries are a municipal service with brick and mortar locations, and are heavily involved with community/public engagement.
For clarity, on the fediverse instance aspect. I was thinking more read only, with users being more official organizations with a barrier of entry vs. The general public. I personally wouldn't want libraries to be moderating public discourse - this should be arms reach. And wouldn't want them worrying about liability.
Public information (like safety bulletins for example) shouldn't exclusively be sitting on a for profit ad platform, it's bizarre.