20 Comments
User's avatar
Doug's avatar

IMHO, the fastest way to get Trump to lose interest in annexing your country would be for Canada's leadership to speak in French more often.

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Liberty's avatar

Ha, we should reply to everything in French. not a bad idea!

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Doug's avatar

This feels like a Rory Sutherland type solution and much cheaper than retalitory tariffs!

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Unstick's avatar

I had to look up Rory Sutherland - sounds like he is an acolyte of Ogilvy, who certainly and profoundly benefited from taking advantage of people's emotions, desires, and behaviors to sell them things.

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Liberty's avatar

He has done many excellent podcasts, and if you like those, I recommend his book. He's a good lateral thinker and witty, so it's fun

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Doug's avatar

Rory is really good at observing what frustrates people and then proposing alternative suggestions that are seemingly unrelated but are not only effective but much cheaper or easier to implement. In general, they change the perspective of the observer to view a problem differently rather than attack the problem head-on. Obviously, this is business as usual to advertising folks, but it always strikes me as a mental model from a different planet as someone with an engineering background.

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derek's avatar

So sorry our current el presidente is a clueless bully.

Im a raving optimistic. So I’m pretty sure that almost 7% of what he and his team do will be positive, ….. someday…. maybe… or something 🤯

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Unstick's avatar

Doomberg surmises that Trump's main goal is to sterilize the upcoming wave of government debt refinancing to keep long-term interest rates under control so the US government does not fall off a fiscal cliff....But of course his tariffs on Canada could also be the result of those dastardly 200%+ tariffs the Canadian government has put on some US agricultural products, or the low amount of spending Canada spends on its own defense (which, if increased, would largely go to US companies, as Doomberg also points out), but Doomberg's hypothesis is probably more sound. Of course, Trump loves the Canadian Liberal Party, so perhaps he was just trying to give Carney a boost (or poking Trudeau in the eye one more time on his way out the door)? I jest...kind of. Along with the microscope Trump puts on things that are really needed, like government waste, he also ensures there is a lot of distraction to hide what his real intentions are. As you suggest, these tactics don't win many friends, but they do tend to get short-term results.

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Ján Beňák's avatar

Hi, this stuff about protein can go even deeper.

Im not an expert but one of guests of Peter Attia also said something simillar.

But i have this saved from other podcast:

The film The Game Changers states: “All protein originates in plants. Cows, pigs, and chickens are just the middlemen”

Chris debunks this:

“All proteins come from bacteria, not plants” – Here’s why:

1) Bacteria take up nitrogen from the atmosphere and are consumed by plant roots

2) When bacteria die, their “necromass” gives off free amino acids which are taken up by plants

3) Bacteria in cattle’s rumen, which is a chamber in the stomach, convert carbs to short-chain fatty acids, which the animals then use for energy

Bacteria also die in the rumen and are consumed for energy

In summary:

“Cattle and other ruminants get their protein from bacteria. And this explains why the levels of amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein, are so much higher in meats than they are in plants.” – Chris Kresser

https://podcastnotes.org/2019/12/11/chris-kresser-revolution-health-radio-protein-vegan/

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Liberty's avatar

Fascinating! Thanks for sharing 💚 🥃

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anon's avatar

canada seems unmatched regarding homegrown nuclear, and not only because they match to home resources.

(for example,the refusal to let experienced labor and supply chain decay)

is it only politics that has prevented export domination?

(politics seem to hinder s.korea kep exports as well)

decoupled podcast vocally notes while america and other nations dither over incremental improvements in tech fantasy and SMR start-ups, w/no unbiased way to prioritize, they lost decades ignoring high capacity systems with decades of track record already behind them. america could even have had a better grid by now.

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Liberty's avatar

Good question. I certainly think that Canada/CANDU could've exported a lot more if there was a will for it, but politicians here for a long time fell into a kind of either anti-nuclear rethoric or at least neglect of it.

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anon's avatar

why would canadian politicians oppose a highly skilled export where they have an edge?

i see ALL the political barriers by candidate importing nations...the usual corruption and patronage to revolving allies, masked by incompetence in tech assessment.

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Liberty's avatar

Similar to why most of the West hasn't built new reactors in decades and has been shutting down existing reactors. It just wasn't politically popular, the memes about nuclear were all old leftovers from the 60s or made-up stuff from anti-nuclear NGOs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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anon's avatar

but no only that. even with sentiment and an unbiased way to rate a superior technology and process from another nation, they would at most be a minor subcontractor (and defeating the purpose of time&cost assurance) for a u.s. build under any DoE. politics (and hubris).

e.g., maybe most still view westinghouse as still 'american', but a dolt like trump would not.

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Liberty's avatar

At least Ontario has done pretty well with its own feel, doing large refurbs on time and budget, and deciding to extend the life of existing plants. Ontario is one of the only jurisdictions that has shut down all of its coal and is now basically 60% nuclear and most of the rest hydro. Good model to copy elsewhere.

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anon's avatar

ontario has absolutely crushed it. probably world's best where cost, time, safety, quality are public (i.e., not china despite theoretical benefits of scale)

the decouple podcast had several mentions of how the carbon workforce was included in continuous staffing...makes americans embarrassed regarding current DoE.

-----

barakh project is also incredibly impressive, although it is unclear how kep fared financially.

this is why i feel both canada and s.korea should be dominating this space with exports of time-proven technology compatible with the aging non-adaptable grid infrastructure. ok, i 'll stop here, hopefully making my point that SMR gadget-of-the-month is not a way out.

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Adam Mead's avatar

That bull and gorilla protein section was cool! They're basically carrying around greenhouses (or whatever the microbial equivalent is) and feeding that by eating plants, then digesting the protein from their little growhouses. Very neat!

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Adam Mead's avatar

Related thought: I learned a few years ago why bull$**t is a swear. A bull's waste is devoid of nutrients hence calling something by the swear you're saying there's no substance. What else is devoid of nutrients (aka thought): tariffs. So dumb.

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Liberty's avatar

Didn't know the origin of BS -- TIL!

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