Simon

Bad person & member of the Ineffectual Dumb Web

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

AI is everywhere🧵

There are lots of examples. For instance, the music streaming platform Deezer now has almost as many AI as non-AI music uploads:

[Simon @oldgravy]

Never let an opportunity to spend taxpayer dollars in order to be seen as Doing Something go to waste

[Adam Chambers @adamchamb]

Socializing losses and privatizing profits is not how it's supposed to work. It is surprising the PM, who lived through the global financial crisis, would encourage this moral hazard.

But there's more. Rents are falling in many markets. And record supply of rental is coming online. The taxpayer through CMHC is already over exposed to rental. This scheme may put taxpayers at even greater risk of losses. More details are needed and should be scrutinized at a Parliamentary Committee.

[Simon @oldgravy]

From @the_lineca: "American defence guarantees are no longer worth very much. Iran consistently outplayed the United States during this conflict, and it’s impossible to ignore that now."

... Yup. As did their proxies, the Houthis, a year or two ago.

[American Institute for Boys and Men @aibm_org]

Happy Father's Day to all the dads and father figures out there. Today's fathers are spending more time with their kids than their own dads did, and a lot more than their grandfathers probably ever imagined doing. Thank you for showing up.

[Mark Pennington @Kaleidicworld]

Works In Progress is a beacon of light in what often feels to me like a hopeless intellectual and political scene. If only academia was even half as good.

[Simon @oldgravy]

This sure seems to be as awful as it sounds.

[Donna-Louise @NoLongerTheFuzz]

1/ 🧵
“All white girls are slags. They don’t obey Allah, so they deserve to be punished. They should be raped as punishment for not obeying Allah.”
That was said to a Rotherham girl – now a doctor – by the men who raped her.
I read all 219 pages of the Rape Gang Inquiry report. A thread.

[Simon @oldgravy]

Sigh

[Canada Spends @canada_spends]

The government just passed C-26, one of the shortest bills in Canadian history.

What does it do?

It lets the Finance Minister send $1.7B to the provinces to improve housing supply.

No strings attached.
No accountability.
No targets.

$40 from every Canadian

[mert @mert]

"ive been in office for 13 years and our yearly budget is 7 trillion but we can't help children unless we steal from the guy doing spaceflight"

[weird medieval guys @WeirdMedieval]

you fools….where do you think they’re rowing to…..?

[Simon @oldgravy]

Eleven. Billion. Dollars

That's unfuckingbelievable

[Elenore Sturko @elenoresturko]

In 2017, the proposed 10-lane George Massey Bridge replacement had a budgeted cost of $3.5 billion - and was scheduled to open in September 2022.

Instead of going ahead with the project as planned by the previous government, the NDP scrapped it. Perhaps they didn’t want to give the Liberals that legacy.

Now the NDP have created their own legacy of over promising, under delivering and over spending on infrastructure.

https://t.co/2tPzmYw0BS

[vittorio @IterIntellectus]

this is actually incredible

a full body ultrasound scanner that takes 60 seconds instead of spending an hour in an MRI tube, without radiation, hospitals or a $2000 bill

soon you’ll just walk into a health spa, order a coffee, step into the pod, and walk out with a 3D map of your body

the future is finally starting to look like the future

[Habeas Corpus Linguistics @HabCorpLinguist]

Crazy how Operation Warp Speed was both good policy and a complete vindication of libertarian criticism of the administrative state inhibiting healthcare and basically no one wants to claim it as a victory for their coalition.

[Simon @oldgravy]

It me

[Paul Graham @paulg]

"Half-Wits are Fleas; so little and so light;
We scarce cou'd know they live; but that they bite."

— Dryden anticipates Twitter in 1677

[Simon @oldgravy]

I have priors about harm reduction but I was prepared to be swayed by expert evidence if it proved strong enough.

The moving of goalposts is not strong expert evidence.

[Adam Stirling 11am-3pm Weekdays @Adam_Stirling]

Getting a lot of reactions to this and thinking about the conversation on the program we had with @elenoresturko yesterday.

Do you know what the main problem with BC's "evidence based" harm reduction policy conversation was?

There was no set of circumstances identified in advance through which the political consensus that was conducting these experiments could be expected to recognize that it had made a mistake and that its theories had been flawed.

A) If the deaths go down? Oh that must mean the policies are working. The response: we need to expand the policies.

B) If the deaths go up? Oh that must mean the policies are working but the drugs must be getting more dangerous and obscuring the evidence that the policies are working. The response: we need to expand the policies.

This was a structural flaw that was visible before we even began and should have been addressed in advance. Perhaps the next time we wish to roll the dice while betting the credibility of "evidence based policy" on a matter of life and death, we should think more carefully about whether we actually have the ability to interpret the evidence in a way that is not ambiguous...

#bcpoli

[David T.S. Fraser @privacylawyer]

Professor Geist is being polite. I'm watching the SECU hearings in real time and the Bill C-22 is exactly the same deeply problematic Bill that was tabled by the Minister. Not one word has changed. The spokesperson is full of shit.

[Hamid Bendaas 🇩🇿🇵🇸 @HBendaas]

It is funny that some economists were vocally in distress about why a complete closing of the Strait was not having the kind of energy shock they expected and instead of the fundamentals of economics being wrong it was just run of the mill corruption and lying

[Build Canada @build_canada]

One body with judge, jury, and executioner powers over speech, privacy, surveillance. No peer democracy concentrates this much power in one place.

[Simon @oldgravy]

Wish they wouldn't do this. It's a relic of the Trudeau era that they keep trying to push.

[Build Canada @build_canada]

You've likely seen the headlines from bills C-34, C-36, and C-22 in the media.

Each may sound reasonable on their own: protect kids online, modernize privacy, help police catch criminals.

But buried within is an emerging Digital Regulatory Superpower unlike anything Canadians have ever seen.

These bills hand one unelected commission power over what Canadians can say, what stays private, and who the state can watch.

As of today, the Federal Government is rushing to enact massive Internet Surveillance Reform into law without proper debate.

[Simon @oldgravy]

Broadly agree, having helped so many immigrants over my career.

[Ben Rabidoux @BenRabidoux]

Good for the Swedes

It should be an exceptionally high bar to stay in a desirable country like Canada or Sweden. It is not a right.

Our system should heavily discriminate against all but the very best and brightest + a small, manageable amount on humanitarian grounds

[Patrick McKenzie @patio11]

Gather around, children, and I’ll tell you about when we just reused the air without cleaning it first, like a previous age used to reuse water without cleaning it first, and how many people used to die of this, and how now we have lamps.