I have given you flack over the Synapse migration path for server operators over the last few years, but this Signal outage brought home how important it is that Matrix is a more than suitable replacement for Signal among my family and friends, and how smooth it has been to run my Synapse server over the last year.
Wait, you have to use a smartphone app to interact with your bank? There is no website with 95% of the functionality (or bonus functionality that the app doesn't have) available as a website for desktop users?
This is rather unusual, the credit union I use in the USA offers an iOS and Android app that is literally a webview of their mobile website, plus a dash of OCR for check handling. Using the PWA is nearly identical, it even works on a PinePhone with Maemo or any other operating system that can run a semi-modern browser.
Yup that's pretty much it. To Monzo's credit they seem to make a point to work without Google Play Services, but iOS users would be screwed in the event the App Store was blocked.
The media leans neoliberal, not left. You never see leftist leaders painted in a good light by CNN, ABC, NBC, WashPo, NY Times or LA Times, as those leaders threaten the continued consolidation of wealth by the upper class.
American farm policy would be very destructive for Canadian farmers if they were to join the USA. Farm income would get gutted for Canadian farmers and they would end up in the same crappy boat as American farmers.
GDP might increase for Canada overall by joining the USA, but portraying it as having no economic downsides for Canadians is disingenuous.
Every trade deal / national-merger has upsides and downsides.
The challenge is to see them clearly.
There is quite a lot of scary rhetoric about 'trade failure' about Brexit that is frankly politicized, because outside of some temporary disruption, trade will go on. Caveats - yes. Failure - no.
Moroever, nobody seems to look at longstanding deals that work at least in some ways, particularly NAFTA/USMCA.
In particular, I find it really problematic that the notion of sovereignty is portrayed as 'xenophobic' in the case of Brexit, but 'idealized' in the case of Scottish indyref. And of course more theoretically, the notion of 'Canada joining the USA' (which is not as outrageous at it seems, it almost happened a few times only a few generations ago!) - would be find stupendous outrage among Canadians. Not known for their over nationalism, Canadians would give you a serious earful about that ... and nobody would bat an eye or think there's something wrong with it. The UK is not Scotland and is not Canada, of course, but the hyperbole about the issue is unwarranted.
Underneath the outrage again, lays bare the fact that the EU is mostly a 'really good economic deal' whereas the rest of it is fuzzy.
Perhaps the most 'personally impactful issue' - movement - could easily be achieved with a simple work program. NAFTA/USMCA allows anyone with specific accreditation to work across the border for 6 years with a stamp at the border - easy peasy. Something along those lines could have been achievable by the EEC without having to go full EU. I'm not saying it's ideal, or even one way is better than the other, rather, that the issue is overly politicized in the press, and the EU-specific union is too oft presented as 'the only solution' , when really, it's not. There are other ways.
In fact, given a post COVID world, and that we now have true real-time digitization ... it may be possible to even move away from the Euro and go to 'National Euros' - basically to give back the power of monetary policy to individual nations (which is a huge constraint right now, probably the #1 problem that even pro-EU nations have) while at the same time achieving a pan-European financial policy. This would be one example of a truly modern approach to currency, but it can't happen if 1/2 of the political forces are pushing for integrated political union.
You've made the argument, again, it's false to suggest the statement 'Canadians would be richer in a specific trade deal' implies that every Canadian would be 'better off'.
This is 'basic communication'.
In much the same way many people are making the argument 'Brexit will cause UK citizens to be poorer' (however debatable in the first place) - obviously doesn't imply that the case will be the same for all UK citizens.
Finally - to your specific point - Canadian famers would be economically better off financially, because there would be a massive buying spree for all assets that were otherwise protected.
If they tried to 'hold out' of course they'd be put out of business, but from a raw economic value perspective, they'd be 'richer' no doubt.
CIBC/BMO/Desjardins - all the major banks, Bell/Telus/Rogers (Telcos), CTV/Global (networks), Loblaws (Groceries) etc. etc. would immediately be acquired or merged into larger American entities. (Except in the rare possibility that the 'smaller' Canadian entity made a deal with a Hedge Fund for a massive leveraged buyout of their much larger American peer, but that's unlikely)
Of course, one might argue that would be a 'giant disaster' for Canada, even as Canadians had immediately higher incomes and GDP/capita - and the argument is essentially derived from nationalism. Hence, the hypocrisy of people lamenting that the UK doesn't deserve a degree of material sovereignty.
Here in Seattle they bulldozed parks and diverse neighborhoods (parts of the International District, First Hill, Capitol Hill, Eastlake) where primarily queer and non-white people lived to build I-5.
Portland's I-205 has much the same story, my father lived through that terrible process where many of his friends had their homes razed to build yet another freeway.
A lack of sidewalks combined with narrow streets forces drivers to slow down and pay attention, which is ideal if you want to see fewer injuries and deaths caused by vehicle traffic on a stretch of road.
Building a parking spot in a modern building can cost $20k, which is hard to recoup with parking revenue.
If the break even target is 10 years with no interest accrued, we are talking about $5.47 a day in revenue needs to be generated (plus the overhead of managing the lot itself).
How many paid parking lots do you see that are full on a regular basis? Are they really generating revenue even half time?
The Democracy Voucher program in Seattle has leveled the field quite a bit by enabling candidates that can connect with voters to field a viable, funded campaign: https://www.seattle.gov/democracyvoucher/program-data
We have a much larger field of candidates running due to this program.
I have given you flack over the Synapse migration path for server operators over the last few years, but this Signal outage brought home how important it is that Matrix is a more than suitable replacement for Signal among my family and friends, and how smooth it has been to run my Synapse server over the last year.
You and your team are doing an awesome job!