On the one hand I do want someone (or a group of someones) to stick it to the US and "teach it a lesson". I see the US as a bully, and I want to see the bully get punched in the nose.
On the other, I don't wish harm to the US (mostly the people). Also because the US backed against a corner can have potentially devastating consequences for the rest of the world.
To me the confusion is the word "validate". Sounds like what you're talking about is more acknowledgement than validate. I hear / see how you're feeling and I empathize.
Dictionary definition of validate are things like:
- check or prove the validity or accuracy of (something).
- demonstrate or support the truth or value of.
Which don't seem like the intent of "validating" the emotion in this context.
I don’t see how. Chinese manufacturers aren’t going to setup multi billion dollar plants without some market presence, that comes after.
Letting in some small amount of Chinese EVs for so they can test the waters seems sensible all around. If they are popular then negotiate on local manufacturing to allow a larger market share.
It'll be interesting to see how the Chinese EVs compete "fairly" in Canada. North America has had a lack of choice in automobiles at least as long as I can remember. There are so many cars that are available in Europe or Asia that I wish were available here. But at the same time consumer choices are also very different. So will be interesting to see what the uptake of Chinese EVs are like.
Unfortunately a lot of these require either an existing network or high stakes interaction (sending invites, accepting invites etc). They're good advise, but can be hard to execute on for most people.
If we want to solve this at the society or community level, there needs to be more opportunities for low stakes interaction. Places that people can passively gather around a communal activity. I'm reminded of the ladies dancing together in public squares / parks in China. They're usually a group, but mostly anyone can join in. You can just follow along and interact as much as you'd like. If you want to leave, leave. If you want to stay and chat, stay and chat.
Downtown San Mateo for example has the potential for this. It's already a closed off street where people go. But today there aren't group activities there that encourages passive interaction, people are still in silos. Perhaps if there were some games / puzzles, chalk boards, townhall type of table setup, that'll encourage passive interaction.
"you just have to put yourself out there" is lazy thinking, you are ignoring all the underlying psychological and physilogical factors preventing people from doing it.
Making the society more welcoming works. It worked wonders for me. I moved from a country where things like meetup events are not common and groups are less welcoming to strangers. Having moved to UK, meetup events allowed me to go out and socialise because I could sign up without speaking to anyone, and go there and participate in the activity, without the pressure to socialise, it was an optional benefit. These settings allowed me to socialise with strangers that I could never do before.
I know in the US we value individualism responsibility. But the reality is many things are encouraged / discouraged, made easier / harder collectively.
Of course if you never go out of your house, you're not going to have many social interactions. But your environment and the culture you live in makes a difference too. You can quit smoking yourself clearly, but the collective push to discourage smoking has done a lot to reduce the overall use of cigarettes.
When I was young, I solved loneliness very well by volunteering for political campaigns. Until the last one (I'm too old to care now), I worked every campaign in my life and at various times had a lot of good friends as a result.
My town does an annual party. I heard about it and showed up to volunteer. I did that for a few years. It wasn't as productive in producing friends (I'm in a different location than before that is more insular) but even so, it got me out of the house and, for the few months before the event, was pretty much fun.
These kinds of things are often available if you just look around. It doesn't require knowing people ahead of time and is low stakes. If nobody is friendly, it doesn't matter.
Why is that odd? Lots of apartment buildings in big cities have the first floor (or 2) for retail. Some apartments / condos have a whole mall downstairs.
I don't know if there are stats for this but it wouldn't surprise me if there were non zero incidents of it. Drivers that are high / drunk, mentally impaired etc. More broadly, lots of cars driven by humans collide with trains, which is the at least one of the core issues here.
EDIT: anecdotally at least for this type of ground level light rail, I've seen people drive on similar streetcar tracks (that are not shared with cars) in Toronto more than one time.
Style aside, what do you think he should do? Faced with a law that not only imposes disproportionate fines (more than revenue from the country), but on the surface also requires blocking globally, there are really only a few things to do:
The government complains everyday about the judges and it's trying to make a referendum to make judges angry, so I wouldn't say courts do what govt says
how ever did you reach that conclusion? For 1, his tweet literally says "That, of course, is DISGUSTING and even before yesterday’s fine we had multiple legal challenges pending against the underlying scheme." 2 is something that happens behind the doors, and it's rather uncharitable to just assume he skipped it.
On the one hand I do want someone (or a group of someones) to stick it to the US and "teach it a lesson". I see the US as a bully, and I want to see the bully get punched in the nose.
On the other, I don't wish harm to the US (mostly the people). Also because the US backed against a corner can have potentially devastating consequences for the rest of the world.
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