It’s hard to be the only person fighting sometimes. Especially if she was surrounded by people who were all for this, what good is throwing a sprinkle of water at a bonfire?

It’s not like she quietly disappeared. She publicly denounced it and went on record actively against it. Making changes require negotiations, and her colleagues have shown they no interest in negotiating.

It is extremely unlikely that this was her Plan A. It’s also extremely unlikely that it was just this one isolated thing. And now, she’s free to join groups that actively interested in fighting against this and throwing her experience and network in as resources to help them instead.

Maybe that would wake people up enough to do something.

I’m sick of making shitty incremental process all the time when people need actual change put in place, all because “it’s better than nothing”.

History attaches names to things, so resigning at least makes sure you aren’t the one remembered bringing this policy out.

Sorry I took so long to reply! I’m still not used to Lemmy. :P

That was an excellent answer. I imagine it’s further compounded by how kids are sorted into grades, with someone being born very late to the grade’s cut-off having a disadvantage to someone born many months earlier/at the start of the cut-off.

From what you wrote, I’m almost persuaded to think that it’s something kids should be taught in school, but far later. I’m back on the boat of having calligraphy classes offered in high school as electives. The trouble is, once I suggest that, I feel like it’s setting myself up to be argued into having it at a much younger age and as a mandatory part of education, which puts us right back into the problems you listed out. :(

They’re clowns, so they can’t be taken seriously enough to invest in as propaganda. At any moment, everything they say can be dismissed as a joke. At best, it might be taken as a reflection of general sentiments, but it’s all deniable satire.

So they’re totally free to talk about anything they want. Their money doesn’t come from that in the same way as news outlets. And that means they can choose to focus on topics (regardless on what take they have) that news outlets aren’t allowed to touch for fear of losing cash. That means we end up hearing about stuff at all that we wouldn’t otherwise.

A diversity of topics is pretty important when it comes to breaking up an echo chamber!

I agree to a large extent! I would add onto that by saying government funding also acts as advertising dollars would, but that because the government has put some value onto transparency and has to be elected, Canadians can have a better chance to identify where the unspoken bias is based on who’s got the wallet.

I would also say that because of all their funding and because of their need to establish themselves as a reliable source of news, CBC has to put a ton of effort into reporting on news that many would call ‘useful’ so that there’s more of a benefit of doubt extended to them when they don’t report on telecoms.

All that to say “let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater,” but the genuinely useful articles and journalistic standards that exist for CBC do also operate in an environment that serves whoever’s funding it. They’re an excellent starting point for awareness, so I’m happy to see their stuff shared, but I’d never recommend having their word be law on what’s “worth” reporting or sometimes even the angle they’re taking while they report on it.

Did the Alberta MP want her to perform there? That actually makes sense. It would legitimize the area as a go-to destination for artists, and with how famous and sparkling alabaster white-and-blonde Taylor is, I’m sure there’s a lot of local politicians who’d want to spin that into a lot of meaning for their base.

:D It’s a conversation! It’s a human connection! It might not be life-changing, but that gives it some meaning for that tiny moment in time!

Exactly!

A mix of different perspectives isn’t the issue.

A mix of different facts, with one sourced and cited and the other just being angry opinions, is the issue. Those shouldn’t be equated with each other - not just because that angry opinions are cheap to pump. They can easily drown out researched articles.

That’s not to say opinions aren’t important! Many, many real-life experiences get ignored, overlooked, or purposely cast aside, and anecdotal accounts and subjective experiences are all we have. But I take issue with something presenting itself as a factual source of information when it only has very shaky citations, or when it has no citations and brushes it off like, “Well, everyone should know this, and if you don’t, you’re in on it.”

NatPo is propaganda parading itself as news, and that’s dangerous to put on the same level as news outlets that actually research their stories.

By not explaining it, sometimes that is the explanation. 😬

Well, the grass is greenest where we water it, so let’s keep an eye out for the warning signs we had over there.

It can also be nice to learn as an art form! But in the same way I wouldn’t expect mandatory calligraphy lessons - even though that seems like the more logical thing to introduce if we’re talking about developing fine skills and learning how to read or write cursive - I don’t really see the point of mandatory cursive lessons.

The option seems reasonable to have as an option. But kids are already so overworked in school, with homework and tests having increased exponentially over the last two decades, that getting to remove one thing off of their curriculum seemed like they were finally getting a break.

Was this something specific to cursive?

I’m not surprised that kids would’ve had awful experiences, especially because this is a skill that takes time to develop, and time is often the thing in the shortest supply when it comes to teaching kids.

But you wrote your post like there was something particularly unique to the awful experiences had with learning cursive writing. I wasn’t expecting that. Does it have to do with how you can ‘get away’ with messing handwriting in math or even in English, but when you’re being graded on the appearance of cursive letters, any fine motor skills a child is struggling with gets piled on?

Well, that’s all true, but that’s very much based on trying to change things in a vacuum.

More carbon emissions? Yes, if we stick with today’s methods of transportation. So much progress keeps getting hamstrung to find cleaner ways of moving forward, in addition to the poor working conditions of those operating those modes of transportation. But through systemic changes, that could change. Carbon emissions might go up, but so could taxes or fines related to that pollution and inefficiencies. I know everybody rolls their eyes when that gets mentioned, but the lack of teeth behind it is often because those taxes or fines get hamstrung too. A larger transformation of shipping and transportation is well overdue, and the greater need to combat rising fuel costs to ship weightier products might lead to investments in more fuel efficient (or alternative fuel-based) vehicles on ground, water, or in the air. :)

And standardizing them - yes, absolutely! That’s the systemic transformation. Especially once the use of glass goes up and the need to more efficiently recycle it can’t be ignored any more, those are the changes you’d expect to see!

Zed, because one less ‘ee’ sound makes my life so much easier when I have to spell things out over the phone 🥲

Yeah, it devolves into wallowing in the negatives. If any of the major complaining came with a vibe that we were going to try to do something about it (even in just a broader ‘this is one more thing to keep in mind as we build up to such-and-such’), it would’ve been more useful. I don’t know if it’s different on Lemmy, but Reddit did a lot of angry ruminating without much interest in going beyond that. Conversations would fall apart when it became anything else than agreeing about how much things sucked and would always suck forever.

So… I’m on board to have people bring up the bad stuff, but I don’t want to get lost in it.

I’d love to get lost in the awesome stuff people are doing. Communities, outreach, events, plans, talking, sharing, alerts, hobbies, chances to change things - all that stuff. I’m not trying to put my head in the sand, but I don’t want to circle the drain of negativity when there’s a perfectly good pool of good stuff to talk about. It’s all in moderation. :)

You’re right that it’s a complete misprioritization. It’d be one thing if this was in addition to what’s arriving to the store in the first place, but it always seems like this stuff is being used to completely distract from the real causes of that waste.

I’d love for glass jars to be way more of a thing. Or even cardboard, as much as possible.

The devil’s advocate against glass is that it might be too heavy (which, well, that’s why we have carts, and most cities are so unwalkable that most people aren’t carrying them home in their hands). A really pushy plastic lobbyist could probably try some “Think of the children” take against broken jars, but some brands might be into the premium look of glass for their products.

But cardboard seems like the best thing. We don’t actually recycle enough of our paper, and having a stand of flat boxes that you can quickly put together with the same capacity as those fruit/vegetable bags could be another step forward. They can even replace the foam/plastic wrap packaging by just popping the top flap open to see the green beans inside or whatever. And aren’t we trying to boost our paper manufacturing industry in Canada? There ya go - it’s cardboard time