Yeah, our psyches evolved in times when the environment was relatively stable for your entire lifetime. Rate of change in the environment just keeps increasing, and our wiring just isn't made for that. Our internal prediction engine is less and less able to model the future based on the past. Painting with broad strokes here, but I think generally this is the upstream cause of a lot of the increased mental health issues we're seeing.
I think the idea is that, the current trajectory of technology is just making problems worse. More and more powerful, capable of pulling us further and further from a healthy equilibrium as we see with global warming etc.
Theoretically, if we can crack fusion or some other source of abundant, cheap energy, we could build many of the bandaid solutions proposed today that are not feasible due to energy constraints, while transitioning society to a more sustainable path. Tilt the curve as it were.
Our psyches unfortunately aren't built for the globalized world we live in, and unless we figure out some sort of collective awakening to transcend our egos... Our best hope is likely solutions that allow the march of progress, while slowing, stopping, and eventually undoing a bunch of damage humans have done to the biosphere over our history. Definitely a moon shot, but hopefully we can figure something out.
That's just a convenient talking point for our government. The model in Canada is effectively a regressive tax on consumers in the checkout line. It conveniently allows for our government to talk about how they don't subsidize farmers, and have a clean budget on that front, but I would prefer to see a model that was actually funded by government taxes such that it could be a progressive tax born more by wealthier Canadians rather than lower income ones being hit hardest.
I also have doubts that our current model is the best way of achieving the goals we had in mind when the programs were created in the 1970s. I know the error bars are quite sizeable, and it's not quite apples to apples, but recent studies that suggest our supply chain management in dairy, eggs, and poultry, costs approximately $244pp per year in higher costs. That's over $10billion per annum Canada wide, equivalent to 2% of the federal budget! I have been discussing this with someone in another thread for days, and the more I look into it, the more I feel like we really need to take another look at the implementation of this program. Dollar amount breaks my brain.
The elephant in the room is that the government is legally required to buy back the quota if change were to happen, and that is an estimated $50 billion dollar bill. Which actually doesn't sound so bad compared to your $10 billion per annum figure, but the $10B is hidden so it is easy to let it be ignored. A one time $50B payout will stick out like a sore thumb and no politician wants to attach their name to that.
When they did it for tobacco back in 2009 it was only around $300 million on the table which isn't nearly as mind boggling and thus much more easily forgotten. Not to mention that very few Canadians realized that tobacco was ever supply managed to begin with so it easily few under the radar. Anything that affects dairy will be headline news.
Yeah, I know that's a colossal elephant to deal with. I mean, I would hope that whatever reforms could lower costs enough that if you did a model similar to Australia, and had a temporary levy to pay for the buyout, the end cost to consumers, even with the levy, was lower prices than prior to the change. That was the case in Australia.
And I know nothing about the market, but I can't imagine it's overly liquid, the fact that all farmers would receive cash for their quota, would definitely be attractive to most. It's already heavily financialized and borrowed against.
And then, you could even do something like NZ did where all the dairy farmers got together and created a coop for processing, NZ is now the largest exporter of dairy in the world! If some of the quota levy went to getting this off the ground, you'd help the farmers retain a bigger piece of the pie with vertical integration of the supply chain. And, hopefully also compete globally and become net exporters, increasing the size of the pie.
I dunno, I have no idea what the fucking solution is, but after spending a bunch of time in the weeds of this shit over the past couple days, I am like, we have created a monster, this can't be the most effective way to achieve the underlying goals of the program.
> dairy farmers got together and created a coop for processing
That isn't going to go over well with the big three (Saputo, Agropur, Lactalis) who own ~75% of the processing quota. I suspect if you dig even deeper you will find it is they who hold the political capital that props up the dairy supply management system. If it were only farmers involved it would have been gone ages ago.
Agreed on all fronts. But, if we're entering an era where we have to be less reliant on our trade relationship with the US, we need innovation to compete, and the status quo of Oligopolies in so many fucking industries really needs to be confronted imo. Doubt it'll happen, but it's an increasingly ugly situation.
Protecting your own country's production capacity and industry doesn't come without cost. It likely would absolutely be cheaper if we allowed our core industries to fail and be replaced wholesale with American exporters, but that's not what the majority want for the country.
As we're seeing with this trade war as a whole, tightening economic integration with an asymmetric partner puts your sovereignty at risk as well. If we have no industries of our own, and are utterly dependent on a single unreliable superpower, then we lose the freedom to decide on our own future as the rug could be pulled out from under us at any time. The only way to mitigate that risk is to diversify trade and ensure self-sufficiency in our own industries.
Yes. I am well aware of this. I just find it hard to believe that dairy, poultry, and eggs are some special snowflake type of farm that requires the quota and supply chain management, while every other type of farm, we can manage with direct subsidies.
For reference, there are about 190k farms in Canada, 8% of those farms are dairy, poultry, and eggs whose viability is ensured with supply chain management. The other 92% of farms, are managed with direct government assistance (AgriStability, AgriInsurance, AgriInvest, and AgriRecovery). The latter costs the government $1.5-$2 billion most years. While the recent report on supply chain managed farms suggests the cost born by Canadians to be around $10 billion. Even if that number is off by an order of magnitude, we're looking at $1 billion for 8% of farms, and $1.5-$2 billion for the other 92% of farms.
All I'm saying is it seems like the solution to help ensure viability in dairy, egg, and poultry farming is wildly inefficient and merits a look from first principles. Is there a solution to achieve the same outcome at a lower cost? The world has changed drastically since the policies were implemented in the 1970s.
I admit I am far from an expert, but I have spent an inordinate amount of time reading about this shit out of curiosity in the past couple days. Broke my brain when I saw the numbers around the costs born by canadians in the checkout aisle due to supply chain management.
I am not sure if this factors into it but an interesting difference between dairy and eggs and most other types of farms is that those are highly perishable. Grain can be stored and released gradually to even out market gyrations but dairy is just lost if they don’t match supply closely with demand in real time.
Yeah, that's a fair point but it still seems like a huge delta.
And my rabbit hole over the last couple days has led me to spend a bunch of time looking into Fonterra, which is the farmers processing Coop that happened in NZ when they got rid of their quota system. It's turned NZ into the largest milk product exporter on earth, and their whole strategy is processing milk into more shelf stable products. Cheese and Butter is about 20% the remainder is skim milk powder, whole milk powder, whey protein, and caseins.
Anyhow, all of this is to say, that there are solutions that ensure no milk goes to waste by processing it into more shelf stable ingredients, all of which have massive demand on the global markets. Whether we do much of this in Canada, I am not sure, but, feels like a missed opportunity if not, and likely partially caused by a lack of necessity to innovate due to the artificial moat.
Eggs, haven't looked into but presumably similar to milk in that it can be processed into shelf stable powders.
But, on the poultry front, beef, pork, etc, are all in the 92% of farms group, managed by subsidies, so, while chickens have a shorter lifespan, I don't see why we can manage cow and pork farms with subsidies, but not chicken.
I'm not saying they're right to do so, but it sounds like their intuition was honed well if they pegged you correctly during your faux-pas era? Fascinating, wonder what the tell was.
Before they got state drivers licenses, they could only show their non-US ID/passport whenever they got carded for alcohol. A few times, the venue would just tack on a 20% service fee.
One time, they asked the table next to them if they also got a service fee: They didn't. They complained, got the service fee waived, then told them to forget about getting a tip at all.
You might guess a person might be a non-tipper, but giving shitty service or forcing a discriminatory service fee will make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
> Europeans would be far less likely to tip (or tip generously).
Southern europeans tip, there wouldn't be much difference there
Northern ones it depends, they don't tip at home but they usually do on vacations to southern europe (where tipping culture very much exists). Though some of that also has to do with currency conversions, at least historically, even if the tradition has stuck past the euro being introduced. So maybe that's why they don't tip when it comes to dollars?
Yeah, but our dairy quota system is kinda fucked imo. We've created a market where the quotas are estimated to be worth somewhere between 40-45 billion. This financialization and the fact that banks have leant heavily against the quotas is part of the reason we're unwilling to move on this aspect in negotiation imo.
I'm not saying that there's not value of protecting our food supply. But, in an affordability crisis, kinda feels this should be on the table for discussion given our supply chain management costs the average consumer an extra $250 a year or so.
You see, the Americans are liars, as you may well know. They get upset at supply management, but they do it too. Instead of controlling production, and setting fair prices for producers, they handle it, like a bunch of nitwits, on the backend.
They buy up excess milk, make cheese out of it, to artificially keep the market price high, and then store it for decades as it rots, in large underground limestone caverns.
They buy out herds if production levels are too high. They have bought out large numbers of farms more than once, spending enormous sums, to reduce the supply.
In fact, the American government has cost the American consumer far more than a measly $250 per year, for they force higher pricing too. And to do it? They spend like crazy, they spend tax money like crazy.
But here's the thing. Every single government handles food production in some way. Every one. And the result is upward pricing pressure, almost always.
We act responsibly. Sanely. The Americans just shrug their shoulders, blather on about not interfering, then do it anyhow regardless.
Do not fall for their lies. It's all they do these days. The only goal they have, is to make us far more dependent upon them.
Brother, nothing in my comment did I learn from American sources as a result of this trade war. I've found our dairy cartel silly for a long time. Look at the impact of NZ and Australia removing their quota system around the turn of the century.
I just don't like how opaque the whole thing is and I don't think most Canadians have an understanding of the impact on their pocketbook.
The concept of an entirely unrestrained market, is an illusion spread primarily from US thinktanks and sources.
Yet my point was, even though Americans spout blather about market intervention via Governments, they do it too.
Australia and NZ are bad examples. They are incredibly isolated for fresh milk competitors, and fresh cheese too. We, meanwhile, have a market 10x larger next door.
But beyond that every government manages its agricultural industry. If NZ and Australia "did well" without market supply at the front, then you can be sure they did so by bail outs, market interference, and other methods at the back end.
And those methods cause consumers money, taxes are used to do these things.
There is no open dairy market in the US. It's an illusion, as I mentioned.
Look at thr disaster of 2008. Americans did the same thing, didn't manage and regulate, then the market explodes, and they spend trillions in clean up.
That's still manipulation and market management, it's just the most disruptive, damaging, stupid way to do so.
And American have the money, and the ability to manipulate the world's reserve currency in situations like this.
We don't. We have to manage things responsibly.
I'm OK with positively modifying supply management. Find a specific problem, fix it. Improve it.
Yeah, I actually think we're relatively aligned here. I'm not saying burn it all down, free market, fuck the goals.
I'm just saying, and I know this is an estimate, but if you take the $244/annum/pp estimate from studies as to the cost of supply chain management... you're looking at about $10 billion per year.
Broadly, I think the goal of our supply chain management is to preserve a robust domestic dairy, poultry, and egg industry, maintain emergency production capacity, support rural communities, smooth out extreme price volatility, and ensure farmers can survive downturns.
I'd just be very surprised, if we asked ourselves, ok, how can we most efficiently achieve the above, and actually tried to solve the above problems from first principles today, we'd land on the current solution. It just feels like we should be able to achieve a much better outcome for $10 billion dollars, or we should be able to achieve the equivalent of the current outcome for far less than $10 billion.
A hate just pointing at the cost, because where does that money go? What is that cost? Is it just more cash in the pockets of producers? Who then hire people to work on the farm, and all that blather?
Is it a bloated bureaucracy, which needs some trimming, but still regardless pays wages to Canadians?
Are other things wrapped into that $10B?
Also, it seems those numbers aren't just dairy, but chicken too?
And another thing (I'm full of ideas today, sorry), we don't use hormones to increase milk production, or bulk up animals. That definitely means more cost per animal. That figure seems to also include chicken meat, not just eggs. Healthy isn't necessarily free.
Look, you find horrible costs, I'll support you. I think that's fair.
Hah, no worries brother. Yeah, I agree keep bovine growth hormone the fuck out of our supply. And yes, its poultry, eggs, and milk products wrapped up in the $10 billion.
I agree generally that just looking at cost often misses the bigger picture, but it's the magnitude of it here that gets me. $10 billion is equivalent to 2% of the federal budget!
We spend a similar amount in the budget, $10.7 billion, to ensure the viability and sustainability of all our crown corporations with the exception of CMHC! So, a national railway, a national postal service, a public broadcaster, museums, infrastructure entities, finance institutions, housing institutions, export support, tourism, bridges, agricultural finance, and thirty other random Crown things… All made viable for approximately the equivalent of the cost born by Canadians to support chicken, egg, and milk producers.
And, it's not like this is our entire food supply. Massive error bars here, but based on the average consumption numbers for Canadians in the egg, poultry, and dairy categories, which, the dairy part is admittedly quite fuzzy... But my back of the napkin math suggests that's somewhere between 10-20% of the caloric/nutritional needs of Canadians, so it's not like it's securing the majority of the food supply for Canadians, we're very much still dependent on the global food production.
Ultimately, I believe what it comes down to, is that a different system that would likely be more effective at achieving similar outcomes, would force some level of support onto the federal government and hit the budget. Whereas the current system allows the government to say, we've created a system that doesn't depend on government subsidies! Yes, we've done that, but it's effectively a regressive tax that hits consumers at the checkout.
Anyhow, I am not an expert on food supply, so I don't know what exactly a better solution would look like. But, we're currently all in on a system that was developed in the 1970s, and it has a feeling of 'too big to fail'. That to me, is a recipe for horrible inefficiency, and given the magnitude of the numbers, I can't help but feel that we'd be well served to take a deeper look at the situation and consider whether there's a better way to achieve the outcomes at lower cost to Canadians. Hell, even if we determine, nope switching over to a subsidy model paid by the government would cost the exact same amount for the same outcome, at least it would achieve a more equitable outcome for Canadians in switching from a regressive to a progressive tax.
This article is about a group of people who are trying to make the world a better place in their own little way. Many of them do not have the technical skillset to understand the potential future problems they have since run into. Many of them, as you acknowledged, probably chose this option for convenience. Is it ideal? No. Is it the reality of the world we live in? Yes.
A bit of empathy goes a long way, doesn't cost you anything. You're not going to win many people over to your cause with this kind of vitriol.
Sorry if the tone was off but I'm trying to peel off the layers of narrative on this and get to the real story. And that is the all too common story of a combination of poorly defined and enforced policy by a vendor and a strategy of hope and ignorance from a customer.
The non-profit part of it is moot. This could happen to anyone. I'm more than a little annoyed that "non-profit" and "charity" is used to shape opinion. Having worked for a charity before, they aren't necessarily the bastions of moral virtue even when claiming non-profit status. I've seen cash efficiencies so low that there's almost no point in them existing. Not that it matters, again because this problem applies to non-profit and profit organisations.
Thus this should be a warning to people here to make sure that you have an exit plan and a strategy if you use the services regardless of who you are or what you do. Not hatred of the vendor. Because every single vendor out there can arbitrarily cut you off from a service at their will through automation, incompetence or malicious behaviour and there's probably nothing you can do about it.
Yeah, I'm convinced humanity is hitting a wall of sorts. For most of my life, the voices in my head were very, very unpleasant, and downright mean and evil a lot of the time. I was never enough, everything I did was wrong, unworthy, disgusting, etc, etc.
I know I was not alone in being wired that way, obviously not a conversation you have with random strangers, but in conversation with people I know well, it would appear it's fairly common in the world we live in. Or perhaps I've just got a uniquely disfunctional group of friends hah. But, work on the Meaning Crisis as John Vervaeke calls it, increases in mental health issues, and declining birth rates, lead me to believe this is endemic.
I've been fortunate to have been able to spend the past 15 months fucking off and looking inside to wrestle with this and I'm fairly convinced our HumanOS or whatever you want to call it, the ego, is no longer fit for purpose for a lot of people in modernity.
Before I go further, I'll acknowledge that our ego has served us well for most of human history, it's driven progress to this point that has, for a large swath of the population, eliminated hunger, and we're much more secure than we've ever been generally.
But, I'd argue it's become increasingly problematic since somewhere around The Enlightenment / Scientific Revolution, very problematic in the past 100 years or so, and quite frankly, supercharged since the advent of the internet, smart phones, and social media.
Our ancient ancestors were influenced by people in their immediate orbit, and it was a symbiotic relationship of sorts, everyone had a vested interest in the success of those around them and vice versa. As our society has evolved, this alignment has dwindled, and with the advent of the internet, we're constantly being blasted by attempts to influence us, that no longer have our best interest at heart, but our programming hasn't caught up.
So now, this programming that once provided a stable sense of self, is now constantly being blasted with conflicting ideas of the self, it's increasingly difficult to keep the inner and outer world in alignment, and well, the ego is an engine that is burning up. For a lot of us, this manifests with the negative self talk that we'll all do anything we can to avoid, and one of the most effective ways to do so, is to avoid being idle, anything we can do to keep the mind focused outward rather than inward.
Those of us that are alive today don't have the luxury of waiting for evolutionary pressures to 'solve' this problem for future generations. In my personal experience, the solution seems to be waking up to these machinations of ego. Don't fully understand how it works, but it seems that awareness of said machinations can act as a recursive loop to silence them.
There in lies the problem. The environment these days is evolving far faster than our species. Just because our biological programming is no longer fit for purpose, doesn't mean we've evolved beyond said programming.
Even if we could completely rewrite our programming with each new generation, think about how much the world changes in a single lifetime these days.
I guess it's dependent on what you're using the watch for. I like the sleep tracking and various overnight metrics. Find keeping an eye on RHR and HRV is one of the best early signals for overtraining.
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