[kwlug-disc] Install fest? Is the timing right?

[Steve Izma]

On Thu, Feb 20, 2025 at 12:32:31PM -0500, Doug Moen wrote:
> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Install fest? Is the timing right?
> 
> "Buy Canadian" doesn't seem too relevant, since all of my
> hardware presumably comes from the U.S. and China. There are no
> chip foundries in Canada.
> 
> I could switch to a lifestyle where I only own stuff made
> solely in Canada, but that would entail giving up anything
> containing microchips, like computers and cars.

I tend to agree, except that I think recycling changes the
dynamic somewhat. First of all, I'm not much of a nationalist and
am much more interested in local sustainability. That doesn't
mean producing everything from scratch -- but we gain autonomy by
re-using what's available. This also means that we reduce our
dependency on outside sources.

> What I think about instead, to the extent that I am an
> activist, is freedom from American hegemony over Canadian life.
> That includes surveillance (surveillance capitalism), and
> thought control (via advertising, algorithmic social media
> feeds, and now Elon's new chatbot trained on American alt-right
> propanda). It includes appliances that don't function unless
> you are connected to the manufacturer's internet server, which
> is a form of surveillance, but which also allows the
> manufacturer to delete paid content or remove features that no
> longer match their business model. It also includes megacorps
> like Amazon and Walmart and Uber, that undercut local
> businesses using practices that should be illegal, and suck all
> the profits out of the Canadian economy, leaving us all poorer.
> And American middlemen that try to take a cut of every Canadian
> economic transaction.

Exacttly, which is why I think the bellyaching about tariffs is
misplaced. I was never keen on free trade. We knew back in the
1980s that it would impoverish people and reduce the ability for
local production. But it's done its damage and now we need to
figure out how to do things for ourselves again.

	-- Steve

-- 
Steve Izma
-
Home: 35 Locust St., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada  N2H 1W6
Temporary residence: 36 Locust St., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada  N2H 1W7
E-mail: sizma at golden.net  cellphone: 519-998-2684

==
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and
therefore never scrutinize or question.
    -- Stephen Jay Gould, *Full House: The Spread of Excellence
       from Plato to Darwin*, 1996