Somehow Canada’s telecom sector is trying to put a massive one in downtown Vancouver.

Interesting question. Most people in general are at least somewhat trapped in their identities (i.e. the survival instinct defining who we are and where/with whom we believe we do or don’t belong), if they lack the self-awareness to detach from it at least a little. Many people get more and more entrenched in various aspects of their identity as they grow older though, regardless of how compassionate or misanthropic they are.

“People who like people” is an extremely imprecise term. Depending on upbringing and early life experiences, even folks with a “rich social network” aren’t guaranteed to be empathetic/compassionate people. Such people may have a better chance of hitting that ideal on some level, but they’re at risk of duplicating the status quo (maybe with slight improvements?) unless they were able to have meaningful social experiences that humanized a diverse swath of people from their wider community, thereby reducing blind spots. If they only saw people like themselves all the time, then what they really have is just a social advantage (connections) that they may well take for granted or treat as the “norm.” On the flipside, people who had a hard upbringing or severe trauma but were able to work through healing their traumatic wounds to a certain extent? They can end up becoming the most emotionally wise and compassionate people around. It’d be cruel and ridiculous to expect that from everyone though, so I liked a suggestion I heard from a researcher a while back to have mechanisms to address potential deficits in a politician’s likelihood to care about their constituents.

All propaganda is part of an ongoing war of ideas (and identity, really). If people only hear from one side all the time and other viewpoints aren’t even debated but just get socially discouraged or outright suppressed, most are liable to just believe what they hear the most &/or what reinforces (or flatters) their personal idea of who they are. Even if they see good evidence of errors, omissions, or fabrications in the most widely accepted narrative, if people feel like they’ll become an outcast or that they’re losing a part of their identity by questioning what they’re told, most will give in to the natural inclination to run for what’s “safe” and comfortable in the moment. It takes a lot to pry people away from even small parts of the conventional wisdom they’ve heard non-stop from family, friends, news, entertainment, their employer, their colleagues, etc.

To be sure I’m addressing your question properly and that we’re not talking past each other I’d need to know which specific people you’re thinking of, but just speaking generally off the top of my head, this is a sample of the kind of thing I meant:

• Generations of propaganda promoting countless forms of division and/or social hierarchy. This dilutes democratic efforts by pitting people against each other who should be on the same side. Not just the most well-known forms of bigotry but also the tendency of a lot of people to adopt the everyday elitist attitude that they’re smart while most other people aren’t, or that something obvious to them because of their own life experiences or education should be obvious to everyone else regardless of other people’s varied life experiences or education.
• A human tendency to conform to and defend the status quo at all costs (because our brains are always seeking stability), even when it runs counter to our own needs or values. This has been increasingly exploited by major political parties across the West to get people to vote based on vibes and personal affiliations rather than demanding trackable progress toward specific measurable outcomes. The UK is now shaping up to become an exception to this. Over there, urgency to end austerity has caught on as the outcome most people want, and now the debate is naturally shifting toward whether people believe the right way of doing so is to tax wealth more than work (Greens), or to kick out immigrants in the (in my opinion misguided) hope the wealthy will then decide they’ve taken enough and gladly share with whoever’s left (Reform).
• Unfortunately, power in and of itself begets “people who don’t like people.” There is a well-documented phenomenon for people with any level of power over others (could be wealth, elevated social position, a prestigious job, etc.) in which their capacity for empathy becomes impaired, which leads to all sorts of cascading effects that get reflected in both public and private institutions. (I’ve heard at least one researcher talk about ways to directly counter this with special coaching for people who get elected as public representatives, but it was a long while back so I’d have to do some digging to find that discussion again.) I think this covers leaders who think they’re doing the right thing but are woefully out of touch as well as the dangerously ambitious ones who might have convinced themselves otherwise at first but really only got into politics for clout and prestige.

Even if they can be simplified down when speaking abstractly, there are so many reasons for that when speaking practically, it’s hard to know where to start. :/

Buried near the bottom:

At the same time, the law lets local governments enter into non-disclosure agreements with companies for up to a year, temporarily limiting public access to details about proposed projects.

Hiding water usage is apparently a standard tactic the proponents of these projects use so they can straight up lie about their drain on the environment. I also didn’t see anything in the article about any kind of pollution.

¿TacoGatotaGocaT?

Vance had a visit with the last pope at the Vatican, right before he died. At the time, Francis was trying to get him to acknowledge biblical teachings to love your neighbour (and I think that ICE was the antithesis of this), and not the vaguely dystopian stuff Vance was pushing about only only offering respect/kindness/compassion to the people closest to you.

I have an older Aura that isn’t allowed library books. :/

The only way this wouldn’t be supremely disappointing would be if they were keeping all staff and only introducing this for lower-importance sequences to reduce the famously insane workload. But yeah, I know I’m only kidding myself to even entertain that idea.

The two matters aren’t mutually exclusive and ultimately their motives don’t matter as much as the effect. Getting riled up and indignant about some people’s racism is useless and even counterproductive-- especially compared to focusing on the source.

Racism being systemic means there are barriers to overcome at every income level. Everyone has already bought into it at varying levels, so you can’t just go “See, look, they’re racist!” Outside of a few like-minded people, the typical response would range from shoulder shrugs to annoyance at best. Many will even perceive the accuser as acting superior.

If we’re talking about racism on a systemic level, exposing that there IS someone who benefits is necessary to get people invested in societal healing. Most people are constantly tired and from their perspective, don’t have the energy to care about what they perceive as other people’s problems. Make it their problem too, and maybe something will change.

Campaigns and general influence by wealthy people who want poorer folks attacking their fellow poor folks and not them. Same as racism in general.

Oh, I didn’t realize you were using colloquial English there.

Actually, “lay” is the past tense of “lie,” AND “lay” is a separate verb from “lie.” Most people will incorrectly (for formal English anyway) confuse the two verbs, using transitive “lay” when they mean to be using the intransitive “lie.” (E.g. “She lays down” is not a valid conjugation in formal English, and should be “She lies down.” If she’s putting something else down though, “She lays it down.”

Here are the respective conjugation charts for both verbs, if you want:

• https://www.wordreference.com/conj/enverbs.aspx?v=lie
• https://www.wordreference.com/conj/enverbs.aspx?v=lay

In some regional or cultural dialects though, maybe it’s all “lay?” I grew up with (and taught) more formal English but I do try to respect established differences in standard Englishes (as long as I’m aware of them). :)

*It’d be “lies” for present tense, but “lay” is correct for past.

I thought so too at first, but then got to this part and learned it’s not the first time:

Luigi Mangione is getting the Roxie Hart treatment.

The accused murderer will be the subject of a new musical set to premiere next month in San Francisco, titled Luigi: The Musical.

Also appearing as characters in the musical will be two of Mangione’s fellow inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center - Sean “Diddy” Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried.

The play is already sold out for its entire run.

The premiere comes 99 years after Hart - a fictional character based on accused murderer Beulah Annan - made her Broadway debut in Chicago.

Annan, like Hart, was ultimately acquitted of murder.

They don’t want Gemini, so they stated probably the best way to avoid having Gemini. It’s a privacy-minded comment. Despite being Google’s own phone, Pixels may be the only phones you can unlock to flash with a different ROM (GrapheneOS) and then be able to lock again after for security.

Yay! Please stick with this, EU! I hope this spreads globally. 🥂

I was just making an abstract sci-fi joke based on how cold fusion has been presented like a Holy Grail in the past. Obviously a better source of energy isn’t going to solve all our problems, no matter how good it is.

Maybe if it runs longer, we all get to jump to a better timeline. 😅

Yeah, it’s probably those conflicts of interest I had in mind.