6 ms·

As tech worker in Canada I'm a big fan of this as I feel there's no ceiling in which the tech industry can find itself saturated. We need to continue evolving t

As tech worker in Canada I'm a big fan of this as I feel there's no ceiling in which the tech industry can find itself saturated. We need to continue evolving towards a tech industry, particularly as the energy sector undergoes a major reform. Would I like to be paid more? Always. But not through putting walls up to artificially inflate the value of my role in the economy at the cost of Canada's economic future. There's a ton of months-old accounts here with very low karma loading the comments section up with feckless cowardice in the form of anti-government, anti-immigration, unthinking garbage. Seriously, click on a bunch and see. There's a LOT of valid criticism about Canada's economic situation. But carefully observe how every one of those comments plays on your fears and anxieties. They speak with hyperbole and aggression. They're trying to manipulate you through your instincts.

bovermyer 3y ago
I would love to immigrate to Canada. However, my Express Entry score is lower than that of twenty-somethings, so I have yet to get picked up in a round. I'm hopeful I'll get picked in one of the new tech rounds, but we'll see.
frfl 3y ago
This comment is just my observations about the nature of comments regarding Canada. I'm not trying to lean one way or another by writing this... I can't speak to the honesty, atroturfing, propaganda, whatever you wanna call it, but online I've noticed a general negative tone and attitude towards the Canadian economy and government. Very little of the opinion pieces I see say anything good. By opinion pieces I refer to HN/Reddit, not news corporations. It's very one sided online.
- mgh2 3y ago
  Sometimes HN/Reddit can be more realistic/honest than news corporations, but both can be biased or manipulated.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  There is a TON of astroturfing going on. And we've got a Conservative Party leader who is happy to encourage the classic cowardice-based attitudes about how the immigrants other easy targets are to blame for it all. Basically, "this is a very complex situation but I want to be elected so I'll distill it down to something raw and emotional for votes." But that's really just a symptom of the fact that there are very real economic problems here. Climate change is becoming a disaster. Economic ripples from COVID continue. The housing market is completely broken. Inflation up. When times are tough, people get scared. When people get scared, they respond more to emotion and impulse than logic and reason. That creates a market for charlatans who will give them simple explanations and simple solutions.
  - version_five 3y ago
    This is just some partisan talking points. Certainly you're not the only one with this view but it doesnt represent even the majority in Canada, and everyone that disagrees with you are not astroturfers or people who have been scared into seeking simple solutions. I see this "everyone who doesn't think like me must have been manipulated" garbage every day online and it's extremely offensive. People can think for themselves and come up with a different conclusion than yours, which is essentially the most orthodox mainstream media view there is.
  - llm_nerd 3y ago
    Apologies for the lengthy reply, however I simply had to write a more detailed comment for other readers. >And we've got a Conservative Party leader So you have adopted your "everything is fine [just ignore that the house is on fire]" position purely for partisan reasons? You convince yourself that everyone with a different position than you is actually some astroturfing Conservative operative? I hope you realize how intellectually dishonest that is. I detest PP and his veneer of populism and conspiracy theory adjacency. But no amount of fairytales or painting over can change the absolutely dire situation in Canada right now, and I would be absolutely ashamed to try to paint this as okay because I want the current guy to win. Canada added a million+ new residents in the past year, and continues at that staggering clip. This is a rate that makes developing countries blush[1]. In absolute numbers it beat every other developed country in population growth. Not per capita, absolute numbers. All despite the fact that there is an enormous housing crisis and housing starts have actually dropped (though if they didn't they couldn't accommodate 1/4 that rate). Millions of Canadians are in the perilous situation of being unable to afford housing if their current situation demanded it, anxiously worry about the next mortgage renewal or that their landlord decides to pull a renoviction. People are staying with abusive partners, and children are going to be living with their parents indefinitely. Fertility rates were bad and now they're going to devastated. Economic homelessness -- not mental illness or substance abuse -- is exploding. There was a time when you might get priced out of the big city, but now there literally is nothing left. For those falling through the cracks there are no cheap areas left anywhere in the country. But don't worry -- we can solve the housing crisis by, they claim, more immigration. And when that fails I'll let you fill in the blanks with the solution, so long as you guess "more immigration". This government has been selling rolls of quarters for a nickel and then demanding more rolls to make up for the losses. Every ill just demands more immigration to this government. And to the governments before, and likely the government after, because ever questioning immigration was verboten, forbidden under the guise that despite Canada being a hugely diverse country built by immigrants, if you questioned immigration levels you clearly must be a racist. Wage suppression is Canada's "competitiveness" (our productivity gap just keeps increasing. In Canada you don't automate or seek efficiencies, you just demand the government give you an army of TFWs. We have a GDP per capita below Alabama and dropping). Canada's best tech workers leave to the US, so just import foreign workers who couldn't get into the US, or who are poised to get sent out from the US. What a loser strategy. We do the same with scientists and doctors. The best go to the US, so just accept the sloppy seconds from elsewhere. Canada has more international "students" than the United States, despite having 1/12th the student spaces. And I quote students because many are students of strip mall diploma mills, taking advantage of the fact that this government gave them a full work permit and is a track towards permanent residency, whereupon they can sponsor their family from home as well who funded this adventure. Get a full time job, live 8 to a basement for a slumlord and hit up the food bank for food. This is happening en masse right now. It is scandalous exploitation. Canada has a massive temporary foreign worker program using wage suppressing foreign labour at staggering rates in critical positions like...factory worker and fast food worker. Under this purportedly "progressive" government the program, like the rate of immigration and the number of "students", has exploded. It is because I am a progressive that I find all of this disgusting. We are at the end stages of some of the most hostile anti-worker policies conceivable. So while this announcement is just a raindrop in a downpour, that doesn't excuse it when the country is flooding. [1] - Like all developed countries Canada has a birth rate deficiency, and is a nation of immigrants that relies upon immigration for continued health. The actual deficiency is 1/4 the current pace of intake, however.
llm_nerd 3y ago
>Would I like to be paid more? You appear to work remote for a US firm, which makes this a bit humorous. Actual recent graduates trying to find work in tech in Canada -- even accepting the enormous domestic discount -- are meeting a wall. Actual low income residents who have literally zero housing options and are ending up legitimately homeless...hey, you got yours, so too bad. >There's a ton of months-old accounts ... They're trying to manipulate you through your instincts. Such brazen attempts to disqualify any opposing viewpoints is so shameless. Canada is at a legitimate crisis level right now, and it is just more fuel on the fire. If you think this is simply a play on fears and anxieties, you have a harsh disconnect from reality.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  nothing you describe is new or unique to Canada, and the same problems are happening in China, Europe, and the US. I agree with the parent in that shillbots are out of control, and are visible across several domains, and not just about Canada -- anything vaguely or political seems to be getting it extra hard as of late. there has been a notable uptick on reddit, twitter, lemmy, HN, etc. certainly someone with "ML learning fanantic" in their profile can grasp how incredibly easy it is to use GPT-3 to abuse HN and similar platforms.
  - llm_nerd 3y ago
    >nothing you describe is new or unique to Canada Canada had the highest immigration in the developed world in absolute numbers, which is positively insane. Canada has the most overleveraged housing in the world. Canada has the lowest availability rate of housing. Canada's productivity has been constantly falling off of its peers. Canada's wage gap with the US for skilled workers is large and growing. Canada has more international students than the US, a country with 12x more student spaces. Canada has a massive foreign worker program. All of these have exploded over the past few years, and are very much new and hitting the breaking point. These are all entirely unique. But the [hand wave] "yeah everywhere is bad yo" bit is a common retort.
    - landoftheice 3y ago
scohesc 3y ago
At the risk of sounding like I'm flaming - which I'm not - it seems like a pretty privileged viewpoint for you to posit that the recent trend of more people raising concerns about cost of living and wages are simply anti-government or anti-immigrant. Groceries have gone up in price. Shelter has gone up in price for both renting and buying. Healthcare is in shambles. Wages haven't been keeping up with inflation the last decade+, let alone the past two years. Yes, I understand the entire world is reeling from a pandemic and horrific monetary policies put in place by said governments and corporations that manipulate it for their own gain. The government has chosen to enact policies against the best interest of most of its citizens - at least those making less than $100k/year - and they continue to do so at the expense of everybody. What will be the "straw that breaks the camel's back" for the majority of Canadians to finally realize that their government doesn't care about them and only cares about bringing in more foreign money to prop up the absolute sham of a "housing market" they have while suppressing wages for lower level entry positions like service industries or entry-level IT jobs?

bovermyer 3y ago

I would love to immigrate to Canada. However, my Express Entry score is lower than that of twenty-somethings, so I have yet to get picked up in a round. I'm hopeful I'll get picked in one of the new tech rounds, but we'll see.

frfl 3y ago

This comment is just my observations about the nature of comments regarding Canada. I'm not trying to lean one way or another by writing this... I can't speak to the honesty, atroturfing, propaganda, whatever you wanna call it, but online I've noticed a general negative tone and attitude towards the Canadian economy and government. Very little of the opinion pieces I see say anything good. By opinion pieces I refer to HN/Reddit, not news corporations. It's very one sided online.

mgh2 3y ago
Sometimes HN/Reddit can be more realistic/honest than news corporations, but both can be biased or manipulated.
Waterluvian 3y ago
There is a TON of astroturfing going on. And we've got a Conservative Party leader who is happy to encourage the classic cowardice-based attitudes about how the immigrants other easy targets are to blame for it all. Basically, "this is a very complex situation but I want to be elected so I'll distill it down to something raw and emotional for votes." But that's really just a symptom of the fact that there are very real economic problems here. Climate change is becoming a disaster. Economic ripples from COVID continue. The housing market is completely broken. Inflation up. When times are tough, people get scared. When people get scared, they respond more to emotion and impulse than logic and reason. That creates a market for charlatans who will give them simple explanations and simple solutions.
- version_five 3y ago
  This is just some partisan talking points. Certainly you're not the only one with this view but it doesnt represent even the majority in Canada, and everyone that disagrees with you are not astroturfers or people who have been scared into seeking simple solutions. I see this "everyone who doesn't think like me must have been manipulated" garbage every day online and it's extremely offensive. People can think for themselves and come up with a different conclusion than yours, which is essentially the most orthodox mainstream media view there is.
- llm_nerd 3y ago
  Apologies for the lengthy reply, however I simply had to write a more detailed comment for other readers. >And we've got a Conservative Party leader So you have adopted your "everything is fine [just ignore that the house is on fire]" position purely for partisan reasons? You convince yourself that everyone with a different position than you is actually some astroturfing Conservative operative? I hope you realize how intellectually dishonest that is. I detest PP and his veneer of populism and conspiracy theory adjacency. But no amount of fairytales or painting over can change the absolutely dire situation in Canada right now, and I would be absolutely ashamed to try to paint this as okay because I want the current guy to win. Canada added a million+ new residents in the past year, and continues at that staggering clip. This is a rate that makes developing countries blush[1]. In absolute numbers it beat every other developed country in population growth. Not per capita, absolute numbers. All despite the fact that there is an enormous housing crisis and housing starts have actually dropped (though if they didn't they couldn't accommodate 1/4 that rate). Millions of Canadians are in the perilous situation of being unable to afford housing if their current situation demanded it, anxiously worry about the next mortgage renewal or that their landlord decides to pull a renoviction. People are staying with abusive partners, and children are going to be living with their parents indefinitely. Fertility rates were bad and now they're going to devastated. Economic homelessness -- not mental illness or substance abuse -- is exploding. There was a time when you might get priced out of the big city, but now there literally is nothing left. For those falling through the cracks there are no cheap areas left anywhere in the country. But don't worry -- we can solve the housing crisis by, they claim, more immigration. And when that fails I'll let you fill in the blanks with the solution, so long as you guess "more immigration". This government has been selling rolls of quarters for a nickel and then demanding more rolls to make up for the losses. Every ill just demands more immigration to this government. And to the governments before, and likely the government after, because ever questioning immigration was verboten, forbidden under the guise that despite Canada being a hugely diverse country built by immigrants, if you questioned immigration levels you clearly must be a racist. Wage suppression is Canada's "competitiveness" (our productivity gap just keeps increasing. In Canada you don't automate or seek efficiencies, you just demand the government give you an army of TFWs. We have a GDP per capita below Alabama and dropping). Canada's best tech workers leave to the US, so just import foreign workers who couldn't get into the US, or who are poised to get sent out from the US. What a loser strategy. We do the same with scientists and doctors. The best go to the US, so just accept the sloppy seconds from elsewhere. Canada has more international "students" than the United States, despite having 1/12th the student spaces. And I quote students because many are students of strip mall diploma mills, taking advantage of the fact that this government gave them a full work permit and is a track towards permanent residency, whereupon they can sponsor their family from home as well who funded this adventure. Get a full time job, live 8 to a basement for a slumlord and hit up the food bank for food. This is happening en masse right now. It is scandalous exploitation. Canada has a massive temporary foreign worker program using wage suppressing foreign labour at staggering rates in critical positions like...factory worker and fast food worker. Under this purportedly "progressive" government the program, like the rate of immigration and the number of "students", has exploded. It is because I am a progressive that I find all of this disgusting. We are at the end stages of some of the most hostile anti-worker policies conceivable. So while this announcement is just a raindrop in a downpour, that doesn't excuse it when the country is flooding. [1] - Like all developed countries Canada has a birth rate deficiency, and is a nation of immigrants that relies upon immigration for continued health. The actual deficiency is 1/4 the current pace of intake, however.

llm_nerd 3y ago

>Would I like to be paid more? You appear to work remote for a US firm, which makes this a bit humorous. Actual recent graduates trying to find work in tech in Canada -- even accepting the enormous domestic discount -- are meeting a wall. Actual low income residents who have literally zero housing options and are ending up legitimately homeless...hey, you got yours, so too bad. >There's a ton of months-old accounts ... They're trying to manipulate you through your instincts. Such brazen attempts to disqualify any opposing viewpoints is so shameless. Canada is at a legitimate crisis level right now, and it is just more fuel on the fire. If you think this is simply a play on fears and anxieties, you have a harsh disconnect from reality.

red-iron-pine 3y ago
nothing you describe is new or unique to Canada, and the same problems are happening in China, Europe, and the US. I agree with the parent in that shillbots are out of control, and are visible across several domains, and not just about Canada -- anything vaguely or political seems to be getting it extra hard as of late. there has been a notable uptick on reddit, twitter, lemmy, HN, etc. certainly someone with "ML learning fanantic" in their profile can grasp how incredibly easy it is to use GPT-3 to abuse HN and similar platforms.
- llm_nerd 3y ago
  >nothing you describe is new or unique to Canada Canada had the highest immigration in the developed world in absolute numbers, which is positively insane. Canada has the most overleveraged housing in the world. Canada has the lowest availability rate of housing. Canada's productivity has been constantly falling off of its peers. Canada's wage gap with the US for skilled workers is large and growing. Canada has more international students than the US, a country with 12x more student spaces. Canada has a massive foreign worker program. All of these have exploded over the past few years, and are very much new and hitting the breaking point. These are all entirely unique. But the [hand wave] "yeah everywhere is bad yo" bit is a common retort.
  - landoftheice 3y ago

scohesc 3y ago

At the risk of sounding like I'm flaming - which I'm not - it seems like a pretty privileged viewpoint for you to posit that the recent trend of more people raising concerns about cost of living and wages are simply anti-government or anti-immigrant. Groceries have gone up in price. Shelter has gone up in price for both renting and buying. Healthcare is in shambles. Wages haven't been keeping up with inflation the last decade+, let alone the past two years. Yes, I understand the entire world is reeling from a pandemic and horrific monetary policies put in place by said governments and corporations that manipulate it for their own gain. The government has chosen to enact policies against the best interest of most of its citizens - at least those making less than $100k/year - and they continue to do so at the expense of everybody. What will be the "straw that breaks the camel's back" for the majority of Canadians to finally realize that their government doesn't care about them and only cares about bringing in more foreign money to prop up the absolute sham of a "housing market" they have while suppressing wages for lower level entry positions like service industries or entry-level IT jobs?