I’m also an early millenial / late GenX and broadly support the things you mention.

At the same time, how do you explain that earlier generations were happy to start families well before national pharma care, etc.? Before people were concerned with the climate crisis they were terrified of a population explosion (hence China’s one-child policy), nuclear war, etc.

My intuition is that the difference is that they were more financially stable and they were able to maintain a family with a single income, which provided them with both the money and the time that raising children require. So, maybe we should focus on that instead.

Basically, the “no immigration” path i

That is a strawman of your own creation. All I said is that I want my children to have the opportunity to have kids of their own if they wish to, which currently seems unlikely because our government does not prioritize fostering the conditions under which young people choose to start families.

I would prefer Canada to grow primarily through its own means rather than relying so heavily on immigration to avoid economic collapse.

If you prefer not having kids or grandchildren, that’s fine by me, but don’t assume we all want the same things.

That is a false dichotomy. Housing is expensive in Canada due to zoning laws forcing a very inefficient use of land, among other reasons.

I lived in Europe for decades, so I know for a fact that making our streets pleasant to walk around isn’t some weird utopia, it is the basic reality in many developed countries.

And I want my children to have the opportunity to have kids of their own. In my experience, when young people feel financially secure and are not working themselves to death, they tend to start families. I want our kids’ generation to have that opportunity.

Seriously. I’m in my mid-50s, and the bleakness of my generation is staggering. Nobody wants to be alive anymore.

I’m a decade younger. I thought Gen-Xers were doing decently well, at least compared to younger generations.

What sorts of problems are you folks having? I’d love to learn more.

Living in an area that is beautiful matters, and our urban landscapes are a big part of that. Trees, decorated facades, town squares, they may add some economic cost, but why is that the only cost that matters? What about the emotional cost of living in an ugly noisy jungle of concrete and glass?

I’m looking at 3br condos/townhomes for my car-free family and prices still look insane. We will likely have to leave the GTA.

There is probably no horror comparable to burying one of your children.

At the same time, I don’t believe anybody should be forced to live when they no longer want to. Suicidal ideation doesn’t come out of nowhere, it is the consequence of a tormented life where the desire to stop suffering eventually overcomes the fear of dying.

I hope all involved find peace.

Alcohol is bad for you too. Are you going to ban that?

I wish they did. My father died of alcoholism.

It’s generational discrimination

You mean, like between the people who lived and died without being able to smoke cannabis legally and those who now can?

Every single law ever approved has created a barrier between those who lived before the law was approved and those who lived after. Public health care, public pensions, everything.

What makes you think Canada will take half a million refugees? UNHCR indicates that we have welcomed a little over a million since 1980.

The death of babies lowers life expectancy a lot more than the death of seniors. Since COVID predominantly kills the elderly, it means that if life expectancy is going down then COVID must still be really mowing seniors down, even though vaccines are available.

They are fighting for that right because they are intersex or trans

Where did you get that? The article indicates that they are non-binary. That is neither intersex nor trans.

That’s the crux of the issue here: someone does feel the need to not fill out the field (i.e. filling it in with an “X”), and the health authority is forcing them to use either “M” or “F”

But the person in question is non-binary, which is a gender identity unrelated to their sex. It is perfectly possible that this person feels perfectly okay with a health card that indicates that their gender identity is non-binary while their sex is binary. In that case, separating gender from biological sex in their health card would address the issue at hand, particularly since nothing would prevent both fields to be left empty if they so choose.

As for why it makes sense to specify the biological sex in their health card, it is a medically useful piece of information that 99% of the patients would have no problem recording. Don’t forget that patients are not always able to communicate at the time they are in need to health care. So, again, if it is useful and non-controversial for 99% of the patients there’s no reason to remove it, just provide a way for patients to opt out of a simple M/F choice if they wish to.

I’m not sure you fully understand the issue. This isn’t merely about catering to a patient’s preference to be addressed in a certain way

…which is why I suggested differentiating between the way the patient would like to be addressed from their biological sex, and storing both in the health card.

What is the process for assigning gender at birth anyway? People look at the baby’s genitals and make a guess. For 99% of babies, that heuristic works. But it turns out that some people are trans or intersex, and that wrong guess causes nothing but trouble.

You appear to be conflating gender an sex. Sex is biological, while gender is a social construct. We assign sex at birth, and infer gender from that sex.

In trans people, the two do not match, which sometimes leads to disphoria. The sex assigned at birth is still accurate, but the gender that was inferred from it is not.

In intersex people, their biological sex is difficult to determine and often doesn’t fit a simple binary (e.g. XXY chromosomes or androgen insensitivity).

The same solution is to trust that people are whatever gender they say they are

There is nothing to trust about their gender, we can respect their self-identity or we don’t. As for their biological sex, it’s a significant piece of medical information. If somebody feels uncomfortable stating it clearly on their health card, they can choose not to fill it out, but for the immense majority of us it is a non-issue.

That’s because their zoning laws are different.

They allow building walkable neighborhoods with mixed-use buildings that have retail businesses on the ground floor and residential units on the 3-5 floors above. Their daily errands can easily be done by foot, so there is less traffic.

You can’t achieve that in a car-dependent suburb where you need to drive to get to the nearest grocery store, school or cafe.

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You know, you are right. Since pressing beg buttons is not such an inconvenience, why don’t we make car drivers press them instead and let pedestrians continue unimpeded like cars do today?

Maybe there should be two entries: the gender they identify with, and the sex assigned at birth. One would be used to address the patient, the other would be useful for medical diagnosis and treatment.

And while we are at it, a few people are born with undifferentiated sexual organs, so it could make sense even for medical purposes to include a third option beyond male and female, rare as it might be.

There are multiple different ways to tax carbon. The current federal carbon tax does not include rebates for planting trees, so that loophole doesn’t exist.