On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
There's nothing wrong with the links that I post here.
Here are links to many posts throughout the years posted by others with similar content that weren't flagged and that generated a tremendous amount of conversation with many insights to be had from reading them:
It's just a lot of words with very little substance. 75% of their exports go to the US, all their best professionals and investors move to the US, and a large part of their economy is just rent-seeking on real estate prices.
Saying all the middle powers need to join together is all fine and well but doesn't really mean anything.
It's just currying favor with Carney's voter base, senior citizens who are middle class and up. They uncritically read the headlines from the Globe and Mail or CBC that claim Canada is "standing up the Trump" meanwhile the nation stagnates, and the best and brightest move to the US. Canadian GDP per capita has been stagnant for 15+ years, while the US has had an incredible economic run. The results speak for themselves.
>we are attempting to redirect some of our trade to other nations besides the U.S., including by a series of sweeping free trade agreements
Canada sells $450 billion to the US annually, out of total exports of $550 billion. Let's say Carney is able to, through herculean effort, replace $100 billion of exports to the US—an immense amount, equal to Canada's entire current non-US exports—with an equal amount of trade to outside North America. That means Trump has been put in his place, right?
No. It means that Canada is 100% guaranteed to be making a smaller profit on the same amount of sales, because those products are no longer being shipped by truck or rail a few hundred miles across one national border, but by ship or air thousands of miles across multiple borders. It means adhering to regulatory and technical standards that differ from the almost completely unified systems across the US and Canada. Etc.
What if genius Carney can retain the current volume of exports to the US, and add $100 billion in exports to the rest of the world. Wouldn't this mean that Trump's anti-Canada schemes have well and truly failed?
My hat's off to Carney if he can achieve this. But of course, if such an increase in foreign sales were possible today, it would surely have been achieved 10 or 30 or 50 years ago; there is no current equivalent untapped market like China c. 1980. Further, it would still mean that the overall profit margin for Canadian exports would have decreased, because of the aforementioned greater cost of sales and the price concessions Canada would surely have had to generate new sales from existing customers.
>At the time the Liberals were the continentalists of Canadian politics, seeing engagement with the U.S. as a necessary counterbalance to the imperial connection they were so anxious to be rid of. The Tories were the opposite: fond of the mother country, suspicious of the Yanks. Only much later did the roles reverse, after Britain ceased to be an issue.
>The test of Article 5 is not what NATO partners say about it now, but what they do in the event of an attack.
Let's say the US withdraws from NATO. Would Canada be willing to stay in the alliance, to guarantee that it would send its troops and aircraft to defend Western Europe? Yes, yes, I know about 1939 (1914 doesn't count, as Canada had no say). When only 6% of Britons would volunteer to fight an "imminent" invasion <https://np.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1v5dk8l/exclusiv...>, what are the odds that Canadians would be more willing to fight to defend Europe than Europeans?
>Never, since 1867, have we had to take seriously the prospect that the President of the United States might attempt to seize a part of our territory, by one means or another.
Even setting aside Trump explicitly ruling out invasion, what I wrote above applies to Canada itself. Consider a July 2025 survey of Canadians <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canada-day-p...>.
Ignore the article itself; the authors do their best to pretend that the results don't say what they actually say. Look at the spreadsheet with the actual results. Q1 asks "What actions would you take, if any, to fight to defend Canada against a military attack and invasion or occupation of this country by a hostile foreign power? Select all that apply." Of the nine named choices including attend rallies and volunteer for civil defense, 12.2% would volunteer to join the military, and 10.5% would report when conscripted. 28.3% would do none of the offered options.
Q5 asks "If Canada were defeated and occupied by another country, which actions would you be willing to take to fight to defend Canada at that point? Select all that apply." 14.5% say they would violently resist, 14.1% would engage in "cyberwarfare" and sabotage, and 38% would engage in nonviolent resistance (protests and rallies). 48% would do none of these options.
Q6 asks "Would you be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for Canada and die defending this country against a foreign military attack or occupation?" Yes, 15.5%. No, 47.5%. Maybe, 21.6%. I don't know, 15.4%.
Iraq or Afghanistan are not applicable here. Islam permits and encourages suicide bombings in a way that Christianity does not. Further, don't make me laugh about the typical Toronto Redditor soyboi <https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/330/806/8fc...>'s ability to do anything with a weapon. As said in another discussion of the above survey, "The LARPing from urbanites fantasizing about sniping and droning an invading army is the most cringe thing I've ever seen. Fuckin bugmen, every single one of them".
Also bear in mind that the survey did not identify the invading country, so the results are affected by people having in mind the likes of Russia or China. Even (again) setting aside Trump explicitly ruling out invasion, a US annexation that would result in Canadians electing representatives to go to Washington, not Ottawa, would result in correspondingly smaller percentages for those willing to join the military, give up their lives, etc. As another Redditor put it, the first time Canadians would notice a difference in their lives is when they vote for said representatives.
I would add, or when they realize they can move to anywhere in the US tomorrow. Or when they realize they no longer as snowbirds have to follow the 180-day rule. Or they can apply to any US company's jobs. Or when they can sell to any US customer with zero tariffs, and fewer rules/taxes than to sell to another province today. Or when their USPS (formerly Canada Post) mailman starts delivering on Saturdays. Or when they get access to Hulu and to the US Netflix catalog. Etc., etc.
Some things that are shipped from the us to foreign lands could be shipped from Canada for similar costs. Food, for example, or minerals or oil. These are things shipped in bulk “elsewhere”. Canada, as far as I can tell, has lots of such stuff.
If they can somehow manufacture things of high value (electronics, pharmaceuticals) then a cargo plane or two is sufficient. If wfh is allowed, then work can be done separately where one can live. This might alter population dynamics a bit. Japan and Korea seem to have a lot of money w/o road transport. Australia and New Zealand manage to support technological states.
Hell, they can join the EU as their products complement European states. And you assume the us won’t fracture.
> Some things that are shipped from the us to foreign lands could be shipped from Canada for similar costs. Food, for example, or minerals or oil. These are things shipped in bulk “elsewhere”. Canada, as far as I can tell, has lots of such stuff.
As of 2025, 90% of Canadian crude and 100% of natural gas goes to the US. <https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/ma...> Carney has talked a lot about new pipelines, but so did Trudeau and absolutely nothing has actually happened, because BC and Ontario are 100% dead-set against them.
>If they can somehow manufacture things of high value (electronics, pharmaceuticals)
Canada has, to a first degree of approximation, no electronics manufacturing. Its COVID vaccines were 100% manufactured elsewhere.
>Australia and New Zealand manage to support technological states.
New Zealand is seeing a brain drain that makes Canada's to the US look like nothing.
Australia is a better example. But stating that another similar resource-based Anglosphere country has not gone bankrupt without a US-like next-door neighbor is not necessarily the compelling counterexample that you think it is.
>Hell, they can join the EU as their products complement European states.
Read again what I wrote about how trade cannot be so easily substituted.
>And you assume the us won’t fracture.
Sorry to shatter (ahem) your illusions, but Canada is the one with Quebec and Alberta (and <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_alienation> in general). Americans see themselves as Americans first and foremost.
Puerto Rico makes pharmaceuticals, so if it can be built there it can be built in Canada or wherever. No high-tech workforce in PR, and tax games can be played anywhere. And Trudeau, to many people's annoyance, bought Alberta a pipeline. More can be built. This sh*t isn't going to change in a year and the problem(s) aren't going away either.
A key questions, which I lack the data to answer, is what products of the US can be substituted by Canada or other countries. Much/most of the tech manufacture isn't in the US, and neither is the pharmaceutical manufacturing. There are drug/biotech companies all over the world. The only thing that comes to mind as a US big win is the VC business. And money is horribly mobile and fickle.
Google's AI says airplanes and their engines are a US export. And Boeing has its competition along with Pratt & Whitney.
> As another Redditor put it, the first time Canadians would notice a difference in their lives is when they vote for said representatives.
A country doesn't get attacked and invaded to change basically nothing or increase the life of the foreign population. It's done to exercise sustained power.
Who do you think would Canadians vote for after Trump starts a war, kills hundreds or more Canadians, etc.? So, for sure they wouldn't get voting rights, for example.
You have a way too romantic idea in your head. "We attack and kill our friends to become better friends" isn't a real thing.
> Or when they get access to Hulu and to the US Netflix catalog. Etc., etc.
Or when they can't afford health care anymore. Or when employees lose rights. Or when the country gets flooded with fire arms. You might think becoming part of the US is the totally best that could happen to anybody and that's okay. But most people outside the US don't agree.
Context for others: An amazingly high portion of Canadians don't have a family doctor <https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/health-care-on-the-bri...>. In Atlantic Canada (the four easternmost provinces) it is impossible, repeat impossible, to get a family doctor if you don't have one <https://web.archive.org/web/20190226051406/https://www.thete...>. It's one thing to have shortages in rural areas—that happens in the US too—but Halifax?!? I've heard the same occurs in Vancouver too, and am hearing more reports of the same in Ontario.
>Even (again) setting aside Trump explicitly ruling out invasion
in the sentence before the one you quoted.
As for
>Who do you think would Canadians vote for after Trump starts a war, kills hundreds or more Canadians, etc.? So, for sure they wouldn't get voting rights, for example.
First, let me (again) point you to what I wrote above.
Second, let's address the question of Canadians voting after annexation in general. Americans on either side of politics think that Canada is full of super-leftists (and there is no shortage), and Canadians love repeating the "Canadian Conservatives are more leftist than American Democrats" nonsense. But were Canada a part of the US in 2016, Trump would have won AB, SK, and quite possibly enough of the GTA (the parts that loved Rob Ford, and as "Ford Country" has repeatedly won the province for Doug Ford) to win ON, the province most resembling MI/WI/PA, the three states that Trump unexpectedly won the election with. 2024? Very good chance he also takes some/all of BC, MB, NS, and NL.
What to Submit
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Pretty soon everything is "off topic" as AI will do all the hacking and the starting up. ;-)
Just flag it, scan through the poster's other submissions/comments and flag all similarly rule breaking posts, and move on.
There's nothing wrong with the links that I post here.
Here are links to many posts throughout the years posted by others with similar content that weren't flagged and that generated a tremendous amount of conversation with many insights to be had from reading them:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16996420
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18613124
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42070946
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42396733
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46648778
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22232036
It's just a lot of words with very little substance. 75% of their exports go to the US, all their best professionals and investors move to the US, and a large part of their economy is just rent-seeking on real estate prices.
Saying all the middle powers need to join together is all fine and well but doesn't really mean anything.
It's just currying favor with Carney's voter base, senior citizens who are middle class and up. They uncritically read the headlines from the Globe and Mail or CBC that claim Canada is "standing up the Trump" meanwhile the nation stagnates, and the best and brightest move to the US. Canadian GDP per capita has been stagnant for 15+ years, while the US has had an incredible economic run. The results speak for themselves.
Canada can’t build anything because of nimby and other activists and extortion.
>we are attempting to redirect some of our trade to other nations besides the U.S., including by a series of sweeping free trade agreements
Canada sells $450 billion to the US annually, out of total exports of $550 billion. Let's say Carney is able to, through herculean effort, replace $100 billion of exports to the US—an immense amount, equal to Canada's entire current non-US exports—with an equal amount of trade to outside North America. That means Trump has been put in his place, right?
No. It means that Canada is 100% guaranteed to be making a smaller profit on the same amount of sales, because those products are no longer being shipped by truck or rail a few hundred miles across one national border, but by ship or air thousands of miles across multiple borders. It means adhering to regulatory and technical standards that differ from the almost completely unified systems across the US and Canada. Etc.
What if genius Carney can retain the current volume of exports to the US, and add $100 billion in exports to the rest of the world. Wouldn't this mean that Trump's anti-Canada schemes have well and truly failed?
My hat's off to Carney if he can achieve this. But of course, if such an increase in foreign sales were possible today, it would surely have been achieved 10 or 30 or 50 years ago; there is no current equivalent untapped market like China c. 1980. Further, it would still mean that the overall profit margin for Canadian exports would have decreased, because of the aforementioned greater cost of sales and the price concessions Canada would surely have had to generate new sales from existing customers.
Homework assignment for everyone: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_model_of_trade> and <https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/eh/>
>At the time the Liberals were the continentalists of Canadian politics, seeing engagement with the U.S. as a necessary counterbalance to the imperial connection they were so anxious to be rid of. The Tories were the opposite: fond of the mother country, suspicious of the Yanks. Only much later did the roles reverse, after Britain ceased to be an issue.
This is an oblique reference to the classic essay "Lament for a Nation". Highly relevant discussion of that essay by a past Liberal Leader: <https://np.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/1lococ4/sixty_y...>
>The test of Article 5 is not what NATO partners say about it now, but what they do in the event of an attack.
Let's say the US withdraws from NATO. Would Canada be willing to stay in the alliance, to guarantee that it would send its troops and aircraft to defend Western Europe? Yes, yes, I know about 1939 (1914 doesn't count, as Canada had no say). When only 6% of Britons would volunteer to fight an "imminent" invasion <https://np.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1v5dk8l/exclusiv...>, what are the odds that Canadians would be more willing to fight to defend Europe than Europeans?
>Never, since 1867, have we had to take seriously the prospect that the President of the United States might attempt to seize a part of our territory, by one means or another.
Even setting aside Trump explicitly ruling out invasion, what I wrote above applies to Canada itself. Consider a July 2025 survey of Canadians <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canada-day-p...>. Ignore the article itself; the authors do their best to pretend that the results don't say what they actually say. Look at the spreadsheet with the actual results. Q1 asks "What actions would you take, if any, to fight to defend Canada against a military attack and invasion or occupation of this country by a hostile foreign power? Select all that apply." Of the nine named choices including attend rallies and volunteer for civil defense, 12.2% would volunteer to join the military, and 10.5% would report when conscripted. 28.3% would do none of the offered options.
Q5 asks "If Canada were defeated and occupied by another country, which actions would you be willing to take to fight to defend Canada at that point? Select all that apply." 14.5% say they would violently resist, 14.1% would engage in "cyberwarfare" and sabotage, and 38% would engage in nonviolent resistance (protests and rallies). 48% would do none of these options.
Q6 asks "Would you be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for Canada and die defending this country against a foreign military attack or occupation?" Yes, 15.5%. No, 47.5%. Maybe, 21.6%. I don't know, 15.4%.
Iraq or Afghanistan are not applicable here. Islam permits and encourages suicide bombings in a way that Christianity does not. Further, don't make me laugh about the typical Toronto Redditor soyboi <https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/330/806/8fc...>'s ability to do anything with a weapon. As said in another discussion of the above survey, "The LARPing from urbanites fantasizing about sniping and droning an invading army is the most cringe thing I've ever seen. Fuckin bugmen, every single one of them".
Also bear in mind that the survey did not identify the invading country, so the results are affected by people having in mind the likes of Russia or China. Even (again) setting aside Trump explicitly ruling out invasion, a US annexation that would result in Canadians electing representatives to go to Washington, not Ottawa, would result in correspondingly smaller percentages for those willing to join the military, give up their lives, etc. As another Redditor put it, the first time Canadians would notice a difference in their lives is when they vote for said representatives.
I would add, or when they realize they can move to anywhere in the US tomorrow. Or when they realize they no longer as snowbirds have to follow the 180-day rule. Or they can apply to any US company's jobs. Or when they can sell to any US customer with zero tariffs, and fewer rules/taxes than to sell to another province today. Or when their USPS (formerly Canada Post) mailman starts delivering on Saturdays. Or when they get access to Hulu and to the US Netflix catalog. Etc., etc.
Some things that are shipped from the us to foreign lands could be shipped from Canada for similar costs. Food, for example, or minerals or oil. These are things shipped in bulk “elsewhere”. Canada, as far as I can tell, has lots of such stuff.
If they can somehow manufacture things of high value (electronics, pharmaceuticals) then a cargo plane or two is sufficient. If wfh is allowed, then work can be done separately where one can live. This might alter population dynamics a bit. Japan and Korea seem to have a lot of money w/o road transport. Australia and New Zealand manage to support technological states.
Hell, they can join the EU as their products complement European states. And you assume the us won’t fracture.
> Some things that are shipped from the us to foreign lands could be shipped from Canada for similar costs. Food, for example, or minerals or oil. These are things shipped in bulk “elsewhere”. Canada, as far as I can tell, has lots of such stuff.
As of 2025, 90% of Canadian crude and 100% of natural gas goes to the US. <https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/ma...> Carney has talked a lot about new pipelines, but so did Trudeau and absolutely nothing has actually happened, because BC and Ontario are 100% dead-set against them.
>If they can somehow manufacture things of high value (electronics, pharmaceuticals)
Canada has, to a first degree of approximation, no electronics manufacturing. Its COVID vaccines were 100% manufactured elsewhere.
>Australia and New Zealand manage to support technological states.
New Zealand is seeing a brain drain that makes Canada's to the US look like nothing.
Australia is a better example. But stating that another similar resource-based Anglosphere country has not gone bankrupt without a US-like next-door neighbor is not necessarily the compelling counterexample that you think it is.
>Hell, they can join the EU as their products complement European states.
Read again what I wrote about how trade cannot be so easily substituted.
>And you assume the us won’t fracture.
Sorry to shatter (ahem) your illusions, but Canada is the one with Quebec and Alberta (and <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_alienation> in general). Americans see themselves as Americans first and foremost.
Puerto Rico makes pharmaceuticals, so if it can be built there it can be built in Canada or wherever. No high-tech workforce in PR, and tax games can be played anywhere. And Trudeau, to many people's annoyance, bought Alberta a pipeline. More can be built. This sh*t isn't going to change in a year and the problem(s) aren't going away either.
A key questions, which I lack the data to answer, is what products of the US can be substituted by Canada or other countries. Much/most of the tech manufacture isn't in the US, and neither is the pharmaceutical manufacturing. There are drug/biotech companies all over the world. The only thing that comes to mind as a US big win is the VC business. And money is horribly mobile and fickle.
Google's AI says airplanes and their engines are a US export. And Boeing has its competition along with Pratt & Whitney.
> As another Redditor put it, the first time Canadians would notice a difference in their lives is when they vote for said representatives.
A country doesn't get attacked and invaded to change basically nothing or increase the life of the foreign population. It's done to exercise sustained power.
Who do you think would Canadians vote for after Trump starts a war, kills hundreds or more Canadians, etc.? So, for sure they wouldn't get voting rights, for example.
You have a way too romantic idea in your head. "We attack and kill our friends to become better friends" isn't a real thing.
> Or when they get access to Hulu and to the US Netflix catalog. Etc., etc.
Or when they can't afford health care anymore. Or when employees lose rights. Or when the country gets flooded with fire arms. You might think becoming part of the US is the totally best that could happen to anybody and that's okay. But most people outside the US don't agree.
>Or when they can't afford health care anymore
Ah yes, the so-effective Canadian system.
Context for others: An amazingly high portion of Canadians don't have a family doctor <https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/health-care-on-the-bri...>. In Atlantic Canada (the four easternmost provinces) it is impossible, repeat impossible, to get a family doctor if you don't have one <https://web.archive.org/web/20190226051406/https://www.thete...>. It's one thing to have shortages in rural areas—that happens in the US too—but Halifax?!? I've heard the same occurs in Vancouver too, and am hearing more reports of the same in Ontario.
At least two hospitals in the Greater Vancouver area have had weekend ER closures this year. Kelowna is having their own issues, mostly maternity.
>A country doesn't get attacked and invaded
It's as if you blithely ignored my
>Even (again) setting aside Trump explicitly ruling out invasion
in the sentence before the one you quoted.
As for
>Who do you think would Canadians vote for after Trump starts a war, kills hundreds or more Canadians, etc.? So, for sure they wouldn't get voting rights, for example.
First, let me (again) point you to what I wrote above.
Second, let's address the question of Canadians voting after annexation in general. Americans on either side of politics think that Canada is full of super-leftists (and there is no shortage), and Canadians love repeating the "Canadian Conservatives are more leftist than American Democrats" nonsense. But were Canada a part of the US in 2016, Trump would have won AB, SK, and quite possibly enough of the GTA (the parts that loved Rob Ford, and as "Ford Country" has repeatedly won the province for Doug Ford) to win ON, the province most resembling MI/WI/PA, the three states that Trump unexpectedly won the election with. 2024? Very good chance he also takes some/all of BC, MB, NS, and NL.