But you are assuming the downvote is due to people wanting everyone to have the same opinion, not because you generally called PT as awful, no qualification of any kind. Maybe next time communicate in a clearer fashion.

That is a bit rich from someone who did not start the comment by saying, “I find public transport awful” but as a general truth “Its awful to go on public transport.”

Same goes for your line about how people spend a fortune, just to avoid PT, when in fact, many don’t spend a fortune on cars when they happen to live in places where PT is decent and useful. Almost as if not so much the inherent general awfulness of PT makes people choose going by car but when PT is in that specific place just not good, people do so.

I guess that must be why living in Vienna gives you such a terribly low quality of life, as more trips are done by PT than by car and around half the households don’t even own a car (most of them could easily afford one), compared to for example Fake London in Canada.

Travelling in a city designed for PT doesn’t take any longer than travelling by car in a city designed for cars. How? Because what cars are faster, they need more space, increasing necessary distances, and at the end leading to no improvement in travel times.

The EU does complicate Gleichschaltung of the kind we see in the US indeed. This could be observed in Poland and Hungary, that the EU is at least an obstacle to some extend. However, like I said. Even that can only take so and so much erosion of institutions, especially once the populist authoritarians, energised by Russian support take over a majority in the EP and the Council (with the help of voters of course).

No democratic entity can survive voters persistingly voting for the end of democracy. No matter how it is set up.

On reddit I would respond with r/woosh

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No, they aren’t. But you did not attack one of those, you attacked someone who was saying he was fine with going to the office by bike.

It is owned by the ad company System1 though.

Duckduckgo does not only source from Bing.They use sources from everyone but Google and they have their own web crawlers and an index of their own. Their results feel considerably more relevant to me than whatever Bing is doing. ’

Have a look here for more infos: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/news-rankings

In some cases I still feel like Google has an edge but those cases become less frequent.

Duckduckgo should not have any such issues. If you need that prefix you should not even need any cookies. Going there has all those no AI settings on by default. Regarding Ecosia, could it be that you deleted some related cookies accidentialy? Or did they really push in a very sleazy way for AI?

As long as Brussels has not fallen to the same forces, yes. But it is dangerous to believe that Brussels can lastingly secure democracy when a majority of local voters persistently push for dictatorship.

Don’t do evil

Hasn’t that been Google’s guiding principle for quite some time already?

It boils down to how independent Canadians want to be. Also, the EU is not a guarantee against populist autocrats. There is a rising wave of those in the EU and its member states as well, just like in basically any democracy nowadays. But in most member states they aren’t in power yet and also on EU level they still lack a majority.

Don’t you have annual passes? They tend to be a fair deal. Especially when you compare them to the cost of car mobility.

Everyone works in different ways. You may not believe it, because it is not your thing but some really want to separate their work location from their free time location and there are also good reasons for doing so. I am not saying everyone has to want that but many do and there is nothing wrong with that. The other thing is that real, face to face communication is simply not the same as an online call, especially low key interactions during lunch or coffee break. Depends on your job of course and they way of working but there is value in it.

If someone can combine the commute with work out, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Why impose your preferences on that other person?

It is not about that though. Joining the EU means joining in common political institutions, accepting that EU law is above national law, that decisions on EU law are made together in common political instiutitons. It also means that one can be outvoted by others and still be bound by the result. Most areas (major exceptions being defense and foreign policy) of policy making in the EU are nowadays majority decisions with individual member states having no veto power on their own. Joining the EU is not joining some free trade zone or even some defense alliance, it is half way to joining another country (with the key difference that one can indeed leave anytime again).

It is not so much that Canada and the EU would have that many conflict points it. It is again, the level of commitment. Just because you are best buddies, doesn’t mean that sharing the same bedroom is the next logical step. Unless you are serious about that of course.

You are just envious that they have Suchard chocolate in Switzerland.

Don’t be so harsh to yourself, when looking in the mirror.

That’s the thing though. The sign says something like “we’re sooshan deesh”

“what allies, do the US have any left ?”

Russia and North Korea?