M. Grégoire

ingénieur, tory canadien, citoyen du Grand Montréal
#FédiQC #Montréal #CanPol #cdnpoli #polqc #conservateur #conservative #fedi22

Languages: EN, FR
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Public Key

npub1pz3hwxzx8x3rr952f6v3795quk0gd34qualw95vvwpdvfdg4v3gskudwqw

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[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsq3gmhrprrng33j69yaxglz6qwt85xc6swwlhz6xx8qkkyk52kg5gpqq4rpswa

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npub1pz3hwxzx8x3rr952f6v3795quk0gd34qualw95vvwpdvfdg4v3gskudwqw

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Last Notes

2026-06-06 14:21:48 CEST

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Special? More than a carpenter enjoys his work? Why?
(I'm interested in understanding the hostility to AIs I see around here, and I'm not sure if my own theory is correct; please do share better explanations.)

2026-06-06 14:02:31 CEST

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There's a great deal of opposition to #AI here on the Fediverse, to the point that there are people who don't want to run software that has had any contact with #LLMs. (For a rational set of arguments, see https://codeberg.org/small-hack/open-slopware#why-not-llms .)
In the business of persuading people, you learn that it's important to understand not just what they belief, but *why* those beliefs appeal to them, what is the underlying emotional attachment. In this matter, I suspect it's because programmers fear job loss.

2026-06-04 22:48:04 CEST

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No, but the server should indicate its policy about sharing content. That way if a person doesn't want to share, she can look for a server more to her liking.

2026-06-02 03:36:30 CEST

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No. In principle, there's nothing wrong about collaborating with people you largely oppose on issues where you do have agreement. But those specific examples... haven't they all lost their minds?
(Though since I don't watch their shows or follow their feeds, maybe I'm not being fair to them.)

2026-05-30 22:32:49 CEST

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?? Is there a problem with the primaries in Maine?

2026-05-28 20:28:48 CEST

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Which ActivityPub servers are compatible then? Any from https://fedidb.com/software ?
@npub17z3…j73v

2026-05-28 19:36:35 CEST

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Body and soul together.

2026-05-28 11:31:56 CEST

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Thanks for continuing to work on this. I get a lot of notifications from tags.pub.

2026-05-26 20:01:58 CEST

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Ex post facto laws are a bad idea.

2026-05-23 15:15:20 CEST

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It is possibly different for pension funds, but it's hard to be consistently better than the index, and even to make the attempt requires hiring advisors who expect to be well paid. Mr. Coyne's claim is that the CPPIB is spending enormous amounts of money on personnel, and then failing to earn a better return than its benchmark.
3/3
@npub12pw…zvxn @npub1a93…zc0w

2026-05-23 15:13:12 CEST

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An active investor seeks to do better than the index. In order to do so, he must be cleverer (or luckier) than the market overall, possibly investing in assets that are not easily traded, or identifying assets that are misvalued by the market, and holding them until they are better valued.
Studies show that individuals are better off as passive investors. You and I are unlikely to be cleverer than people whose job it is to make money through investing.
2/3
@npub12pw…zvxn @npub1a93…zc0w

2026-05-23 15:11:01 CEST

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(I'll stick to stocks, for simplicity.)
Stock markets have what are called indices, a way of averaging the value of the shares traded therein, and so when a market goes up overall, the value of the index increases. A passive investor buys the stocks on the index, so the value of her investment increases with the market overall. It's essentially automatic, requires little thought, and is therefore a cheap way to invest.
1/3
@npub12pw…zvxn @npub1a93…zc0w

2026-05-18 13:36:47 CEST

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24. Haven't read many novels since I became a parent, other than those I've read to the children. I wonder how much I should blame social media, which I started to use around the same time...

2026-05-15 03:45:46 CEST

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There’s a website that turns the RSS feeds of podcasts into a Fediverse account. Not quite what you're looking for, but a step in the right direction.

2026-05-08 17:53:09 CEST

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Sounds like a good idea. Well done, #MarkCarney.

2026-05-06 18:01:16 CEST

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Maintenance costs too. I've heard EVs require much less maintenance.

2026-04-12 00:18:13 CEST

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Paul Krugman wrote a column about how wonderful the society of the 1950s was. I think this is the one: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/opinion/krugman-the-twinkie-manifesto.html
Some things were better in the past, yes. Isn't it obvious that things don't monotonically improve?

2026-04-08 18:16:37 CEST

I'm not pleased of course, but on the bright side the Liberal Party and caucus are moving farther to the right, and the odds of a federal election in 2026 are decreasing.
https://mstdn.ca/@davidakin/116369666296427649
#CanPol #cdnpoli

2026-04-06 02:30:50 CEST

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The Fedi could yet be the place that's neither silo'd nor driven by algorithms that reward stupid outrage.

2026-01-31 15:33:02 CET

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He did well in the last election — not well enough to win, obviously, but well enough to be given a second chance.
And there are no tempting alternatives on deck at his point in time.

2026-01-18 21:44:21 CET

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You don't mean to say that you see this on the Fediverse, do you? Is it on X/Twitter?

2026-01-13 19:28:08 CET

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My concern is less about theocracy than blasphemy.
@npub19ua…53cv @npub17wp…5j24

2026-01-13 18:17:48 CET

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Can't say I like the idea of a political party having an image of the Eucharist as part of their logo either (even if what they say is true).
On the plus side, the UKIP is a fringe party. Nigel Farage and his followers are now the Reform UK.

2025-12-23 02:00:57 CET

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If you're curious about the thesis, I think I saw a review that summarises it, but (of course) is much shorter. Shall I look for the link?

2025-11-26 18:56:52 CET

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I knew it! Beware of my crazy opinions...
@npub1vtz…zqq3

2025-11-17 21:10:05 CET

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If governments waive the GST on all homebuyers, won't that just cause the selling price of the houses to increase correspondingly?

2025-11-13 01:09:05 CET

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I'm surprised you didn't add anything about the other types of server you can connect to on the Fediverse, e.g., Pixelfed. I'm not that interested personally in photo-sharing apps or short-form video, but the ability to follow such feeds from a single account seems incredibly useful.

2025-11-11 03:22:40 CET

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Some sources of wealth inequality reflect market failures; others do not. Have you read about the Wilt Chamberlain Argument? https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Nozick/The-entitlement-theory-of-justice#ref828038

2025-11-01 17:01:08 CET

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But why did the business community give up on BC United? Did the BC Conservatives rise in popular support past BC United, and then the money decided the former were their best bet? If so, then why had BC United support fallen so low?
#bcpoli is often full of drama.
@npub1mvm…jgeg

2025-10-30 04:46:06 CET

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How are such LLMs for coding? There's a vast corpus of out-of-copyright books, but I don't think that's true for, e.g., Python.

2025-10-12 02:42:33 CEST

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"Frogs"?
Any discussion of the relative degree of compassion of the Right and the Left needs to discuss which group is more likely to give to charity and to volunteer.

2025-10-08 23:15:06 CEST

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Oh, I hadn't spotted that: "China [saw] a 2% drop in its use of fossil fuels in the first half of the year compared with the same months in 2024, Ember found. Over the same period India grew its renewable energy by more than three times its electricity demand – which was significantly weaker this year – causing its coal and gas use to fall by 3.1% and 34% respectively."
Thank-you.
@npub1afm…5gp4 @npub1m0j…lvpq

2025-10-08 23:00:18 CEST

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Is it the case that China's carbon emissions are falling? I'd like that to be true, but the BBC article said they are still building coal power plants. OurWorldInData shows their CO2 emissions still increasing: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china

2025-10-06 22:51:28 CEST

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How is it useful?

2025-10-01 22:55:44 CEST

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Good essay. Thanks in particular for drawing my attention to that Doctorow piece.

2025-09-18 15:40:12 CEST

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A quoost, one might say...
@npub1vl7…f6g0

2025-09-17 00:14:07 CEST

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@npub1hmq…rlex
The thing that surprises me is how quickly people online came to conclusions about the killer:
* He's obviously on the Right, a Groyper
* He's obviously on the Left, an Antifa sympathiser
(Few have even considered the possibility he was just crazy, like John Hinckley.)
Social media can be very unhealthy for public discourse; the more often your circle repeats something, the more certain you become of its truth.
#SocialMedia #uspol

2025-09-11 02:40:14 CEST

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There are really two questions: Which social network has the largest number of users? Which social network has the highest growth rate?
To the former, Facebook has over 3B MAUs, so I wouldn't count it out yet. I haven't found a clear answer to the latter, but I think it's Threads.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_platforms_with_at_least_100_million_active_users
@npub19ua…53cv

2025-09-10 19:40:12 CEST

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Where do you think they would get the most engagement at present? Probably not Mastodon, alas. Maybe Threads? Or even Facebook?

2025-09-04 01:55:34 CEST

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Well, we'll see what happens in the budget.
Out of curiosity, what did you think you were voting for when you voted for the Liberals?
#CanPol #cdnpoli

2025-09-03 23:20:22 CEST

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I expect we'll see some government programmes cut back, and some reductions in the size of the civil service (which grew by 40% under PM Trudeau) — but overall we'll probably have a large deficit, larger than any we've had since 2021. If that's correct, then I don't think "austerity" would be the right word.
#CanPol #cdnpoli

2025-08-28 22:16:12 CEST

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I'm going to defend @npub1hmq…rlex and Prof. Loury. They both live in states that were almost certainly going to go for VP Harris. Why shouldn't they vote with their consciences if they believed neither main candidate was fit to serve?

2025-08-28 00:36:18 CEST

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Aren't you a US citizen, @npub1764…nuj0 ? CBP has to let you in, don't they?
@npub19ua…53cv

2025-08-28 00:18:49 CEST

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What springs immediately to mind is anti-Trump posts on Mastodon.
But I hope it needs to be more than that...

2025-08-18 13:17:50 CEST

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It's bizarre the way Americans expect to have a class of foreign-born workers serving them — gardeners, cooks, caregivers, etc. Don't people clip their own hedges any more?
#uspol #Doonesbury

2025-08-04 05:49:06 CEST

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Kessler Syndrome, here we come... I wonder how many years away it is.

2025-07-23 01:55:39 CEST

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I've described https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superannuation_in_Australia.
"Australia has a three-pillar pension system. The first, public pillar, is composed of a means-tested, tax-financed Age Pension that provides basic benefits. The second pillar forms the backbone of the Australian pension system, and is made up of funded individual pension accounts provided by superannuation funds. The third pillar involves individuals contributing to their superannuation funds or to Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs)."

2025-07-22 21:49:49 CEST

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My opinion is that people should be able retire whenever they can afford it -- but the government should raise the target age a bit since people are living longer. To reframe the question: How much money should we *force* to people to save up for their ever-lengthening retirement years? Or how much money should we *force* current workers to transfer to current retirees?
1/2

2025-07-22 11:41:25 CEST

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Personally, I fall into the relatively small minority of voters who have particular political views, and thus I vote for the party that is most aligned with them, reason 1 from my list. But other reasons have some pull with me too: even reason 5 was applicable in the days when opposition to the PQ was the most important factor in my vote provincially.
3/3
#CanPol #cdnpoli #polqc

2025-07-22 11:37:50 CEST

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Your argument that we should mostly vote for individual candidates is not unreasonable, but it's hard these days to find out information about the candidates, even if a voter is willing to put some time into doing so. Besides, in my experience almost all candidates are honourable, well-intentioned people, many with impressive experience or education.
2/3
@npub1xzj…ft66
#CanPol #cdnpoli

2025-06-29 05:12:48 CEST

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Was it the SAAQ who paid? I didn't think they'd cover that sort of thing.

2025-06-17 18:16:06 CEST

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I saw an article in the #NationalPost this morning against Bill C-5: "The Conservatives are still on the fence, but they shouldn’t be. Supporting Bill C-5 in its current form means unleashing the Liberals from the oversight of Parliament, which would be a catastrophic dereliction of duty for the Opposition."
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jamie-sarkonak-mark-carney-is-demanding-power-to-suspend-all-federal-laws-what-will-he-use-it-for
I don't think this is a right-wing/left-wing issue. Govts are always tempted to empower themselves, and Parliament should always defend its rights.

2025-05-06 12:24:07 CEST

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I should have been more clear; when I referred to *Free to Choose*, I was referring to the book and TV series by #MiltonFriedman.
If people are concerned about social conservatives or "fascists" within the #CPC, they should be glad to see the libertarian strain in the mix as well.
[@Sir_Osis_of_Liver](https://beige.party/@Sir_Osis_of_Liver )

2025-05-06 00:30:04 CEST

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I didn't say there's no culture war -- my claim is that it wasn't what #PierrePoilievre was running on in the election. I'm glad that @npub1dy7…zk4d agrees with me on that point.
@npub1v3e…3sjg says that culture war issues were a major part of what Mr. Poilievre ran on before the election. I don't think that's true either. He won the #CPC leadership largely on quality of life issues, e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye2DdH452rg
Were trans issues a focus? Not according to https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-transgender-danielle-smith-conservative-1.7106503

2025-05-05 19:31:57 CEST

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I don't remember anything about "wokeness" from the #CPC in the final week of the campaign. Maybe I missed something.
The Conservatives, rightly or wrongly, have a belief that the national press is hostile to them, and therefore that tight message discipline is key in order to talk about what they want to talk about. Imagine on day 20 you present a capital gains tax policy, but all the questions from reporters are about abortion, on which you've said in the past you're pro-choice...

2025-05-05 19:17:37 CEST

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Where did you get your information about the #CPC campaign, @npub1v3e…3sjg ? Was it from different sources than me?
2/2
#CanPol #cdnpoli #elxn45

2025-05-02 18:50:04 CEST

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It's a shame Jason Kenney isn't still premier of #Alberta.
#abpoli

2025-05-02 15:38:06 CEST

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I believe that replies to the bridged Bluesky account would be seen by the senator's Bluesky account only if the person replying follows [@bsky.brid.gy](https://bsky.brid.gy/ ) on the Fediverse.
(But this explanation makes it sound complicated -- Senator what I'm requesting of you is very easy to set up.)

2025-05-02 00:57:47 CEST

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You don't need to cross-post. If your Bluesky account follows @ap.brid.gy then it creates an account on the Fediverse which shows all the posts.
See https://fed.brid.gy/docs#bluesky-get-started for details.
[@c_9](https://mstdn.ca/@c_9 ) @npub1ctj…elvf

2025-04-02 13:42:43 CEST

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What's the case for strategic voting at present?
I'm not an #NDP supporter, but if I were why wouldn't I look at @npub1cr4…tzgu and conclude that the chance of the #CPC winning is very small, and anyway that the policy differences between #MarkCarney and #PierrePoilievre are narrow? Why shouldn't an NDP supporter vote for the NDP given the current situation?
#CanPol #cdnpoli #elxn45

2025-03-06 23:53:33 CET

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The (small) proportion of Canadians who like Donald Trump vote for the Conservatives or, to some degree, the People's Party of Canada. The Conservative Party itself has never been pro-Trump, though it does share some of his political views.

2024-11-06 16:47:28 CET

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There are many people who voted for Mr. Trump who are not fascists. It would be unwise to tune them all out.

2024-08-26 04:39:42 CEST

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How should we think about vaccine mandates? Private matters that should only be between doctor and patient, or matters where the state is justified in being involved because third parties are affected?