Some of the public are people like me. I stopped giving any money to Blizzard back when they made StarCraft (II?) require a Battle.NET account…or was it patching out already present offline LAN support? It was also hearing about shitty labor practices and workplace harassment at some point. My memory of why is pretty spotty, but the “don’t give Blizzard money” part has stayed crystal clear for decades now. I genuinely don’t remember why I first blacklisted EA games (might be commitment to DRM, might be just because they’re such a shitty company), but it’s on that list for life.
Heck, between 3rd-party DRM, loot boxes, and everything from “crunch time” development cycles to transphobia, I’ve been all but done with AAA gaming for several years. I could hardly be a gamer at all any more, if not for the rise of indie gaming, but that’s not really my point right now.
The point is I remember the important, actionable bits. And I think most other Canadians will also retain their simple conclusions that won’t need re-evaluation. After this, they’ll have a solitary pedestal in their mind palace just to store one special conclusion from all of this:
Fuck the U.S.
And after floundering around for a bit, Canadians will find the indie trade they love; in a few years, they won’t even miss AAA trading.
Oh I’m so sorry Canada isn’t even more dependent on U.S. business nor vulnerable to their monopsonistic* agendas. You know what is on the table? Leaving that sheet of paper blank.
All Canada needs is a good deal on sale of the resources they need. 25% tariffs just sweeten any deal with the rest of the free-trade-loving world despite higher transportation overhead. It seems the U.S. doesn’t want to compete using their natural geographic advantage, but rather just find more ways to exploit and abuse its trading partners. And why? Because their oligarchs are getting too fat and hungry for even the most powerful nation in the world to feed. Their looming debt collapse is entirely a demise of their own making. The U.S. has always made helping to feed that beast a cost of doing business. But at some point the cost outweighs the benefit.
And I’m starting to think, with some amazement, that there isn’t just a way to survive these dark times. There’s actually a path forward that could see a brighter, fairer world in our own lifetimes. We just have to starve the beast back into submission. If the U.S. were to outright collapse into a failed, fractured state, the impact on world order would be utterly catastrophic. WW3 is what’s on the table. But there is still a softer landing within reach. If we can manage the transition by limiting it to a manageable pace and building up other friendly military powers, America will have successfully surrendered all of its surplus power and influence to its allies.
As the entire free world pivots away from doing business with the U.S. and instead strengthens ties with each other, there will no longer be one oligarchy in a trench coat dictating the free world’s relationship with capital. Americans still have time to start realizing how utterly fucked they will be in this new isolationist frontier, but good for us if they don’t. Some day we may see free trade deals getting made that require the U.S. to compromise their economic values, and comply with other nations’ standards for tax, IP, and labor law. We could see an end to nations competing via subsidy and tax break (to say nothing of labor exploitation) for private investments.
So let me be among the first to most warmly and joyously welcome Dumpster’s team to take their ball and go home. They can keep their starving oligarchs too.
Is this crazy talk?
*(Oh the irony…my browser’s American English spell check doesn’t think monopsonistic is even a word.)