I'm still wearing CAN99 masks (made by Vitacore in BC)
in 2026, COVID was never eradicated, it just stopped
getting talked about and when even the half assed control
measures were dropped that tricked the majority into
thinking "it's over".

The reality didn't change just because the regulations did.

I mask when in shared indoor places to reduce my risk
of catching COVID or if I do catch it anyways and have
an asymptomatic case where I don't know to isolate I at
least reduce the risk of passing it to the next person by
masking. If I caught it and knew I'd immediately
quarantine for 3 weeks. To do otherwise would be
unethical in my view, I refuse to be part of the problem.

If you see me wearing one outdoors I'm probably going
somewhere and it's simply easier to put it on at home
in front of the mirror and leave it on until I've left the last
place I'm stopping that day rather than fiddling around
taking it on an off outside of every place I need to go into.

I've had 4 dumb-asses shouting at me because they
saw me wearing a mask this year, this is the first year
this has happened. It's like they are disappointed that
COVID only had 4 "attributable fatalities" in Manitoba
this year instead of 5 like last year. (It's probably higher,
just those are the ones where COVID was conclusively
proven to be the cause.)

http://moonie.ca/MB_COVID_data_Screenshot_2025_08_29.jpeg
http://moonie.ca/MB_COVID_data_Screenshot_2026_09_04.jpeg

More likely they have been fooled by someone's
misinformation campaign, at least I hope there
aren't people cheering on more deaths.

With all 3 global superpowers hell bent on sabotaging
each other without regard for the collateral damage
there is a lot of deliberate misinformation being pushed
by multiple well funded sources.

I've known for a long time the vaccine we have is useless
at stopping the spread, it just makes the disease less
severe if you catch it. It's not ineffective, just insufficiently
effective, it's not like the Smallpox vaccine was or the
Polio vaccine is.

So, no, I don't want to arm twist anyone into getting
the vaccine just because I'm wearing a mask. I'd like
if people would cooperate with other containment
measures and maybe one day actually end COVID
like we did with Smallpox. Just this one we'll have
to end without a vaccine and do it entirely on other
measures. We are humans, we are supposed to be
good at making things extinct! ^_-

So masks are one thing and the vaccine is another,
don't conflate them just because the political class
has.

Ironically if every country did what Taiwan did from
the beginning we'd have had COVID extinct before
the vaccine was even ready and avoided the whole
misguided division that ensued.

It's a shame everyone else kept letting it COVID run
and multiply and mutate until Taiwan's luck ran out
and they got breached….or maybe their leadership
eventually got sloppy when vaccine finally became
available to them and they thought it was enough.

Basically I've just accepted that at this point I now
live in a third world country where disease is just
allowed to run and nobody but me is watching out
for me.

I dread the day when the noisiest of my fellow
Canadians get convinced that water treatment
isn't cool anymore and I have to start boiling
and/or filtering my drinking water because the
political class decided it was easier to cave to
them instead of looking out for the population
as a whole. -_-

>adding their pronouns to their names,

Nope, not doing that, hell I'm not that fussy
about names, assign me a number if that's
easier for you. ^_^

>putting the Ukrainian flag in their bio,

Nope, not doing that either. Though really at the same
time I'm not going to object to anyone doing what they
have to to push the Russians out. I was definitely
annoyed with Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.

I don't really even have any of what would be called
modern social media, just old-style web pages and
presence on some specialised message boards or
comment sections.

>keying Teslas

Definitely not doing that, I was rather happy to see
Trump cracking down on that when local authorities
in various areas where negligently letting vandalism
slide.

>and stomping around in “No Kings” parades

Nope, I thought that was rather hysterical. I've seen
conspiracy theories about every president going back
to Obama that never came to pass. There probably
was before then but I wasn't on the right part of the
internet to hear about it.

>are now protesting data centers.

Nope, not doing that either. Of course here in Manitoba
we haven't been getting our electric bills doubled or
more. At least some parts of the US seem to have
defects in how electric utilities are managed and/or
regulated that's causing the cost of needed upgrades
to the grid to power these data centers being spread
over other rate payers rather than being paid in full
by the new data centers that are making the upgrades
needed.

It doesn't help that the CCP is funding fake activist
groups to manipulate the American population into
trying to fight data centers because as said above
all 3 super powers are hell bent on sabotaging each
other and they want to hold back the USA thinking
that will help the PRC get ahead of the USA.

So the AI data center thing in the USA is a mixed bag,
some legitimate concerns but also some hysteria.
It's seems to have been a non-issue here in Canada.

Basically AI is a tool that can fill some niche rolls
when wielded by a diligent person to do something
that would otherwise be beyond one person's
scope. AI in the hands of sloppy people will
produce slop. Trying to throw AI at everything
because it's "trending" will backfire in a lot of
cases where it's not the appropriate tool.

Ultimately when we get past the current phase of
throwing AI at everything and seeing what sticks
subsidized by misallocated capital and regulatory
glitches we'll reach a point where anyone using it
will have to pay the real cost and it will only be used
for the things and in the ways that make economic
sense.

Whether AI works in a particular use case or it
doesn't work in a particular use case a human
manager's decision to use it will have
consequences either way. So things are going
to be a rough ride until the managerial class
figures out what works and what doesn't and
we adjust to whatever the new reality ends up
being.

Hopefully the cost of the overcapacity in the
electrical grid from the overbuild doesn't just
get pushed off onto every other rate payer when
the bubble bursts.

You are most likely right about the attempt to use
regulatory capture to monopolise AI. Regulatory
capture has definitely gotten worse over time, I'm
not sure how to fix it because so few people are
willing to vote for someone incorruptible.

To finish off going back to COVID:

Too many on the left were OK with prematurely
pretending it was over when it was their guy
saying it rather than the other guy saying it.
They just wanted to use it for their other purposes.
As soon as their guy was in most of the left
suddenly became OK with letting public health
slide.

At the same time too many on the right were
assuming people's view on public health correlate
to their views on other things and turned basic
public health into a left vs right thing. It's not, it's
a "do you want to live in a first world country or a
third world country" thing.

It is possible to have both capitalism and good
public health.

That said I have found a lot of the people who are
also still COVID aware are very far left of me on
most other issues. Left or right we are the people
for whom COVID was and is a genuine concern,
we are not just blindly following someone who we
think is "our guy".

Don't assume someone's politics based on how
they look or what their views are on one thing
because of their views on another, it doesn't
always corelate. Examine each idea on it's own
merits regardless of who the idea comes from
or what you thought of their other ideas before.

I'd like to live in the kind of world where I
didn't have to mask but I don't see the level
of cooperation needed to get there being
forthcoming.

"We’re transitioning from a linear, top-down world to a network-shaped, decentralized one"

You are looking at the future through very rose-coloured glasses. AI is indeed a problem but not because of its feared "intelligence". It Instead, AI is the tireless tool of the surveillance state–both private and its governmental proxies. While secret police need to sleep and be fed AI toils tirelessly day in, day out. The more data AI can be fed, the more effective it is.

There is now good evidence, for example, that Amazon is using AI as a tool to identify and thwart unionization drives. In Canada, your home and native land, the federal government is introducing legislation under the guise of protecting minors that does nothing to hold corporations accountable for their privacy and security violations and instead creates new avenues for corporate (& government) surveillance.

The risk AI poses is amplified by the non-stop data collection that takes place day in, day out 24/7. Your smart watch is collecting physiological data 24/7. Companies have carefully crafted privacy and data collection policies with clauses that permit them to resell data and protect them from (class action) liability for breaches.

We have seen how, even in a country like the United States with all its vaunted checks-and-balances, it is very hard for the population to curtail the power of a leader whose goals are at odds with those of the population. Fast forward a few years.

In 2018 Apple hit a market capitalisation of 1 trillion USD. Eight years later it is skirting 5 trillion USD. The concentration of wealth is staggering. It also reflects a concentration of power. And, this is before the full deployment of AI agents as servants of surveillance capitalism and the surveillance state.

When will people understand that they don't have the freedom to live in a reality of their choice? Global warming means crops failing and people going hungry, and that has consequences. What are you willing to contemplate to prevent civilization from collapsing?

Apparently, some people are willing to contemplate that crude oil = diesel = dollars, and therefore the crude oil stats from the US government are perfectly true, even though they make no sense to anybody who is informed.

With AI, it's the same thing. How hard are you willing to hallucinate? How out of touch with reality are you happy to be?

I have pointed this out, on several occasions, to so-called "investment" (newsletter) "gurus" – especially the period from 2009, or 2010, or even 2011 – to 2021 – never mind the more recent ALL TIME HIGH in October, 2025. I am met with silence every time. Crickets.

Alan Robert Krakower, not Steven.