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  • Hacker News
  • Simple policy (Apple, Google, etc, can adopt):

    Changes to major landmarks require a 5-year grace period (wait 5 years).

    by JKCalhoun
  • I am Italian, and we get quite pissed when the government issues executive orders (the head of state can't do it), although it happens relatively often. I live in France, and when the president resorted to using them it felt like he was threatening democracy.

    The US mechanism seems the strongest of the three, and people have considered this a normal thing in a democracy long enough for this to happen.

    by butokai
  • See: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1206310

    name:en=Lake Ontario

    vs.

    official_name:en-US=Lake America

    by karussell
  • Lots of countries change the names of things, even countries themselves.. Bombay to Mumbai, Ceylon to Sri Lanka, Turkey to Türkiye etc. Yes, some of those are specific to a name in a particular language and all have precedents rather than being entirely new. However, it is a precedent for governments deciding the names of things.

    This, as its just made up, reminds me a lot of political/nationalist renaming of things like roads which is very common in parts of South Asia.

    by graemep
  • Pretty sure lake Ontario was named after the native people who lived on its shores, not after the Canadian province. I suppose, lake Michigan and lake Huron are the same. Perhaps we can name them all lake America.
    by fallingfrog
  • As a Canadian, I have to admit: Trump is very, very talented in manipulating the discourse in the public arena.

    Gradually, he is steering away the public discussion from what matters: the Iran War, inflation, the abusive police state created by ICE, the rise of China and weakening of international standing of US... We're making a lot of noise about what doesn't matter: what's the name of a lake.

    It is like when I admonish my 4 year old son about something he did and he replies: "Look over there!". I think the name of this trick is "non-sequitur".

    And you know the funniest part? It has been working for years and will keep working! Remember the "immigrants eat our cats and dogs"?

    This low-level debating is exactly what Neil Postman described in "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business", in 1985. The entertainment industry makes everyone stupid.

    by diego_moita
  • I apologize to my Canadian friends. This is embarrassing.
    by cebert
  • Canada should change the name of the country below them to “Bottom Canada”

    Honestly can’t believe there’s a few million very smart people in America who have to put up with this. Bridges for Americans worldwide are being burned to the ground and there’s no sign of a new enlightened political age arriving on any horizon. Canadians also don’t seem to understand that this situation is only going to get worse and America can no longer be considered a friend.

    by gizajob

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