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Australia is becoming a surveillance state

ia.acs.org.au

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Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#351

Post by G3rn0ti »

rospaya wrote: post #306
shell0x wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German living in Australia, I’m shocked what happened to Germany. Politics turned to Left-wing/Green party vs AFD and there is no middle ground anymore. The FDP basically disappeared and there’s a cliff in society over things like the refugee crisis and Merkel’s “everyone is welcome here” politics. If I’d ever come back to Europe, I’d settle in Switzerland. It just is the better Germany(at least to me).

> there is no middle ground anymore Isn't there a grand coalition in Germany for most of the last 15 years between the center-left and center-right which did very well?

If it „did very well“ is, of course, a matter of your political views but Merkel’s coalition of the largest center right (CDU) und center left party (SPD) is exactly the reason why the political fringe on both ends of the spectrum has been radicalizing in the recent years. Merkel’s conservative voter base crumbles and she keeps on losing to the right. The social democratic party has been losing voters, too, even more dramatically so to both the right and green/radical left. Both major parties became somewhat co-dependent clinging to their dwindling power over this country.

With all the scaremongering about a growing right wing party like the AfD, many Germans fail to realize its supporters have always been there and never grew in numbers but before Merkel had been represented by a caucus inside the most popular parties. There have been various connections inside the CDU and the “Seeheimer Kreis” in the SPD that have become marginalized during the Merkel years with her overly pragmatic and uninspired way of administering a whole country and not committing to any visible political principles.

As a famous German conservative politician of the 1970s once said: „There must never be a political party establishing itself on the right side of the CDU“ (or it‘ll be the end of its dominating power). Exactly that, leaving room for the AfD, was one of Merkel‘s biggest mistakes and it’s going to haunt Germany‘s politics for many years to come.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#352

Post by noxer »

handrous wrote: post #318
noxer wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History only give us multiple examples of what happens if the people where disarmed in the years before the gov went fully tyrannical. Not the evidence you wanted but good enough for me. >I think the reverse is far more likely (private arms supporting tyranny) They would need to overpower gov AND the privately armed non-supporters. Compared to only the gov if the people would not be armed. (unless you assume the tyra…

> They would need to overpower gov AND the privately armed non-supporters. Compared to only the gov if the people would not be armed. (unless you assume the tyranny group is actually unarmed because they follow the law but this seems weird highly tyrannical and criminal groups all over the world always find a way to arm themself even in places where private people dont have guns.) The role they play is usually as par…

So the worst thing that could happen is that people who will be ordered to do the dirty work already have guns rather than whoever controls them has to arm them first. Seems to be a minor detail not something that has any effect on larger outcome of conflicts.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#353

Post by stubish »

alvah wrote: post #150
trissylegs wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia's economy is pretty dependent on Coal, Aluminum and Gas. Two of these a hopefully going away soon but the Government is so In bed with mining and they throw more money at elections than every other sector put together that nothing will done about it until it collapses.

Do you understand what you're actually wishing for when you cheer on the destruction of a large percentage of the economy? What comes after will not be so comfortable.

More and more Australians are putting environmental issues ahead of economic, and are aware that this will make things less comfortable in the short term. Making personal sacrifices for the greater good is generally considered a positive trait in civil society. Many are hopeful that things will be better in the long term, and are hopeful an alternative source of income can be found before the inevitable collapse happens.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#354

Post by zepto »

handrous wrote: post #316
zepto wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am skeptical of the utility of private arms in resisting a home-grown tyrannical government. … > I'm aware of involves extensive foreign intervention and/or resistance to a foreign occupier, which is very different. You say they are different, but you don’t say why. Effectively all you are doing is dismissing the evidence without reasoning.

> You say they are different, but you don’t say why. Sorry, didn't occur to me to note the differences. The incentives, motivations, goals, costs, and resources for a foreign government fighting on your soil are all very from your own government fighting a civil war or dealing with a domestic, guerrilla resistance, are the main things. I remain unconvinced that private arms are likely to be any kind of useful factor…

> The incentives, motivations, goals, costs, and resources for a foreign government fighting on your soil are all very different…

That really doesn’t explain anything at all. It’s another way of saying they aren’t the same in various ways.

> also unconvinced that they're more likely to be used to that end than in service of the precisely the opposite purpose

This is an interesting political idea that bears a lot more elaboration, but seems unconnected in principle to the other point.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#355

Post by XorNot »

jjgreen wrote: post #272
XorNot wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do you people who keep telling everyone dictatorship is next whenever anything happens get tired of being wrong literally every time?

I missed the bit where I told anyone that dictatorship was next.

Oh, so what was the implication of your comment meant to be? Why is the government not going to end the pandemic measures anytime soon?

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#356

Post by lethologica »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #164
thisone22 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'So you have sun, good food, plenty of money and little immigration.' Australia has one of the highest rates of inbound immigration in the world. Number 2 in the OECD actually, right after Luxembourg. And I, like the overwhelming majority of Australians, consider high immigration intakes to be a good thing. Check your sources. [1] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/migratio... [2] https://data.oecd.o…

Skilled immigration is neocolonialism. I truly can't believe how many (supposedly enlightened) people I've had try to tell me with a straight face how wonderful it is to have all these doctors/engineers/etc coming to their country, and how great it is for their economy and healthcare system etc. Like, you don't think all the people in India or The Philippines or Chad need doctors or economic advancement?? It's just i…

Talk to some immigrants here in Australia and you’ll find that a lot don’t end up in the industry they were in from their home country. We have some pretty strict rules around qualifications for doctors, engineers etc and a lot of other countries educations doesn’t cut it for our standards. So most end up becoming taxi drivers or cleaners. When you speak with some of them, it’s almost tragic to have a talented individual unable to contribute to the field they’re qualified in. But no one forced them to come. No one forces them to stay. Is that still neocolonialism?

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#357

Post by jjgreen »

XorNot wrote: post #355
jjgreen wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I missed the bit where I told anyone that dictatorship was next.

Oh, so what was the implication of your comment meant to be? Why is the government not going to end the pandemic measures anytime soon?

I said nothing about governments, just that the pandemic is not ending any time soon. It will be with our grandchidren, and theirs.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#358

Post by namelessoracle »

FireBeyond wrote: post #344
namelessoracle wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The principal who did that in Atlanta was black.

There's a really good book and essay called "Southern Rites" by Gillian Laub that talks about segregation in schools, particularly in Georgia, where, to be clear, _public_ schools have been called out for having segregated proms as recently as 2019. When a white girl lobbies her principal about this, part of his dismissal is "well, you should know the black parents all agreed to this at the PTA meeting, too", as if t…

This is alot of words that dont actually say anything other than "Georgia" bad.

Your position is that a black educator in the Atlanta Public School system that has a black mayor and is defiantly against the mainstream of rural southern politics, decided to segregate the students for what reason exactly?

I would venture to guess using this weird thing called "empathy" where i try to look at the other side in good faith is that the female POC Principal wanted to make sure there were classes where the black students werent a small minority in their classes. My understanding of how the makeup of this school in particular was that it was not made up of predominantly black students and that the classes the black students were concentrated into were about half black when it came to students.

I would further venture to guess that it was just a tone def attempt to make it so those students were around "more people like them". This is the whole rationale of poc only safe spaces on college campuses.

Alternatively there was some conspiracy where the black female principal was pressured into doing this by someone. Seeing as how the Atlanta school board immediately cracked down on it that seems unlikely. But maybe the evil pta pressured her? Let me know which scenario you think is more likely.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#359

Post by milderworkacc »

brokenmachine wrote: post #166
BelenusMordred wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Metadata logging is a theoretical issue There are over 350,000 requests a year for metadata, about ~1000 a day. Any level of government can make a request, right down to local councils of towns with 2000 people. The oversight committee is comprised of three bureaucrats who have never found a single instance of the system being abused in years. In fact all the instances of misuse have been self-reported by agencies.…

>The enormous cost of all this is passed onto the consumer and the government doesn't subsidise reporting entities at all. Sorry, who's the consumer in this? Can you explain more?

The telcos bear the cost of retention, and so consumers of telco services are paying more as a result.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#360

Post by lethologica »

eightails wrote: post #126
stavros wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, in your view, human rights cannot be suspended, even if there is an emergency? So things like banning indoor meetings should be allowed to continue, even when there is a pandemic? I didn't protest the lockdowns because it seems reasonable to me that you'd want to ban proximity to curtail the spread of a disease that spreads by proximity. That doesn't mean I won't protest a dictator just declaring an emergency and…

> So, in your view, human rights cannot be suspended, even if there is an emergency? This does seem a pretty common misconception. People seem to forget that even the most liberal countries still regularly and systematically infringe on people's rights, e.g. by imprisoning criminals. But you don't see many of the anti-lockdown types protesting the existence of prisons. In both cases, it's a matter of proportionally b…

The imprisonment of criminals is a governments way of fulfilling one of its primary duties, keeping its citizens safe. It’s not 100% accurate of course but I’d much rather take that than wondering if my neighbour will kill me.

If you’re saying a government shouldn’t be locking people up so that an individuals rights aren’t violated, then you’re saying a government shouldn’t be looking after the wellbeing of its people. In which case, you’re essentially talking about anarchy.

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