Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Australia is becoming a surveillance state

ia.acs.org.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 437 posts

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#401

Post by SuoDuanDao »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #381
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true, then neocolonialism is meaningless as a pejorative. I associate neocolonialism with economic hit men and predatory loans, not private citizens having the option to leave often abusive governments. By your definition, neocolonialism is simply the absence of serfdom.

> If that's true, then neocolonialism is meaningless as a pejorative. I associate neocolonialism with economic hit men and predatory loans, Now that is meaningless. There are a whole vast range of ways to be exploitative and wealthy and powerful taking from poor and powerless. > not private citizens having the option to leave often abusive governments. I'm talking about the aggregate outcome for the people. The great…

yes, it is. Serfdom is when a peasant has no right to leave his lord's land. If neocolonialism includes recognition of the right to emigrate when another country wants to accept you as an immigrant, it's too broad a definition to be any kind of useful pejorative.

The collective outcome may be bad for the country from which people emigrate, but the individual outcome is very good for the people who emigrate. And at a higher level of organisation, the importance of retaining one's best and brightest creates incentives for all governments to behave better than they would if it was accepted the people born in a country belonged to the rulers like some kind of global slavery system.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#402

Post by tekknik »

L_226 wrote: post #66

Since leaving Australia (and started living in Europe) I have come to the conclusion that Australia is not a "real" country - it is just a continent owned by corporate interests that happens to also have people living on it. Corporate interests own the media, politicians, food production, education etc. and no one cares, because Life Is Good. Why expect anything to change, or people to care about strong democratic in…

> Decades of bull markets, house price increases, a decline in public education, torpedoed communication infrastructure and complicit "independent" media has resulted in a wealthy, ignorant and complacent society who allow their representatives full control over their lives. It is not that they don't care about these issues, they are not even aware they are issues at all.

This is sounding an awful lot like the Dems in the US

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#403

Post by tekknik »

1337shadow wrote: post #178
partomniscient wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Since leaving Australia (and started living in Europe) I have come to the conclusion that Australia is not a "real" country - it is just a continent owned by corporate interests that happens to also have people living on it. I haven't thought of it exactly like that, but I appreciate (whilst shuddering) your take on things. I basically see it in a similar way, that its a sinking stepping stone the UK was using to ge…

> I think it'll end up more like V for Vendetta. I also love to read this kind of parallel between fiction and reality. However, when you have some experience working in defense you find out reality is more like: there's real criminal to catch, real victims to protect and to save, it's not like we have any time for non critical stuff such as going after pacific dissidents, and controlling all the medias like in V wou…

> Not to mention mass surveillance will create tech jobs you are probably part of the small number of people who can apply and get hired and actually work on it with their own ethic.

Please, give me access to a surveillance codebase. I’ll do everything in my power to destroy it and it’s backups.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#404

Post by tekknik »

II2II wrote: post #366
scohesc wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balance of rights means nobody has rights. If you need to "balance" the rights (read: take them away) of somebody to equal the scale, then rights don't exist in the first place.

I am trying to figure out whether you are arguing that rights must be absolute or that rights do not exist. If it is the former, I will point out that the rights of one person can infringe upon the rights of other people or the rights of one person can be used to repress other people. Simply put, rights are never absolute. In the latter case, I will simply point out that rights are a social construct. As a social con…

You have seemingly avoided the point by restating the problem with balancing rights. How do you keep things fair while taking someone’s rights?

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#405

Post by tekknik »

monkeycantype wrote: post #115
noxer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget they disarmed the people. If some people ever start to care they wont have the boomstick power. They maybe be upside down but authoritarian regimes work the same, secure the monopoly on force by removing arms is a key step for any authoritarian gov.

You’re missing an essential detail, how Australians view the government, Australians don’t believe that the the government is sufficiently competent to be tyrannical, except in small local cases against the powerless edit: we don't believe those in government with the inclination towards tyranny are sufficiently competent. There are individuals, in government in Australia, in the same house even if they're are not qu…

If I were a tyrannical gov and my country thought I was incompetent I would run with it for as long as I could, implementing things like surveillance laws, removing guns, all the while the citizens think I’m incompetent. Until they look around one day and realize Ive build a cage around them.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#406

Post by mitemte »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #114

Australian tech workers, get out get out get out get out… I can’t stress this enough. The Australian tech industry is a failing joke. You are being grossly underpaid. The country _is_ an authoritarian surveillance state and has been for years and years. The frog boiled and died years ago. Peace out, and find somewhere that will treat you well.

Pay is honestly decent in my experience. I’ve noticed that Aussies stay at the same company for much longer, compared to U.S. engineers. I’m on my third role in 3 years and will be taking $160K+, total compensation. Not nearly as much as some U.S. roles, but I know people who have worked the same role for 10 years and haven’t hit $100K.

Being a dual national (Schengen/Europe) there’s honestly not that many places in Europe where software pays all that well. Vienna surprised me with how many salaries sit between 40-50K euros for senior positions.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#407

Post by tekknik »

handrous wrote: post #367
noxer wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I would agree that private arms rarely, bordering on never, have much effect either way, unless a government is already extremely weak, and then the arms often aid in establishing (perhaps another, rather than a new one) tyranny, not ending it.

I was curious where this was coming from so I checked your comment history. It seems your scared of a particular party (republicans) forcing their way into power via the use of guns. Is this true?

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#408

Post by refurb »

HKH2 wrote: post #398
refurb wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean Singapore has 4 official languages, 3 major ethnic groups (Chinese, Malay and Indian), and ~50% of the population are foreigners. And yes, you a white person can be Singaporean. There aren't many, but there are Singaporean politicians who are white but Singaporean by birth.

I didn't mean legally. I meant culturally. Are they able to be just as culturally connected as everyone else, or would some people assume they are a foreigner even if they were born there?

My experience there was that if you fit within one of the 3 core ethnic groups people would assume your Singaporean. But if you’re in the “other” group then yeah, people would assume you’re a foreigner.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#409

Post by tekknik »

handrous wrote: post #392
zepto wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s obvious they are different. It’s not obvious what differences would render guns useless, which appears to be your position. I’m not asking you to arbitrarily explain how they are different. I’m asking you to explain how and why the differences you are thinking of make guns useless for civilians to own.

Ah, I've got you. Sorry, I probably read poorly or something. Aggregating the differences, part of it is that the stakes are so much lower in a foreign occupation and that withdrawal to save any of several sorts of costs involved is an option that won't result in the toppling of the occupying state's government or loss of any of the occupying state's core territory or sovereignty, and the other part (also mentioned i…

You should condense this so it’s easier to read.

Your argument is that during an occupation civilians owning guns already in the occupied country doesn’t matter because another country will come in and arm them?

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#410

Post by tekknik »

noxer wrote: post #256
brokenmachine wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments have no problem "stepping over the threshold" and using violence. If you think that the US government wouldn't use violence against its own people for breaking laws, even hastily-written or unfair laws, you're sorely mistaken.

There is no such things as "the government who enforces laws" its people who enforce laws and they wont if they dont agree and dont have a monopoly on violence. Also "hastily-written or unfair laws" wont be enacted if there is a realistic chance you pay with your life for doing so. The guns are there for when the legal way to solve stuff no longer works and laws are no longer of any meaning. Saying its against the la…

> Civil wars happens and if there is one you better hope both sides have guns because else its not a war its a takeover.

And depending on the relations the US has with 2-3 particular nations we would likely see an invasion thrown on top.

Post reply on HN