131–140 of 894 posts
Democracy is an illusion in Australia, just like the rest of the globalised West. Politicians are chosen to stand for election by a small number of corrupt branch stackers, not by the people. The people are given a choice between party a or b, which are two cheeks of the same arse.
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I lived in Australia for 5 years and my sense is that, as harsh as it sounds, Australia needs to go through an extreme hardship to wake up as a nation. Australia has lived true to its moniker as the Lucky Country - at least two full generations of Australians have never witnessed economic hardship or downturn of any kind. Natural disasters pass the nation by (other than wildfires). Even Covid looked like it was going…
Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.
Or sometimes they just kill each other in cycles of violence spanning generations.
> Good times create weak men.
Or they enable amazing things like the internet, modern medicine, and empires that last 1000 years.
Sorry, but I've seen this pithy quote before and I wish it would go away - it's simply not true.
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I lived in Australia for 5 years and my sense is that, as harsh as it sounds, Australia needs to go through an extreme hardship to wake up as a nation. Australia has lived true to its moniker as the Lucky Country - at least two full generations of Australians have never witnessed economic hardship or downturn of any kind. Natural disasters pass the nation by (other than wildfires). Even Covid looked like it was going…
One could argue that Australia has always been this way. The full quote is: "Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck." written by Donald Horne in 1964. These words were true prior to 1964 and are still true in 2021. What saves Australia is the word "mainly". There are some first rate people in Australia, mostly not in positions of authority, who stop the ship from sinking. Exa…
I've lived in Australia for 10 years and really considering my familys future in this country. We are sleep-walking towards a very average future. An undiversified export economy, out of control house prices, a job-market primarily focused on two cities, a government intent on selling all public assets, very limited political interest in positive climate policies. The latter is simply addressed with "technology will…
If this is the only accessible form of financial gain - why wouldn't they?
I strongly suspect that in order to have a dynamic economy a weak housing market is a pre-requisite. Given the choice it's much easier to plunk money down in a house and watch cash magically appear than it is to start a business or do anything creative.
Aren't we Five Eyes nation members all affected by this? The U.S. should pull out of this. We need to re-assert privacy rights and avoid trade as much as possible with any countries that enact these kind of laws.
Im getting the feeling our government’s have switched to economy over everything mode with a dash of pretend to care about the environment
Economic improvement for the masses is merely a byproduct.
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Compulsory voting does not imply a politically engaged populace. I believe the majority of voters do not enjoy the requirement to attend on polling day, and treat the whole affair like supporting a football team. Except they care a lot less about the election results than their football team. Mandatory voting probably has the effect of protecting the two major parties more than anything else. There was a surge in min…
Even though people may not be engaged in politics mandatory voting is important. It reduces extremist politics and the constant need to be increasingly divisive. It forces regression to the mean. In non mandatory voting systems the politicians need to motivate people to the polls. The default of the population is apathy so to generate action you appeal to the extremes who are the most likely to act. The more people y…
Except this isn’t true. Non voters are significantly less educated than voters. This creates paradoxes like both Trump and Biden voters being wealthier and more educated than the average American.
Non-voters are less likely to be “extremist” in the sense of having strong party loyalties. But they’re much more likely to host a whole myriad range of beliefs that are disproportionately found amount the least educated and aware. They’re more likely to believe in psychics or be 9/11 truthers or to think Bill Gates is tracking people with Covid vaccine microchips.
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This is exactly my feeling. Aussies are constantly whinging about extreme first-world problems and are completely apathetic (or willfully ignorant) of what real hardship is. As a result the general population is blindly letting the government erode our rights and are too pre-occupied with their own lives to actually realise what's happening.
"blindly letting the government erode our rights" what else are we supposed to do? how do you stop the government from doing that?