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

Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

digitalrightswatch.org.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 894 posts

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#481

Post by louloulou »

SilverRed wrote: post #300
alliao wrote: post #207

CCP is literally cancer on all citizens living in currently free democracy. They show that it's possible to keep a huge population under control with current tools and technology. Our politicians show public disdain, but fuck are they being seduced. And Australia is just stepping into it step by step while asking it's citizens to trust the government because they seem to be at odds with CCP publicly. As someone who l…

The difference is the CCP is more aligned with the best interests of the country (not so much as individuals but as a whole) while Australian politicians are only interested in their own profits and those of their friends.

*the CCP ~thinks it is~ is more aligned with the best interests of the country

but central planners always think that. Doesn't mean it's true.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#482

Post by King-Aaron »

gorwell wrote: post #429
Nursie wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ban on alcohol in some communities is (AFAICT) welcomed by those communities, which have massive problems with it. There are laws in other states which allow people to declare their house a “dry place” which is then enforceable by law, to try to stop anyone from bringing alcohol into the house. I can’t tell you whether any of these measures work, but they aren’t implemented for reasons of racist suppression, from…

As the Australian government rapidly moves toward an authoritarian police state, does part of you wonder if they'd be so cavalier if their citizens had guns? Or if that might be a deterrent to tyranny at some point?

lol you're kidding yourself if you think having armed citizens would make any difference to authoritarian policy anywhere.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#483

Post by Nursie »

eru wrote: post #480
Nursie wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a shame because Perth and even Melbourne used to have a relatively low cost-of-living and high quality-of-life. I'm British and have just moved to Perth. I am looking at being able to get a house 2-3 times as large here compared to the UK, for similar outlay. Add to that the weather and the sheer space... the QoL here seems so much higher than back home. I have spent time in some parts of the US (about 4 month…

Australia by and large is also much less grubby than the UK. (I say, 'grubby' not 'dirty', because I don't know whether the UK is actually dirty. Eg all the buildings just look dirty and drab compared to Australia. Perhaps it's a leftover from centuries of burning lots of coal?)

I agree, Perth has always seemed sparkling clean compared to most cities in the UK. Other Australian cities I've visited seemed that way as well.

I think partly it's the light - it's so bright here in Aus that things look cleaner anyway, but also the light and the heat keep things a little cleaner, UV sterilises and the sun bleaches after all.

Aus doesn't have as much of a legacy of concrete brutalism, either, lumpen concrete buildings in the UK that started out grey and end up brown, water-stained from all the rain and oppressive-looking.

And also I think better care is taken. Visiting London after having lived here in Perth for a couple of years about ten years back, I was struck by just how often as I walked around my nostrils were assaulted by smells of rotting rubbish or just plain urine.

So yeah, bunch of things, but it does feel much cleaner here.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#484

Post by SilverRed »

louloulou wrote: post #481
SilverRed wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is the CCP is more aligned with the best interests of the country (not so much as individuals but as a whole) while Australian politicians are only interested in their own profits and those of their friends.

*the CCP ~thinks it is~ is more aligned with the best interests of the country but central planners always think that. Doesn't mean it's true.

Living quality, wealth, technology and infrastructure has all improved dramatically in China. While we all disagree with the CCP in some ways, it is undeniable that they are not doing a bad job in general. The average person in China has faith that the future is going to be better than the present/past which is not something much of the west can claim.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#485

Post by dorkwood »

exporectomy wrote: post #209
lumost wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`It really feels sometimes that the only thing the average Australian cares about is the price of their property portfolio.` 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…

Not in Australia but it's been kind of an insult to see my house earning more than the top tax bracket income I've been making from my one-man business for the past 3 years. Sometimes I wonder what the point of trying to earn money with work is. Of course it won't last, but it has a psychological demotivating effect.

> Of course it won't last, but it has a psychological demotivating effect.

It's lasted more than my entire lifetime so far. Is anyone predicting a reversal?

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#486

Post by kevingadd »

jcims wrote: post #471
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have punitive anti-drinking policy, and a racial group susceptible to that problem, it becomes a racist policy. No it doesn't. A law does not become racist when one race disproportionately breaks it, otherwise every law everywhere would be racist.

>No it doesn't. A law does not become racist when one race disproportionately breaks it, otherwise every law everywhere would be racist. I think you'll find there are quite a few folks that disagree with you on this point, some feel that laws can be considered racist exclusively because of disproportionate impact on specific communities. Personally I think it just boils down to how people define the term 'racist'. Wh…

Intent is an increasingly imaginary concept when decisionmaking is partially or completely performed by neural nets and checklists. As such, outcomes end up being the important thing to examine.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#487

Post by mushbino »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #445
jakequade wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have punitive anti-drinking policy, and a racial group susceptible to that problem, it becomes a racist policy. There's alternatives that don't set people with problems back even further.

> If you have punitive anti-drinking policy, and a racial group susceptible to that problem, it becomes a racist policy. No it doesn't. A law does not become racist when one race disproportionately breaks it, otherwise every law everywhere would be racist.

Alcohol is banned for everyone in Australia? Imagine how that would go over.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#488

Post by softveda »

WalterBright wrote: post #186
layoric wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Born in AU so bias is to stay, which leads me to push more for political change required to try to address these problems. Most of your 10 years has been under a particularly bad (and honestly corrupt) federal gov. Country has a large state capture problem from largely mining companies but also other special interests that have lobbied and . Anything that might threaten those interests is being pretty heavily targete…

> compulsory voting This always seemed like madness to me. You can force someone to vote, but you cannot force them to vote responsibly. They may just vote "screw you" just for revenge. The right to vote includes the right to abstain from voting when one does not care. Forced voting sounds like a recipe for bad election results. I would expect the same from paying people to vote.

Voting is not compulsory. It is a myth. What is compulsory is visit the polling booth and scratch your name on the electoral roll to record your attendance. You DON'T have to actually vote.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#489

Post by __d »

Teever wrote: post #198
WalterBright wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> compulsory voting This always seemed like madness to me. You can force someone to vote, but you cannot force them to vote responsibly. They may just vote "screw you" just for revenge. The right to vote includes the right to abstain from voting when one does not care. Forced voting sounds like a recipe for bad election results. I would expect the same from paying people to vote.

I think that I would be okay with compulsory voting if there was a 'none of the above' option on the ballot. If "none of the above" wins the vote then all the people on that ballot are disqualified from running in any election for a period of time, say 10 years and there is a do-over on that particular electoral district election. I'd like to hope that would clean up politics real quick.

In fact, you are not compelled to _vote_.

You must show up at a polling place (either prior to the election or on election day), and you must identify yourself to the polling officer, and receive a ballot paper.

You do NOT have to complete the paper: you can put it in the box untouched, you can write "screw you all" on it, etc.

So ... yeah, you are obliged to show up, but you don't have to actually vote.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#490

Post by layoric »

jsscclr wrote: post #462
layoric wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. There is already informal voting (aka donkey vote), people who want to use their vote as a "screw you" have to choose between a number of candidates/parties, so who they are "screwing" is pretty hard to tell. I actually think compulsory voting brings forward the importance of thinking about the consequences of voting, and voting for candidates that have the same values. Granted this can be manipu…

To clarify, donkey votes are perfectly valid. This is where the voter simply fills the boxes the same as they are displayed (first presented candidate gets number 1, second gets 2, etc.). A donkey vote is a formal vote, just one typically driven by the same factors that would drive an intentionally informal one. An example of an informal vote that I encountered during scrutineering a local council election is when on…

Thanks for that, my mistake.
Post reply on HN