851–860 of 894 posts
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> Like when the gay marriage issue was decided even the highly conservative former PM Tony Abbott basically came out and said the matter was settled and it's time to move on. Australia recognized same sex marriage in 2017. That was 3 years after after the USA did. I'm not sure I would call Australia as being progressive by that measure.
Cannabis laws as well...
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Perhaps you're misinformed. The laws the article is talking about are the big problem - they're Federal and permanent (at least until we have a sane Government elected to reform and repeal them). The COVID lockdowns are all operating under temporary state of emergencies under the State Governments. There's no actual reason to think they will be 'extended forever' like some crazies seem to think. For several states, o…
It's not misinformation, it's that were looking at Australia from the outside. If you live in the US, pretty much any and all restrictions have been lifted for daily life. You see that there are still Covid cases and deaths, but they have dwindled in comparison to last year and life is pretty much back to how it was Pre-pandemic. So it's absolutely insane to see that for the same or less daily Covid cases/deaths, Aus…
We don't have enough vaccine to do that yet. We have a shortage and consequently we are in 'a race' to get a somewhat limited supply of jabs into arms before the delta strain gets out of control here and starts killing folks like it's the peak in America.
I would say, Australia cares more about it's citizens than in America. But there are definite downsides, like for instance, we don't produce Pfizer or have the very strong industrial/tech base (and the good jobs that go with it)
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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.
Imagine how psychologically demotivated you would feel if you didn't have the property...
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> The app allows people who are required to isolate to opt to do their isolation at home, rather than stay at a quarantine facility. > Nobody is being forced to use the app. If there’s a cost difference, I’d say that “forced” is an unfairly neutral word to use. SA is charging upwards of $3000 (for 1 adult, plus $1000 each additional adult, plus $500 per child) for hotel quarantine [1], and though I can’t find a defin…
My guess is you didn't read there are three options. In most countries of the world (including mine) you get only two options, yet in Australia three. Two of them being free of cost: at home with human checks, or at home with app checks. Please take down your costs strawman, it's not helping the debate.
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> Remember... governments NEVER give up these powers readily. The West had massively draconian laws during the last similar protracted existential problem, WW2, and gave them up just fine when it finished.
Yeah we totlly gave up the New Deal and the military industrial complex...
The New Deal occurred before WW2 as a way to simulate things out of the Great Depression. Turns out war is even a bigger economic stimulus package than social programs.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal
> and the military industrial complex...
Actually, the US did:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demobilization_of_United_State...
Then the Korean War happened:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
It turns out the Communists were expansionist and needed a counter-weight in influence.
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A donkey vote isn't a blank ballot. It's a ballot that's just been numbered unthinkingly from top to bottom.
Are they counted as votes? That would mean the person at the top of the ballot have an advantage because of these donkey votes.
This does indeed advantage the candidate who draws the top spot on the ballot (the positions are randomly assigned). In a preferential system it advantages the candidate in the final two that drew the higher position - it seems to be worth about 0.7% ( https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/08/02/whats-the-donkey-worth-... ).
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Not from Australia, but as a citizen the precaution I would take is not to get tested while such a quarantine policy is in effect. Don't know, my country does some checks like calling people on the phone, the rest relies on trust. Seems to work just as well. So I see a lot of room to criticise "the least intrusive" option as well. This is security done wrong. Not slightly wrong, detrimental towards the goal of securi…
> Seems to work just as well. Curious what country this is where things are working "just as well" as Australia? The only major places I can think of in the "developed" world faring similarly* to Australia statistically (deaths per capita) are South Korea & Taiwan; both have had similar citizen monitoring. * leaving out NZ here obvs which is faring significantly better
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How are you dealing with weaponised flags? I'd put more effort into posts if they weren't just removed by someone who didn't like what they said. Give than you've unflagged a half dozen of them 12 hours later.
Those are two separate questions. If you want to comment here you need to follow the rules regardless of what other people are doing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28461965
should be flagged?
And if it shouldn't be how are you dealing with the abuse of the function?
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The right to protest during a pandemic is dubious, in direct conflict with other peoples rights. It is also self defeating, when the majority consider the protesters arseholes for willfully endangering the general community and don't get around to considering the actual issue being protested.
>direct conflict with other peoples rights What the hell? Nobody sitting at home in their house has the right to prevent other people meeting peacefully on the street. People like you are what's wrong with Australia, you authoritarian monster! Nobody has the right to stop other people meeting because they might spread a virus to eachother with a 99%+ survival rate that might somehow eventually find its way back to th…
It is also worth noting that people can still protest. They just can't do it while violating health orders. Yelling maskless at police on lockdown days is going to get you arrested. Other protests on non-lockdown days with people maintaining social distancing have proceeded fine apart from grumpy words and fear mongering by politicians.
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People die. My loved ones and I have made peace with that. Life is not about avoiding death. 10 million is frankly a drop in the bucket. We don't shut down society and hand over control of our lives over car accidents, heart failure, or anything else that kills hundreds of millions. The behaviors that lead to those deaths are absolutely a form of social contagion and in no world are they less important or relevant be…
As New Zealand and China have shown, it is within our power to avert almost all deaths from CoVID-19. They have gotten through the pandemic with orders of magnitude fewer deaths per capita and far greater everyday freedoms than most of the world. Quarantine for international travelers is one of the tools they have used. "People die" as an excuse for letting millions of people die of preventable causes is a terrible a…
I hate to be this blunt but you're kidding yourself if you think this was ever an option for the United States.
With respect to "preventable causes", I already responded to that point. Most death is preventable. Or at least delay-able. That does not mean everyone agrees with your scorched earth campaigns to prevent it.