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Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

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Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#141

Post by mindwok »

throwawayfear wrote: post #110
mindwok wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for the why, I think being able to trust your government is a great thing. It has allowed us to basically eleminate guns in our society except for recreation/farming, and as a result of our lockdowns we have only 1000 deaths. We should have 45,000 if you assume the same per-capita rate as the USA. So there are benefits for this kind of faith in your Government. I think Americas emphasis on individual freedoms come…

I would love to trust a government and have it take care of everything. But unfortunately government is run by humans who are susceptible to delusions like the consolidation of power over other humans. And if it is ever run by an AI, well, that AI may decide to just destroy everyone. So while trusting a government would be great, they have not earned that and Australia's governing bodies are clearly driving off a cli…

Some of these I won't defend, I think the arrest for the protest post and the Melbourne Towers lockdown were not ok. Both of those have been widely criticized, including by branches of the government. I wouldn't be surprised if there's legal action from these events and I'd be in favour of the victims.

The number of people in the home thing doesn't bother me, again because I'm happy to accept this as a temporary restriction that reduces deaths until our vaccination rates allow us to go back to normal life.

I understand your perspective, and these events do concern me. However I personally don't see them as an authoritarian government making efforts to reduce our freedoms, I see them as a generally well-meaning government misstepping in an unprecedented situation, and I expect those missteps to be accounted for via legal action.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#142

Post by throwawayfear »

hug wrote: post #127
throwawayfear wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think they'd roll out tyranny in broad daylight without trying to find a convenient excuse with which to fool the gullible? Of course they'll say it's to save lives. Just like the "think of the children" laws are always supposedly about protecting children. Like Apple and CSAM being obvious surveillance tools being introduced in the name of protecting children.

Deaths per capita in Australia is at 10% of the US. If the US had managed to keep things as low as Australia, there would be just under half a million less deaths. Seriously. Half a million. And for that, you won't stay inside your house for two weeks, because you're worried it's a slippery slope of some sort. What need for me to be gullible to think "I'd rather five hundred thousand less of my countrymen had died th…

We did stay in our house for two weeks. We locked down, and things were pretty locked down around where I'm at. Also, masks work and are freely given anywhere you go to shop. And vaccines are available. And natural immunity works. All these things in conjunction help without authorities building surveillance machines that will never go away.

The approach you are taking can be used to justify complete control and arbitrary lockdowns whenever N cases or N deaths for any virus happen. Or for anything that can be construed as a public health crisis, including things not related to viruses. Don't you see that?

My heart breaks for any death anywhere. Including the death of a free and normal life. Suicides and depression have skyrocketed. The evidence shows this:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7024e1.htm

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/ludhiana/covid-led-to-spik...

There are no easy answers, and it is not appropriate to beat someone over the head with the numbers of death in response to them calling out the systems of enslavement you are building in Australia. It's clear that your approach is not good for people's mental health, especially for young people. Presumably you still have lockdowns where you can't go more than 5km from your home? And restrictions on what you can be outside for?

Do these pandemic deaths justify the emergence of a totalitarian state? No.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#143

Post by throwawayfear »

amanzi wrote: post #131
throwawayfear wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're okay with increasingly stricter subversion of freedom, because you've consumed media fear-mongering about the pandemic. The pandemic is not deadly enough to justify building a totalitarian regime. What would have been the case if you asked the majority of Germans what they thought about certain restrictions in the 1930s? Democracy is more than the "whole community setting the rules for the community." It is…

"The pandemic is not deadly enough..." I'm curious to know how many more deaths would be required, in your opinion, for it to be considered deadly enough?

I don't know.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#144

Post by ghoward »

jp0d wrote: post #138
tosstoyevsky wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point do you kill those that dare live their lives? This happened a generation ago to my people, they said we carried typhus and needed to be cleansed for the public health. Never again, huh?

That's not a good argument or a fair comparison, mate! One is a highly infectious disease that is spreading through contact and via air and the other is history! Covid has killed more than a million people and is continuing to do so as it mutates to get deadlier and deadlier. Please don't tell me that it's a lie and a conspiracy theory as I've lost family members to this engineered microscopic monstrosity!

Viruses generally mutate to be less deadly, not more.

And it is a fair comparison because both were used as excuses by governments for overreach.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#145

Post by jp0d »

ghoward wrote: post #144
jp0d wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a good argument or a fair comparison, mate! One is a highly infectious disease that is spreading through contact and via air and the other is history! Covid has killed more than a million people and is continuing to do so as it mutates to get deadlier and deadlier. Please don't tell me that it's a lie and a conspiracy theory as I've lost family members to this engineered microscopic monstrosity!

Viruses generally mutate to be less deadly, not more. And it is a fair comparison because both were used as excuses by governments for overreach.

> Viruses generally mutate to be less deadly, not more.

Clearly that's not the case with Covid!

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#146

Post by throwawayfear »

mindwok wrote: post #141
throwawayfear wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to trust a government and have it take care of everything. But unfortunately government is run by humans who are susceptible to delusions like the consolidation of power over other humans. And if it is ever run by an AI, well, that AI may decide to just destroy everyone. So while trusting a government would be great, they have not earned that and Australia's governing bodies are clearly driving off a cli…

Some of these I won't defend, I think the arrest for the protest post and the Melbourne Towers lockdown were not ok. Both of those have been widely criticized, including by branches of the government. I wouldn't be surprised if there's legal action from these events and I'd be in favour of the victims. The number of people in the home thing doesn't bother me, again because I'm happy to accept this as a temporary rest…

What good is it to me or to you or to the people of Australia that the protest post arrest and the Melbourne Towers lockdown were "widely criticized?" That says nothing even if branches of government did it. That's controlled opposition at best until there's clear evidence that they're relenting from these practices. Instead I see just evidence of more power consolidation.

The number of people in the home thing doesn't bother me, again because I'm happy to accept this as a temporary restriction that reduces deaths until our vaccination rates allow us to go back to normal life.

It's been two years. These things are clearly not intended to be temporary. They will normalize it as much as possible. The frog boiling in the pot is an apt analogy here.

I understand your perspective, and these events do concern me. However I personally don't see them as an authoritarian government making efforts to reduce our freedoms, I see them as a generally well-meaning government misstepping in an unprecedented situation, and I expect those missteps to be accounted for via legal action.

What would it take you to consider that it is turning into a totalitarian regime, and that those are not missteps, but steps that were done perhaps too soon and they should've given the frog in the pot a little more time? I mean, I'm not here to waste my weekend arguing for nothing, I'm genuinely asking - what would it take for you to see that it's a bad situation? What else could Australia do that gets you thinking "we should take a step back" and will it be too late by then?

I truly hope that it's a generally well-meaning government misstepping in an unprecedented situation. I truly do. Is that realistic given a study of history and the nature of Power?

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#147

Post by hug »

throwawayfear wrote: post #137
hug wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you consider people with immunity from past infections to be antivaxers? In Australia, for all intents and purposes, yes. Thanks to the terrible "totalitarian regime", less than one percent of our population has yet to catch COVID. We've had even less deaths! It's fuckin' awesome that we've managed to come out of this so well, almost entirely thanks to lockdown. The route out of lockdown, without massively incre…

The law of gravity isn't different in Australia, and neither is 2+2. People with immunity from past covid have excellent protection, maybe even better than that from vaccination. To treat them as "antivaxers"..."in Australia, for all intents and purposes" and to then later label these people as "idiots, petulant children, or misled and out of touch with reality" is one hop and a skip away from dehumanizing them and j…

The entire first half of your comment is hilariously uninformed. You have absolutely no idea about the impacts of COVID on Australia and it bleeds out of everything you're saying. You arguing that past infections should mean something to me is the "out of touch with reality" bit.

> It's interesting that you chide others for being out of touch with reality and yet you ignore the reality that past infection offers equal or better protection

This is completely meaningless to Australia. Just 0.002% of the Australian population has had COVID. Past-infection protection is not an area of interest to me or the government of my country, because as a cohort, those people just don't really exist here... Mostly because of our wacky policies of trying to make sure our populace doesn't get infected by doing things like hotel quarantine.

As for the second bit, about children possibly having issues with the vaccine: It might be worth pointing out here that children in that study aren't a part of the current Australian government push for vaccination. The target is for over-16s only.

Should we wait before pushing for the under-16s to get vaccinated? Absolutely! Does that prove you right in absolutely any way? Nope!

You might as well start telling me that Australia shouldn't introduce gun control.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#148

Post by ephextom »

throwawayfear wrote: post #139
hilbert42 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, for the life of me I cannot understand why some people just don't understand that. It's tragic really because many people have lost their lives through the bloodyminded actions of those who who've callous regard for others.

Your post could word for word be used for the opposite narrative too. Many people have lost their lives through the bloodyminded actions of those clamoring for a totalitarian regime and its systems of enslavement.

Nobody is using it for the opposite narrative. Quarantine has nothing to do with enslavement. You’re being histrionic, but also inconsistent when worrying about loss of life through totalitarianism but not loss of life through preventable illness. You’ve said elsewhere that the pandemic is not deadly enough to justify the actions we’re seeing, and I somewhat agree (population-wide lockdowns have been excessive), but hospital systems everywhere, including in Australia, have been pushed to beyond capacity. Australians can accept some limits to their freedoms to keep the medical system functioning. They won’t accept it forever, and regardless of any malicious intentions, governments can’t afford it forever.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#149

Post by blitz_skull »

InvertedRhodium wrote: post #12
blitz_skull wrote: post #5

Wow. It’s like the twilight zone over there. I’m quite concerned at the lengths governments are going to take away our rights. All in the name of “the good of others”.

Couldn't agree more - the fact that my request to go on a stabbing rampage was declined due to "the good of others" is a travesty against human rights and the freedoms that come with them.

Don’t imagine many folks are making requests for those sort of shenanigans. Seems kinda like something you do of your own accord, yeah?

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#150

Post by ephextom »

throwawayfear wrote: post #128
ephextom wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quarantine has been used in all kinds of societies for thousands of years during times of infectious outbreak. It’s described in the Bible, and it was used in the USA during the Spanish Flu. What is the point of quarantine without systems to ensure it is obeyed?

Those systems will not go away once they are implemented. Power will consolidate. It is a system of enslavement.

Whatever their intentions, governments can’t sustain these measures forever economically or politically.
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