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Australia is becoming a surveillance state

ia.acs.org.au

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Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#231

Post by sk0g »

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.

There's what, 5 countries that might pay better? USA of course, which has its own share of problems, Canada, England, Switzerland. Maybe one of Netherlands or Germany if you're lucky.

No easy choice there, unfortunately.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#232

Post by JCharante »

blacktriangle wrote: post #141
api wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mocked the anti-maskers and especially anti-vaxxers, but this crosses a line on the other end of the spectrum. I would only support an actual ban on mobility if it were to quarantine the virus in one place, like if the Chinese had locked down Wuhan before it managed to get out. That ship has sailed of course. It’s all over the damn place, so there is not much to be gained by travel bans.

The Chinese did lockdown Wuhan....internally. They prevented Chinese from moving in and out of Wuhan while letting the international flights continue.

And all those other countries let international flights come from Wuhan. Countries aren't forced to accept inbound flights.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#233

Post by snarf21 »

user3939382 wrote: post #144
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…

I’ve come to the conclusion that, while ideals about democracy and freedom sound nice, people are busy with their work and families and are not inclined to do or sacrifice much to secure those ideals unless there is a problem with their access to food, followed by other basic necessities. As long as the state provides those things, the public seems to be amenable to pretty much anything. The pervasive corruption in e…

Exactly. I've always said that in the US people don't really care. Even for "important" things like the million woman march, it is fun to do something for 1 day/weekend and then get back to life, all things forgotten. As long as everyone has a flatscreen, Netflix, an iPhone, a decent car and can take a vacation, no one gives a crap. Despite life being materially worse than other times in the past, it is still better than most of the world. People rise up when they have nothing to lose. That isn't the case and won't be for quite a while.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#234

Post by jjgreen »

justinclift wrote: post #196
ghiculescu wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you describe protesting as illegal kinda says it all.

Err... we're literally in a pandemic, where people getting together in large numbers makes things worse. When we're not in pandemic conditions, people are quite welcome to gather and protest whatever the heck they want.

Don't be surprised if that takes, er, a while to happen

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#235

Post by eightails »

partomniscient wrote: post #173
monkeycantype wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Democracy as implemented is stupid. I want to vote on policy I care about and understand, not a person I've never met who I can't necessarily trust that's meant to represent me. The system has failed. I was horrified to see how far we'd fallen. When COVID hit, I thought they'd at least have some basic model on the shelf to extrapolate a response from. Nope. All that kind of forward thinking seems to have gone along w…

> Democracy as implemented is stupid.

> I want to vote on policy I care about and understand, not a person I've never met who I can't necessarily trust that's meant to represent me.

Representative democracy is designed as a compromise between giving power to the people and giving (what's perceived as) too much power to the people.

In the case of a true direct democracy, many fear the ignorance and apathy of the average voter, and wonder if the majority rule would lead to tribalism and repression of minorities. That said, the few actual examples of direct democracy don't really seem to have borne these fears out.

In a way it comes down to how much (or little) confidence you have in your fellow citizen; "the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter," and all that. I veer towards misanthropy, so from that perspective direct democracy doesn't do a lot for me... seems like there's no perfect system.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#236

Post by sk0g »

refurb wrote: post #151
elevenoh wrote: post #7

>“[These laws] represent, in my view, significant expansions of the existing powers of law enforcement agencies away from a traditional focus on investigation and the collection of admissible evidence of specific offenses to disruption, to attack, to take-over, to take-down,” Dr Mann said. Yikes. This is like government being infested by cancel culture (attack w/ no evidence needed, pile on & take down). What phenome…

I might be entirely wrong, but I wonder if it’s shared culture with other SE Asian countries? Having spend time in SE Asia, I’ve found the “collective mindset” to be inaccurate. People there are just as likely to screw over their fellow man as any other country. What’s different is the deference to authority. When the govt cracks down, people don’t really complain or push back. They accept it much more readily. Not s…

Maybe, but that's what comes to my mind first. The media/NewsCorp basically program the country to accept whatever they want passed, seemingly overnight. Most people are quite apathetic politically too, or just willing to accept whatever they hear on TV.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#237

Post by CogitoCogito »

jlangenauer wrote: post #206
noduerme wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of Hannah Arendt's criticism of the Boers - which was sometimes taken out of context. She was just pointing out they had become a tribe of bush-wandering savages living off, but not improving the land, themselves. They had no incentive to improve the land; labor was cheap and their own lives were cheap, and they still have made nothing of the country. When I lived in Australia I was really surprised,…

I'm not sure what your problem is with using harnesses on roof work - it's basic safety equipment, and even with Australia's (very good) safety laws and (mostly good) safety culture, there's still around 50-60 people killed each year in the construction industry.

That statistic alone doesn’t say very much. How does the number of killed per worker compare to other countries? The fact that 50-60 die doesn’t necessarily contradict others’ claims that they are overly focused on safety.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#238

Post by partomniscient »

sk0g wrote: post #230
partomniscient wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Co-written by the guy who fell asleep in parliament. Is he named Jacob or William. What is this bullshit? It's just like Boris. I mean Alexander. Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson. Jacob William Rees-Mogg. How are we governed by people who can't even consistently name themselves? Or are they going for plausible deniability?

Don't know about you mate, but I didn't get an input when my parents named me. Attacking someone for their name is a flimsy stand. If they have done something dodgy, that would go much further to supporting any argument you may be making.

Its not their particular name. It's their inconsistency in using it.

I think previous iterations of existence use names to transfer karmic information for individuals, but we're now at the point that the system is understood well enough by the systemised to game the system itself.

I often wonder about the importance of naming things. Its also a key problem in Computer Science.

Namespacing is useful up to a point. Value can change depending on context.

In the first season of The Crown they make you notice that the Queen double 'Elizabeth'ed herself.

But if the value the name had no longer applies given the actions of the namee carrying out other actions instead, is the name still meaningful or valid or just historically valid or muddled?

I think there's more going on here than you think.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#239

Post by nxmnxm99 »

hestefisk wrote: post #159
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…

I think this is nicely said. I grew up in a Western European country where I was used to most people caring about big societal issues such as health, environment, civil rights and privacy. In most European countries there is real competition between newspapers and an, at least in some places, a tradition of democratic participation. Meanwhile, in Australia, the “free press” is effectively owned by Rupert Murdoch, the…

I can't imagine living in a place where everyone is constantly moralizing about things like "media diversity". How exhausting.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#240

Post by shell0x »

ostenning wrote: post #170
hestefisk wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is nicely said. I grew up in a Western European country where I was used to most people caring about big societal issues such as health, environment, civil rights and privacy. In most European countries there is real competition between newspapers and an, at least in some places, a tradition of democratic participation. Meanwhile, in Australia, the “free press” is effectively owned by Rupert Murdoch, the…

I did the opposite, moved to Germany from Australia. Now I look at my home country and im shocked about how things are degrading there

As a German living in Australia, I’m shocked what happened to Germany.

Politics turned to Left-wing/Green party vs AFD and there is no middle ground anymore. The FDP basically disappeared and there’s a cliff in society over things like the refugee crisis and Merkel’s “everyone is welcome here” politics.

If I’d ever come back to Europe, I’d settle in Switzerland. It just is the better Germany(at least to me).

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