Over the past two years, Australian and New Zealand's governments have become great examples of how statism can take over so quickly. As an outsider, I feel really sad for people in Australia and New Zealand.
Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours
31–40 of 397 posts
Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is there a way out of surveillance? Vote with your feet. Divest out of Australia. Make sure there's a brain drain out of the country.
Wouldn’t a brain drain lead to even dumber laws?
Democracy leads to dumb laws. It's a tyranny of the bottom 51%ile.
I say this a little tongue in cheek, but it's a real problem I've yet to understand -- how can an outlier intelligent person thrive in a system that caters to the masses? The masses have an incentive to drain any marginal value out of the intelligent, and have the political power to do so.
Edit: @majormajor sorry HN wont let me reply. The reason would be because the bottom 51% have something to gain from extraction. The top 51% however are already superior and dont need to rely on extraction to fulfill their wants/needs.
51% might have been too broad a number, but do you get my drift? Those in the lower intelligence brackets have a lot to gain, but those in the upper intelligence brackets do not have a lot to gain
Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours
#33I don't know where this is going. Perhaps prepping for the global warming riots. Is there a way out of surveillance?
> Is there a way out of surveillance? Vote with your feet. Divest out of Australia. Make sure there's a brain drain out of the country.
Or vote with your… vote. The relative benefit is that it can actually work, in theory at least.
Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours
#34I guess my days as a paying customer of FastMail are coming to an end. I don’t expect to ever become a legitimate target of Australian law enforcement, but there is always abuse.
Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours
#35Is there anywhere where you aren’t being watched now?
If the police have a warrant to watch you, then, no. But that is as it should be. As long as there is correct judicial oversight of these capabilities, then this is the correct way for things to be. Nobody should have an expectation of being able to conduct criminal business without surveillance. The issue comes in when the justice system is not providing correct oversight for this capability. That is wrong and shoul…
> If the police have a warrant to watch you, then, no. But that is as it should be.
Is it? Any government could make $thing illegal tomorrow. Anyone associated with $thing could then be watched and imprisoned. With judicial oversight.
Some possible values from $thing taken from history: being gay, (not) being christian, being a pacifist, being poor/homeless
The above have all been persecuted in the past. Sometimes in the present. All quite legally. With judicial oversight. With political (and often popular) support.
Edit: formatting, HN doesn't seem to like lists
Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours
#36It's a good thing everyone surrendered their firearms to this same government. Once they know you can't resist anything they can do anything to you. I'm guessing NZ is next now that they've confiscated nearly every firearm they could.
Yes. If we had our firearms we could shoot back. Pew pew!
Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours
#37What is it about Australia that is driving it to be so uniquely totalitarian among the English-speaking countries? I always envisioned it culturally more individualistic than the UK, but they've gone even farther down the path of state control and surveillance.
Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours
#38this seems to coincide with some pretty aggressive [arguable very over-reaching] lockdowns in the country as well...
not looking good.
Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn’t a brain drain lead to even dumber laws?
Democracy leads to dumb laws. It's a tyranny of the bottom 51%ile. I say this a little tongue in cheek, but it's a real problem I've yet to understand -- how can an outlier intelligent person thrive in a system that caters to the masses? The masses have an incentive to drain any marginal value out of the intelligent, and have the political power to do so. Edit: @majormajor sorry HN wont let me reply. The reason would…
Why would the bottom 51% have more influence than the top 51% or the middle 25-76% or whatever other random fraction you pull out of your butt?
Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours
#40I don't know where this is going. Perhaps prepping for the global warming riots. Is there a way out of surveillance?
I bet they're pretty worried about unrest from climate change. Most of the continent is pretty hot and arid already and it's not going to get better when temperatures start rising.