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I have to admit, Australia looks particularly weird from afar. I mean, you guys are baking under intense light for huge parts of the year and yet someone though

I have to admit, Australia looks particularly weird from afar. I mean, you guys are baking under intense light for huge parts of the year and yet someone thought "I know, let's burn some coal". I mean, at least here in Canada people have a sort of emotional attachment to burning things for heat. Anyway, I just find it amusing.

crispinb 7y ago
It's a complicated (and somewhat regional) story. But at the root of it is something our politicians have known for a long time, which has made (for example) constitutional alterations almost impossible to achieve: Australians are very, very easy to scare when it comes to any change from the status quo. All a politician has to do is hit the 'this will affect your standard of living' riff (whether justified or not), repeat it endlessly, and a change is usually nixed. Why? It would require a book. Donald Horne's 'The Lucky Country' covered some of it. My (highly contestable) short version is that Australian culture is preturnaturally shallow. There is nothing that holds our society together other than material consumption. Citizens are somewhat aware of this, and are (perhaps subconsciously) terrified of what might happen if anything threatens our lazy prosperity. We have nothing to fall back on - no heroic national myths, no exceptionalism, no religion, no idealism, no common ground.
- BLKNSLVR 7y ago
  We have nothing to fall back on - no heroic national myths, no exceptionalism, no religion, no idealism, no common ground. That's all true, and yet Australians are very protective of what they consider "theirs". Maybe it's because of this historic void meaning all they've got is their material things and social status etc. I'll have to have a read of The Lucky Country, thanks for the reference.
BLKNSLVR 7y ago
I think it's because Australia is so rich in mineral deposits, and there's so much momentum behind Australia depending on digging shit up and selling it overseas that politics lacks the will to fight the existing momentum because there's still so much money in it. If Australia had gotten on front foot and built out more solar / wind / renewables, almost to excess, it would be able to then apply that potentially excess power into either local manufacturing with much lower electricity / energy overheads and / or "exportables" such as hydrogen fuel cells (effectively exporting our free and abundant sunlight). This technology is under discussion at the moment, so maybe it's not matured to the point of viability even now, but it's not something that's factored into any Australian political speeches about the country's future economic opportunities. It IS amusing. It provides great insight into the competing priorities of the human condition. Then it becomes depressing.
bamboozled 7y ago
It’s weirder when you visit and half the place is on fire and in drought and they still want to keep it up.

crispinb 7y ago

It's a complicated (and somewhat regional) story. But at the root of it is something our politicians have known for a long time, which has made (for example) constitutional alterations almost impossible to achieve: Australians are very, very easy to scare when it comes to any change from the status quo. All a politician has to do is hit the 'this will affect your standard of living' riff (whether justified or not), repeat it endlessly, and a change is usually nixed. Why? It would require a book. Donald Horne's 'The Lucky Country' covered some of it. My (highly contestable) short version is that Australian culture is preturnaturally shallow. There is nothing that holds our society together other than material consumption. Citizens are somewhat aware of this, and are (perhaps subconsciously) terrified of what might happen if anything threatens our lazy prosperity. We have nothing to fall back on - no heroic national myths, no exceptionalism, no religion, no idealism, no common ground.

BLKNSLVR 7y ago
We have nothing to fall back on - no heroic national myths, no exceptionalism, no religion, no idealism, no common ground. That's all true, and yet Australians are very protective of what they consider "theirs". Maybe it's because of this historic void meaning all they've got is their material things and social status etc. I'll have to have a read of The Lucky Country, thanks for the reference.

BLKNSLVR 7y ago

I think it's because Australia is so rich in mineral deposits, and there's so much momentum behind Australia depending on digging shit up and selling it overseas that politics lacks the will to fight the existing momentum because there's still so much money in it. If Australia had gotten on front foot and built out more solar / wind / renewables, almost to excess, it would be able to then apply that potentially excess power into either local manufacturing with much lower electricity / energy overheads and / or "exportables" such as hydrogen fuel cells (effectively exporting our free and abundant sunlight). This technology is under discussion at the moment, so maybe it's not matured to the point of viability even now, but it's not something that's factored into any Australian political speeches about the country's future economic opportunities. It IS amusing. It provides great insight into the competing priorities of the human condition. Then it becomes depressing.

bamboozled 7y ago

It’s weirder when you visit and half the place is on fire and in drought and they still want to keep it up.