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>a country the size of Europe with a population of 25m You must not have spent much time here. Most Australians live in a narrow band stretched along the south

by cam_l 6y ago

>a country the size of Europe with a population of 25m You must not have spent much time here. Most Australians live in a narrow band stretched along the south east coast. Victoria, which has just come out of a 4 month lockdown, has nearly 7m residents in about 240 thousand sq km. Slightly smaller, but on par with Sweden. Like Sweden, two thirds of the state is virtually empty. Though in Victoria, we have a much more dense urban centre. The rest of Australia is similar, very small, dense urban centre with vast tracks of unoccupied land. Yes, we can compare these if we are careful about the similarities and differences. Our populated areas have similar densities as various population centres across Europe. Our cities have been cut off from regional areas, and our states closed off from each other, which seems like maybe a bigger deal than if European states closed off from each other. Maybe nuance is hard when you have a point to make.

Traster 6y ago
Yes, most of the 25m in Australia live in areas with similar densities as some parts of Europe, that still doesn't mean they're surrounded by several hundred million other people. The problem doesn't scale linearly, policing 750m people isn't like policing 25m people, especially when the 750m have a propensity to all shuffle around a bit, and live in 50 different jurisdictions. My point is that the author isn't careful about the similarities and differences, the author just puts everything down to policy decisions and points of discourse that simply aren't the case in most of the places the author is describing.
- cam_l 6y ago
  >that simply aren't the case Well, that's the problem with nuance isn't it? If you argue the bigger picture, the facts get in the way. If you argue the minutiae if facts, there is always another scope which renders those facts questionable. As I read it, the article made no comparison of anything with respect to AU/NZ, except that these are other western countries with very different policy decisions. Which is quite careful, and benign, in terms of a comparison to make. If you take the example of Sweden from before, Sweden's border with Norway is about the same length as the border between NSW and VIC, about the same number of people either side, communicable languages, (prob also about the same level of derision from those on either side), a few major airports, a couple of difficult roads out, and the rest is by sea. Though they are closer to more populous areas, we also have a couple of billion people to our north, almost a third of the state are originally from overseas, more than half of them from Asia. There was definitely pressure here to stay open. The majority of Sweden's immigration by comparison is from Middle East. So if you look at policy decisions, in comparison, there is not much reason they were not capable of locking off their borders if they chose, both operationally, and in terms of pressure. In the case of the virus, though failure modes are indeed exponential, success modes seem they might be closer to linear. You raised the 'does not scale' argument, but also tried to say the article lacked nuance. I was just pointing out (though I may not disagree in aggregate), I very much reject the premise of 'does not scale' when trying to deny comparisons. I argue that the article did not lack a nuance which it needed, but point out that your response did, in fact, lack nuance where nuance was needed. 'Does not scale' is a tired argument, and rarely stands to scrutiny. Comparisons are never perfect, but they are all about nuance, where do they work and where do they fail?

by cam_l 6y ago

Traster 6y ago

Yes, most of the 25m in Australia live in areas with similar densities as some parts of Europe, that still doesn't mean they're surrounded by several hundred million other people. The problem doesn't scale linearly, policing 750m people isn't like policing 25m people, especially when the 750m have a propensity to all shuffle around a bit, and live in 50 different jurisdictions. My point is that the author isn't careful about the similarities and differences, the author just puts everything down to policy decisions and points of discourse that simply aren't the case in most of the places the author is describing.

cam_l 6y ago
>that simply aren't the case Well, that's the problem with nuance isn't it? If you argue the bigger picture, the facts get in the way. If you argue the minutiae if facts, there is always another scope which renders those facts questionable. As I read it, the article made no comparison of anything with respect to AU/NZ, except that these are other western countries with very different policy decisions. Which is quite careful, and benign, in terms of a comparison to make. If you take the example of Sweden from before, Sweden's border with Norway is about the same length as the border between NSW and VIC, about the same number of people either side, communicable languages, (prob also about the same level of derision from those on either side), a few major airports, a couple of difficult roads out, and the rest is by sea. Though they are closer to more populous areas, we also have a couple of billion people to our north, almost a third of the state are originally from overseas, more than half of them from Asia. There was definitely pressure here to stay open. The majority of Sweden's immigration by comparison is from Middle East. So if you look at policy decisions, in comparison, there is not much reason they were not capable of locking off their borders if they chose, both operationally, and in terms of pressure. In the case of the virus, though failure modes are indeed exponential, success modes seem they might be closer to linear. You raised the 'does not scale' argument, but also tried to say the article lacked nuance. I was just pointing out (though I may not disagree in aggregate), I very much reject the premise of 'does not scale' when trying to deny comparisons. I argue that the article did not lack a nuance which it needed, but point out that your response did, in fact, lack nuance where nuance was needed. 'Does not scale' is a tired argument, and rarely stands to scrutiny. Comparisons are never perfect, but they are all about nuance, where do they work and where do they fail?