46 ms·

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 co

• lethologica 5y ago
  So what are we Aussies missing out on then?
  • charbonneau 5y ago
    I don't expect you to understand, but in Europe, people actually care about their rights [1]. There are weekly protests with lots of impact [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28139889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28139889 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/protest-stop-checking-my-sources-i-am-telling-you-the-truth https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/protest-stop-c...
    • shric 5y ago
      Link 2 is a 404 for me. Hilariously, Australians protest about their rights by trying their best to extend lockdowns further [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/24/anti-lockdown-protests-across-australia-as-covid-cases-surge-to-record-levels-in-sydney https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/24/anti-...
      • logicchains 5y ago
        Why is it hilarious? The whole point of human rights is they they don't just disappear whenever there's an emergency, otherwise the next dictator who comes along will just declare an emergency and violate everyone's rights, as has happened countless times in history. It's sad not funny that people protesting their rights being violated just leads to their rights being violated even more.
        • stavros 5y ago
          So, in your view, human rights cannot be suspended, even if there is an emergency? So things like banning indoor meetings should be allowed to continue, even when there is a pandemic? I didn't protest the lockdowns because it seems reasonable to me that you'd want to ban proximity to curtail the spread of a disease that spreads by proximity. That doesn't mean I won't protest a dictator just declaring an emergency and violating everyone's rights.
          • eightails 5y ago
            > So, in your view, human rights cannot be suspended, even if there is an emergency? This does seem a pretty common misconception. People seem to forget that even the most liberal countries still regularly and systematically infringe on people's rights, e.g. by imprisoning criminals. But you don't see many of the anti-lockdown types protesting the existence of prisons. In both cases, it's a matter of proportionally balancing the loss of individual rights with the interests (and indeed, other conflicting rights) of the community as a whole.
            • lethologica 5y ago
              The imprisonment of criminals is a governments way of fulfilling one of its primary duties, keeping its citizens safe. It’s not 100% accurate of course but I’d much rather take that than wondering if my neighbour will kill me. If you’re saying a government shouldn’t be locking people up so that an individuals rights aren’t violated, then you’re saying a government shouldn’t be looking after the wellbeing of its people. In which case, you’re essentially talking about anarchy.
    • logicchains 5y ago
      >I don't expect you to understand, but in Europe, people actually care about their rights [1] That's a bit condescending. In recent weeks there were tens of thousands of people marching on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne to protest covid lockdowns and defend their right to free assembly.
      • BLKNSLVR 5y ago
        Fucking perfect example. Exemplifies exactly the things that get Australians hot and bothered enough to protest - getting it totally and absolutely arse-about. Perfect example, nicely done.
      • bradrn 5y ago
        > tens of thousands of people marching on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne to protest covid lockdowns and defend their right to free assembly As an Aussie I must say that I see these protests rather differently. For better or worse, Australia has gotten used to having zero COVID: people here tend to see the protesters not as brave individuals defending their rights, but as idiots who recklessly endanger the lives of others by spreading disease through a largely unvaccinated populace. Many people here are of the opinion that some ‘fundamental’ rights can and should be suspended in a critical emergency.
      • shric 5y ago
        Do you have a source for "tens of thousands"? I think it was fewer than 10k. Thankfully only 3,500 in Sydney out of a population of 5 million. Fortunately the vast majority of Australians aren't completely selfish and thoughtless. Nobody likes lockdowns. The government doesn't benefit from them, it's not lining some evil overlord's pockets.
        • jlangenauer 5y ago
          I believe the governments in Australia do benefit from the lockdowns. I'm from Australia, but live in Germany, so when I look back home from here, I'm shocked by how deliberately the fear of Covid has been stoked and played up in Australia. Constantly in and out of lockdowns, daily press conferences about death and case numbers, no path out and no hope. It feels to me that Australia will be a country suffering from PTSD once it finds a way out of the pandemic and impossible dream of zero covid. (For comparison, here in Europe, the pandemic is largely over, and our vaccination wall is looking strong enough that even what's coming over winter shouldn't be too bad.)
    • onethought 5y ago
      Which rights would those be? The ones that were given up in order to join the EU? Most EU countries are not sovereign states, given by the fact they don’t control their borders nor their economy (See Greece, or the other affectionately named PIGS countries). There is an insane amount of influence from Germany and Belgium. This is a glasshouses and stones situation.
  • BiteCode_dev 5y ago
    You don't because you are living in a period where everything is wonderul for Australia. You know what they say: everybody is a genius in a bull market. So you have sun, good food, plenty of money and little immigration. Life is good (if you are not living in the desert naked). Unfortunatly, there is nowhere in the world where things stay nice and easy. The run ended in europe after 1970, it ended in the US after 1990 and it will end in Autralia. Now, when things are getting hard, having weak democratic institutions, no political awareness and corporate medling is going to hit hard. But I wouldn't be too cocky because it's not like we didn't mess up loads of things in our own countries, even if we have strong political commitment. Besides, if I could enjoy your life style, I would probably be way less sensitive to privacy issues. So don't take what I said as the words of someone who has the ethical upper hand, because I certainly don't. And Australia is damn comfy. Also my partner will probably convince me to go back live there with her at one point, so I'll enjoy it as much as I can.
    • h0l0cube 5y ago
      > The run ended in europe after 1970, it ended in the US after 1990 and it will end in Autralia. I wouldn't be so sure that they'll ever need to abandon their crutch of geological resources. There's nothing particularly industrious or forward-looking about Australia, precisely because they can dig up dirt and sell it at a premium.
      • BiteCode_dev 5y ago
        The world is complex. Climate change, pollution, water shortage, demographic fluctuation, power grabbing, economical crisis, etc. So many things can happen and change the rules of the game entirely. Not to mention all what we don't know. The book anti-fragile have a very good bit on that. The point is everything moves, nothing stays the same, good and bad runs go hand in hand. But imagine if a dictator of the last century had access to Facebook social graph... You gotta be careful when it's good, to not have it too bad when it's getting bad later
        • h0l0cube 5y ago
• BFLpL0QNek 5y ago
  This was written in 1964 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country , it still rings true today.
  • BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    Have to quote this bit for those too lazy to follow the link: Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.
    • api 5y ago
      Sounds like a weird slacker version of the resource curse.
      • noduerme 5y ago
        Yes - but also Arendt's concept of the colonist as the superfluous man, unnecessary and having no accommodation in European society, basically getting offloaded for resource extraction to remote parts of the world and falling into tribalism and illiterate degradation. Happy thought there.
        • mc32 5y ago
          How do you expect people react to something like that? There have been lots of people offloaded to far away places for resource extraction as you call it. People adapt to the demands. I think this is a borders on odd expectations of people. Going by this Irish and Chinese sent over for railroad building were superfluous people.
          • noduerme 5y ago
            No, the British and French, Belgians, Dutch and Germans who went off to find wealth in the colonies were poor-er than their elder brothers who joined the landed aristocracy or the Church, but they were nothing like the Irish or Chinese who were deported or forced out by starvation. They went to the colonies with full rights - beyond the rights they had at home - to do whatever they liked. And in Africa especially, mostly what they did was rape, drink and degenerate. Which was what they would have done back home; that's why they were given one-way boat rides. That and the fact that the empires had so much money, there was no way to spend it in the home country. And so many sons there weren't enough places for them all in the bureaucracy. But no, it's not expecting too much of people to think they might retain their civilization when they willingly and gleefully go take up ownership of a plantation in a colony. Frankly, the Irish and Chinese in America were far more civilized than the Boers ever were, because they had to be. The Boers just showed up somewhere they could act like petty gods over black people and they did, until they forgot civilization completely.
• retsibsi 5y ago
  Can you flesh this out more? I'm not asking for academic rigour, but at the moment it's hard to engage because your critique is so sweeping and unspecific.
  • thisone22 5y ago
    It's just bog standard Australian cultural cringe. I've spent a good chunk of my adulthood living in various countries in Europe, and Australia. Europhilic nonsense such as in the GP betray their almost total lack of understanding as to the actual state of affairs in European countries. Corruption is everywhere. Corporate interests influence policy.. everywhere. Moronic government decisions abound.. literally everywhere. Nasty media companies... everywhere. Imperfect educational systems ... everywhere. The racism in Western Europe is _significantly_ worse, I can tell you that from personal experience. in Europe, you can be the wrong kind of white in your OWN country - just talk to some Catalans or Basques about what that's like... ...but of course your country kid from Tamworth will have no idea of any of that while they go off clubbing in Berlin or living their French food fantasy in Lyon because 1 - They don't speak the language, which means 2 - They can't understand the news and also means 3 - They can't talk to actual locals about what real life is like there. Yet EuRopE is So mUCh bEttEr. (Just wait until they start interacting with the German, French or Spanish bureaucracies and see what kind of tune they're singing after 2 years.. ) And even worse, they think the English speaking populace of any country is a reflection of what the rest of that country is like. The naivete is astounding. Literally the worst kind of Australian that exists.
    • MisterTea 5y ago
      As an American I have heard many people romanticize Europe and compared it favorably to the USA in terms of politics, social progression, etc. Rose colored glasses, grass is always greener and all that.
      • thisone22 5y ago
        Yep, exactly like this.
      • 5y ago
• wormseed 5y ago
  Australia's covid policy of indefinitely banning citizens from leaving was the last straw for me. I won't be back.
  • api 5y ago
    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.
    • tazjin 5y ago
      Travel bans are one of the most visible actions politicians can take and this is all about politicians doing visible things for populist reasons.
    • blacktriangle 5y ago
      The Chinese did lockdown Wuhan....internally. They prevented Chinese from moving in and out of Wuhan while letting the international flights continue.
      • _-david-_ 5y ago
        They did that after it had already spread out of Wuhan.
      • JCharante 5y ago
        And all those other countries let international flights come from Wuhan. Countries aren't forced to accept inbound flights.
  • sumedh 5y ago
    What was the justification in banning citizens from leaving?
• noxer 5y ago
  Don't forget they disarmed the people. If some people ever start to care they wont have the boomstick power. They maybe be upside down but authoritarian regimes work the same, secure the monopoly on force by removing arms is a key step for any authoritarian gov.
  • BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    Guns in the hands of the Australians who want guns in their hands is an outcome that's about a thousand times worse than a "disarmed people". Also, anyone think that a US civilian militia has more than a snowball's chance in hell against any committed government-deployed force? Tell 'im 'e's dreamin'
    • Cyril_HN 5y ago
      That's not the point. The point is that it means a government must resort to violence and it may be unwilling to do so. Whereas if people don't have guns, then the government can be incredibly overpowering without having to step over the threshold of violence, which makes it more likely.
      • brokenmachine 5y ago
        Governments have no problem "stepping over the threshold" and using violence. If you think that the US government wouldn't use violence against its own people for breaking laws, even hastily-written or unfair laws, you're sorely mistaken.
        • candiodari 5y ago
          Yes, but there is a very low limit to the number of people that can be on the other end of the violence, and with guns, that limit is even much lower. When push comes to shove, guns allow normal people to escalate violence to the point the government stops MUCH quicker and faster than without guns.
          • 5y ago
• georgeplusplus 5y ago
  Came here to say almost 80% of the countries economy is dependent on China. So let’s call the corporate interests what they are. Tributes to the CCP.
• eightails 5y ago
  Many of these criticisms can -- and indeed already have -- been extended to plenty of western democracies including the US. Chomsky and many others have been warning that corporate and political interests are infringing on the (increasingly centralised) media and other institutions for several decades. Questions around the strength of democratic institutions are raised regularly, with the various Trump sagas being a prominent recent example. Australia has been the test-run (or the canary in the coalmine, depending on your view) for privacy-destroying legislation -- following the footsteps and wishes of the NSA, of course. Declines in public education and communication infrastructure, widespread political apathy? Join the club.
  • elzbardico 5y ago
    Funnily enough I’ve been trying for years to make my right wing friends to read Chomsky. The real enemy is a vastly far different entity than our childish concepts of right or left.
    • stOneskull 5y ago
      many writers over the years have written about the evil of usury.
• fidesomnes 5y ago
  > 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. The irony of this is hilarious!
• user3939382 5y ago
  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 every major institution of our society, which grows by the day, is a testament to this.
  • snarf21 5y ago
    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.
  • zo1 5y ago
    You can also have a look at Zimbabwe as a further example of this. Even though society there was absolutely breaking down, including the ability to get food/water/electricity/police-protection, but people were still hunkering down and doing their best to maintain normalcy. People still sent their kids to school, they still dated, they still went to work, figured out ways to get a "salary" in whatever form they could, made adhoc businesses, had cellphones, internet, traveled if they could, and newspapers were printed, reporters roamed and reported, etc. It didn't devolve into a end of the world apocalypse scenario that you'd imagine. Humans are incredibly resilient and they really just want to get on with their lives and be left alone. I guess they do so by compartmentalizing and rationalizing away things happening outside of their immediate view. It's the "easy" aspect of being able to tell politicians to "meddle" with other people and spend "other" people's money that gets them enthusiastic because it requires very little effort.
• partomniscient 5y ago
  >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. I haven't thought of it exactly like that, but I appreciate (whilst shuddering) your take on things. I basically see it in a similar way, that its a sinking stepping stone the UK was using to get further ahead, but lost its hold/interest because of US dominance (which the UK kind of gave birth to in a strange way due to its self-important superiority complex). It still seems to me like they're trying to squeeze all the value out of it onto other continents (or tiny tax havens) and multinational corporations so that nothing of value is left [1]. Whilst doing it with just enough plausible deniability (e.g. the stolen generation) and fake sincerity to try to pass as genuine. Unfortunately I still live here. I'm not a beach person, it's not my SOMA. Instead of Brave New World or 1984, I think it'll end up more like V for Vendetta. Unfortunately they seemed to be astute enough to put our Federal parliament house in the middle of a roundabout in an arbitrary out of the way place called Canberra. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW_65A-nLoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW_65A-nLoo
  • 1337shadow 5y ago
    > I think it'll end up more like V for Vendetta. I also love to read this kind of parallel between fiction and reality. However, when you have some experience working in defense you find out reality is more like: there's real criminal to catch, real victims to protect and to save, it's not like we have any time for non critical stuff such as going after pacific dissidents, and controlling all the medias like in V would be so much work and pointless it's not even considered. About Exxon, well international finance is particularly hard indeed which you'll find out quite fast you start working in the AML sector, but guess what we* are making progress. But let's face it as scientists: there will be no silver bullet. All we have left is to compare cost/benefit ratios of different compromises. As such, you will always find a single case of something to complain about on some tech forum if that's what you get your kicks from. *we: people who are actively working on it rather than complaining anonymously about single cases and making generalities about it in order to propagate some agitation on some obscure tech forum to predict a future like in a teenager comic book It's funny here, users complain about Exxon and others having unethical behaviors or even breaking the law, I relate to that, but at the same time they are against using tech they create to increase security. How do you live in such a contradiction? Not to mention mass surveillance will create tech jobs you are probably part of the small number of people who can apply and get hired and actually work on it with their own ethic.
• oxymoran 5y ago
  That sounds exactly like the US.
  • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    The Boston-DC corridor (sans a few impoverished dots) and urban/wealthy West coast maybe. Doesn't really fit for the southeast, middle America and the mountain west.
• pibechorro 5y ago
  Public education would not have helped. If its anything like the dumbed down, one size fits all, factory worker optimized Prussian system in much of the west, it reinforces a lack of critical thinking, independence and holding authorit6 accountable.
• 1337shadow 5y ago
  I like reading comments like this, it's very typical of people who think "they are aware and know while others are ignorant", from one hand it's so moralist and condescending but from where people are standing it's just completely lunar, it's so Don Quichotte it's really a breath of fresh air! Reality is: people want more security, that's part of their expectations from paying taxes, mass surveillance offers just that. They want to choose a doctor instead of choosing their treatment, unlike you, they don't fantasize on being aware of every aspect of all politics, going to vote every day on every amendment, they just want professionals to do their job just like they do theirs, they accept that these can make mistakes, or not do exactly what they would have because yes, they have their job and their families - which, you know, is two jobs already - to take care of rather than "they prefer to spend their days at the beach".
• hestefisk 5y ago
  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 government needs to make voting for federal elections compulsory in order to get people to take a stance / have an opinion (yes, you will get a fine if you don’t vote!), and our leading politicians still debate whether climate change is real or not. What matters to the average John / Jane is not public health, wars, civil rights, or media diversity but whether you get to watch the “footy” on Wednesday nights. I say this as a European who has resettled in Australia and become a citizen. The country has welcomed me and given me a good life style, but how I wish sometimes Australia would wake up to the things that really matter.
  • ostenning 5y ago
    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
    • shell0x 5y ago
      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).
      • sva_ 5y ago
        What do you mean the FDP disappeared? They're at >12% in current estimates, which is higher than in the 2017/2013 elections. They've only been ranked higher in 2009 (14.6%, financial crisis), and in 1961 (12.8%).
      • 5y ago
• nextstep 5y ago
  Having done the same move from the US (to Western Europe) I have come to the same conclusion. The United States is by and for the corporations; there’s a large enough bourgeois that think the system is meritocratic or in any way lives up to the country’s states ideals that a social consciousness shift is unlikely. It also helps that most Americans have so little time off work that they’ll never see another developed nation up close, let alone read about much of the world.
  • nemo44x 5y ago
    What's interesting is how many more Europeans emigrate to the USA compared to American's that move to Europe. 3 times as many, in fact.
    • timbit42 5y ago
      What's interesting is why they move. Europeans would mostly move for the ability to make money. Americans would mostly move for the better society.
• whckt 5y ago
  This is one of the things that's been worrying me for a while. I worry that Australia's experiencing its last bubble. Germany is somewhere I want to settle down, but it's so hard to up and lift your whole life somewhere with so much uncertainty. To the point of the post, though — I'm not so worried about surveillance in Australia. The bigger worry for me is the lack of our population's interest in real issues. When the level of surveillance does become a real issue, will our population even care?
• shell0x 5y ago
  I lived in Singapore before and it's more run like a company and. It has no personal freedoms, but on the other side they have HDBs(government housing) which is affordable for their residents. Australia has no affordable housing alternatives at all and the government doesn't even seem to care. Australia has more freedoms than Singapore, but far less than Europe.
• titzer 5y ago
  My experience after having grown up in America, living in Germany 7 years, and then living almost a year in Australia, is that all those you write might be completely true, but even then, Australia is actually behind the United States in all the things you mentioned. Other than everything being redonk expensive, it's a Anglosphere paradise compared to the United States. The US is decades ahead of Australia in terms of its descent into a corporate-owned shitshow.
  • adventured 5y ago
    Where did the US enter into the conversation, other than as an attempted distraction from the points the parent was making specifically about Australia? The parent never mentioned the US. The linked story is also not about the US. Apparently North Korea is terrible compared to Australia. And yet the parent's comment was also not about North Korea and nor is the linked article. We could run the gamut on countries, there are another hundred plus after North Korea that are not great places to live compared to the affluent top.
    • titzer 5y ago
      It's for perspective.
  • timbit42 5y ago
    It would be better if Australia wasn't on the same track as the United States.
• vlasky 5y ago
  Just curious - whereabouts in Europe have you lived and in your opinion, what are the best places for an Aussie expat?
  • L_226 5y ago
    I live in Berlin atm, and spend a not insignificant amount of time in Italy. Honestly it will depend on you and what you want to get out of it. I'd go for somewhere with jobs appropriate for your skills/qualifications and also for somewhere that does not speak English primarily (my office is an English speaking office though YMMV). It will be harder of course, but more rewarding in the end. It took me 2.5 years to be approximately conversational in German, still not professionally fluent though. But I can at least talk shit at the späti with people. If I had to move again I would probably go to Portugal and try for a fully remote position.
• GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Here in Europe we have many of these issues too. In the Netherlands the country is practically run by big corporate, the leading party is basically a string puppet for them. Though the opposition is still strong. We also have extreme house price increases, decline in public education and health (due to budget cuts and privatisation). Australia is very neoliberal but so are many countries in Europe. Though there is a lot of difference between EU countries. The Nordic countries and Germany are a lot less like this. But between Australia and the Netherlands there isn't actually that much difference when it comes to corporate interests running the country. PS I've lived in Australia a couple years too :)
• hkai 5y ago
  And you really think a socialist revolution is a way to solve it?
• chiefalchemist 5y ago
  > "Decades of bull markets, house price increases, a decline in public education, torpedoed communication infrastructure and complicit "independent" media has resulted in a wealthy, ignorant and complacent society who allow their representatives full control over their lives. It is not that they don't care about these issues, they are not even aware they are issues at all." This bit - as well as the overall comment in general - describes nearly every Western democracy at this point. Yes, there are variations but the arc is similar overall. The issues and narratives come down from higher up and are distributed via tightly owned (read: powerful) media conglomerates. It's simply one distraction after another. The collective memory of the masses resembles - pardon the editorial - a gold fish. The idea that the internet would open hearts and minds has yet to materialize as promised. Perhaps it's time to prepare for the realization that it never will? Or at least stop being so naive as to think that it wouldn't be used against us? Because as it is, it is.
  • titzer 5y ago
    This is the role of the attention economy. To fill up your face with screens and ads and make you into a good little consumer, fat and happy, an atrophied mind sitting on your duff like a Wall-E passenger, constantly distracted by fads and sucking down liquid shittrition.
• diegoperini 5y ago
  > it is just a continent owned by corporate interests that happens to also have people living on it. An Australian Youtuber who focuses on topics related to macro economy actually touched this subject. Here is the video. "Why Australia is Actually an American Company" by Economics Explained (2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq8H0GHU8AQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq8H0GHU8AQ
• antisol 5y ago
  >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. Not a bad metaphor. I've always thought of it as kind of like Puerto Rico: essentially a US state, but without any of the good things that come with that. Like, you know, basic human rights such as freedom of speech. We have all the crony capitalism, oligarchy, and pseudo-democracy, but none of the fun stuff that the seppos have. And shitty internet. But hey, there are beaches. And footy. If that's your thing.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• beej67 5y ago
  "Everyone is so rich that nobody cares about politics anymore and they all just go to the beach instead" sounds like a wonderful end-goal for which all countries should strive.
  • missedthecue 5y ago
    This was my immediate thought as well. I'm not sure why I should think it's a bad thing that most of the population doesn't need to concern themselves with the vicissitudes of the political landscape.
• dkdk8283 5y ago
  China has significant influence over AU - this isn’t surprising at all. China is a dumpster fire and so is any country that follows their lead.
• plugger 5y ago
  > 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. Since leaving the USA and moving to Australia I've come to the conclusion that the USA is in a unstoppable decline and will continue to degrade, both in terms of society and infrastructure, for the foreseeable future. And say what you will about Australia being a driven by corporate interests but one thing we've gotten right in comparison to the rest of the Western world is our insistence of handling the pandemic correctly, ie placing human life over the short term economic interests of the upper class. We lock down in Western Australia when we have one case of COVID in the community. I don't believe ANY European or North American country can say the same. Who's beholden to corporate interests again?
  • joshsyn 5y ago
    So who pays to support dozens of people who lost their jobs in the name of protecting one guy?
    • thm76 5y ago
      It's not about protecting one guy, but about stopping the spread as early as possible.
      • joshsyn 5y ago
        So as an individual, it doesn't matter if your livelihood is destroyed because for the greater good of the community?
        • plugger 5y ago
          Correct. A conscious decision has been made in Australia to prioritize human life over business profits. What most didn't realize is that by choosing this path we're optimizing both, eg because we don't have any community spread our economy is booming.
• tekknik 5y ago
  > Decades of bull markets, house price increases, a decline in public education, torpedoed communication infrastructure and complicit "independent" media has resulted in a wealthy, ignorant and complacent society who allow their representatives full control over their lives. It is not that they don't care about these issues, they are not even aware they are issues at all. This is sounding an awful lot like the Dems in the US
  • kadomony 5y ago
    This isn’t unique to one party. This is American politics. You can’t simply ascribe it to one party because you lean the other way.
• kadomony 5y ago
  You also just described the USA.