5 ms·

Problem with Commonwealth countries are * while salaries are higher than eg most of Europe, they're still nowhere near the US - US salaries are often at least

by bedobi 3y ago

Problem with Commonwealth countries are * while salaries are higher than eg most of Europe, they're still nowhere near the US - US salaries are often at least double (or more, a lot more) * their cost of living and taxes are high * they're backwards and insular (maybe you think the US is too, but the US has 350 million people, Australia has like 25, lol, so insular takes on a whole new meaning there) * they're not as diverse as the US (sure, London is diverse, but still, the diversity of the US smokes them all, so many different cities here with so many different demographics, climates etc etc) I'm saying that as a Scandi who's lived in UK, Canada, Australia and now US. Of course the US has a lot of problems too, but as a destination for skilled immigrants, the others don't even compare IMO.

XorNot 3y ago
> they're backwards and insular Care to expand on this?
- bedobi 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - jclulow 3y ago
    I'm Australian and though I don't live there now, I did for 27 years. Most of the things you're describing are just a function of the people you were hanging out with. I knew people like that, and I chose different friends. People definitely used gay as a slur when I was in high school, and then people grew out of it because it was childish and awful. Perhaps it was at about the time that some of us came out as gay. Diversity is certainly not uniform in the country, obviously, and exposure is a critical part of being well rounded. We had a lot of people from PNG and Sri Lanka where I grew up, and when I went to Uni there were a lot of foreign students from Kenya and other places. Being weird or racist about it would have been pretty fucking unacceptable to me and my friends. But I have met people who are indeed weirdly racist or sexist. Also, I have noticed a pretty broad shift in this from people in my parents generation to people in my generation, and I'm sure again to people younger than myself. I think this actually happening in lots of places though, not just Australia. As far as swearing goes... Yes? We swear a lot. It works for us! We have lots of problems, and a truly horrendous history of colonial violence -- which we have at least begun to address in history class in schools in the last thirty years. Lots more work to do. I'm sorry you had a bad go of it, but please don't assume that you have a picture of every Australian.
    - bedobi 3y ago
      Of course not all Australians are like that. But I've lived in many different countries and in my experience nowhere even comes close to how ubiquitous, accepted, even encouraged all the above are in Australia, how large a share of the population really are like that. Let's be real, it's not small. And sure, you can make a bubble of good people around you, but you have to exist outside it as part of your everyday life, and that's not easy if you're the type to notice these things. In the US, you could never ever get away with saying half the things that are casually said in an Australian workplace, at a social gathering etc etc, it simply would not be tolerated. I mean, try to imagine a white American acting all surprised and impressed a dark skinned person speaks good English, and chirpily complimenting them for it. It would never happen, lol. But in Australia it's par for the course. Anyway this is my experience and how I see it, completely understand if others see it differently. But I do think anyone who's under the impression Australia doesn't still have a loooot of catching up to do are kidding themselves.
      - tomhoward 3y ago
        All the points of criticism you've asserted as being true in the present tense in all of Australia are heavily, increasingly pushed back on these days. Sure, Australia may have been slower to catch up than the rest of the world; it's a small, isolated country. But it's all changing very quickly now, and indeed has been for a long time. I grew up in Melbourne in the 80s surrounded by many different cultures, and spent time living in Sydney in the 00s. Sure racism existed but has been increasingly unacceptable ever since I was young and is not tolerated among anyone I know of now. "Gay" as a pejorative has been unacceptable among anyone in inner Melbourne and Sydney since the early 00s - i.e., for at least 20 years. No doubt you'll find exceptions and segments of the population that are slower to reform, just as you do in all places/cultures. Most of that is circumstantial; reform happens when people are exposed to people from different walks of life they become aware of them and more tolerant of them. That's how it's always happened, everywhere. Moralising about these kinds of things really serves only to feel morally superior in yourself, rather than understanding the society you're critiquing. To slur the whole country with your observations of a particular region/cohort at a particular time is to succumb to the same kind of failing of which you're accusing others.

by bedobi 3y ago

XorNot 3y ago

> they're backwards and insular Care to expand on this?

bedobi 3y ago
[flagged]
- jclulow 3y ago
  I'm Australian and though I don't live there now, I did for 27 years. Most of the things you're describing are just a function of the people you were hanging out with. I knew people like that, and I chose different friends. People definitely used gay as a slur when I was in high school, and then people grew out of it because it was childish and awful. Perhaps it was at about the time that some of us came out as gay. Diversity is certainly not uniform in the country, obviously, and exposure is a critical part of being well rounded. We had a lot of people from PNG and Sri Lanka where I grew up, and when I went to Uni there were a lot of foreign students from Kenya and other places. Being weird or racist about it would have been pretty fucking unacceptable to me and my friends. But I have met people who are indeed weirdly racist or sexist. Also, I have noticed a pretty broad shift in this from people in my parents generation to people in my generation, and I'm sure again to people younger than myself. I think this actually happening in lots of places though, not just Australia. As far as swearing goes... Yes? We swear a lot. It works for us! We have lots of problems, and a truly horrendous history of colonial violence -- which we have at least begun to address in history class in schools in the last thirty years. Lots more work to do. I'm sorry you had a bad go of it, but please don't assume that you have a picture of every Australian.
  - bedobi 3y ago
    Of course not all Australians are like that. But I've lived in many different countries and in my experience nowhere even comes close to how ubiquitous, accepted, even encouraged all the above are in Australia, how large a share of the population really are like that. Let's be real, it's not small. And sure, you can make a bubble of good people around you, but you have to exist outside it as part of your everyday life, and that's not easy if you're the type to notice these things. In the US, you could never ever get away with saying half the things that are casually said in an Australian workplace, at a social gathering etc etc, it simply would not be tolerated. I mean, try to imagine a white American acting all surprised and impressed a dark skinned person speaks good English, and chirpily complimenting them for it. It would never happen, lol. But in Australia it's par for the course. Anyway this is my experience and how I see it, completely understand if others see it differently. But I do think anyone who's under the impression Australia doesn't still have a loooot of catching up to do are kidding themselves.
    - tomhoward 3y ago
      All the points of criticism you've asserted as being true in the present tense in all of Australia are heavily, increasingly pushed back on these days. Sure, Australia may have been slower to catch up than the rest of the world; it's a small, isolated country. But it's all changing very quickly now, and indeed has been for a long time. I grew up in Melbourne in the 80s surrounded by many different cultures, and spent time living in Sydney in the 00s. Sure racism existed but has been increasingly unacceptable ever since I was young and is not tolerated among anyone I know of now. "Gay" as a pejorative has been unacceptable among anyone in inner Melbourne and Sydney since the early 00s - i.e., for at least 20 years. No doubt you'll find exceptions and segments of the population that are slower to reform, just as you do in all places/cultures. Most of that is circumstantial; reform happens when people are exposed to people from different walks of life they become aware of them and more tolerant of them. That's how it's always happened, everywhere. Moralising about these kinds of things really serves only to feel morally superior in yourself, rather than understanding the society you're critiquing. To slur the whole country with your observations of a particular region/cohort at a particular time is to succumb to the same kind of failing of which you're accusing others.