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shirro

@ shirro @aussie.zone

Posts
1
Comments
289
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Three months into Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s, has it been a success?

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  • Nah. I disagree. There were good intentions from many of our politicians even when some don't know good from bad.

    There are still people who go into politics in Australia because they want to make the world better. They aren't all crooks. Of course once you get into politics you want to be successful and when you have a populist policy that will win votes sometimes you don't want to look too closely at the cons.

    It's all open to manipulation. There is a very real threat to our privacy, freedom, democracy, sovereignty and more when we supply personal data to these companies. I agree this shit is very dangerous. I don't believe that was the intention. It's just a consequence. Either way we should be concerned.

  • Three months into Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s, has it been a success?

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  • Nah, it was the point I think. The people who wanted it were genuinely concerned with the welfare of kids and there was evidence to support that the big tech companies are predatory and doing immense harm.

    The problem is that having good intentions is never enough. Someone is going to take the opportunity to further their own aims. There is a huge mass surveillance industry backed by people like Peter Thiel that will take full advantage of ID requirements to increase their grip on power

    Not only is our political class not smart enough to see the dangers and legislate to protect us, but many have already been lobbied by the surveillance industry.

    I wouldn't be at all surprised if the orgs that have been pushing the message to protect kids from social media were either part funded or infiltrated by the mass surveillance industry. But I do believe there are people genuine in their concern about social media harms. Many parents put their foot down on this long ago, but unfortunately most did not.

  • Pauline Hanson censured over remarks there are no 'good Muslims'

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  • This nation is a federation of states used for convict transport and one colonized by free settlers. And although it is a blind spot for the Poms, then and now, there were lots of people here before they arrived.

    The convict states are mostly proud of their heritage. Highly recommend a visit to Port Arthur. A lot of the convicts were victims of prejudice and poverty. The people who come off worst in Australia's history by far are the English who sent their poor and the Irish here to use as forced labour, committed genocide on the native people, nuked service people and traditional owners, and sent our young to die in futile battles.

    Everything this country has done and continues to do to redress the shit legacy of the british empire, including their insane white supremacist, born to rule bullshit, reflects well on us.

  • RSA urges Albanese govt against further privileging religion through a faith advisory body | Rationalist Society of Australia

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  • Non-religious is growing and is going to be the majority but herding cats is an unsolved problem in politics. It is hard to work out how to appeal to them as a block. It is easier to talk to religious lobby groups, make mega church appearances, fund faith based schools, dog whistle stuff that appeals to faith based prejudice.

    If Labor doesn't go after the faith vote then other parties will. And Labor isn't just putting on the faith stuff to win votes. It is a long standing part of the party. There is pipeline from Catholic school through Catholic dominated unions to the Labor Right faction that goes back decades.

    A group of Libs tried very hard to be the Christian party with branch stacking and factionalism and likely hoped to ride a wave of Christian nationalism to Trump-like victory. They couldn't get the numbers and that is in part because Labor's very strong Christian (predominantly Catholic) Right faction with people like Minns and Malinauskas are more authentically mainstream Christian than some hack playing Christian to get votes. In the US there isn't an expectation that a person's lifestyle and their politics should align. So many of the biggest proponents of the White Christian Nationalist stuff clearly don't live Christian lives. Their politics is more like professional wrestling. The character you play is more important than who you are.

    Most people of faith aren't all that extreme in their politics. This is not the US. We have the mega churches and hate preachers but we also have a lot of thoughtful moderate mainstream religious voters and we want them to have options in the center supporting moderate policies that benefit everyone.

    The only thing I respect about One Nation is they wave the flag and the white nationalist bullshit and muslim hate but not so much the cross so far. Though they have recruited people like Bernardi now so things could change.

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  • Guardian Essential poll: more than half of Australians open to voting for One Nation despite Hanson’s Muslim comments

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  • I think it’s more a symptom of where right wing politics has gotten us.

    What gets me is right wingers had their chance to turn out and vote for Dutton a year ago. He is a far more effective politician than Hanson and could have actually formed government instead of just stoke social division and annoy people. He had the nod from Gina and News Corp. Instead everyone seemed to vote for Labor or Teals. What am I missing?

    In several states the Liberal party can barely win a seat let alone government. For a country marching to the right doesn't it seem really odd? Our historically dominant, long governing, conservative party which drew most of the talent on that side of politics struggles. But supposedly we are going to jump right past them to our reject shop version of AfD. How does that work exactly?

    Like I feel someone is fucking with us here. I haven't see skin heads marching down the main street in rural Australia which is as conservative as it gets. No pogroms. No racist graffiti. I would expect ON to do better here than anywhere in my state and in the 2025 federal election they were level with the Greens. Some stuff has changed in a year but not that much. Most shit is basically the same. Cost of living didn't reverse but it definately stabilized. Have there been riots and the streets burning somewhere else?

  • Guardian Essential poll: more than half of Australians open to voting for One Nation despite Hanson’s Muslim comments

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  • Are they though? Like organically pissed off and not doom scrolling cooker pissed off?

    SA Labor are very much a populist centrist party and pretty much the natural party of government in SA and I will be shocked if they don't win by a huge margin. Unless the Libs can bring Playford back from the dead to re-nationalise our electricity. Take my vote. Antic and the like have been pushing the Libs to the right and out of contention for years and are doing the same to the federal party.

    Not sure about NSW but I get the impression Minns is a populist Labor Right centrist along the lines of Malinauskas. These guys are holding the center of the chess board. They don't really look threatened.

    The only thing controversial about Albo is his ability to avoid controversy. He won by a landslide accompanied by almost the complete destruction of the LNP. What changed?

    And if I was pissed off why would I vote for Hanson. She has been a joke for her entire political career. What changed apart from Gina's money? Something is suss about all these polls and the spin. I guess we will find out on election night.

  • Guardian Essential poll: more than half of Australians open to voting for One Nation despite Hanson’s Muslim comments

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  • Australians are humans and do human shit. We aren't actually blessed or geniuses. Just kind of lucky and generally chill. Both can easily change.

    Unfortunately reverse our good fortune by increasing wealth inequality and undoing the progress of working Australians pushes people to the angry camp. And the angry camp can spread like a bushfire with influencers, social media companies and old media pouring fuel on it.

    It's not that a peoples party is a bad idea. We had one once called the Australian Labor Party. Born under a tree in Queensland by and for the benefit of hard working Australians. Thanks Queensland. Now they give us Pauline and she is something else entirely. It makes me sad.

    I think we should be better. But we are the same as everyone else aren't we. Muslims, Americans, Chinese. We are all capable of doing bad shit to each other for insane reasons. It has just been our luck that unless you had the misfortune to be born indigenous most of us had it so good we thought we were above a lot of that shit or at least getting better. Hopefully One Nation will self sabotage as they do tend to attract incompetent people. But I thought the same about both Trump administrations and they are still fucking things up.

  • Power Games: Who’s driving high power bills?

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  • It's mostly privatisation. The regulators are supposed to regulate but they don't do it effectively and competition isn't working, least of all in distribution which is a natural monopoly.

    There is a huge amount of money spent to blame it on renewables despite the evidence showing clearly that they aren't the problem.

    Unfortunately this takes the publics attention away from the real problem. This is becoming very common in today's social media driven populist politics. People incited to anger against scapegoats while the real perpetrators sit behind the scenes pulling the strings.

    Unfortunately not much for reasonable people to do but let the mob fuck things up and then let them pass into the history books and be a lesson for a few generations before they once again forget it all.

    The government can't win. If they move to fix the real problem they will be out on their ears in a week. If they sit on their hands the same people are organising against them anyway.

  • Pauline Hanson issues partial apology for suggesting there are no 'good' Muslims

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  • They say the outrageous shit, walk it back a little, say even more outrageous shit. They know what they are doing. We know it. It isn't something new. I don't know why we pretend and give this piece of shit airtime.

  • Australian PM says former prince Andrew has suffered ‘extraordinary fall’ but that won’t prompt another republic referendum

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  • Albo is a small target PM. He is never going to go down in history as a great reformer or a great leader, but he seems destined to be well up the leader board for time in office. If people want reform, look elsewhere. If something gains traction with the majority he will be on it like a fly on shit.

    I am thoroughly sold on the idea of an apolitical, non-executive Australian head of state modeled on the powers and respobsibilities of the GG. But its a complicated discussion, there are a poweful minority that poison it with massive FUD and worst of all it is a distraction from more urgent issues. Cost of living needs urgent attention. The government inherited a turd but has no choice but to own it and demonstrate progress to the electorate.

    I think we should have public discussion about the royals and their role in future Australia but it needs to be seperate from the political parties and mainstream politics and the media which poison it. There is nothing in it for them. We need to discuss it like the Cricket or Rugby. Are we happy with a Brit captaining our national team because his parents were captains. That doesn't sit well with me.

  • switched back to KDE and don't regret

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  • Never liked the look of KDE. It is nothing to do with the tech or features. I think qt is a very solid foundation and my current desktop is built on Qt/QML. KDE just feels Windows-ish somehow and that's probably part of what makes it great for a lot of people. That is a huge win for Linux adoption. Just not for me.

    I always liked Gnome. It was simple and felt fresh even though I hate gtk/gobject etc. And I still keep Gnome as a backup but it think development is being held back by being built on layers of shit.

    After a long time going back and forth I think I am all in on Niri now. Regular tilers never worked for me but somehow scrollers do. It is weird how much of a difference it makes for me. It is possible to build a complete desktop now with Quickshell and a bit of a backend for some services which makes the Gnome desktop and Plasma look crazy over engineered and I don't know why the Cosmic people even bothered. I don't see how Gnome can keep up as its is such a horrible system to program. DankMaterialShell is reasonably usable for starters but I might even start working on something. It looks like fun.

  • Talents leave AI companies: "They are putting profits over sanity and safety"

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  • Every company does that. The difference is the AI companies will be broke soon and laying off all their staff so people are getting out before the collapse.

  • Firefox is ending support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1; Mozilla recommend switching to Linux, for people who can't run Windows 10 or 11

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  • I think we have been taught from birth that we can and should have it all. The most expensive car, the biggest house, the most powerful phone. It is a lie and its becoming increasingly unattainable for more people. It is pure consumerism and doesn't make anyone happier. In truth people are lucky to have any sort of home which is a fucking travesty and an indictment on our society and politics. A 3 year old phone is still a phone. In a city you often don't need a car at all, certainly you don't need a lease for a massive truck that consumes all your income.

    Windows has more and better software available than Linux (most free and open source software also runs on Windows). Most people don't need it. Downscale your life and be happy.

  • Australia’s Social Media Ban Is Isolating Kids With Disabilities—Just Like Critics Warned

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  • Nah, they didn't. The legislation is bad but it was driven by research into mobile phone/social media addiction and harms to teenagers. There is more than a bit of a satanic panic angle but there is enough substance that I think we have to take the concerns seriously. The target is algorithmic addiction machines run by huge predatory companies. Any impact on sites like aussie.zone is unintended and nobody cares about a self hosted forum or list for neurodivergent kids.

    All such laws create unintended opportunities for companies that want to capture identity data like Palantir which must be resisted to protect our democratic freedoms and national sovereignty but that shit has been happening with the massive concentration of power in big companies like Facebook anyway. We have to decentralise and get back to doing stuff locally.

    The problem is people are fucking stupid and they all jumped to evil shit like Facebook and everything else died. I have to go out of my way to find out anything in my local community with sports, school etc because people are moronic sheep. Apparently I am the weird one for not giving all my family and communities data to evil foreign companies that are complicit in all sorts of shit up to and including genocide. The government is targeting the right bunch of unethical cunts even if they are not doing it well.

  • Australia’s Social Media Ban Is Isolating Kids With Disabilities—Just Like Critics Warned

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  • Back in the old days we used to run forums and mailing lists for people of various interests. People used to make their own little idiosyncratic places full of creativity. I miss it so much.

    Then the big US social media companies came in and took everyone away and the old Internet became a ghost town. Lots of online communities died to be replaced by highly predatory foreign companies.

    I don't know why we should listen to people defending predatory social media but everyone ignored us old people telling them that these walled gardens were going to kill the Internet with massive corporate influence. Everyone is so fucking stupid now. Technical people can't even do technical shit anymore. I hate it.

  • Google criticizes Europe's plan to adopt free software

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  • All these craptastic US tech companies originally started on internationally developed free and open source software. They hoover up capital and talent then abuse their market power. Fuck them all.

    They all run on Linux - Torvalds is a Swedish speaking Finn. Greg KH who maintains stable is German. So many libraries and core system contributions by Germans like Drepper and Poettering. Youtube ran on mysql for years from Finnish Widenius. Google built a lot of stuff with Python - from Dutch Guido van Rossum and c++ from Danish Stroustrup. All of the video and audio sites rely heavily on ffmpeg, orginally from French Fabrice Bellard. Lots of them also using virtualisation stuff which includes qemu, also from Bellard. So much comp sci research from Europe and UK. Chrome and Safari originated with KDE (German) code. Europe did all the heavy lifting while the US took all the profits. I'm not even European but every country has the same experience. They have no idea how they are viewed.

  • [Video] Australian police violently beat up protester with his hands up at demonstration against Israeli president Isaac Herzog visiting.

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  • A tankie who has conveniently forgotten the Stasi. What a surprise.

  • [Video] Australian police violently beat up protester with his hands up at demonstration against Israeli president Isaac Herzog visiting.

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  •  
            suspension and retraining

    Discharged from the police force.

    Ideally, if things are as clear cut as shown in the video. If the protestor committed some unseen offense like spitting on the officer it would certainly justify an arrest, something that might require force if resisted. This guy had his hands in the air. Hard to make any case that this response was justified in any way. Even the cops are innocent until proven guilty though so this is all just opinion.

    Going in throwing punches makes it look like the police were drafted out of a particularly incompetent pub brawl. Weird behavior for trained public servants. I don't get how that is justified as crowd control. Makes the cops look terrified and pissing themselves with fear in a country where ordinary people take down armed terrorists with their bare hands and milk crates.

    In my opinion this sort of behavior brings the service into disrepute and if not dealt with sends a message that violently assaulting peaceful protesters is tolerable. Training and recruitment have a cost and there could be systematic issues with culture and training that need to be addressed and dealing with individuals and not the organization and leadership would be short sighted. This should be investigated right up to Minns and the instructions he gave about the handling of the protest. NSW police have earned a bit of a reputation for being political enforcers.

    To be fair to the cops there are protesters whose aim is to provoke a violent response from police by whatever means necessary. The police have no choice but to defend themselves and establish order with that crowd and people get hurt on both sides. There is a time and place where the police have to use violence to maintain order. In my opinion this didn't look to be such an occasion.

  • [Video] Australian police violently beat up protester with his hands up at demonstration against Israeli president Isaac Herzog visiting.

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  • People with no self control shouldn't hold responsible positions. If your having a bad day you shouldn't be in a uniform dealing with people. Goes for any job, not just cops. Imagine if nurses behaved like this, punching every patient who pissed them off. Yet they get paid less than police for some reason.

    I am not anti-police at all. Strongly disagree with the ACAB bullshit in Australia. Some cops are bastards for sure. I think they have a tough job and an important one even if their recruitment and discipline sucks (less so in Australia than the US but we could do better). I feel particularly sorry for the ones who get shot dealing with cookers and some of the stuff they have to see and deal with.

    If the police service can't self discipline and weed out the trigger happy snowflakes then the public lose faith in them. They need to put cops like this on suspension and retraining. They might not have the right personality for this sort of work. It makes them look week. If your an agitator and want to start a riot it is so easy to bait weak minded law enforcement.

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    shirro @aussie.zone

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