eureka
@eureka@aussie.zone
- Comment on AI in Australian workplaces: Michael used AI to write a work email. It ended up costing him $2000 1 day ago:
+1 for the Thunderbird alert.
- Comment on Record enrolment [98.2%] ahead of 2025 federal election | AEC 1 day ago:
Why would they suddenly not vote if it became optional? The problem isn’t that they’re voting, it’s that they don’t have the class consciousness to recognise and investigate their core interests in federal politics.
From Condorcet’s jury theorem, it’s clear that having a few million less voters won’t solve the problem, but improving the political literacy of voters can.
- Comment on Australia’s Upcoming Elections and the Trump Factor. 1 day ago:
- Comment on Australia’s Upcoming Elections and the Trump Factor. 1 day ago:
Voldamort might win for the same reasons trump won.
Which reasons?
It’s an important question - we have a very different political environment. That doesn’t mean abhorrent reactionaries like Voldy won’t take power, nor we won’t see similar trends like you mentioned, but, for example, there is high voter turn-out due to mandatory voting and less voter disenfranchisement (~90% vs. 64%), our closest analogues to Trump (Palmer, along with their party leaders) are uptight and lack the public speaking skills to inspire confidence, they sound like generic posh politicians reading scripts rather than casual and approachable, with their party polling under 2%, and with the Lib-Nat Coalition nosediving after the US inauguration (similarly to the conservatives in Canada).
- Comment on Australia’s Upcoming Elections and the Trump Factor. 1 day ago:
it’s an indication we need to spend more on education.
Or, rather, better education. I obviously can’t speak for everyone’s schooling experience but most people I’ve talked to all had a pretty sterile one, where the most political thing you’d hear is a teacher subtly saying Whitlam was great for arts and education. Yes, there’s a trip to Canberra and a bit about how the electoral system works, but that’s extremely neutral for obvious reasons.
Now, political and religious neutrality in schools has its benefits (look to some places in the US where some regions are biased so hard they’re outright lying) but at the same time, we don’t learn about important history. Honestly, as interesting as it is, substitute out ancient history for our country’s own history, including post-WWII history.
- Comment on Australia’s Upcoming Elections and the Trump Factor. 1 day ago:
I don’t know what difference that makes. That’s what the money’s for, buying media propaganda.
- Comment on Go Private? 4 days ago:
I think an important part of the pitch for federated instances is being on one instance while interacting with another. If someone new can’t do this before they make their account, could they get the impression that we’re unfederated? I worry that it might give the illusion that we’re a dead, insular site.
- Comment on Choking during sex: many young people mistakenly believe it can be done safely, our study shows 4 days ago:
Can you tell us how, so that we can spot and avoid dodgy studies in the future?
- Comment on Choking during sex: many young people mistakenly believe it can be done safely, our study shows 5 days ago:
Confidential, cross-sectional online surveys were conducted with 4702 Australians aged 18–35 years. […] A total of 57% reported ever being sexually strangled (61% women, 43% men, 79% trans or gender diverse) and 51% reported ever strangling a partner (40% women, 59% men, 74% trans or gender diverse).
There’s no way I could guess the number would be that high. It’s very unintuitive.
If I’m reading that chart correctly (disclaimer: im tired) then of the 57% who reported being strangled, the last time it happened, 25% of them didn’t consent, and of the 51% reporting they strangled a partner, 16% report their partner didn’t consent.
I just can’t empathise with that. How are that many people convinced it’s ok to just spontaneously strangle a person. I’m always shocked by how common SA is because it’s just not talked about as much as it happens.
- Comment on Interviews with Australians about segregated swimming pools [1965] 5 days ago:
A couple of months ago (on the anniversary) I listened to one of the Freedom Riders talk about their trip, and they made a point that the eager reception they received was really encouraging, and also allowed them to better understand all the different places segregation and oppression existed in towns and how horrific it could be. Understanding their situation was a big piece that enabled labour organisations (incl. unions) of all stripes to unite and fight segregation and end the “Aboriginal Welfare Board”.
I can’t find much of it on sites like Wikipedia or ABC news, but I found this interview with Ray Peckham talking about the same events here:
Ray talked with us about a campaign at Port Kembla in this period to illustrate the crucial role of unions. Residents of the Coomaditchie Aboriginal reserve were demanding new houses, but some of the only remaining land in the area was being taken over by the adjacent University.
“Bobby Davis [a local Aboriginal leader] was a wharfie at Port Kembla and he worked with Joe Howe, a delegate from the Waterside Workers Federation.
“They set up a campaign, naturally it was through the Trades and Labour Council and backed by the union. They won that strip of land and had eight houses built on it from that fight.”
In Sydney and Wollongong too, union power was used to fight segregation. Pubs that refused to serve Aboriginal people would be confronted by crowds of trade unionists. Ray explained, “We would get the Liquor Trades Union to put a ban on the pub. Force them to change that way, with a black ban.”
…net.au/…/indigenous-activist-ray-peckham-how-uni…
It’s important to recognise and remember how united worker movements have historically built movements that forced governments into listening to us - both major parties were resistant to removing the White Australia Policy in the early 60s. That’s why Labor’s renewed attacks on militant unions like the MUA and the CFMEU are particularly disturbing. Both these unions have been at the forefront, sticking up for protester’s rights and social justice, and it will be devastating to all of us if they are successfully squashed.
- Comment on Interviews with Australians about segregated swimming pools [1965] 5 days ago:
I didn’t know until pretty recently that plenty of segregation existed in Australia within living memory. I didn’t learn a word of it in school despite us learning about the Civil War and Jim Crow in the USA, in fact I only knew about the US Freedom Riders.
- Comment on Where will my vote go? 1 week ago:
Whoops, I was going from memory based on last election. You’re right.
- Comment on Where will my vote go? 1 week ago:
(only addressing this part, as the other comments have the important part covered)
I feel like this should be a legal obligation, that we are all given this kind of information in a flowchart. But I can’t find it. Can anybody help?
I’d say the Australian Electoral Commission is the most authentic resource for getting facts about our election (seeing as they run it). I wish some of this information was shoved in our faces more.
The information sheets PDFs linked on this page summarise how the vote count works: www.aec.gov.au/learn/preferential-voting.htm
Further reading: The preferential voting system we use in Australia is Instant-Runoff Voting, but you’ll often hear it just called ‘preferential voting’ here (other preferential voting systems exist, e.g. Borda count).
- Comment on Scientists collect unique sea creatures during voyage to East Antarctica 1 week ago:
From giant sea spiders to “sea pigs” and “sea butterflies”
Visiting a whole new world and they just call these things “sea land animal”. I’m sick enough from when they did this with all the flora and fauna in other continents! I demand more strange words!
- Comment on US tech companies joins winemakers, film studios and drug companies in urging Donald Trump to target Australia 1 week ago:
Horrible to see Mozilla’s name anywhere near a lobbying group that does this. Was actually going to donate a little money to them starting this year.
Luckily, due to the nature of Firefox forks and Thunderbird, they’re free and can be set to not collect data, etc., so there’s no point to boycotting the software itself.
- Comment on Sovereign citizen who kidnapped her child sentenced to two years' jail 1 week ago:
For what it’s worth, plenty of the Australian SovCit stuff was also thieved from Canada (given our similar situation with UK legal history).
- Comment on Sovereign citizen who kidnapped her child sentenced to two years' jail 1 week ago:
Tom Tanuki created a two-part summary of the two main Aussie SovCit movements:
p1: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea_7jUU489g
p2: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIrcWtuLkdA
A couple of interesting notes I remember:
- Being more closely tied to British monarchy, our versions seem to stem more from the Canadian variant than the US, but there’s def plenty of crossover.
- Not sure if this is a big factor in the US movement too, but there’s a big focus on the family courts, so plenty of them are disenfranchised divorced parents who lost custody and have engaged in collective harassment of ex-partners and legal workers like judges.
- One of the main movements comes from an indigenous liberation perspective. It’s just as much a scam and stands in the way of actual resistance efforts, but there’s more to it than just ultraliberalism (e.g. US Libertarian ideology)
- Comment on Aussie Lemmyvision - closes 31st March 2025. Today! :o 1 week ago:
Due to the Lemmyvision competition runner being in European timezones, don’t be scared to submit any last-minute ballots today! We’ll do our best to include them before the cut-off.
- Comment on Reminder: 🎶 aussie.zone Lemmyvision 2 voting ends on Monday 🎧 2 weeks ago:
if you’d really like everyone to number every song
If you’ve given them all a listen, it shouldn’t be hard to quickly number the rest without just picking randomly. Personally, (this is an opinion and not a rule) I think it’s insincere to pick a song as the favourite without listening to all the others.
Also, if we look at the two ballots already submitted, if they only had their top vote then “International” and “From the river to the sea” are tied as the favourite, but the preferences make it clear that one of those would far better represent the communty’s collective favourite and prevent the need for a second tiebreaker. There’s also no incentive for newer ballots to try and tiebreak by pretending a song is their favourite when it isn’t.
Your ballot will count until your preferences run out, but I’d really prefer if you ranked them all.
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 3 comments
- Comment on IT'S ON: Albanese to call May 3 federal election tomorrow morning 2 weeks ago:
I’ll be voting for whoever seems the most communist. Which is of course literally none of them. Even on the left-wing ones are just centrists.
Some electorates have Socialist Alliance (explicitly democratic socialists, not to be confused with capitalist social democrats like typical Greens), VicSoc (the major sub-party is SAlt, a “revolutionary” communist organisation despite their electoralism), and some independents and Greens are open communists.
Know your candidates if you want to vote for anti-capitalists. If you’re unlucky you might have to settle for the Senate only, but you should still push as “left” as possible in the House of Reps even if they aren’t anti-capitalist.
- Comment on IT'S ON: Albanese to call May 3 federal election tomorrow morning 2 weeks ago:
Plus, you can control where your preferences go anyway if your first choices don’t get elected.
- Comment on This bloke is doing good work. 2 weeks ago:
Haha, yellow and black colour scheme too, that’ll go down well with Mr. Billboard Palmer.
- Comment on 'Investor' is a dirty word for first-home buyers — but are they the real villains? 5 weeks ago:
Hoarding a scarce, essential resource to make money is villain shit, yes. Get a real job, Margaret.
That said, the real villains are politicians for not outlawing housing investment. Privileged opportunists will do it until it’s illegal.
- Comment on Is there an Australian equivalent for boycotting american products ? 5 weeks ago:
There arr some great sailing guides on !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- Comment on Labor says Dutton has questions to answer over timing of share purchases 1 month ago:
Yes, and abstaining only gives them a larger proportion of the votes.
Find the left wing candidates (the senate has some even if your local ballot doesn’t) and preference them, if you want to help keep out Lib and Lab.
- Comment on Australia's spy chief: Antisemitism now agency's 'top priority' 1 month ago:
Is it all really genuine?
The only recent acts of antisemitism (not to be conflated with anti-Zionism) are from fringe neo-nazis (who have always been racist pricks) and a wave of vandalism and arson which, so far, appear to have been done for pay rather than sincere political motivation, with police saying they’re looking into foreign actors funding them.
All that to say, I doubt it’s genuine. The rest of the things I’ve seen called antisemitism in the mass media are simply protesting against the Zionist Regime (‘Israel’), which disingenuously attempts to conflate itself with all Jewish peoples.
- Comment on Families fighting to keep loved ones out of extremist groups struggle to find intervention programs 1 month ago:
It’s aggravating they’re such a danger because they’re all such pathetic losers.
Exactly. When communities have organised in response, the NSN get chased up the road even when they bring out knives (see: failed attack on Gummo Cafe). But when a community does nothing, they’re left with a group of a couple of dozen interstate tourists trying to seek attention and intimidate people, often with a police line protecting them. Any group of a dozen, no matter how pathetic, will make unorganised individuals less likely to do anything, and the problem only grows if they gain greater numbers to mobilise.
One of them is on record at a UK fascist conference saying that when they’re outnumbered and getting told to leave, they “feel like shit, it’s horrifying”.
- Comment on Could Musk's unpopularity in Australia impact the election? 1 month ago:
Australia? We couldn’t possibly be. imma have to demand evidence.
- Comment on Families fighting to keep loved ones out of extremist groups struggle to find intervention programs 1 month ago:
It’s self-defense, and it’s community defense.
grouping
I didn’t look the first time I read this, but wow that’s bad. I shot better with an automatic SMG the first time I held a gun in my life.
