HalfEarthMedic
@HalfEarthMedic@slrpnk.net
GP, Gardener, Radical Progressive
- Submitted 10 hours ago to australia@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Australia's baby recession deepens, new ABS data says 10 hours ago:
A few months ago John Quiggin posted this and I find his argument pretty compelling
Are pronatalists living on the same planet?
But even in this extreme case, world population in 2100 only falls to 6 billion, the same as in 2000. I was around at the time, and did not feel as if there were too few people about.
What about the need for workers? One unsatisfactory feature of long-running projections like this is the use of outdated statistical concepts such as the “dependency ratio”, that is, the ratio of people aged 15-64 to everyone else. That made sense 50 years ago, when this range represented the period between leaving school and retiring in most industrial societies. But these days (and it will be even more so in 2100) education continues well past 20 and retirement is often deferred to 70 or more. A look at the age group 25-69 shows that it is going to remain more or less stable in absolute numbers declining only marginally relative to the growing population
Also followed up with this
- Comment on The highlighted division and factions of Lemmy. 1 day ago:
I’d like to share my offline perspective here. All online spaces are kind of heightened versions of the discourse, Lemmy less so than other places but it’s still there.
In the real world leftists are generally kind and empathetic people who genuinely want to do good. It’s nice when you find another leftist, I have friends who are various flavours of anarchist and socialist and even some real life, genuine, aging commune hippies now living in town. There is no animosity and we would basically all agree on local direct action or local politics. In my experience even most liberals are just naive rather than genuinely holding counterproductive political beliefs.
It can feel very lonely but you’re not alone.
- Submitted 4 days ago to australia@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on What fuel will ships burn as they move toward net zero? 1 week ago:
I assume it boils down to the fact that hydrogen requires all the infrastructure associated with high pressure storage and transport. Methanol/ammonia can be transported as liquid in much the same way as other liquid hydrocarbon fuels, you can carry it in a bucket if you needed to.
- Comment on Tawny frogmouths take patience to appreciate. They will reward you with insights into their remarkable lives | Stephanie Convery 1 week ago:
I love a curlew! such dopey looking things
- Tawny frogmouths take patience to appreciate. They will reward you with insights into their remarkable lives | Stephanie Converywww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 1 week ago to australia@aussie.zone | 7 comments
- Comment on Albanese invites Arab 'hypermarket' to compete with Coles and Woolworths 1 week ago:
If you can’t afford the time or travel costs to travel between distant supermarkets, just buy a new house…
- Comment on Albanese invites Arab 'hypermarket' to compete with Coles and Woolworths 1 week ago:
It is silly to blame corporations for acting like corporations. What I is for governments to act like governments and regulate corporations and provide effective town planning.
- Governments keep making our housing crisis worse – and they’ve just done it againaustraliainstitute.org.au ↗Submitted 1 week ago to australia@aussie.zone | 6 comments
- Comment on Albanese invites Arab 'hypermarket' to compete with Coles and Woolworths 1 week ago:
Maybe re-read my comment
- Comment on Albanese invites Arab 'hypermarket' to compete with Coles and Woolworths 2 weeks ago:
I kind of think “whining” about systemic problems is really important.
It’s really not the consumer’s fault that we have so little competition, that is a regulatory failure. It’s not their fault that town planning places supermarkets far apart and difficult to travel between, that’s a planning failure.
Raising public awareness by “whining” is one of the few things we can do that might translate into change.
- Comment on Albanese invites Arab 'hypermarket' to compete with Coles and Woolworths 2 weeks ago:
While I do agree that housing is such a much more important factor in cost of living than Colesworth gouging but it is a real issue and competition may improve it.
I think that a better solution would be to transition the big chains to some combination of worker/consumer ownership. But increasing competition is the only solution to this one inside the Overton.
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 39 comments
- Comment on The majority of Queensland councils are washing their hands of fluoridation under the watch of both sides of politics 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on The majority of Queensland councils are washing their hands of fluoridation under the watch of both sides of politics 2 weeks ago:
Dammit, I did a quick literature search first too.
If I wanted I could say I meant Australian recommended levels which have never been more than 1mg/L but I didn’t specify. WHO recommendations are <=1.5mg/L.
Also I will stand by my point as
There were limited data and uncertainty in the dose-response association between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ when fluoride exposure was estimated by drinking water alone at concentrations less than 1.5 mg/L.
The study is inconclusive and suggestive at those lower dose ranges and not relevant to Australia as our standards recommend even lower levels, but it does “suggest” which was my criteria. Possibly the WHO ought to adopt something closer to the western world standard of around 0.7mg/L
Probably this is what @Tenderizer is referencing and we all owe them an apology.
Name your charity @MHLoppy2
- Comment on The majority of Queensland councils are washing their hands of fluoridation under the watch of both sides of politics 2 weeks ago:
Give me a reference to the ‘International Online Journal of Who Gives A Fuck’ and I’ll take look.
I just can’t stand this “My uncle heard some guy on talk back radio say…” bullshit.
- Comment on The majority of Queensland councils are washing their hands of fluoridation under the watch of both sides of politics 2 weeks ago:
Please don’t spread this rubbish misinformation.
Water fluoridation is so thoroughly established as safe and the physiological effects are so well understood that it is hard to find recent reputable papers even commenting on it.
I will donate $1000 to a charity of your choice if you can provide a peer reviewed article in a reputable journal that suggests it is suspected to be unsafe at recommended levels.
Criteria: must be a full research or systematic review paper (not an editorial or opinion), published in a recognized scientific journal, and include a DOI. I’ll verify the paper and post the donation receipt publicly.
- Comment on Australian kindergarten asks parents to pay thousands for their children's art 2 weeks ago:
Maybe, I read it as some of the voluminous amount of art made by the kindergarten kids(much of which is typically chucked st the end of the year) was curated together into a portfolio with some photos. The article doesn’t make it clear.
If I’m right it’s still a dumb fundraiser but pretty innocuous.
- Comment on Australian kindergarten asks parents to pay thousands for their children's art 2 weeks ago:
a curated portfolio of their child’s artwork
It’s a novel fundraiser and a couple of nutcase parents called channel nine.
- Comment on ‘We would reverse it’: Ley writes back to Republicans over recognition of Palestine 3 weeks ago:
Its been a while and I’m writing from memory so happy to have clarifications.
There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that the CIA encouraged John Kerr to dissolve parliament. The US govt definitely didn’t like Whitlam’s foreign policy and wanted him gone. John Kerr was definitely in touch with the CIA and the director of the CIA called him “our man Kerr”. It is also unprecedented before and since(unpostcidented?) for a governor general to dissolve parliament without advice from the PM nor did he seek advice from the queen. I believe, and I think it’s a not uncommon opinion among serious historians, that there was some nudging from the CIA hoping that Whitlam would be ousted before the crisis could resolve itself with Whitlam retaining leadership and that things might’ve been different had the CIA not been subtly pushing their agenda.
Gillard’s ousting I’m less familiar with and so I’m a bit lighter on the details. Again, the US definitely preferred her foreign policy stance and the party members who pushed for Rudd’s removal had ties with the US. Maybe there was some nudging going on. I don’t know enough to judge this one.
Both of these happened on a background of waning leadership of the leader and a viable, electable, alternative already in place. Ley is a joke, it would take more than a nudge from the CIA to get her in.
I’ll sign off now feeling that I’ve sufficiently annoyed both sides.
- Comment on ‘Revival’ Interrupted: World Nuclear Industry Won’t Sustain 2024 Growth, Struggles for Relevance as Renewables Surge 3 weeks ago:
I’ve never been terribly anti-nuclear (insert several caveats here) but it just hasn’t made a lot of economic sense for some years now to invest in new plants. It’d be great if the next generation reactors are economically viable and I suppose it’s good(ish???) that the Chinese and Russians are keeping the figurative flame alive but nuclear plants just aren’t a big part of the picture for the next 20 years at least.
On a related note I’ve really stopped paying heaps of attention to the anti-solar, anti-wind, anti-EV crowd over the past couple of years as they’ve lost the argument, the economics have shifted away from their ideology. We ought be moving faster but once the invisible hand of the market decides that you’re wrong it’s only a matter of time.
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 5 comments
- Comment on Why Keating’s greatest speeches still matter after the Voice failed 4 weeks ago:
I can’t help but feel you haven’t read the article posted or my comments. You’re not addressing any of the points raised and instead just seem to have a bee in bonnet about the referendum which is at best tangentially related.
I do understand the fatigue of this being an ongoing issue but that doesn’t really change the situation.
- Comment on Why Keating’s greatest speeches still matter after the Voice failed 4 weeks ago:
Thanks for the response.
I have to assume that you’re quite young since you seem to think that 30 or 50 years is enough time to erase the kind of trauma anglo-Australians put indigenous Australians through, this is living memory for many of us.
There really is no denying that coming from parents who have suffered trauma and economic disadvantage leaves the children at severe disadvantage themselves, ie the sins perpetrated on the grandparents of today’s young adults are a key reason for their disadvantage.
This kind of reasoning is often taken as ‘excusing’ bad behaviour, it shouldn’t be but it is explanation and we do bear some responsibility to alleviate that disadvantage while still holding people responsible for individual actions.
The final key point is that systemic racism remains rife. You would have to be willfully blind to not see that indigenous people are treated differently at the Centrelink office, the emergency department triage desk, at a job interview.
You correctly point out some big numbers involved in current support for indigenous focussed programmes, I suspect that much of this is providing services that they find difficult to access through the mainstream due to systemic racism which is kind of a bare minimum, regardless we have a long way to go.
The past isn’t gone, it isn’t even past. I hope you can appreciate that there is a but more subtlety to this issue than you seem to give it credit for.
- Comment on Why Keating’s greatest speeches still matter after the Voice failed 4 weeks ago:
I think there’s a subtlety to this argument that you’re missing.
The prosperity of all non-indigenous Australians is built on what was taken from the indigenous population with brutal force.
The single most important reason that there is such a large gap in quality of life between the indigenous and non-indigenous population is that for more than a century it was government policy to repress and deny opportunity to the indigenous population.
It is not unreasonable to think that we, as a population that has built a prosperous society on the ruins of theirs, that we could give them a hand to regain some benefit of our prosperity.
We hear a lot from conservative cranks that indigenous individuals should take responsibility for their actions, most progressives actually agree on that. I would argue that as a settler society we should take responsibility for our collective past actions.
- Submitted 4 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 15 comments
- Submitted 4 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 4 comments
- Submitted 4 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Australian War Memorial defers military history prize after judging panel awards it to book on Ben Roberts-Smith 4 weeks ago:
Streisand effect at work here.
