shirro

@shirro@aussie.zone

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Three months into Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s, has it been a success?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  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 out there when we supply out 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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Three months into Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s, has it been a success?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  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 peiplelike 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 some people genuine in their concern about social media harms. Many parents put their foot down on this long ago, but unfortunately most did not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨RSA urges Albanese govt against further privileging religion through a faith advisory body | Rationalist Society of Australia⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  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 appearance, 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. 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 that someone 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.

  .

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Power Games: Who’s driving high power bills?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australian PM says former prince Andrew has suffered ‘extraordinary fall’ but that won’t prompt another republic referendum⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  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 misinformation 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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australia’s Social Media Ban Is Isolating Kids With Disabilities—Just Like Critics Warned⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  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 a bit f a satanic panic angle but there is enough substance that I think we have to take it 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.

  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. The government is targeting the right bunch of unethical cunts even if they are not doing it well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australia’s Social Media Ban Is Isolating Kids With Disabilities—Just Like Critics Warned⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australia in danger of becoming an ‘artless country’ as enrolments in creative courses collapse⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Being a starving artist living on the safety net is more difficult with cost of living increases.

  Lots of good music came from countries like England, Sweden, Australia which were reasonably wealthy and had some minimum level of social welfare. We lost affordable tertiary education and it is one less place for people to meet and form bands or experiment.

  And people who looking for creative careers are seeing management everywhere turn to AI slop while fees go up and looking elsewhere. Everyone is hoping to find work that can’t be outsourced, can’t be automated and will still be around in 20 years. The choices seem to be narrowing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Invasion Day: police investigate ‘device’ thrown into Perth crowd as huge marches held across Australia⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Didn’t some neo-nazis go straight from an anti-immigration rally to attacking indigenous people last year?

  Like we all know who is behind the anti-immigration protesters. It isn’t the environmentalists concerned about unsustainable resource exploitation. If it was it wouldn’t get so much positive coverage in the media.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Substack won't let me in without verifying age, and VPN doesn't work; any ideas?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I can’t tell other people how to behave but I would just walk away from any foreign service demanding proof of id. That and other enshitifications have given me back so much of my time it has been brilliant. Getting through so many books and getting so many things done. I wish the world had turn to shit earlier. Now I need aussie.zone to sell out to US private investors and start running botted engagement and targetted ads.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Report: Feels Like We Should Be Making A Bigger Deal About Someone Throwing A Homemade Explosive Device Full Of Ball Bearings At Aboriginal People On January 26th⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Are you mixing up SA Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young (SHY) with Queensland One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson (PH)? I assume it was Pauline doing the right wing talking points. The media never cover Greens policies or opinions unless they are attacking them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"We kill enemies": Spy firm Palantir secures top Australian security clearance⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I really, really hope there are some smart patriotic people in our military and public service that have developed a backup command and control system independent of the US.

  Hopefully we will never need such a thing but with a President who isn’t fit for office threatening NATO and Canada it would be prudent to have well developed credible alternatives even as we play the game of placating and ingratiating ourselves with the US leadership and their chronies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Proposal to allow use of Australian copyrighted material to train AI abandoned after backlash⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  3 years. No fuck that. I want affordable computer upgrades before then. If they don’t crash and burn in 26 I will be very disappointed. Everyone call your super funds and ask them if they are exposed to this bubble. Let’s start the divestment ball rolling.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australia’s roads are full of giant cars, and everyone pays the price. What can be done?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Speed limit Rangers to 40kph within city limits. They usually speed through school zones and roadworks so it won’t slow them down but we might get a few disqualified from driving which will help.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australia’s Social Media Ban Was Pushed By Ad Agency Focused On Gambling Ads It Didn’t Want Banned⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The SA premier (SDA supported ofcourse) was apparently influential in the push for national social media laws. He recently emailed parents of school kids to promote waitmate who are like a purity ring thing for mobile phones. Abstinence but for phones instead of sex.

  Apparently they are based in a similar US org. Does anyone know who is behind it. I looked at the committee and it looks like two couples, one with a law firm connections and another in PR and someone else. Are they dodgy as well.

  Just bought my tween a phone locked down ofcourse. I control the apps and contacts and content. I don’t know what these people are on. It’s another satanic panic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reddit files legal challenge against social media ban for under-16s⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not really. The legislation is stupid but the big tech companies are predatory and needed to be regulated. As does the gambling industry.

  It is just very poorly done. I have to go find a new music app now for the family as we can’t all use Youtube Music Premium anymore so it is a waste of money. My kids youtube accounts were managed under family link and had comments disabled some content restrictions and no ads. The ads are as harmful as social media IMO - sexualising kids, creating insecurity over appearance, clothing, weight, pushing unhealthy food, gambling, divisive politics.

  I can use hacked youtube clients on some platforms but they are closed source from less trusted parties and could be a security risk. I can try and trick YT with vpns and a set of new accounts but thats going to be tricky. Making fake adult accounts is no good as I can’t manage adult accounts under family link and apply the restrictions I want.

  But reddit can fuck right off. Hope they get laughed out of court.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kia and Dettol ads top complaints list for 2025⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  sport

  I stopped watching sport years ago. I used to watch the footy every weekend. Summer tv was cricket. I remember ringing up a tv station once as a kid infuriated because I had been watching golf all day and they cut away just as the competition was being decided. Now all sport is tainted by gambling, overpaid and obnoxious personalities, and too much commercialism. I don’t know who plays for the teams I used to follow. I don’t care anymore.

  All my browsers are ad-blocked. I sometimes pay subscriptions to remove ads. I was time shifting for a few years to ad skip commercial tv but there was better content in higher quality on bittorrent, then streaming and now I don’t bother plugging an aerial into tvs or tuning the channels.

  Perhaps one day the ad market will collapse and sport will move back to the public broadcasters where it was before people worked out how to ruin it with money. Until then I can live without it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Honest Government Ad | Social Media Ban⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep. The ads are worse than the content. I am sure the government doesn’t care. They love that industry almost as much as the gambling and mining industries. I was happy to pay family premium and have some portion of the revenue go to creators though I wasn’t happy about the multiple price rises.

  I would be ad blocking and using specialized apps if I had little kids but I gave my little kids ABC for Kids and a media library instead when they were young. They are older now and I want them to learn to be responsible media consumers with some assistance. I also want them to be able to use their settings across a wide range of devices. They have access to a large number of devices with an assortment of operating systems. A kiosk solution isn’t what I am looking for. Youtube’s family accounts and premium gave me everything apart from removing shorts and front page which I could do with browser extensions. Those last two are what should have been regulated IMO.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Honest Government Ad | Social Media Ban⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  These are unofficial workarounds for features that could be regulated if esafety had a clue and weren’t working for the industry. Google could add options in acct settings and in family link. They don’t because they make more profit by driving engagement.

  Kids will now watch YouTube without logins,.lose their hand picked educational subscriptions and get lowest common denominator engagement bait on their front page. The ALP just handed kids over to the bad guys. I am furious. I will probably block YT via DNS now because the gov took my parental control away. They clearly don’t give a fuck about my kids.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Honest Government Ad | Social Media Ban⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  YouTube’s parent controls allowed me to set “age appropriate content” sort of(my kids are older) disabled comments, remove ads with premium. But they never allowed me to remove shorts or recommendations either for myself or my kids because they want the addiction dial set to 11. The government have made a mess of things but the companies are far from innocent. It’s a shame the govt went after age verification instead of consumer rights to disable all the crap. Very poorly advised. Big tech will come out of this stronger and more evil and will work out ways to target vulnerable people without logins.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Honest Government Ad | Social Media Ban⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have been very proactive as a parent keeping my kids away from shit social media. The government never asked me. I sent them feedback. They gave me a form response. I support being able to opt out of algorithms and attention spam. I should be championing what they are doing. I support protecting kids from immoral corporations who don’t give a fuck about their welfare. But the response is half arsed and full of bullshit. We deserved better.

  And we deserve more variety in politics. Sensible moderate parties with sensible policies as an alternative to the ALP for Labor voters. I suspect a lot of trad liberal voters feel the same about their mob.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨As of December 10th, You need to be sixteen to use Aussie.Zone⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This account will be visiting from another geolocation which isn’t subject to Australian laws and will henceforth identify as a foreign bot trying to disrupt Australian society and promote disunity. I request to be labelled as a foreign asset, not subject to age authorisation. In small print add “works for gambling industry, owns coal mine, makes political donations, VIP, mates with Albo and the Pope”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨E-bike rules in Australia will soon change with possible ban on sale of bikes faster than 25km/h⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We need to roll back much of the the vehicularisation of cycling that empowers risk seekers, predominantly men, to ride invisibly amongst massive trucks. That means building out more separated infrastructure for old people, children, families and risk averse cyclists who don’t want to live out the rest of their lives with severe brain injuries sustained when the driver of a motor vehicle has a momentary lapse of attention.

  We can’t have high powered electric motor bikes amongst human powered bikes on separated infrastructure. If they want to kill themselves riding amongst cars, just class them as motor bikes and upgrade their brakes and helmets and let them do 300km/h on the roads. Their organ donations are much appreciated.

  25km/h is fine for mixing with other traffic not protected by steel boxes and airbags. It might even be too much for some older cyclists. You might need more power than 250W for a heavily laded cargo bike going up a hill but those things also have the potential do more damage if they hit someone. So its a tradeoff. First we decide to provide safe cycling infrastructure independent of the roads and cars so we aren’t fighting over who gets what.

  Then we decide what is compatible with that infrastructure. I think we need to be more accepting of risk on mixed bike/pedestrian paths and less accepting of risk on mixed bike/motor vehicle roads. The pedestrian lobby kills cyclists. But not sure exactly where the balance lies. Some states don’t even let cyclists on foot paths. Insane.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bread tags on long list of plastic items to be phased out in NSW⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  NSW is ridiculously conservative and behind on so much. It took them (and Vic) 40 years to catch up with SA on container deposit. You still can’t ride a bike on a path there. Does every thing still shut when the sun goes down?

  Haven’t seen a plastic bread tag for over a year. The cardboard ones are not as study but kids go through bread quickly and we have a lot of reusable clips.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australian households to get free electricity three hours a day⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Call me cynical but I suspect this will mainly shift load for the benefit of the network operators.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if supply charges and non-free hours go up to offset any income loss for the electricity suppliers. Weatlhy home owners with solar pv, large power demands, and expensive appliances who can take advantage of free hours might be better off. People in rentals or poorer home owners might be worse off and it could be yet another wealth transfer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chinese companies are largest shareholders in two Australian mines producing minerals vital for Beijing's hypersonic missiles, helping China to access key resources⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If they don’t buy from us they will buy from someone else. The main thing is to get our fair share which never happens and it doesn’t matter if the mines are owned by Chinese or as is more often the case US/UK. We should own all our countries resources and these companies should be extracting them under contract to the owners, not stealing the legacy for our future generations and evading payment of tax.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australia has amongst the highest teacher shortages in the OECD⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I believe it is largely a retention problem. Major political parties are thoroughly captured by the private school lobby and the religious enterprises that run them. It’s almost like they are running the public system down to help out their mates.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'America is not happy': ABC under fire for pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live!⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The US should be a lesson to all of us about what happens when electoral systems are left to wither and die.

  We all need electoral reform. UK and Canada probably need more democratic upper houses with proportional representation and preferential voting for their lower house and powers more like Australias. Once they are democratic they might as well be allowed to introduce legislation as well as review it.

  I think Australia should do something about parties that consistently get far less seats in the lower house than their proportion of votes by introducting extra seats for them. Perhaps mixed member proportional or similar. So the two party system gets a shakeup and new parties can emerge when one is doing poorly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'America is not happy': ABC under fire for pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live!⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Worse, they remake stuff with cgi and different voice actors.

  Watching tv with kids is great. The first time I heard my oldest laugh was watching Shaun the Sheep with him. The last one we had moved into the time when everyone had their own idiot screens and it wasn’t the same which I regret. I didn’t know Bluey existed until she kept nagging me to play games. Bandit is a tough act to follow.

  I can imagine Bluey and Bingo going out one Saturday with Chilli and Bandit and they arrive at their school slightly confused because it is the weekend. And there are lots of people there going into a hall. They find some friends and play with them. Bluey wants to see what the adults are doing so goes in with Bandit watches him give his name to be checked on the elector role then he puts some numbers in boxes. She grabs a free pencil which she thinks is awesome. They get some sausages and all agree it was a great day out.

  Then the American kids ask their parents why they never go and vote like Bandit and Chilli. And their parents say they couldn’t be bothered and it doesn’t make a difference.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Summer is coming. How long do you shower for?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My water comes from a river. Water comes from that river, gets poured on grape vines, which get harvested and sent to an American owned winery that sends the product back to the USA where they keep all the profits. It takes 8 litres of water to grow a single almond.

  I haven’t watered my garden for years to help conserve water for that bullshit because as much as it sucks there is fuck all else bringing income into the local economy. No way am I reducing my shower time. If they run out of water they can bulldoze a few almond trees.