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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Eh, not fucking things up in the way that seems to happen in the states. Our conservative government is much more corporate oriented and less strong on climate policy, but they aren’t insane. They don’t tend to strip rights from women, and almost the entire party supported gay marriage legalisation with many openly stating they personally disagreed with it but understood that their constituents needs should come before their own opinions.

    Edit: I guess to expand upon my point, mandatory voting means candidates need to run on a platform which considers the needs of the whole population. Optional voting means that if 50% of the population doesn’t turn up, and 30% of the remaining population feels very strongly about an extreme view, it becomes easier for that extreme view to win an election.







  • Nope, carbon tax is different to carbon offsets. A carbon tax is intended to put an immediate financial burden onto energy producers and/or consumers commensurate to the environmental impact of the power production and/or consumption.

    From a corporations perspective, it makes no sense to worry about the potential economic impact of pollution which may not have an impact for decades. By adding a carbon tax, those potential impacts are realised immediately. Generally, the cost of these taxes will be passed to the consumer, affecting usage patterns as a potential direct benefit but making it a politically unattractive solution due to the immediate cost of living impact. This killed the idea in Australia, where we still argue to this day whether it should be reinstated. It also, theoretically, has a kind of anti-subsidy effect. By making it more expensive to “do the wrong thing” you should make it more financially viable to build a business around “doing the right thing”.

    All in theory. I don’t know what studies are out there as to the efficacy of carbon tax as a strategy. In the Australian context, I think we should bring it back. But while I understand why the idea exists and the logic behind why it should work, I don’t know how that plays out in practice.


  • They are almost certainly restricting the amount of information they release under the advice of the legal team at the University, in preparation for the impending commercialization. I agree, it’d be great to have the details and to live in a world where all information is free and open. However, we don’t on both counts. The assumption that they could only be attempting to mislead people when this isn’t even a product for sale yet, is at best naïve and at worst willfully obtuse.





  • My opinion is it would be better in some ways and worse in others. I think it’s worth striving for some Star-Trek-esque version of humanity, where we are well and truly post-scarcity and have outgrown many/most of our more toxic traits as a species, and I think globalisation is the only way to achieve anything close to that.

    I also acknowledge that to believe that end result is a certainty rather than a possibility is completely naive. I guess it’s a matter of opinion if the risk that we either wipe ourselves out on the way to that goal, or we just literally can’t overcome tribalism and greed, is worth chancing it.

    Either way we’re probably too far gone! I have seen interesting studies here or there though, that indicate the current generation of new parents are far more aware of the dangers of such a technologically enriched lifestyle for children, and that things are turning back in the other direction. So who knows.