Lol. The trade deficit is massive on our side, so they are shooting themselves in the foot.
We sure as fuck don't need American wines. We used to bend over backwards to pay American film companies to film in Australia.
And there's guides everywhere now on how to de-American your tech.
Fuck off, you nutjobs.
Let's call them what they really are, the fucking tech Mafia.
I just wish the average fuckwit would wake up and get off Facebook. That's the sticking point. Imagine the Australian govt banning Facebook: there would be protests massively bigger than over lockdowns. Because so few people could see the danger of a monopoly on how people communicate before people got addicted.
I hate this timeline.
I think I meant more that it was implemented and actually had throughput, as opposed to being theoretical, though of course not a complete closed economy.
I do concede that there has been a trend towards xenophobia that has been exacerbated by filter bubbles and even more by algorithms. But the balance is that people who once had no choice but to suffer ostracism and extreme isolation have been able find community online and have improved mental health and outcomes in many ways.
I certainly found this myself in the early days of the internet before the iron fist of corporatism grabbed this fledgling space, determined to extract value from it, and creating the nightmares of isolation and hate that are now Farcebork and its ilk. Fedi has been a welcome return to smaller communities that have to do the necessary work of self management, which reduces the hate and isolation that is promoted by antisocial media, even if it doesn't stop it altogether.
My point is, the internet isn't worse. Humans can be good or bad, but certain environments make them behave in worse ways, and these environments can exist both online and off.
Honestly? I live in a small town, and face to face isn't much better. People are incredibly bigoted, and might be polite to your face but incredibly judgemental and small minded, especially to anyone perceived as different. Empathy is a skill that needs to be practised, like meditation. And many people lack it both online and off.
I've seen people say that Farcebork was like being in a small town, actively making that kind of everyone-knowing-everyone's-business a reality again for communities fractured by urban anonymity.
But that was there in spades in the early internet, it's just that normies hadn't been beaten over the head by social conditioning by the corporate overlords yet to join in.
It's human nature to think and behave tribally. So we should expect it to continue in the Fediverse, we just can't shove the problem over to someone else to manage and take their tithe in eyeballs, and thus fracture our communities all over again: we have to do it ourselves. Drama fucking sucks, wherever is found, but we have to accept it's our job to manage if we don't want to trade our freedom for a padded cell.
Sure, I agree, but I think it's reasonable to think about limiting procreation ideally to one child per couple ethically who wants the experience of parenting - obviously if you've already had more, there's no backsies, but the pathway of many countries now is even below that number anyway. It's absolutely sick the Christofascist obsession with forcing women to give birth especially as they really don't care what happens to the babies once they are born. But if you want to parent, it really is a wonderful thing. If you WANT it, not forced, and not selfishly breeding beyond the capacity of the planet, which no individual is doing if they only replace one for two leaving, that's the right direction (but it doesn't work for colonialism, oh noes)
Managed population descent is possible though, even if unlikely, and we can hope that the overall population growth curve is maxed out very soon by choice not by circumstance/disaster.
He was right, and yes, we will indeed see a colossal crash within the next few decades unless some truly magical technology somehow happens, and that would just kick the can down the road a bit further anyway, unless we can rein in the culture of colonialism and endless growth.
Two books that are vital reading in this time:
The Limits to Growth by The Club of Rome
and
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
Parenting is one of the most natural and essential human experiences. Don't regret it, even if you expect things to be harder for your child or children. Don't sugar coat things for your kids either, we have hard times ahead. No one can be certain even of next week, and life wants to create life. Each moment is worth it.
You do realise they are planning on not having elections again, right?
Thanks! That's super exciting. Will try and send out some DMs next time it happens - just to get the more reliable ack. I doubt many people are awake at the times it is probably strongest signal though.
Good point! I didn't think to do that to check positions, that would have confirmed if the gps was accurate. But one new comment had confirmed that it could indeed have been a tropospheric duct, which is quite exciting, as I didn't realise that was possible with LoRa, and don't think I had seen mentioned before, even though I had read about AR events where DX occur, TV signals etc. So cool!
Nyan nyanyanyan nyanyanyanyan.