• 45 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Here’s the problem we have. By most accounts the only reason the green light hasn’t been given to Ukraine for wider use of the Storm Shadow missile (UK weapon) in their defense against Russia, is because of a US veto. A veto they apparrently only have due to a single component for the weapon coming from the US.

    If this is the case, and the US is using their military technology supply chain as leverage with its allies in this way, then Keating is right, and Australians should be concerned about a critical arm of our defense structure being open to that risk.

    There is however other possibilities, such as, UK wishing to talk the talk, but not walk the walk on wider military support. In other words essentially agreeing with the US about the risks of escalation, but wanting to be quiet about that fact.












  • Lefty friendly, i would assume your interests would align with trying to help the common person, and climate change adaptation.

    Your stated experience, and interests sound varied, and present you as a highly active person.

    Combining these things in my mind i instantly thought you should get into food system adaptation for a warmer more volatile world. Where people could really suffer horrendously with climate change is if food production systems break down. We need smart people, willing to try new approaches in that system. Farming where i’m from is bed of roses, and a lot of the skills you listed farmers here would likely use, so its probably the same/similar elsewhere.

    So specifically i’s thinking organic farming, or permaculture, or perhaps a more scientific route such as propagation of new tougher varietals.

    Logistical needs are also important, the amount of energy used to transport food must be immense and so that could be an avenue you could go down marrying your comments about mechanical engineering to the idea of improving the worlds food production systems.

    Good luck with your ongoing career, whatever you decide.


  • An acquaintance once landed a contract to clear up a gold mine site after shut down. He bid super low for it, the only condition he stipulated was it be left in the condition in which he had inspected it, something like that.

    The operator immediately gave him the contract, and he immediately gathered up all the dust from conveyor belts etc sifted through it, separated all the left over gold inside and sold it.

    Set him up in a big way, the idiot operator tried to take him to court to claim the gold as theirs, with no success.

    So yeah, sometimes there truly is gold in that there dust.


  • Your first paragraph about the politics and news media, yeah generally agree with.

    The point about ethics in the news media i see as part of the problem surrounding the Australian Press Council and their principle funders being the organisations they supposedly investigate. Its an ethics system set up to generate conflicts of interest. The media have a watch dog that’s more like a chew toy.

    We are calling on Minister Farrell to legislate a ban on the use of deepfakes in elections before the next federal election. From the change.org petition.

    Seems that Pocock is referring to AI deepfakes’ use in elections. Maybe i haven’t read the parts your referring to?

    While i see no actual wording because i’ve not seen an example of a proposed legislation, I would assume that its wording would be vague enough to potentially catch many people, likely including individual citizens. Aus courts would, as they always try to, sort out the chaff through testing intent of parties accused of using deepfakes. But thats me speculating, and i see nothing other than the quote above to suggest how far they’d go, so “in elections”?.

    Your last paragraph is the part i disagree with you on. Its not pissing in the wind to regulate a large company, in fact its a necessity for smaller countries like Australia.

    Like you say, targeting these large tech companies makes sense, and like the news media bargaining showed, it can be done. Whatever we think about that particular issue, the tech companies played the governments game. Large countries can find all sorts of excuses to not find consensus, and sometimes need that leading example, and in telecommunications cases it can’t really be a US State that takes the lead, like they can on other issues, but a separate country. I think its due to telecommunications law being federal jurisdiction.


  • I’m not necessarily advocating it. I put the link up because its a useful addition for a post like this.

    In saying that the idea that bans don’t work takes the ‘war on drugs/prohibition’ approaches out of context.

    1. I’m writing this from memory (of reading, not experience :p ) because i don’t have time to go and reread it all so apologies if details are wrong, the essence should be there though,

    Prohibition was enforced on the population by ideological puritans in power at the time. It seems no clear popular support backed or accepted the prohibition’s rationale and is a driving reason why it was so hard to maintain and dropped.

    ‘War on drugs’ ideas should be dropped because the evidence shows the American public have not benefited from the policy position, and in fact the ‘War on Drugs’ has likely increased the costs and harms associated with the drugs trade rather than diminished them. So, while we can say the ‘War on Drugs’ enjoyed popular support, in contrast to Prohibtion, the health, economic, violence, and consumption patterns have all trended negative against the policy over the period, meaning the policy has failed in its stated objective and needs changing.

    The point of these two examples being referred to when considering other bans isn’t to sit on the ideological plane of libertarians and shout “All bans are bad, you won’t tread on me.” But to consider the negative implications of a proposed ban and how its reality could differ from the vision, and adjust accordingly.

    1. There are enforced bans throughout society, think driving without a seatbelt, driving on the wrong side of the road, electrician sign offs, work with and manufacture of radioactive materials, essentially anything the enforceabke by the police and courts you can argue is a ‘banned practice’.

    2. A ban targeting political party practices is far more enforceable than population wide bans, its a smaller ‘market’, with known players, to regulate. I beleive Lobby groups in Aus also have to identify themselves when they put out attack ads.

    All that said, if a ban was implemented it doesn’t stop AI use in political advertising, but it does set the tone, and that means a lot. We as a society can’t stop murders, but we can build up barriers against their use as a legitimate tool of pursuing ones goals.




  • An old work friend had been in one. I’s interested so asked lots of questions. I got few answers, and got the sense there was one investor, and the other people didn’t learn a great deal or contribute in a meaningful way, but of course their funds, and decisions were voted on. It was a legit investment club, and she apparently gained a little money.

    I thought the point of those things was to learn a bit about the market and stock picking, have some fun, and hopefully make some money along the way.

    But if the reality is one knowledgable person leads, directs, and influences the group without any learning component then its almost certainly not better than an ETF that tracks the market, and any added value gleaned from a better personal understanding is lost.

    So whats the point? If you just want to track an investor, i think etoro does that. Quiver quantitative tracks US reps and senators which for some unknown reason often beat the market… … …


  • Yeah, massively energy intensive. I say these things with the implicit assumption that they’d use renewables. Sorry my bad, i should just say that.

    I’ve previously read reports from the desal plant in Cockburn, where the water corp seem to have managed the discharge quite well, as far as salinity levels in the Sound were concerned.

    It would remove their collection as negative publicitiy

    The key thing about Coca Cola at the moment is they’re taking from the scarce underground water resevoirs around Perth for bottled water at bargain basement prices. We know that most, not all, of these aquifers are drying out. So this is the negative publicity coca cola has been getting this year. And rightly so, if you ask me. So a desal plant would remove that issue, as well as give them greater control over their own production.


  • Lol, not really. I actually think the best thing for Coca Cola to do is set up their own desal plant. Or more likely do a joint venture with the State government on one. It would remove their collection as negative publicitiy (if they consistently match or beat standards of water corp), and in a very small way be net positive for on land water.

    The way I see it this State has no choice but to massively ramp up desalination and irrigation infrastructure throughout the bush and wheatbelt. I can’t see any other way we have to slow and maybe hold off the cumulative effect of the falling rate of rainfall across the southwest.

    If that means Joint Ventures with water users like coca cola, then it should be considered.


  • Ugh, thats a laundry list of shit and institutional changes that, best case scenario, will take time and a lot of understanding to wade through.

    The moral panic has definitely been put in the spotlight. But i felt it was losing its salience in a political sense. These people have continued spewing their same hatred filled alternate reality, and more people, i felt, were just seeing these unjust attacks for what they always were.

    But i’m on Lemmy now, and hardly go on anything else, so i might have cauterised that hateful side of the population online. I suppose my offline life is very insulated from that as well, so probably not in the best position to judge.