• 3 Posts
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Joined 2 months ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2025

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  • Perhaps I should redefine what I mean by “relevant” then, because it’s obviously the case that Australians have far less control over the situation in Gaza than they do over the rights of people suffering under their own democratically elected government. Whilst pushing our politicians to recognise Palestinian statehood or end the shipment of military equipment to Israel is not a complete waste of time and is certainly a good thing to do, the reality is that it will not even go close to solving that problem or ending the pain for Palestinian people. Australia can only offer moderate influence here, it cannot actively change anything by itself. Domestically, we have all the power and can absolutely make meaningful change so what’s the excuse? We don’t stand up for these other things, that’s the point, so to frame this as a hypocritical position misses the point entirely.


  • Its a shame that i feel that Australians aren’t willing to accept costs like those for what i still believe are broadly held convictions about how we want to live in the world.

    Well I guess that depends a bit on the context, because in this case certainly it seems like most Australians are now quite united in their opinion and its really the politicians who have been dragging their feet. But more broadly I agree, it has been somewhat frustrating to see how willing Australians are to educate themselves on the situation in Gaza and advocate on behalf of Palestinians whilst issues that are actually relevant to the Australian context, like the rights of Indigenous people or asylum seekers, remain areas of widespread ignorance and disinterest. I suppose one of the key differences is that pro-Palestinian advocacy really costs Australians nothing, so for most the opportunity to take a selfish position doesn’t exist. It’s free moral high ground with zero trade-offs.
















  • Battlefield 6’s open beta launches this weekend, so I’ll hopefully be putting some hours into that. I have heard quite good things about it from those who already have time in the game, but I suspect a lot of the current goodwill is just vibes-based because this game is better than the abysmal 2042 and mediocre V, and because it appears to be a bit of a spiritual sequel to 3 and 4. Although I have played the last four Battlefield games, I wouldn’t consider myself a Battlefield fan so I’m hoping I can be a little more critical while playing and get an idea of whether it’s worth my time and money. It was pretty clear to me from playing the 2042 open beta that the game would be absolutely terrible for years after launch, so I saved myself a lot of pain and some money by picking it up much later for a heavy discount.


  • I agree and I am concerned too, given that the Australian Government has a track record of encroaching on civil liberties under very vague “security” and “safety” justifications. I do think regulation in this area is very important, though, and that perhaps the only realistic way in which occurs is via some encroachment on our individual freedoms as netizens. I find a lot of people who claim to only be opposed to this specific implementation are actually just outright opposed to literally anything that even minutely affects them once you coax their ideology out a bit more, and I’m definitely not in that group. There is an important balancing act to make here between complete individual freedom and combating a widespread societal brain drain and mental health decline in young people, and my feeling is that many of the loudest opponents are only interested in the former, purely for selfish reasons.




  • Will anonymous access still be allowed?

    To YouTube? Yes. The legislation requires social media companies to ensure people under the age of 16 do not have accounts. It does not prevent people under the age of 16 from accessing these social media platforms whilst logged out. For something like Facebook or Instagram, which rarely work unless logged in, this will have a significant impact, but for YouTube it makes barely any difference. I haven’t used YouTube logged in for a very long time and there is very little that is off-limits, beyond highly graphic content, so this is a far cry from the “ban” it has been hysterically portrayed as in the media.

    The search engine thing is a different piece of legislation I believe, but it also does not require you to be logged into an account to perform web searches. You will still be able to use Google and Bing with default safety settings enabled.