bobnowhere
Member
Essential is out to 55/45 now as well and there was a federal poll in WA a few days ago that recorded a 7.6% swing against the Libs since the last election.
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AusPoliGaf |Early 2016 Election| - the government's term has been... Shortened
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Essential is out to 55/45 now as well and there was a federal poll in WA a few days ago that recorded a 7.6% swing against the Libs since the last election.
So Question Time was pretty dominated by the Coalition's changes to 18C.
Turnbull seemed to argue it would both restore free speech but also make racial vilifaction more difficult by making the language clearer or something.
Given this might not even pass the Senate I question what's the point but Turnbull hasn't displayed a lot of political nous when standing up to the far right.
Turnbull seemed to argue it would both restore free speech but also make racial vilifaction more difficult by making the language clearer or something.
Given this might not even pass the Senate I question what's the point but Turnbull hasn't displayed a lot of political nous when standing up to the far right.
Elaugaufein
Member
Because the left perceives itself as culturally dominant it has little reason to confront it's own tendencies towards groupthink, censorship and suppression of opinions.
And the right is fairly happy apart from things that are race related or proxy for race (ie religion) (they still dominate commercial media and business after all).
Also there's a tendency to assume anyone defending free speech in this context is racist themselves therefore all defence of free speech comes from racists automatically. This one in particular runs rampant on GAF, where there are some fascinating semantic games played to explain why while people support free speech in theory in practise free speech should be allowed nowhere.
As a result it's going to be that way.
Candescence
Member
Every so often, David Leyonhjelm says something sensible. This time, it's about the Australian Classification Board having the power to 'ban' certain games.
I believe I've said it before in this thread, but the ACB should be a pure ratings advisory board rather than having the power to effectively ban certain media outside of clearly blatantly illegal stuff like child porn. Also, "regular porn" and various fetishes really shouldn't be restricted from sale to adults.
I believe I've said it before in this thread, but the ACB should be a pure ratings advisory board rather than having the power to effectively ban certain media outside of clearly blatantly illegal stuff like child porn. Also, "regular porn" and various fetishes really shouldn't be restricted from sale to adults.
Elaugaufein
Member
The ACB originated in the 70s , censorship is kind of fundamental to its nature and purpose. And what media can get away with corresponds directly to it's age and has for a long time, Film sufferered from strict restriction in the early 20th Century even when it clearly shouldn't have (eg in America the Code was a clear violation of the First Amendment).
That said, I agree with you, age classification should not be the same process as whether something is illegal which should be clearly legislatively defined (know it when I see it is balls in terms of chilling effect). I also think it's problematic to make companies pay for classification, this is a service to the public and should be paid for by the public, the cost itself stops some things getting Australian releases.
I am okay with age restrictions on sale to minors being legislatively enforced, as long as we're consistent about what an adult is.
Agreed.
Add it to the 18c demands list in exchange for your vote.
Labor will change 18c back but leave the ACB change - everyone wins. Well except the hard-right.
Elaugaufein
Member
I wouldn't bet on the change back part. Depending on the exact change Labor may not be any more capable of getting the numbers than the Libs were originally. Not that it likely matters, Leyonhjelm will vote for the governments 18c changes automatically, it's Xenophon they have to convince or make changes he finds acceptable.
TheWasTheJoke
Member
ACB banned fucking Fallout 3, I could not think of a more irrelevant group
Elaugaufein
Member
That was because it portrays drug use positively (they were buff items) , which I believe is something they are legislatively obligated to RC , like sexual violence.
TheWasTheJoke
Member
I'm aware of the reasoning but its still a remarkably silly turn of events at face value
Elaugaufein
Member
Sure, but that's a case of legislation it would have been the same without the ACB because it's a parliamentary requirement. Which is probably even dumber but a different thing.
bobnowhere
Member
If I remember rightly they banned it initially when Med-x was called Morphine and instead of giving pain relief, in the game it provides damage resistance. The censors don't like misrepresentation of the effects of real drugs. Thankfully bethesda just changed the name to Med-x and everything was fine.
I'm just going to rephrase this question, to make it less of a straw-man, but why doesn't the left still care about free speech?
People on the right are incensed that uni students, journalists and university students are frivolously brought before a court and asked to answer for the opinion, and rightly so, but why aren't the left also incensed by the immense authoritarian restrictions on free speech that impact their traditional base? Want to talk about how government contractors are beating refugees bloody on Manus Island? Nope, hope you've packed for your lengthy prison sentence. Want to encourage people to boycott Israeli products for their behaviour in the Palastinian territories? Nope, here comes the FWC/ACCC taking you to court for engaging in a secondary boycott. What about employees right to free speech? Nope, here comes the ABCC seeking pecuniary penalties against you for speaking your mind about your negligent employer's constant industrial manslaughter track record.
Are there many who think absolute free speech is a good idea?
Because if the answer is in the negative you can begin to parse out that it's obviously a conversation about where the limits lie; why people might find whistleblowing on abuses a good thing to protect and Andrew Bolt going on a poorly researched racist tangent a bad thing.
Because if the answer is in the negative you can begin to parse out that it's obviously a conversation about where the limits lie; why people might find whistleblowing on abuses a good thing to protect and Andrew Bolt going on a poorly researched racist tangent a bad thing.
Well now you've just framed the conversation as "Limiting free speech to protect injustice" vs "Limiting free speech to curb injustice"... and I'm fine with that
Elaugaufein
Member
I think limited free speech is a rather dodgy principle , the idea that you can limit speech in a way that won't be used as an ideological club at the first opportunity isn't born out by history. The "fire in a crowded theatre" defence people often use is actually a textbook case of using limitation of speech as an ideological club (and by the Right at that).
Admittedly this is true of many things , there are no good solutions to many issues, because freedoms/rights clash and which take precedence isn't​ as clear cut as people like to pretend.
Admittedly this is true of many things , there are no good solutions to many issues, because freedoms/rights clash and which take precedence isn't​ as clear cut as people like to pretend.
My problem is that unlimited free speech is also used as a weapon and I don't know what we can do about that. Especially online where any space with sufficiently free speech will inevitably become a cesspool because it's too easy and consequence free to drive people out of it.
I guess you can argue that it's better for that power to be in the hands of the people than the government. Ideally human beings would be more rational and less shit but that's not the world we're stuck with.
Elaugaufein
Member
OTOH:
GAF has profoundly limited speech as a result it's not the place for reasoned discussion it presents itself as and people are wilfully oblivious to this. You're more likely​ to be banned for disagreement or mild conservative views than you are being a complete douchebag​ with the right opinions and that's not even counting the soft control by dogpiling that is an inevitable result of a skewed community (or the mixed area where someone gets banned for being as rude to people dogpiling them as the dogpililers where) Which is actually a pretty good argument that the internet works okay, people can set up communities as they wish.
Fire in a crowded theatre is a popular example, but if you're really a pedant you can't extend it to all sorts of things. Intellectual property and copyrighted material, false or misleading advertising, for example.
Every society regulates the level of speech it tolerates in some way, the discussion is really what's worthy of being regulated and what's worthy of being exempt.
Elaugaufein
Member
My optinion on the current state of IP and copyright laws is basically a couple of paragraphs of obscenity. I have to give you the second but I tend towards strict restrictions (ie presenting things as factual when they aren't should be verboten).
Another topic with a fraught history regarding free speech!
People can weaponise communities as they wish too. Which is actually a pretty good argument that the internet is very bad.
Elaugaufein
Member
Politics is nothing but the weaponizing of communities (often by themselves) so unless you've got a perfect benevolent dictator in your pocket you're arguing against human society.
On the internet it's impossible to both have a safe community for traditionaly persecuted minorities and have unlimited free speech. It's zero sum. GAF strongly favours the former, and as such basically excludes Republicans by default. While I agree and regret that contrary opinions are held to a far higher standard than 'correct' shitposts, and that dogpiling has a chilling effect, I can't oppose the hardline against bigotry.
I don't know about that, but social media can whip themselves into a frenzy and pile abuse onto someone within minutes of some news dropping. Without the internet, it usually takes some pretty major upheaval to motivate people in sufficient numbers. If they have sufficient shelter, food, and entertainment, most get mad for a day or two and get on with other things.
Beyond that I'm not sure what you're saying about politics in general. It's the pursuit of power, but the people putting others into power usually aren't then asked to abuse (or otherwise) people en masse, except in specific cases like conscription. And in that case it's not "by themselves". So I'm not clear on what you're saying.
Elaugaufein
Member
Of course they are, we're just so accustomed to it we don't see it that way. Law is backed up by threat of physical violence it's ongoing intimidation of the population in pursuit of the goals of particular communities who keep lawmakers in line by threatening them. Its a all a big song and dance that comes down to having more power than the other guy to enact your will on them (whether that's taking your money for their healthcare or controlling your body for their religious precepts). Dominance in human society is about communities threatening violence. Its just dressed up nicely for tea.
I get that, but it's not analogous to what I'm saying about internet communities. People with power and influence set the standards and hire people to enforce those standards. Cool. This doesn't typically result in mob violence though. This allows at least some modicum of justice to be applied by cool heads. I'm not trying to suggest that this is perfect or just, that's another discussion.
What I am saying is that on the internet, the equivalent of mob violence is common place. Gamergate being the obvious example, they supplied their users with guides on harassment and scripts to make things quicker. Take 10 minutes out of your day and harass this person. We found her parents phone number, take 5 minutes out of your day and call them and have some laughs. Multiply this by a thousand and you can make someones life hell because you know how to make teens mad.
I think there are a lot of shitty things beyond that because most tech companies are headed by people with a libertarian bent who believe in freedom and the marketplace for ideas and such. That ends up with Reddit being the largest Nazi forum on the internet, Twitter harassment being trivially easy, Youtube monetizing racists, and other such things. People that have shitty ideas at a young age (like I did) find it easier to find like minded people and possibly become less likely to grow out of those ideas.
I don't have a solution in mind or anything, I'm just whining that the internet sucks.
Elaugaufein
Member
I think the solutions are often worse, there's plenty of people on the Left who's "solutions" reveal that their problems with facism begin and end with them oppressing the wrong ideas and people not the whole authoritarian society or actual oppression bits. This is one area where I am of a pretty strongly libertarian bent myself.
No one has ever viewed their suppression​ as wrong, churches and societies have claimed moral right for their particular oppression since before time immemorial. And it may well came about that what we regard as moral now may be looked upon as not in the future, it certainly was in the past, hell kind of Leftist philosophy popular on GAF would have seen most of them under surveillance or questioned in the last 100 years. Which is one of the reasons I find the support for the implementation of police state infrastructure both fascinating and bizarre.
ETA2 - I'd like to note too that large parts of GAF seem fine with literal mob violence too , in terms of protests that destroy property and "punching a Nazi". So the metaphorical mob violence being a line too far is also sort of fascinating. I don't think either are appropriate really. Violence should be a matter of last recourse and it should be as minimal as possible. If it's necessary to overthrow society than do it, otherwise beacting up 1 or 2 people you don't like it isn't exactly something I see as moral. The same goes for harassing people. If you must do wrong for your justified cause the good that comes from it should actually be large enough to justify it and harassing someone on Twitter does not.
bobnowhere
Member
I've seen a few law experts suggest that "harass" can be interpreted as having to occur multiple times not just a single incident like with "insult, offend and humiliate." That will cause some havoc, though Xenophon has said no so it's already in the bin.
It is a good question to ask: what can't you say today that you want to be able to say? Tim Wilson was going on about criticising one minority over it's feelings about another. It was pretty clear he was talking about Islam's feelings about homosexuality though I'm pretty sure the political comment part of 18d adequately protects him. But FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!
Also Peter Dutton is now behind SSM, sort of, and has been agitating behind the scenes to get something done before the next election. Apparently he's realised that it's inevitable and he'd rather The Coalition control the "transition" so they can write in all sorts of religious freedoms than have the Labor Party do it after the next election.
It is a good question to ask: what can't you say today that you want to be able to say? Tim Wilson was going on about criticising one minority over it's feelings about another. It was pretty clear he was talking about Islam's feelings about homosexuality though I'm pretty sure the political comment part of 18d adequately protects him. But FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!
Also Peter Dutton is now behind SSM, sort of, and has been agitating behind the scenes to get something done before the next election. Apparently he's realised that it's inevitable and he'd rather The Coalition control the "transition" so they can write in all sorts of religious freedoms than have the Labor Party do it after the next election.
I can't even imagine solutions, but there is a lot of death at the endpoint of "no solution" so I'll listen to suggestions. We polarise and polarise and polarise until somewhere like GAF is talking about punching political opponents because it's all they know how to do. The natural end result of that will be messy.
I'm not sure if you're characterising my argument as saying this, but it's not. This sprung out of "the internet works well" vs "the internet is terrible" so I'm focusing on the mob violence part, but I'm not saying it's necessarily worse than state sponsored violence.
I doubt the former has ever happened without the latter preceding it a bunch of times. That's the sort of thing that would only happen with a lot of pent up rage, which means a lot of punched faces in the build up. If you consider the end point of overthrowing society moral, you'd have to take the good with the bad, no?
Elaugaufein
Member
To be fair there is (and should be) a considerable gap between socially acceptable , especially for a Politician to say publicly , and worthy of civil action, let alone civil action where the state supports the litigant and not the defendant, as is the case with 18c. Its not really proper to insult or offend anyone but the idea the idea the state should pay for me to sue you because you said my hair looks like a wet poodle is ridiculous.
If by behind , you mean with a knife to the neck off to assure things go the right way, which you seem too.
Elaugaufein
Member
The solutions tend to be giving the state absolute power to effectively track everyone online. I see the net harm there as being worse. Given that some states still disappear people it's likely that people will still die , though its people less likely to cause the "pretty white girl" effect.
No, I wasn't characterising your argument as such. It was just a side observation about inconsistency in views of violence where metaphorical violence is worse than literal violence because of a lack of ideological alignment. Which is one of those things I find fascinating.
Oh yes , I agree. People very seldom live up to such high minded standards, I certainly don't have a perfect record there. As you said people tend to have to slowly work themselves up to drastic change, it's why bread and circuses work and why disappearing agitators early can stop things. Its just too hard to go from 0 to overthrowing society.
bobnowhere
Member
The process is broken, everyone knows that. The Labor Party, NXT and even the HRC itself have admitted the problem exists but the Coalition don't seem to have any interest in improving it. Either they want a Pyrrhic victory by changing the headline words or just to get rid of the place all together. It's not genuine, just politics.
I read a list of cases from the HRC a while back that proceeded all the way through the process, can't find it now, but some of them were a little ridiculous and very minor.
Dutton doesn't want SSM but clearly has some level of political awareness that it's coming and if it is he wants to be in charge. I wouldn't normally assign political awareness to Dutton especially after his knitting rant this week but maybe he's a smarter tuber than we all thought!
Elaugaufein
Member
Hmm. Actually if Dutton really is the anointed champion of a part of the right faction it's entirely possible he's getting advice from the IPA and other usual suspects (even the Australian has officially said they should just deal with it so they can get back to the important issues of terrorizing people about the 'other' de jour , looting the public purse and burning the future for profit today).
This seems pretty likely.
Another problem with the internet is that it's hard for people to see the larger abusive whole that their 2-second tweet of "@thatguy You're a knob" is contributing too. I mean it's a huge problem off of the internet too but unless you're a minority you don't get that experience as often offline. It gets extra weird when the target of that abuse is targeted for claiming that minorities should suck it up and get over it and doesn't see the inherent hypocrisy in crying foul when they're suddenly in the middle of shitstorm.
For starters, how the university segregating computer labs is a horrible idea.
Caveat: I don't actually give a shit, I just want to be able to make that argument should I believe it to be true.
Also, let's flip it on its head. How effective is the law in curbing race hate speech? Given that Burney got up in Parliament and read out a number of disgusting tweets she had been sent that day, all without consequence, I'd say not at all.
Elaugaufein
Member
The Newman government probably lost power because of the electoral equivalent of that tweet. They didn't really want a Labor government but a few too many people wanted to kick Newman without being able to properly visualise the size of the ensuing wave. Little actions multiplied by a lot of people can have a big effect. So its hardly an effect unique to the internet.
Yeah but is that a fantastic reason to abolish the law or to figure out better ways of enforcing it, or making it matter, or making a society where we don't have to have these speeches etc?
Okay yeah the law as with most laws was dreamt up for a world where not every single individual was a broadcast medium. So is that a reason to burn down the entire law or a reason to figure out what its purpose is and how we can best work towards that?
That isn't a brilliant argument in and of itself to abolish it, but given how it's actually working, I'm keen for a significant shake up.
Personally, I don't like offend and insult, because they're so subjective, as we've seen, but I want to keep humiliate and harass or whatever else to get the point across. I would also insert some more defences into the law such as valid political purpose.
Elaugaufein
Member
I believe valid political purpose would be covered 18D (b) , it's unlikely the High Court would find that valid political purpose isn't in the public interest. Indeed political purpose seems to be one of the (if not the only) areas where the Court has consistently been willing to read implied rights, so it's unlikely they'd rule explicitly against it.
ETA - The Court does also read offend and insult narrowly but this is one of the reasons that the law is an ass and ignorance of the law is no defense is as moronic as it is trite. It's impossible for even someone with even a passing but non-obsessive interest in a particularly part of the law to be across the entirety of the minutae of precedent setting rulings let alone for the entire body of the law. And that's assuming that the law is written such that the words approximate their common English meanings which is often not the case.
Elaugaufein
Member
The​ WA Upper House results should be finalizing today. Judging by mining and pastoral yesterday there may be some results different to predictions so should be worth keeping an eye on.
Candescence
Member
So according to the SMH, Barnaby Joyce is apparently saying that the whole 18c thing a massive waste of time for the government, Turnbull is just pandering to 'fringe' elements, and all he's doing is giving Labor ammunition.
Am I hallucinating this morning, or did he actually say something sensible?
On the not-so-bright side, he's still spouting nonsense about "decentralisation", aka hardcore pork barrelling that I'm not sure even the Nats electorates even want.
Am I hallucinating this morning, or did he actually say something sensible?
On the not-so-bright side, he's still spouting nonsense about "decentralisation", aka hardcore pork barrelling that I'm not sure even the Nats electorates even want.
Elaugaufein
Member
Oh they definitely want pork barreling, it's the only thing keeping many of those communities even pretend viable. But Joyce's version is hugely ineffective due to its indirectness and also harms services that many of the lynchpins of there communities need but proper pork barreling has to pass the Parliament where as he can do this stuff via portfolio powers.
D.Lo
Member
Great discussion over the last page or two guys, I've enjoyed it.
My conclusion was that so many towns are simply not viable anymore. We seriously need more cities. But speaking to people they talk about 'connection to the land' etc as to why towns should be subsidised to exist. Some of these places are only 50 years old in their current form!
Interesting you say that. In my job I used to go to lots of rural communities to work with centrelink and centrelink related companies. So many places have massive unemployment, because of dying, semi-propped up industries, mostly farming related, and I could almost judge the unemployment rate by the floor space of the centrelink and number of job service providers on the main street lol (closed/boarded up shopfronts is another classic of course).
My conclusion was that so many towns are simply not viable anymore. We seriously need more cities. But speaking to people they talk about 'connection to the land' etc as to why towns should be subsidised to exist. Some of these places are only 50 years old in their current form!
Elaugaufein
Member
I grew up in Warwick, which is one of the more viable of those towns because it's on the Bruce Highway between Brisbane and Sydney. These days it mainly lives because Big W has a big distribution warehouse there.
By connection to the land they mainly mean "real jobs not paper pushing sissie stuff like those city folk" and the sort of social values you get in those communities, it's more about loss of identity* than any real connection to the land (my family owned a farm for maybe 30 years and Mum often talks like that despite having come from city money).
We also lack the infrastructure for non-coastal cities , things like FTTP and serious Solar and Wind investment would make them far more viable in terms of reducing a lot of start up problems in terms of service and start up provisions for regional cities but no one is willing to spend the money on that (and most of these communities would vote against it anyway).
*And power, in a way. The Nat's exist because of these people and represent them in theory and sort of in practice (coal and gas tend to take priority these days). And the nature of these electorates means you can't really avoid disproportionate representation.
D.Lo
Member
Exactly that's my (not personal) experience too. It feels like a John Howard 'the 50s was so great' thing. But really in normal historical economic circumstances some of these places would be ghost towns if not for the quirks of federal and state electioneering, paying for them to continue to exist, with other people's money, so a party can stay in power.
I get that the way we've set up our societal expectations and employment conditions make it very hard to move - see the massive failure of the 'relocation payment' programs the last two governments have set up - it's just not that simple for most people to move cities or towns for a low-level job with a six month probationary period.
But I would totally move to a regional city (especially if t's coastal
) if there were a business centre strong enough to have a range of management jobs like mine there. I'd be able to buy a fucking house for one thing.bobnowhere
Member
Them CEO's dropped their knitting again.
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