Comment on Is Australia's Overton Window Shifting?
kudra@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I think now would be an excellent time for the Overton window to be pushed even further to the left, given the results of the Federal Election, and to highlight exactly how far from the original “left” Labor has moved. The intent wouldn’t be to form government or even have much chance of getting a seat: I’m talking left of Socialist Alliance. And I have some pleasantly controversial policies with which to begin this project. Things The Greens won’t touch, and that the Socialist Alliance don’t even really have on their radar as they are focussed generally Marxist theory and unions. I’m talking mainly about being honest and open about the need for radical change in economic policy to degrowth, things that the current left parties don’t talk about because it’s seen as “political suicide”. Yup. Need someone in the far far left to tell the emperor they have no clothes.
Some specific fun policies:
I was reading the first part of your comment thinking that anything left of the greens is too nutty for me, but then I would absolutely vote for any of those three policies.
You’re right in that they’re non-starters politically, but certainly part of an idealist utopia.
I was reading the first part of your comment thinking that anything left of the greens is too nutty for me, but then I would absolutely vote for any of those three policies.
This is a pretty common view where people think the Greens (or left of that) are extremist, but when given actual Green’s policies tend to prefer those policies when polled.
Is there any truth to the claim that Greens block legislation on idealistic grounds?
The CPRS is one glaring example.
Thanks! Good to see there’s at least one other nutter here in Fedi that would vote for these 😊 the idea would be to go into it knowing that the majority would say “you’ve got to be f&*>ing joking mate” - which is exactly the Overton window strategy of right-wingers: of which Overton was one. We gotta start really pulling back not just to the centre but far beyond.
Might as well throw my cent in:
yes yes yes
I’d rather SES and other emergency services than military training.
I don’t know enough to say 100% support, but it sounds smart to me. Not even just from an environmental pollution POV. That said, there would also need to be controls to avoid local price gouging.
My vision would be a peace corps-like body that works on projects that specifically are designed to mitigate climate change, or respond to disasters caused by climate change. Planting trees, creating bike lanes, working in tech areas that are helping with modelling and mitigation…transition town initiatives, rewilding… I’m sure many other options.
I assume Climate Corp would be like Park Rangers or Environmental cleanup.
When we were younger National Parks used to recruit students during school holidays to perform works around the parks. We used to get food and accommodation and would maintain the public facilities, clear overgrown bushland and perform basic maintenance on infrastructure.
Nowadays, due to Economic Rationalism, they pay top-dollar for professional contractors to perform the work, or in most cases, just don’t perform the work.
My hatred of advertising was probably a big part of why my small business failed. People need to be able to inform the market of their product and services. Johnny graduates as an accountant can he not put an ad in the classifieds or a sign on his office? I think there should be places where advertising is acceptable where people can look for what they might need, rather than having companies competing for our attention while telling us that we’re incomplete without their things.
Yes that’s fair, but stricter controls on how and where that happens. Classifieds were always a reasonable thing, and without them the press has been destroyed, but the enshittification of online marketplaces has made the deal really unfair for everyone. The enshittification of socially media through advertising, especially political, has been catastrophic.
Cory Doctorow has had a lot of great things to say about this, and much stricter control is needed to stop platforms making everything awful for both individuals and businesses, but overall I did not get a lot of value when I used to advertise my small business and I just rely on word of mouth largely these days. Been in business over 20 years.
For sure. The “fill every available space with advertising” model can get fucked.
Degrowth & Transport Carbon Offsets may be difficult to balance until there is a huge shift away from consumerism.
It will take a lot of convincing the electorate that they can’t have their latest consumerist bauble unless they make it themselves, or find someone local to make it.
Even if they find someone to make it, decentralised manufacturing is usually more expensive (from an environmental impact view) than mass-produced goods.
A million individual people making a jacket each produces more waste than 10 people working together to build a million jackets.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
I am 100% on board with point 3. And not just food, but all products.
I like point 1 in theory, but have concerns. Billboards are easy, do that 100%. You didn’t mention TV, but I assume you’d want it banned there as well as social media? The problem is, you ban advertising on TV and we go back to the days where the ABC is the only player around. I’m not going to be upset if Australia’s Next Top Influencer Chef or Farmer Wants a Renovation go away, but a lot of people do obviously get value in them. And the consequences if commercial sport went away would be much more severe, given their role in encouraging young people to get out and be active. I would immediately ban gambling ads, and would be open to the idea of banning alcohol ads and ads for other harmful products. But banning all advertising on TV is a non-starter, unless you can first come up with a serious viable alternative revenue stream. If commercial social media died, I would be much less upset. But do you mean social media, or do you mean all websites? YouTube and the Guardian going away would be a real loss in a way Twitter and Facebook would not.
Point 2 is an absolute no. Military chauvinistic bullshit. We’re not a country at severe threat of invasion like Taiwan or South Korea, where national service might be justified. As someone more interested in an anarchist style left than a statist one, I can’t even begin to condone this idea.
kudra@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Oh! Also forgot to say: we already came up with a model to remove, very successfully, advertising from TV:
it was called Netflix.
Unfortunately it got enshittified, and now everything is a giant shit show in that department.
But you make advertising illegal, and companies are still going to have subscribers.
I’m also pretty happy with just ABC iView these days, I rarely even bother with SBS and haven’t had Netflix for years.
There’s also Beamafilm and other public library initiatives.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
As a paid service, Netflix is definitely not equivalent to free-to-air TV. In sport we even have specific anti-siphoning laws to prevent culturally important events being siphoned off so only people who pay for them can watch. It’s a bad road to go down. A similar concept can go for game shows, dramas, reality TV, news, and whatever else is on free-to-air TV. The ABC is great, and to be honest outside of sport it’s basically the only channel I ever watch. But the ABC can’t provide nearly as much stuff as all channels combined do.
kudra@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I cannot remember the last time I watched free to air that wasn’t ABC. It’s mostly reality tv crap and reruns. And propaganda, given who owns these bloody things. Not much would be lost if advertising supported TV was not allowed.
kudra@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Sweet on 3. I’m also big on adjusting that as a carbon tax, so for example, your tax if your goods ship via sail/carbon neutral means is way less than carbon intensive transport. But refrigerated long range transport seems super crazy at this point.
1 I am open to persuasion on. I know there’s some parts of the world that outlawed billboards, and that’s a vast improvement and a public good for a more restful visual environment. We’ve seen the evil perpetrated on the internet through advertising. It’s just the worst way to have monetised everything, and in hindsight was a massive mistake, and has been since long before this (look up the history if deBeers, and advertising in general. I actually studied advertising briefly as one of several streams in graphic design study, and backed out after one semester, I did not have the stomach for it). People of Fedi are largely already convinced advertising for monetisation is evil. Maybe some kind of limitation in advertising regarding company size, dunno, but I really don’t like the future of Idiocracy, and smarter people than me have already commented that we’re more than halfway there.
And to 2. Allow me to explain further. I first came to this idea of compulsory national service after a conversation at a nightclub over a decade ago where it was mentioned that only 2 nations in the world (at the time) had conscription for all genders: Sweden and Malaysia. This was incorrect as there were several more, as I discovered when I looked it up, and most northern European countries have added conscription for women since. But the person speaking was female and had said it was fantastic, got her opportunities that she might not have had otherwise, allowed her experience in leadership roles that were rare at the time (and often still are in many places), and lifelong friends.
This article just published 3 days ago pretty much gives a bigger overview and I agree with.
www.abc.net.au/religion/…/105257832
I think that we are going to need more social cohesiveness as the world becomes more unstable both geopolitically and physically as climate change really ramps up.
And please note, I do not believe anyone should be required to serve mandatory military service: that’s why I stated specifically military OR climate corps.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
I don’t disagree, but there are deeper problems here and forcing teenagers into work they’re not enthusiastic about isn’t the fix. Especially not if that work follows the rigid hierarchy of a military or military-like organisation.
We have problems of alienation caused by capitalism.
We have a lack of community with neighbours caused by car-dependent infrastructure and a lack of third spaces.
And I’m just not going to buy the idea that forcing young people into working under a rigid hierarchy (a very un-Australian concept, if there ever was one!) would work at all, but even in the best case it would just be a bandaid on the wound.
kudra@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I think a climate corps world not have to be run in a military fashion, and can be doing very peaceful things like planting trees, making bicycle paths, social outreach, or tech if that’s what motivates you. Read the article linked for more ideas of what could be included.
I agree about capitalism & lack of space and car depency, 1000 percent. But we’ve also given people the idea that society of just this given, the structure just exists and you get the benefits of infrastructure (even though it’s far from perfect) without being required to give back. I think that concept of valuable and with an aging population, we will have difficult choices to make in future. Kids shouldn’t have to shoulder a greater burden, and I also believe the welfare state is going to collapse because of logistics of population decline and degrowth in our future, unless we manage it incredibly carefully. We can’t keep going the way we have been, that’s certain.