shirro

@shirro@aussie.zone

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨News Corp does away with council reporters and replaces them with AI. The results? As you might expect. | Media Watch⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  At least their spelling and grammar might improve. News Corp is such a low bar for replacement with LLMs. All you need is an inbox full of press releases and a prompt to selectively quote from them, giving extra glow ups to anything politically or economically aligned with the owners.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An OpenAI agent hacked Medicare. Will anyone be held responsible?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  AI does not exist. It is just a bunch of numbers and code. We need to stop anthropomorphizing stuff. We are adults, not kids watching Disney animations. A talking parrot is not a person. Cars don’t run over people. Drivers do. Ultimately there is always a person responsible and if they did harm judge them on whether it was intentional or negligent.

  Please push back on this bullshit. It was bad enough that we went with the auto manufacturers line on car “accidents” for years.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anthony Albanese says OpenAI agent hacked Medicare and he expressed ‘extreme concern’ to Sam Altman⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Our intelligence agencies keep warning about Chinese hackers but then hand over all our data to foreign companies for their economic and political advantage. Its fucking traitorous how we give up our sovereignty. Then despite other countries having their hooks deep into us they just blatantly attack our infrastructure. This on top of the massive foreign influence campaigns they conduct through social media that stir up dangerous extremism. It is a joke. If the government wants us to take threats from China seriously (and we should) we have to come clean about the amount of intelligence gathering and influence from countries.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Paul Keating says Aukus locking Australia into a US war against China, which it would ‘certainly lose’⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  We are all so captured by US cult

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Proud to be a houso': Anthony Albanese condemns Hanson's remarks on late mother⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Public housing started changing in the 80s I think when a lot of it was sold off and it became welfare housing. Remember his mother died in 2002. For most of her life public housing was affordable housing for working families.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Proud to be a houso': Anthony Albanese condemns Hanson's remarks on late mother⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Public housing in Australia was simple affordable housing owned by the state and rented at affordable rates to working families, filling a gap that wasn’t being served by the private sector. It wasn’t a privilege or a gift anymore than public schools, hospitals, roads or police. As policies and funding changed over the years perceptions of public housing changed. It became scarcer, trashier and stigmatized. I am not sure what your point is if you have one.

  Public housing was a very good thing that we walked away from because of this us vs them bullshit. It increased supply and put downward pressure on pricing. No wonder the landlords hated it and lobbied against it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Proud to be a houso': Anthony Albanese condemns Hanson's remarks on late mother⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I had an aunty with rheumatoid arthritis and I knew it was incredibly debilitating but I didn’t see her much and never really understood until I saw it hit my not so old wife. It is really fucking scary and a lot more than just joint pain. Fortunately she got to a specialist and on treatments that have it more or less under control but a lot of them wouldn’t have been around in the past and once joint damage is done it is permanent.

  Public housing didn’t used to be only for people on welfare, at least not over here in South Australia. It might have been different interstate. When the Liberal and Country League established it here 90 years ago it was affordable accommodation for working families to help industrialize the state. South Australia was always struggling economically against the biggest states and had to work harder and smarter to attract industry and workers. A worker might be ok with lower pay if rent was more affordable. Playford accelerated the industrialisation post WW2. People living in housing trust homes were making Holden, Chrysler, vehicle parts, whitegoods etc and while the homes were basic, the shit they had in England or wherever they came from wasn’t great either.

  I think the idea that public housing is a scarce resource for people who can’t or won’t work is a modern invention. It was supposed to be affordable housing, with no judgements. Anyway she was disabled with a severe chronic disease so likely didn’t have a lot of choices.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Alarming AI ads are flooding social media in the lead-up to Victoria’s election. But who is behind them?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ads might be traceable but they are the tip of the iceberg for social media influence. It is almost impossible to know who is behind the memes and comments coming from foreign operations.

  Many social media posts of Australian politics don’t even originate in Australia and could be sponsored by literally anyone and are completely unchecked and unregulated. Foreign owned social media is a tool of political and economic destabilization.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A 'huge' trade-off: One Nation's pitch for cheaper cigarettes⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  One Nation aren’t the answer but the government isn’t too smart with the way they are handling the tobacco black market. They have enormous power between legal enforcement and setting the rate of taxation to cyclically fuck over the black market in a huge way.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Albanese government rejects all UN recommendations on improving LGBTQIA+ rights⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Such recommendations need to go to the states/territories in our federal system. For instance conversion therapy is banned in SA, NSW, ACT, Vic. So the recommendations on that should go shit state/territories like WA, Tasmania and NT. Any attempt by the federal govt to legislate outside of its constitutionally defined powers would have to survive a high court challenge. The external affairs power worked for the Franklin dam but that was a specific set of circumstances.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fred gambled away his inheritance. He says Labor's betting ad reforms don't go far enough⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It takes two. A sucker and someone to take advantage of them. The government can’t do much about stupid people doing stupid things. Often there are underlying mental issues like depression etc I think. We don’t really want to be ruining peoples lives even more for being addicts as has happened with the war on drugs. There is a limit to what governments can do though. People do need to take some responsibility for being fuck ups but we don’t have to make it easy for the predators.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Under a real democracy nobody would be listening to her and she wouldn’t be a threat to our peace and prosperity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australia 'relies on immigration' and restricting numbers could backfire, government warns⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Immigration numbers aren’t pulled out of a hat. There are a lot of factors like skill shortages, demographics etc taken into account. We could reduce numbers but we would need to do it carefully and plan for the consequences.

  One Nation’s concern about immigration is entirely a dog whistle for racial intolerance.

  For shits and giggles the govt should announce a return of White Australia policy and doubling the intake and watch ON implode. Of course bringing out 10 bob poms to work in factories is fucking hopeless now we have shut them all down. What are they going to come here for? The skin cancer?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Disgusted': Albanese, Gillard condemn 'Ditch the Witch' campaign targeting Allan⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It is more nuanced than just misogyny. It is targeted vilification for political purposes. The incitement is hidden behind social media sock puppets and the crazies so it can’t be traced back to anyone but I reckon a lot of politics these days operates two campaigns - the official regulated old media stuff and an unregulated underground shadow campaign.

  It is rare for people to dislike Hanson because she is a woman or in her 70s. Arguably its irrelevant to the politics she espouses. Women inside the Liberal party were copping a lot of shit inside the party but outside the attacks were relatively benign compared with the shit aimed at Gillard. I swear GamerGate hyping up the lame man-o-sphere during Clinton’s run was not a coincidence either.

  So yeah, attacking people on shit like this is weak and pathetic and easily dismissed by anyone with half a brain. But straight forward emotional appeals clearly have an impact with more ignorant voters and its a very cost effective ploy to appeal to a prejudice to sway a voter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨One Nation wants to roll back abortion rights in Australia – and is emboldening activists seeking US-style laws⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hanson is 72 years old. She wasn’t a particularly effective politician or leader even when she was younger. The collapse of the Liberal party has created an opportunity and the opportunists are climbing onboard a party with some momentum and billionaire backing that lacks the discipline or structure to enforce it’s identity and aims, such that they are.

  These people will do to ON what they did to the Liberal party, destroy it from the inside. It is my opinion that similar dynamics is why the Libs got wiped out in SA. They turned their back on the broadly popular moderate politics of Marshall and opted instead for extremist Christian identity politics. Having their pick speed run Christian cosplayer to convicted drug supplier didn’t help.

  In my opinion Hanson does not seem particularly religious (or perhaps at all) and I suspect opening the doors to the Christian fascist types is more a means to an end when it comes to re-establishing White Australia or grifting more money and power than anything to do with her personal convictions.

  If Hanson retains any control of her party she might seek to dump the lot of them if they start tanking her popularity. This isn’t the US.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Polling suggests one nation preferred over labor, negative perceptions and low awareness of budget blamed.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  People have left reliable reporting and information sources behind and only subscribe to brain melting propaganda feeds which trivialize and distort.

  Emotional appeals such as ragebait and doomerism increase engagement and soc media platforms are all engagement farms. It is a combination of the algorithmic nature of those platforms promoting this sort of content and organizations that create content aimed at increasing societal division and undermining trust in government and institutions. As people are getting emotional manipulation in place of information it just naturally carries over into everyday conversation I guess as it fires them up.

  I admit I don’t follow the news like I did either. I would watch ABC/SBS news, longer form news/current affairs on the same platforms, multiple newspapers. I tend to just skim some web pages these days or find out about stuff because it gets mentioned here. I am much less informed than I was 20 years ago but with the media environment the way it is now I wouldn’t want to consume as much as I once did.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Former prime minister Tony Abbott elected unopposed as Liberal Party president⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nailing the coffin shut.

  Abbott and co played their part in the purge of moderate so-called small l liberals and now they are a minor party that unsurprisingly fails to represent the broad interests of centre right voters.

  You can hate the ALP right for keeping public schooling down to look after religious schools, backing socially conservative policies, neo-liberal economics increasing the wealth divide, an erosion of workers rights and govt services, anti environmental policies and being the mates of big business and foreign lobbies. But they keep the ALP relevant to a wider range of voters than a socialist workers party ever could and keep them in government. The Libs had breadth and a huge brand and they chose to give it up because they couldn’t see the big picture.

  Now someone on the right might as well go for ON or a teal or perhaps even the ALP. Dumbarses.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Farrer presents One Nation as a genuine electoral threat rather than just a protest - ABC News⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Agreed but lots of dumbarses think we live in a two party system and when the Libs disappeared from their feeds the “never-labor” crowd could only see one choice. Blame the liberal party for shitting the bed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨U.S. Pushes Allies to Chase a New Terrorism Target: The Far Left⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That would be the majority of US citizens. Pity the dumb fucks don’t bother voting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fuel shortages set to drive up food prices across Australia⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What are your citizens going to do with that that they could not have done already?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fuel shortages set to drive up food prices across Australia⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Cut every US subscription you have. Netflix, Disney, Adobe, Microsoft. Don’t use their ad supported service either. Meta, Google.

  Don’t go to the cinemas and watch their movies. Don’t buy their books. Don’t vote for the people they tell you to vote for (PHON).

  Send them a message and keep your money in your pocket at the same time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pauline Hanson censured over remarks there are no 'good Muslims'⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The nation is a federation of states used for convict transport and one colonized by free settlers. And although it is a blind spot for the Poms, then and now, there were people here before they arrived.

  The convict states are mostluy proud of their heritage. Highly recommend a visit to Port Arthur… A lot of the convicts were victims of prejudice and poverty., The people who come off worst in Australia’s history by far are the English who sent their poor and the Irish here to use as forced labour, committed genocide on the native people, nuked service people and traditional owners, and sent our young to die in Gallipoli.

  Everything this country has done and continues to do to redress the shit legacy of the british empire reflects well on us.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guardian Essential poll: more than half of Australians open to voting for One Nation despite Hanson’s Muslim comments⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s more a symptom of where right wing politics has gotten us.

  What gets me is right wingers had their chance to turn out and vote for Dutton. He is a far more effective politician than Hanson and could have actually formed government instead of just stoke social division and annoy people. He had the nod from Gina and News Corp. Instead everyone seemed to vote for Labor or Teals. What am I missing?

  In several states the Liberal party can barely win a seat let alone government. For a country marching to the right doesn’t it seem really odd? Our historically dominant, long governing, conservative party which drew most of the talent on that side of politics struggles. But supposedly we are going to jump right past them to our reject shop version of AfD. How does that work exactly?

  Like I feel someone is fucking with us here. I haven’t see skin heads marching down the main street in rural Australia which is as conservative as it gets. No pogroms. No racist graffiti. I would expect ON to do better here than anywhere in my state and in the 2025 federal election they were level with the Greens. Some stuff has changed in a year but not that much. Most shit is basically the same. Cost of living didn’t reverse but it definately stabilized. Have there been riots and the streets burning somewhere else?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guardian Essential poll: more than half of Australians open to voting for One Nation despite Hanson’s Muslim comments⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Are they though? Like organically pissed off and not doom scrolling cooker pissed off?

  SA Labor are very much a populist centrist party and pretty much the natural party of government in SA and I will be shocked if they don’t win by a huge margin. Unless the Libs can bring Playford back from the dead to re-nationalise our electricity. Take my vote. Antic and the like have been pushing the Libs to the right and out of contention for years and are doing the same to the federal party.

  Not sure about NSW but I get the impression Minns is a populist Labor Right centrist along the lines of Malinauskas. These guys are holding the center of the chess board. They don’t really look threatened.

  The only thing controversial about Albo is his ability to avoid controversy. He won by a landslide accompanied by almost the almost complete destruction of the LNP.

  And if I was pissed off why would I vote for Hanson. She has been a joke for her entire political career. What changed apart from Gina’s money?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guardian Essential poll: more than half of Australians open to voting for One Nation despite Hanson’s Muslim comments⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Australians are humans and do human shit. We aren’t actually blessed or geniuses. Just kind of lucky and generally chill. Both can easily change.

  Unfortunately reverse our good fortune by increasing wealth inequality and undoing the progress of working Australians pushes people to the angry camp. And the angry camp can spread like a bushfire with influencers, social media companies and old media pouring fuel on it.

  It’s not that a peoples party is a bad idea. We had one once called the Australian Labor Party. Born under a tree in Queensland by and for the benefit of hard working Australians. Thanks Queensland. Now they give us Pauline and she is something else entirely. It makes me sad.

  I think we should be better. But we are the same as everyone else aren’t we. Muslims, Americans, Chinese. We are all capable of doing bad shit to each other for insane reasons. It has just been our luck that unless your had the misfortune to be born indigenous most us us had it so good we thought we were above a lot of that shit or at least getting better. Hopefully One Nation will self sabotage as they do tend to attract a log of incompetent people. But I thought the same about both Trump administrations.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pauline Hanson issues partial apology for suggesting there are no 'good' Muslims⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They say the outrageous shit, walk it back a little, say even more outrageous shit. They know what they are doing. We know it. It isn’t something new. I don’t know why we pretend and give this piece of shit airtime.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Video] Australian police violently beat up protester with his hands up at demonstration against Israeli president Isaac Herzog visiting.⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  People with no self control shouldn’t hold responsible positions. If your having a bad day you shouldn’t be in a uniform dealing with people. Goes for any job, not just cops. Imagine if nurses behaved like this, punching every patient who pissed them off. Yet they get paid less than police for some reason.

  I am not anti-police at all. Strongly disagree with the ACAB bullshit in Australia. Some cops are bastards for sure. I think they have a tough job and an important one even if their recruitment and discipline sucks. I feel particularly sorry for the ones who get shot dealing with cookers and some of the stuff they have to see and deal with.

  If the police service can’t self discipline and weed out the trigger happy snowflakes then the public lose faith in them. They need to put cops like this on suspension and retraining. They might not have the right personality for this sort of work. It makes them look week. If your an agitator and want to start a riot it is so easy to bait people like this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Where would you put yourself today?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I was thinking the same about it only going up to 40C. It’s forecast for 48C here tomorrow.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discussion Thread ⏰ Thursday 4 December 2025⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I love Lego but the kids don’t like Star Wars. There’s also a monopoly thing somewhere I think but it’s hard to get excited over boomer IP even for an old bloke. But thanks for the suggestion.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discussion Thread ⏰ Thursday 4 December 2025⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks. ACMI is already on the list. Might do the markets depending on time but have a lot of things already. Have done the usuals in the past like scienceworks, NGV, museum, aquarium. All great but not this time.