BlitzkriegOfColour posted:

Australian Christianity fell apart in the face of the Australian lifestyle. Let Moslems be here in peace and watch as it happens to their faith, too.

Calico Noose posted:

High Five fellow Newcastle Goon, we should have a goon meet-up where we huddle in a vacant shop front on Hunter street.

Ian Winthorpe III posted:

Why is it our historical mission to enable the reformation of Islam?

rudatron posted:

'Nothing' is actually more valid via parsimony, but you're missing the point: by assuming it's a part of human nature, you're projecting your own way of thinking onto the 'space' of all possible human thought. Under this world view, atheists are somehow...not human? Sub-human? The special exception? And if they're the special exception, why are they a growing subgroup in western countries?

Religion and the ideologies of society are determined by societies' social and material conditions, not the other way around. If you're saying that faith is intrinsic, then that is nothing but ahistorical special pleading. I'm not even referring to monotheism here, pre-civilized beliefs are not based around the idea of 'another world' or any of that, everything is immanent. That's actually very close to materialist atheism, it's just that the 'rules of operation' of the world are different! Transcendent religion is caused by the emergence of classes under the neolithic revolution, and the requirements of settled society to manage those class relations, just as pre-civilized beliefs were caused by the requirements to manage inter-personal relationships (the reduction of conspicuous consumption and a kind of justice system).

Crikey posted:

Don't listen to Bernard Keane: in defence of data retention

Alastair MacGibbon, Director of the Centre for Internet Safety at the University of Canberra

By now, the chorus of indignation in response to the government's proposed rules around the collection of metadata is well established. But is this reaction warranted? On balance, it is not. While we must always be vigilant about our personal freedoms and potential government encroachment, this latest episode of Big Brother hand-wringing has been overblown and heedless of some basic realities of the digital lives most of us live.

The fact is that metadata is everywhere. We shed it like digital dander containing our personal DNA as we go online, use our smartphones, and send and receive emails. Every digital step we take -- and for most people that is countless steps every day -- creates it.

This digital dander is hoovered up by telecommunications companies, internet service providers and large offshore multinationals. After the multinationals ship it offshore, unidentified, unregulated marketers and engineers use it in unfettered ways for who-knows-what purposes (usually to market goods to us). There is no audit trail, no accountability and absolutely no oversight by any government.

For the most part, this hoovering gets only minimal attention. There was some press when it became publicly known that Apple iPhones were tracking every step users made and a bit more muted commentary when Google changed its privacy policy to allow the tech giant to aggregate data across its 40+ “free” services. An Android smartphone user who accesses Gmail has his data cross-referenced with Google maps, Google searches and so on and so forth. The creation of an ever more detailed data file on each individual user -- arguably the most comprehensive data set held by a private company about private citizens in history -- elicited scarcely a whimper from civil liberties groups.

Still, it can be argued that there is a difference between a private company taking your data and a government doing so, as the government has the power to charge, compel and prosecute. Fair enough. In the current case, is the government justified in wanting this data? The answer hinges on law enforcement. Just as our lives have moved online, so has crime and a range of illegal activity. Solving many serious and heinous crimes now revolve around digital evidence, often located based on the patchwork quilt of metadata.

It is the sheer breadth and audacity of the private sector's collection of data that should give us pause before we rush to the barricades in protest of the federal government's far more modest proposal. According to what we've learned, the federal government plans to compel Australian telecommunications companies and ISPs to retain a small subset of metadata for a period of two years so that police agencies and ASIO, if the need arises, can apply for those records in order to investigate serious criminal offences and attacks on Australian society.

But what is this metadata? Is it the sort of personal material gobbled up by private sector players? Hardly. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has given the most clarity to this debate we’ve seen in the past four years from either side of government (remember, it was Labor that first proposed this, so it’s bi-partisan): the government is seeking phone call records be retained (telcos generate these for billing purposes anyway), as well as our dynamically allocated IP numbers when we go online. These numbers are assigned to us each time to use the internet and are required to track back to a user at the time. On any day several people may be allocated the same number, so it is critical, to protect the rights of innocent people, that the right subscriber is tied to a possible offence. It is, in essence, a living white pages phone book, retained for two years, in case a piece of our technology is implicated in a crime. Just to emphasise the point: metadata need not be only incriminatory, it can be exculpatory as well, meaning that having a system in place that can properly collect and assess this data serves all our interests.

That said, we must ensure that the system won't be abused. First, the number of agencies who can access this type of data must drop. Second, the offences for which this kind of data can be sought needs to be narrow. And lastly, while the government has good grounds for demanding the retention of such information for two years, it should also mandate its destruction at that time unless there is a genuinely sound reason for keeping it.

The future is likely to produce a lot more digital dander, and only considered and prudent planning will make that future one in which the right to privacy and the public good are balanced.

BlitzkriegOfColour posted:

So, essentially, because tradition? The only problem I have with this arises when the unscrupulous sieze upon the word god to trick good people. See: evangelists quoting Einstein "god does not play dice", then raking in money hand over first from the dimwitted.

Fruity Gordo posted:

Laserface posted:

I have been told on a few occasions that China is stupidly racist also, especially towards Indians.

Fruity Gordo posted:

But like yeah, I have to respond to soag and TOML because this poo poo really pisses me off. Do we seriously have to go through some bullshit Ditchkins poo poo again about how religion is regressive and atheism is the light and agnosticism is cowardice or can we just go back to our perennial consensus that religious belief is an inherent part of all humans and necessarily concern the divine or a lack thereof or ambivalence?

quote:

Because arguing about how anti-homophobic Muslims are essentially apostates according to your assumptions and prejudices against Islam is loving stupid, and so is talking about how there's no point in being a follower of an explicitly progressive iteration of an ancient religion because... what? Give a reason.

quote:

Science? Science and religion are separate, that is the entire point of the scientific method, to break from the authority of the church to allow for reasonable inquiry in both philosophical directions because they clearly diverge. One is based on empirical analysis, one is based in belief systems. Atheism is a belief system.

quote:

How many loving times do secular scientists have to say that they are not concerned with god or faith in the work they do about the beginnings of the universe? They are not saying it for the benefit of the fundamentally religious. They are saying shut the gently caress up to the smug atheists who jump on any discovery of the universe to say 'lol where's your god'. God is still everywhere, dipshits. God is in everything because I can't explain how anything exists without it, nor can science, and nor can you. You might not see god in anything but everything I see has something to do with something incredible by virtue of the simple fact that it exists. And existence is marvellous and complex and hosed up and worth it and something caused it all to happen and I call that god.

Gough Suppressant posted:

With your assertion that atheism is a religious position you are ignoring the fact that many people use atheism as a stand-in for agnosticism to mean the lack of assertion of any theory, and if you're going to claim that asserting no belief one way or the other is a religious position then you're just plain dumb.

i got banned posted:

Is religious chat over? This is worse than loving helmet chat.

Scylo posted:

I wonder why nobody buys newspapers anymore

adamantium|wang posted:

gas thread

ban everyone

quote:

Fire destroys links to Nimbin's hippie past


A HUGE part of Nimbin's history and many iconic artworks were lost forever when the village's much-loved museum went up in flames yesterday morning.

The museum was a tribute to Nimbin's colourful history, and told stories of Aboriginal culture, white settlement, the hippie beginnings, and the Aquarius Festival.

It was home to irreplaceable items, including the yellow Kombi which former Prime Minister Bob Hawke's daughter, Rosslyn, lived in while she was in Nimbin.

After visiting Nimbin numerous times in the 1970s, Michael Balderstone moved to the village in 1985, and opened the Nimbin Museum as a second-hand shop in the front room of the building.

"I first rented the front room for $35 a week, while people still lived in rooms in the rear of the building," he said.

"I kept renting more rooms and filling them with second-hand stuff until I was renting out the whole building."

Mr Balderstone said the Nimbin Museum was officially opened on Boxing Day, 1992.

Leaseholder Elspeth Jones said she got a phone call about the fire at 4am.

"We drove straight here, but 10km out I could see the glow in the sky and I knew it was bad," she said.

"It was an inferno. It's just old wood, but it's also Nimbin's history.

"I've been coming to this museum every day for 22 years.

"It has been in my constant care. I am in shock."

Mr Balderstone, who has spent the past 30 years working and building the Nimbin Museum, said the fire was a "kick in the guts" for Nimbin, but could have been much worse.

He said Nimbin's fire crew had gotten to the scene quickly and had been working to stop it leaping across the narrow gap to the neighbouring Nimbin Lifestyle Real Estate when instead it leapt the laneway between the cafe and the museum.

For Mr Balderstone, the loss of the museum means the destruction of a work that has dominated the last three decades of his life.

Mr Balderstone said Nimbin was a resilient community and would rebuild, but the museum was gone forever.

Robodog posted:

Are Sikhs allowed to not wear helmets because of their turbans????

i got banned posted:

Is religious chat over? This is worse than loving helmet chat.

quote:

Just pointing out the facts: Joe Hockey stands by comments on poor people and cars


Treasurer Joe Hockey says he is "sorry" if his comments that increasing the petrol tax will not hurt the poor as much sound callous, but stresses that he is just pointing out the facts.

Mr Hockey on Thursday continued to defend his comments that because poor people did not own cars or drive as far they would be not be as hard hit by a rise in the fuel excise, blitzing radio stations on the east coast from Perth, where he met Palmer United Senator Dio Wang for budget negotiations.

Mr Hockey, speaking on Sydney Fairfax Radio 2UE, said his comments were backed by the facts.

"The fact of the matter is that I can only get the facts out there and explain the facts, how people interpret them is up to them," he said.

Mr Hockey was asked if he realised if his comments sounded callous.

"I'm sorry if that's the case but the fact is that the Labor party says that it's an unjust initiative, unfair initiative, higher income people aren't paying enough, well here is an initiative where higher income people pay on average three times the amount of lower income households in the fuel excise," he said.

He has also hit back at Labor's depictions of him as an out of touch ''cigar-chomping Foghorn Leghorn of Australian politics'', saying he has no regrets about being pictured smoking cigars during budget preparations and had smoked them since he was 16.

He said he didn't care about "personality politics" because "you've got to be who you are".

"Everyone keeps talking about how politicians are sometimes phoney, I mean I am what I am," he said.

Mr Hockey said "I'm doing my best for the country" and noted the "conga line of criticism" but cautioned that was "self-deprecating humour" and added "unless someone wants to interpret that as well".

But some government MPs are unimpressed by Mr Hockey's remarks.

Senator Ian Macdonald told ABC Radio on Thursday that "you have to have a car whether you're rich or poor . . . regional Australia don't have the alternative of public transport".

NSW Nationals senator John Williams said people in the bush needed cars.

''You have to have a car whether you're rich or poor, you need a vehicle to be able to get from one place to the other,'' he told ABC Radio on Thursday.

''Regional Australians don't have the alternative of public transport of other means of getting there.''

Consumer group One Big Switch argued poor people spend a higher proportion of their income on fuel and live further away, meaning they're hit twice.

A major survey in June showed the biggest average fuel bill in Sydney was in the south-western suburbs, while those in Melbourne's north-east and north-west paid the most for petrol on average.

Captain Pissweak posted:

Maybe Labor isn't all bad...

Captain Pissweak posted:

Holy poo poo.

Cigar-chomping Foghorn Leghorn of Australian politics.

I'm still loving laughing.

Captain Pissweak posted:

Maybe Labor isn't all bad...

Gentleman Baller posted:

Labors charismatic leaders have always had great insults and imaginative wit. Maybe Bill has been chatting with some of them.