SynthOrange posted:

Please neuter your libertarians.

Mad Katter posted:

SynthOrange posted:

Please neuter your libertarians.

quote:

Rundle: IS' -- and capitalism's -- worst crime is the destruction of culture
There is little good news around, but one hint of it came recently with word that many of the artefacts smashed by Islamic State (also called Daesh and ISIS) in Mosul were in fact replicas of pieces being held elsewhere. That doesn’t make up for the destruction of the city of Nimrud (if that has occurred), or more to come, but it may somewhat take the edge off what one can only feel as a haunting experience. Because admit it, you are haunted by the destruction of these ancient sites and cities. Far more so than you are by IS’ killings of religious minorities, gay men, "spies" etc. You hate yourself for it perhaps, but there it is. Cities that survived 4000 years, centres for both the Indo-European and Semitic mega-cultures, the world that surrounds all of us, gone in an afternoon. This new wave of destruction has all sorts of reasons, and all sorts of possible conclusions, few of them good. But it is also being taken as another unique example of the IS’ barbarity. Distinctive of method it may be, but the issues of culture and destruction are far more complex than are apparent.

To the end of exploring that, take as an example a recent article by Chris Berg on The Drum, where he uses the broader term of totalitarianism to describe IS and identifies them with Nazism and Stalinism. Why? Because in attacking antiquities that are the common heritage of humanity (actually of the Indo-European and Semitic branches, but let that pass), IS militants are attacking "ideas", and especially the idea -- or meta-idea -- of an open society. The piece is vastly better than Hartcher’s, as you’d bloody hope, but it takes part in the same circularity, identifying all destruction of the past as the preserve of such totalitarian governments. They are marked off from others by their determination to obliterate the past and any alternative to their ideas.

One could add the Chinese cultural revolution to the list. But Berg doesn’t. Why? Well, it may be that this would remind us of something inconvenient: as much as the Red Guards destroyed artefacts and ancient buildings (before the totalitarian Zhou En-Lai introduced heritage protection), the ruthless destruction of China’s ancient cities has been much faster under the state capitalism that succeeded it, and in which the state has been no more than facilitator of capital. Same in Russia. Stalin and successors pulled down a few churches and cathedrals, but they kept and restored a few too, and much more besides. It’s under Putin that pre-20th-century Moscow has been eviscerated, by corporations eager to build bland glass towers as close to the Kremlin as possible. Want more? How about the United Stats? In Boston, many of the key sites of the beginning of the American Revolution vanished when a third of the old city centre was torn out for expressways, convention centres and soulless hotels -- a process repeated across many of the great 19th-century cities of the US.

What destroyed these common heritages? Capital using the power of law and the state to carve up something belonging to everyone, the established city of generations, with memory and history, and turn it into a series of abstract vacant plots. That is capital in its totalitarian mode, described so eloquently by Berg as something that annihilates difference to impose a single vision of how life should be. In Iraq that logic was extended from US culture to the occupation, with the National Museum of Iraq simply disdained as of no interest, and thus allowed to be stripped (not as badly as we had feared, but badly enough) in the chaos of war. US neoconservative culture simply couldn’t "see" the museum, because its understanding of the meaning of the past (as different to us, rather than simply revealing what we hold in common) was reduced to zero by its own assumptions. Indeed, the only places in the West where destruction has been resisted has been where capitalism has been resisted -- such as Rome, and Paris, where business was forced (and willing) to build its skyscrapers at a new city outside, called La Defense. In Sydney, it was the Communist BLF and Trotskyist groups that saved the city, where the shadowy corps that Berg produces ideology for via the IPA would have planed the place flat.

Why is capitalism so totalitarian with regard to the complex material web of other people’s lives? The answer, of course, is that destruction is at its root -- and at the root of the classical liberal beliefs that Berg espouses in his simple division between liberal moderns and totalitarians. You’d have to be a poor classical liberal indeed to not know that your movement was born of analytic philosophy, which was born of English Protestantism. And English Protestantism was born of that IS figure avant la lettre, Henry VIII -- enthusiastic beheader, who put monasteries and the whole system of mediaeval learning to destruction, ploughed it under in many cases.

From Henry VIII came more open circulation of books and ideas based on physical destruction of the Church’s power -- and from such circulation came puritanism, the idea of the individual and the primacy of empirical evidence, part and parcel of all of that was destruction -- largely of the Catholic heritage of England, which is why its churches are so bare, unlike their icon-stuffed counterparts. So, too, was the American revolution -- and its crucial demand on the English that it should be allowed to advance westward and destroy Native American societies so that the ground could be planed flat and farms put in.

The echoes of that are everywhere, and they show the shared roots of a fundamentalist movement like IS and fundamentalist missions of evangelical Christianity and evangelical liberalism, the greatest being the invasion of Iraq. That sort of lethal destructiveness does not see itself because it celebrates the pluralism, within a narrow range, that it sometimes brings. But that is always preceded by a series of events that don’t look so different to what IS is doing.

That’s the strange and disturbing thing about the ruthless acts of IS. If a group were merely destroying cities without killing people, the public judgement would be that they were arseholes, but not radically evil in the way we think of them now. Yet deeper down, the horror of heritage destruction might still strike us as nihilistic in a way that is of a piece with executions. Indeed here, I’m harder line than Berg, who argues that the destruction of ancient sites like Nimrud doesn’t matter as much as the killing of people -- which is humane, but is also an example of liberalism’s fatal inability to understand that meaning comes from shared life, extending into the past, rather than being contracted by present individuals as a "free" act. Ultimately, such a conception always ends in a nihilism -- and thus the indifference to the destruction of a museum (founded by Gertrude Bell, the Western "creator" of Iraq) that it would have been easy to protect.

Indeed, I think such artefacts matter as much as, or more than, people (up to a point), callous as that sounds, because without our heritage and a commitment to it, there is no ground to life, to meaning. The mega-destructiveness of IS with regard to the central heritage of the Indo-European and Semitic cultures, which populate two-thirds of the world, does give a greater cause for lethal force should a way be found to do so -- dropping gas for example, in these largely unpopulated areas (in that respect I also disagree with m’colleague Jeff Sparrow, in his piece whose excellence is only mitigated by its descent into quaker-pacifist babble in the conclusion). Should other sites be threatened in the wave of ISIS and related movements in the future -- the pyramids for example -- we will face some very ugly choices.

Who knows? Maybe when the sandstorms of war clear, we may find that much of this was propaganda. But that seems unlikely. And we might have to think very hard about what we owe to all humanity in the protection of a very, very limited amount of irreplaceable material. And that involves asking not only what we would be willing to do, but also willing to have done to us. Asking what should the world do about the destruction of the cities of the plain is also to ask what should be done about our wanton endangerment of the Great Barrier Reef? To what sort of acts are we ethically called in such cases -- in ways that make clear that the pliant liberalism of legality is an excuse, not a justification?

Graic Gabtar posted:

Hi there.

Be it:

- Turned back at sea
- Stopped by Indonesia
- Discouraged by others attempts
- Whatever else

The boats have stopped.

Frogmanv2 posted:

I am undecided on whether or not it's a good thing that my company is moving towards a biometric clock on/off system.

I'm leaning towards bad.

hooman posted:

Don't let them out of the house either. Libertarians are inside pets.

EDIT: 30% of outside Libertarians kill, and they average 2.1 deaths a week each!

Frogmanv2 posted:

I am undecided on whether or not it's a good thing that my company is moving towards a biometric clock on/off system.

I'm leaning towards bad.

Les Affaires posted:

why

Konomex posted:

Yes. They have stopped arriving.

Thank you for finally revealing, definitively that you are a racist. It was pretty obvious before now but there was always the benefit of a doubt.

If there are un-seaworthy asylum boats at sea, if they are being piloted by people with no experience controlling a boat, then there is a good chance there are still people dying at sea. But the brown people have finally stopped. Praise Jesus, because Jesus knew everyone has a place, but that place isn't necessarily Australia.

I just want to let you know, it's okay to be racist. It's probably not your fault, I mean, I don't know you personally. I'm sure there's some deep seated trauma there where a homeless person scared you, or maybe you're just parroting your parents views about non-whites. But it is important that everyone is aware of your racism so they can bare it in mind when you're discussing other topics. Like how you tried to discuss indigenous affairs, as a racist this is probably a bad thing for you to discuss as your racist views colours (ha-ha) your viewpoint to the extent that you can't see beyond your stereotyping.

For everyone else who might tell me it's not okay to be racist. Consider this. The crocodile is an animal that will happily eat a child, it is his nature. We don't blame the crocodile for this, we simply fence him off. Don't blame this man for his racism, just fence his horrid opinions away and don't let him have any influence over anything.

Endman posted:

You'd probably have a way better time using RFID cards instead of biometrics.

Fingerprint reading technology isn't perfect and is often unreliable. My last laptop had a fingerprint reader that a friend of mine could open because it wasn't accurate enough to distinguish the subtle differenced between our fingerprints.

Gough Suppressant posted:

Implant the RFID in your fingers, problem solved

Gough Suppressant posted:

Implant the RFID in your fingers, problem solved

Birb Katter posted:

So we've lost the secretary of the Agriculture Dept. Joyce is saying he stepped down but Grimes official notice says he's being terminated.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/13/labor-accuses-bill-heffernan-of-intimidation-over-barnaby-joyce-saga

hooman posted:

Don't let them out of the house either. Libertarians are inside pets.

EDIT: 30% of outside Libertarians kill, and they average 2.1 deaths a week each!

Birb Katter posted:

So we've lost the secretary of the Agriculture Dept. Joyce is saying he stepped down but Grimes official notice says he's being terminated.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/13/labor-accuses-bill-heffernan-of-intimidation-over-barnaby-joyce-saga

Endman posted:

People would probably start screaming that the government is turning them into the Borg.

Having to get an implant in order to work is also hilariously cyberpunk.

GoldStandardConure posted:

Nah people are legit doing this to themselves with RFID chips and rare earth magnets in backyard hackjobs.

Diving feet first into cyberpunk, except ignoring the 'dystopian' part of it.

Endman posted:

There's a lot of different between backyard technolibertarians who want to use the force to pay for cheetos and your average punter, though.

Kommando posted:

Calling him a racist because he clarified 'stop the boats' is a bit of a jump in logic.

quote:

A better analogy would be if someone walks into a championship tournament, says "GEE I THINK I MAY HAVE TRANSCENDED THE UNDERSTANDING OF SOME OF YOU GRANDMASTERS HERE, WANT TO JOIN MY NEW SCHOOL OF CHESS STRATEGY?", then loses by scholar's mate twice in the first round.

This person then refuses to leave his seat, claiming that he needs additional proof that the queen in f7 actually ontologically exists before he will admit defeat, and that the rules of the CHESS ESTABLISHMENT were unfairly biased against him by disallowing the possibility of his king being able to leapfrog pieces.

Then he pulls out an ancient shopping list from 1905 and claims that "1. Eggs" means 'The King', "2. Butter" means 'can', and "3. Milk" means 'leapfrog'. This is admissible evidence for his case because he has lived according to the dictates of this list since he was a teenager, and it has drastically improved his quality of life. When the referees tell him that this makes no loving sense, he drags them into a three hour debate over the precise meaning of the words 'makes', 'no', 'loving', and 'sense'.

When people point out that there is more than enough evidence to suggest his list is just a scrap of paper from some long-dead housewife's purse, he rather proudly points out how close-minded they are in dismissing outright the possibility that the list was in fact a secret coded message on the best way to live life, originally formulated by Atlanteans and passed down through the ages disguised as everyday documents. After all, if one starts with the presupposition that such a document exists, then it would be very fair to argue that it is indeed in the form of his shopping list.

Never mind that his previous interpretations of the list led to three convictions and time served for robbery, hate crimes, and murder. These were just unfortunate misinterpretations on his part of the list's true intentions, he says. The list itself is blameless. In fact, the Atlanteans deliberately obfuscated the true meaning of the list in this way, so that it would require multiple failed misinterpretations before one would happen across its TRUE meaning, and in doing so appreciate it all the more.

In fact, he does have some evidence to back up his claims. Why, just last week during his daily meditation on the list, he felt it telling him that something good was about to happen in his future. And yesterday, wouldn't you know it, he found a twenty dollar note on the sidewalk! Evidence of the list's prophetic powers if I ever saw one. And believe him, he has many more stories where that came from.

By now, the debate has splintered off into innumerable tangents, with the one man against literally every other player and referee present at the tournament. Finally, he graciously accepts the possibility of defeat in some of the myriad topics now being covered. OK, maybe the tallest player doesn't always get to go first. Fine, I will concede that there isn't much evidence to support my third-invisible-knight hypothesis. But that's all irrelevant. What he wants to concentrate on, and what nobody has yet been able to disprove, he adds, is the ability of the king to leapfrog over other pieces.

The argument drags on for weeks. Finally, one afternoon, the beet-faced referee exhausts his last reserves of decency and throws his arms up in frustration and despair. "YOU loving RETARD, HOW CAN YOU LAY CLAIM TO KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT CHESS STRATEGY WHEN YOU DON'T EVEN GRASP THE MOST BASIC RULES!?" He shouts, just as a new entrant walks through the door. "I'm sorry," replies the man calmly, "I simply cannot discuss the rules of chess with such an 'official' if you insist on using such strong and uncouth language. Please retract your insults or I will be forced to plug my ears whenever you say anything from now on."

Seeing only this last exchange, the new entrant pipes up. "He's right, you know. If he did something wrong, then you as the referee have every right to tell him he is so, but it should be done with a patient and thorough explanation of the details of his error. Hurling ridicule at him solves nothing and won't change anyone's mind."

The lazy eye of the retarded List-following, King-leapfrogging man twitches almost unnoticeably, as he cranes his head towards the source of this new voice. A welcoming smile cracks, inch by beaming inch, across his face. He licks his lips. He clears his throat.

"So glad to know decent people like you still value a polite discussion. Care for a game?"

Doctor Spaceman posted:

It's very probably related to Joyce's recent Hansard issues.

Doctor Spaceman posted:

It's very probably related to Joyce's recent Hansard issues.

katlington posted:

I like how subtle the whole thing is.

Cartoon posted:

Not sure sacking someone is a great way to increase their loyalty.

SynthOrange posted:

SynthOrange posted:

Freudian Slip posted:

That's the electorate that I am helping in

Greens primary vote of around 4%

quote:

Australians seeking to have NBN Co roll out fibre to their premises must first pay an application fee before it will consider taking up the challenge.
The shift to the so-called multi-technology mix model of the National Broadband Network (NBN) means most premises that were slated to get fibre to the premises under the former Labor government's model will now be connected via fibre to the node, fibre to the basement, or hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC).
For those who still wish to get the full fibre connection, NBN Co has been developing a fibre-on-demand product launched on Friday as Technology Choice.

ZDNet first reported last week that the product was due this month.
NBN Co's chief customer officer John Simon told ZDNet that there will be two products: An Area Switch, and an Individual Switch.
"It enables an individual or a consortium of individuals ... even councils to make that choice, and they would contribute to the incremental upgrade," he said.
The costs will need to be determined on a case-by-case basis, but Simon flagged that the average cost for the fibre-to-the-premises rollout had been determined to be over AU$4,300 per premises.
The fee will be determined based on what the additional cost would be to roll out fibre to the premises over the cost to roll out NBN Co's preferred technology choice.

"The cost to change technology infrastructure for Area Switch could range from tens of thousands of dollars to few millions of dollars and for Individual Premises Switch from few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars where the cost is generally dependent upon size and complexity of the project," NBN Co said in documentation.
"As various factors will impact on the final cost to move to the alternate technology, NBN Co will assess every application individually so that these various factors can be taken into account, and so that it can provide applicants with a high-level cost estimate."

Individuals may face higher fees if, for example, they are the only premises in an area requesting full fibre to the premises. In that instance, Simon said that people may wish to seek to get neighbours to band together, or the local council to join in to fund an Area Switch.
An Area Switch will cover between 150 and 350 premises or a whole apartment block, but cannot be used to attempt to bring forward the proposed rollout schedule to that location.
From Friday, people can begin to apply for the area switch, but the individual switch will wait until NBN Co begins commercial rollouts of fibre to the node and HFC. NBN Co's Technology Choice documentation flags that an HFC Individual Switch is undergoing further investigation.

Simon said he doesn't believe that many in HFC areas would want to upgrade.
"I doubt we're going to want to see people upgrade to FttP, because we're already seeing 300Mbps [download speeds] and above," he said.
NBN Co on Thursday night also announced plans to move to DOCSIS3.1 in 2017, which will offer faster speeds on the HFC network.

Simon said retailers would also be approached to see if there are some packages they want to develop to subsidise the cost of the upgrade on behalf of their customers.
"We're also consulting with RSPs [retail service providers] to see what role they want to play in an individual switch environment," Simon said.
NBN Co will charge individual applicants AU$300 excluding GST, to review their request, while area applicants will be charged AU$1,000. There is an additional AU$300 (ex GST) fee to receive the proposed costing of the fibre extention. The fees are refunded if the extension goes ahead.

Simon said that this program will replace NBN Co's fibre extension program developed under the former government to extend the fibre network out to areas covered by the fixed-wireless and satellite components of the network.
The reason why the company has put a fee on the application is that under the extension program, NBN Co received "hundreds" of requests for extension, but less than five in total had been willing to pay for the extension.

quote:

Teen jihadist said in blog post Australia was so full of' filth and corruption' that no one could live there without a craving to let some heads roll'.