What's on your mind?

[AlSymerz]

Haha, I'm surprised it got Cthulhu right

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

Siri clearly does not wish to earn the ire of the great old one.

[AlSymerz]

You need to train your woman better

 

[Dead1]

More and more convinced the only aircraft that should be flying on this planet are military jets enforcing complete no fly zones for civilian aircraft.  Would be good for both health (see below) and the environment.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2022-05-25/monkeypox-what-are-symptoms-treatment-how-worried-should-we-be/101091028

[RelentlessOblivion]

What it would also put thousands of Australians out of work, with no safety net to catch them and re-integrate them into other industries. Bottom line is there a better ways of dealing with the environmental crisis. And that’s all I’m saying on the subject.

[Dead1]

25 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

What it would also put thousands of Australians out of work, with no safety net to catch them and re-integrate them into other industries. Bottom line is there a better ways of dealing with the environmental crisis. And that’s all I’m saying on the subject.

Actually we apparently have lots and lots of skills deficiencies in other sectors (eg health or basic services).  Maybe retraining them like they do in Sweden!  Would also reduce need for migration, reduce strain on infrastructure, reduce strain on housing (bye bye Air BnB) make Australia more sustainable etc. 

 

Tourism is a shit industry.  Poor wages and working conditions, massively destructive from an environmental perspective and contributes to declines in living standards (eg greater congestion, loss of housing etc).   It also pushes out locals from their own natural and other attractions due to cost of accessing them as everything becomes monetised.

Tourism is usually used to offset deindustrialisation and most studies show that the jobs created by tourism have far worse pay and conditions than the manufacturing jobs they replaced.

Of course today we accept and even demand this slow erosion of working and living conditions as absolutely necessary because we are all aspiring to be rich billionaires just like Musk or Murdoch or Rinehart.  Even the new Albanese government doesn't have a single real plan or idea on how to stop erosion of living standards because it's against their interests (they are neoliberal pukebags after all - Albanese is a millionaire with multiple investment properties) and they along with Liberal have spent 50 years promoting this idea of "millionaire aspirations" and social fragmentation and destruction.

Even these new "Teal" independents are neoliberals - only difference is they want more lip service paid to environmental concerns (but no real action because that would mean ending consumerism).

-----------

I'd also ban private investment rental properties except new builds.  Housing would either be owner occupied, government funded via not for profit  publicly owned property trusts.   

 

Best capitalist is one on the ground with a government foot on their throat to keep them honest. 

[AlSymerz]

29 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

What it would also put thousands of Australians out of work, with no safety net to catch them and re-integrate them into other industries. Bottom line is there a better ways of dealing with the environmental crisis. And that’s all I’m saying on the subject.

Monkey pox isn't even a crisis. Not only is it well known and well researched with treatments available with current small pox medication it's also very easy to stop the spread of and only transmitted by close skin contact with a visibly effected person. Killing tourism globally for such a bug is definitely the absolute least we can do 🤪

 

[Dead1]

14 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

Monkey pox isn't even a crisis. Not only is it well known and well researched with treatments available with current small pox medication it's also very easy to stop the spread of and only transmitted by close skin contact with a visibly effected person. Killing tourism globally for such a bug is definitely the absolute least we can do 🤪

 

Not just one bug, have you heard of COVID?

And to be honest we've been really, really lucky.  More and more bugs are resistant to antibiotics.  At some point we get something that will wipe us out wholesale ala the plague or the various imported illnesses that wiped out huge amounts of indigenous peoples including Australian aborigines.  Indeed Europeans illnesses wiped out up to 95% of America's indigenous population within a few decades (something like 20 million people).  There are still ruins of villages in Italy and elsewhere that were wiped out completely by bubonic plague.

Modern medicine only goes so far - it still took 12 months to develop COVID vaccines.  Given proliferation rates that could be sufficient time to wipe out a huge chunk of humanity.  Eg in 6 months, nearly 30% of Tasmanians have contracted COVID.  And now make that a more lethal disease.

As for the kind of tourism requiring jet travel it is probably something that should only be available to the rich.  For the rest of us local travel should suffice.

 

 

And as I mentioned mass tourism is a shit industry for a whole heap of reasons.  

 

[AlSymerz]

Your post said monkeypox not covid and since we didn't stop air travel for covid I think that bird has flown.

I don't have any intentions of travelling internationally myself but even I wouldn't suggest local travel or no travel except for the rich, that's just stupid and would do nothing to stop bugs travelling internationally.

 

[Dead1]

I said monkey pox cause it's a new one to add to the list.

 

Only the rich travelling overseas for leisure is not stupid.  It was the way of the world up to the 1990s when very few people travelled overseas for holidays (noting this was over 30 years after invention of successful large jet airliners).  

 

A funny fact - normal airlines don't make much money from economy seats. Breakeven is often the objective.  It's literally business class where about 75% of  profit is made even though they are only 12% of passengers.  The remaining 25% is split between economy, business class and cargo - noting 60% of revenue is generated from passengers, yet 75% of profit is generated by business class shows how little economy class contributes to profit.

 Even first class doesn't do as well hence a lot of airlines are scrapping first class. However demand for business class is limited and would mean planes are flying mainly empty! 

So mass international travel isn't even that profitable for airlines.  It's only due to inability to expand business class it even exists.

Of course the budget airlines have very much a single cattle class model but also make money through tax avoidance, offshoring maintenance etc. 

[AlSymerz]

Ok instead we'll call it impractical, ridiculous, unattainable, over the top and not very sensible.

[Dead1]

29 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

Ok instead we'll call it impractical, ridiculous, unattainable, over the top and not very sensible.

Call it "my aspirations" - I don't crave consumer nirvana or owning multiple properties that I can charge exorbitant rents on or a $70,000+ 4WD like most other Australians do.  I do want my kid have same living standard in terms of access to food, clean air, drinkable water that I do.   Also I want these for myself.  I also miss the days when roads in our little ex industrial city weren't congested, you could find parking (not even on a Sunday), you could find a doctor and especially a specialist and not have to wait 3 months for an appointment and I could visit places like the Cataract Gorge without it being full of noisy tourists dropping garbage everywhere.

 

Yes my aspirations are as unrealistic as real action on climate change or really doing something about housing affordability or stopping declines in living standards.

 

The human impact on this planet probably won't end our existence.  It will just condemn the future masses to endemic poverty. 

[RelentlessOblivion]

As I said there are ways to take action on climate change without blanket bands on in tire industries, your argument for banning international and domestic flights could be logically extended to include trains, buses, cars motorbikes and scooters, I still firmly believe it’s possible to remain true to my left-wing ideology without needing to sacrifice any and all aspirations to see the world.  perhaps we should be incentivising environmentally sustainable tourism? Not to mention prioritising investment into alternatives to fossil fuels. Particularly in relation to planes hydrogen fuel cell technology would very much be worth investing in. Anyway we risk another political discussion in continuing this discourse and I’ve already gotten myself in enough trouble with regards to those.

[Dead1]

I don't think it's possible to save the environment without banning or regulating to death a lot of non essential consumption.  It's not a political discussion, it's more one of facts and how to achieve a scientific process (reduce carbon emissions, but also other forms of pollution whilst improving sustainability).

 

It's already proven carbon credits/trading are a load of rubbish smoke and mirrors.  Much of it is polluting companies buying rights to pollute.  Some of its absurd and contributes to more pollution eg some companies are selling carbon credits for growing trees in dry areas which uses up lots of resources and pollutes in itself.   So by using up precious ground water and polluting soil with fertilizers you get to sell carbon credits to a coal company or airlines so they can keep polluting. A lot of it involves selling credits for land that was never going to be used.  Eg I won this forested mountainous chunk of land that is too difficult to exploit.  I will leave it and sell carbon credits. What's the benefit to the environment?  None!

You can literally jack up carbon pollution through the roof but stay "carbon neutral" through buying credits from all manner of dodgy schemes.

 

(In fact carbon emission trading was developed mainly by economists and later lawyers, not environmental specialists).

A lot of western carbon emission reductions are due to offshoring ie shift polluting factories to China or Bangladesh or Mexico (guess where emissions are rising?).

Even computerisation has increased environmental damage through a number of different ways - expansion of use of plastics, heavy metal and other toxic poisoning from disposed off electronics (again this kind of refuse is shipped to third world)  increases in energy consumption etc.  

 

So now a person might not buy a VHS player and a stereo, each of which may last 10 years or more.  Instead they own multiple devices (smartphone, tablet,laptop)  with a lifespan of 18 months to 3 years.  And whereas households might have owned 1 stereo and 1 VHS player, they now own multiple smart phones, tablets etc

 

Literally every thing we do fucks the planet up that little bit more.

 

And enforcing environmental and ethical labour standards on to third world "factory countries" also increases cost, which in turn would reduce consumption.  Your average westerner doesn't want that.  People like their $2 Kmart clothes which were manufactured by near slave labour in horrible conditions with virtually no environmental standards.

 

---

 

As to environmentally sustainable tourism, that actually implies a "rich person only" model.

 

Eg In Indonesia komodo dragons were noted to have stopped breeding and their populations were declining on one island in Indonesia.  The reason was determined to be hordes of tourists disrupting their habits.  They literally fixed the problem by jacking up national park entry fees to the point only those who are rich or those who are really into komodo dragons could afford to see them.  With massive decline in tourists, the dragons started breeding again.

 

*Incidentally komodo dragons are capable of self breeding.

 

Or Venice - the city is literally dying despite its popularity.  The hordes of tourists (36 million per annum) come, make the place unliveable, pollute the waters, put massive strain on all infrastructure whilst giant cruise ships undermine the city's foundations.  The city's population has dropped from 175,000 to 50,000 in 50 years.  Most of the tourists don't even spend much money - they come to Venice on day trips and save odd trinket or coffee don't buy anything.

What's the solution  for Venice? Clearly somehow massively reducing tourist numbers, - maybe by banning day trips and cruise ships  and forcing overnight stays?  This increases cost and makes it more a rich man thing.

Same in Dubrovnik where they are now limiting cruise ships, banning opening of additional restaurants and locals are putting up posters saying "tourists fuck off"

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/16/a-rising-tide-overtourism-and-the-curse-of-the-cruise-ships

 

I've already mentioned some of our local natural and historical places being swamped with tourists.  Both Cataract Gorge and Port Arthur get swamped with tourists to the point it's unpleasant (and I was told by a guide at Port Arthur it is far more horrible when a cruise ship docks) 

Mass consumption is bad for the planet and is bad for communities

Funny thing is most people I know who have travelled overseas didn't even enjoy it. They did it because it is expected for Australians to travel overseas.  I know a couple who did 3 overseas trips and hated them all (they have since found hiring a local beach house in Bruny Island suits their holiday preferences a lot more).  I know many people who literally go to Bali or Thailand cause its cheap and they spend pretty much their whole time there drinking cheap booze.  It's fucking ridiculous.

The truth is as consumers we don't think about where anything comes from.  We don't consider supply chains and their impacts.  We don't consider how the other people are affected. .

 

 

Some good info on myths regarding carbon neutrality.

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/12/11/10-myths-net-zero-targets-carbon-offsetting-busted/#:~:text=“climate positive”.-,False.,the offsetting incentivises increased consumption.

Here's the bit about carbon neutral travel and products (emphasis is mine):

 

Quote

 

Myth 10: Products and travel can be “climate neutral” or even “climate positive”. False.

Products and travel that are sold as “climate neutral” or “climate positive” due to offsetting, do still have a carbon footprint. Such marketing is misleading and may even lead to more emissions as the offsetting incentivises increased consumption. We contribute more to climate solutions by consuming and travelling less.

 

 

[JonoBlade]

2 hours ago, Dead1 said:

I don't think it's possible to save the environment without banning or regulating to death a lot of non essential consumption.  It's not a political discussion, it's more one of facts and how to achieve a scientific process (reduce carbon emissions, but also other forms of pollution whilst improving sustainability).

Reverend!

[Dead1]

Arrgh fucking Australia and its school system that rewards mediocrity and poor performance over hard work.

 

Schools now have points which result in rewards when you get to a certain level.  My daughter is a top academic performer and gets virtually none.  The points go to misbehaving kids when they behave.  Literally one kid called another a "cunt" in the morning and was then rewarded 15 points in the afternoon for being well behaved!

And then a lazy student got on the cross country team despite coming like 16th because her serial complainer bogan mother went and had a go at the school.  My daughter again wonders why she should try hard.

Little wonder Australian schools are churning out illiterate little entitled turds who can't cope in the workplace.  

 

.

[AlSymerz]

I've got a mate who is a farmer, actually he's a school teacher but he does make a better farmer, and he's been telling me for years the reward system they use in his primary school is the best thing they ever introduced. It did start out as a reward for kids doing the right thing, good work etc, and more points meant kids could cash those points in for stuff like toys, books etc. But after less than a year of using it and when he moved into the leadership group at the school he admitted he stopped caring about the point system and handed points out like they were lollies. Points to get kids to shut up, to get kids to do chores, points to get them to do their work. I asked him if he'd ever introduce such a system in his own house where he bribed the kids to do what he wanted with pocket money and he laughed and said, "don't be fucking stupid, you don't bribe your own kids".

[Dead1]

Your post has hit the nail on the head.  The points and reward system is literally a bribe to keep badly kids shut up and not interfere with the rest of the class.

And it doesn't work because the shitheads still misbehave and still interfere. 

Of course they don't interfere all the time (just like a criminal doesn't commit crimes 24-7) so they are rewarded for essentially doing nothing.

They do other things too - eg the shitheads are allowed to play on computers while other students have to do things like maths or science.

 

Literally it's a system designed to promote bad behaviour and underperformance.

[AlSymerz]

I agree it doesn't work and most teachers probably wouldn't use it on their own kids, but I also feel a bit for the teachers. I used to think that it was their choice they become a teacher and therefore they chose to put up with the all the kids not just the good ones. But that's not entirely true. I never became a truck driver, for any sensible reasons, I mean to put up with cranky, shitty store owners, store owners who paid their $500 bills in small change only and store owners who thought it was their right to abuse me when the company I worked for fucked up, but that's what I got. I'd have happily bribed those people to stop annoying the shit out of me. Teachers aren't much different, they have to put up with some absolute shitheads of kids, they wont change some of them so they do what works. I'd bribe some of the little turds to stop them annoying me too!

 

[Dead1]

Doesn't help most parents are worthless and never should have bred in the first place and are incapable of raising children.

Parents these days feel as entitled as their spoiled offspring.  I am shocked at how badly behaved kids are today.  They literally do things I would not have even dreamed of as a kid and get away with it.  Doesn't matter if they're rich or poor or in between.

Hence teachers have to put up with idiot parents who think they know education better than teachers and who can't come to grips with the fact their children are spoiled undisciplined turds.

Hence the issue with the cross country - the school is faced with yet another complaint from a belligerent serial complainer parent so relents to keep her out of their hair.  And her kid is a total spoilt whiny shit.  But mummy can't come to terms with this.  She has whole conspiracy theories about how the school is against her.

 

Or my sister-in-law (one who shopped for an autism diagnosis).  She blames her kids violent outbursts including strangling other kids on the schools lack of "support."  Kid is at his third high school now, having been pulled out of 2 because they don't "offer enough support."  Truth is the stupid bitch spoiled her son rotten as she didn't believe in disciplining him (though her daughter was fair game).  Kid grows up to be a worthless violent piece of shit so she went to 3 different paediatricians to get the autism diagnosis she craved to justify her spawn's violent tendencies.

Again what can the school do when the parents believe their parenting is perfect and it's the school's fault.

 

Bring back the 1950s.  

 

 

 

 

 

[AlSymerz]

Yeah teachers have to put up with both the kids and the parents, it's no wonder they bribe their way into some peace and quiet.

 

Although as with any bad there is always good and both my kids went to public school (youngest finished two years ago) and their teachers for the most part were awesome. Yeah there was a few issues and a few disagreements over the years but nothing too drastic. My kids were never trouble makers, unlike their Dad, but their teachers were always there for anything from help with subjects to career guidance, as well as being there for the parents. I have no doubt that their teachers influenced who they became. Whereas when I left school there would have only been one teacher who I'd have given the time of day.

 

[Dead1]

I actually had a chat with a mate who teaches a Grade 4-5-6 class.  He openly admitted it was bribery to keep the shitheads quiet so they could focus on teaching.

 

Failure of both parenting and teachers - little wonder many kids today aren't equipped to deal with work and real life.

[blaaacdoommmmfan]

I honestly don't know why people fly tip asbestos. I've tidied it up and barriered it off and reported it. Honestly they could have bagged it and binned it or recycle centre it if they was all proper. But no they just put it on some gravel near one of the underground water tanks at work. 😤 Some people

[AlSymerz]

Different rules for different states here but in some areas we are not even allowed to touch it, in the areas where we can it must be disposed of properly and tyvek suits with masks must be worn, or pros must be called in. We've got ads on TV reminding people to get any house over 20 years old checked by asbestos experts because it was such a widely used product until the late 90's.

We used to get a lot of people dumping it on building sites in the middle of the night because of the cost involved in removing it but it's not so bad these days. A farmer not far from here, who is also a doctor and often cited in the Mesothelioma workers claims against local employers who made workers handle asbestos actually dumps all his asbestos in a big hole down the back paddock 30 meters from the creek that locals rely on for water.

We've torn down a few old sheds and a dairy here that was 90% asbestos, but we tyveked up, made sure there was no dust and did it properly, it also cost us about $500 to dispose of. One time I hired a skip bin to do a huge clean up and threw out a heap of old cement sheeting, the guy who picked the bin up refused to take it at first because he claimed the cement sheeting was actually asbestos. I pointed out to the dickhead that it wasn't asbestos and the big green lettering painted on the back from the factory stating that it was 'asbestos free' meant he could take it with him. After about 30 minutes of bullshit discussion he said he'd take it but told me the 'asbestos free' label by the biggest producer of asbestos free cement sheeting in the country, lies to the government and still used asbestos after it was banned. I asked him if he also believed in Aliens anal probing him when no one else was around and he got shitty with me.

 

[markm]

This is Maryland Death Fest weekend. Sadly, it's not going to work for me and I'm not able to attend, but Goatmaster General, Surge, Navy and Josh are going. I've been in touch with the inimitable master of goats and knowing our favorite NY metal AF wise guy you know he's bound to give us some blow by blow field reporting.  Looking forward to some gig reviews.