BTW, this is what an Aussie bush doof looks like. Music courtesy of Russian psychedelic boffins Kindzadza and Psykovsky. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCrIPWFXEbU

Thank you for your address Mr or Mrs Ambassador.

Don’t forget Justin Bieber Linux. Bebian.

Went to an Aussie bush doof as a teenager and had some Americans come smoke bongs with me at my camp site. They were dressed up as ninja turtles. After a while I realised one of them had his plums hanging out his shorts and they were painted green. Americans love taking things too far.

The problem is that mainstream media has less integrity now than it did 30 years ago. The national broadcaster in Australia for example has been infiltrated by right wing people (BTW I don’t want to get rid of ABC, just wish it was better). To cut through the propaganda, people need to acquire the skills to find their own media sources. Unfortunately that also means getting technical ability with computers now. Best thing I can think of is helping less adept people to navigate the space. Otherwise we end up with a much weaker democracy. Listening to C-SPAN callers in 2022-2024 scared the hell out of me and made me think Trump was gonna get voted back in. People stuck in legacy media space are getting brainwashed. I wish it was easier to curate RSS feeds for non-technical friends and family.

Magit for Emacs is an excellent tool for resolving conflicts.

Mate, he is on a very self destructive spiral doing those nazi salutes at the inauguration. That’s not a smart move. He’s let his fantasies get the better of him. If he was really smart he would shut the fuck up about politics. He has everything, And consequently he values nothing.

You’re right, the term is very subjective. The lower bound for me is owning multiple properties, owning a business and making money from the labour of others.

I agree. If you started from 0 and got rich you became a class traitor.

I’m not sure what you mean. I’m not American, and I don’t place much value on enormous wealth accumulation. I’m just acknowledging that there is a difference between gaining enormous wealth with a hefty leg up from family wealth versus doing it from scratch, like growing up in poverty for example.

I think he is dedicated, dangerous and awful. I just don’t think he is smart. I’ve known people who achieved wealth, started successful businesses etc. They had domain expertise and ambition. But they also neglected and fucked up other critical aspects of their lives (like their relationships with partners and kids). I didn’t consider them to be smart. In my mind, smart implies a well roundedness, and the capacity for self reflection, and empathy. Musk just has the personality traits, and family wealth, to enable him to “succeed” in our current society.

I have to question the judgement of Bill Gates when he calls Musk “super-smart”. Maybe if Musk started out with no money, that would be fair in some sense. I think he was just lucky and unencumbered by ethics or self-doubt.

Yeah that’s a fair point. We make generalisations about people from other countries, but they’re not all the same. Later in life I lived in Germany while I was pursuing my engineering career, and felt more affinity with the engineers of similar background to myself than I do for rich people in my own country. Growing up in the 21st century in western countries somewhat blinds you to class awareness because the media and education system doesn’t discuss it but I feel that is starting to change now as online interaction breaks down those legacy barriers.

I don’t what the commenter is referring to specifically, but I encountered it as a young Australian working as a farm labourer. There were a couple of Germans working on the farm who looked down on me for having never travelled to Europe, and not being fluent in a second european language. The difference is that I was working for a living, and didn’t have the money for travel. They were just working there as an experience while travelling overseas. As an older person, I now see that as a class issue, but at the time I got the impression that Europeans were snobby. I suspect they just came from wealthier backgrounds.

Well AIDS was scary as fuck but Australia didn’t have to worry too much about the cold war. Life in the 80s was generally pretty cruisy.

It’s true. But I think the point is that more opportunities were available to that generation. For example, both my boomer parents grew up in poverty. Dad was an orphan. They moved to the city with no money and made careers for themselves. Housing was cheap. That’s not possible today without family wealth (in Australia at least). I’m a software engineer with an electrical engineering degree and I’ll never own a house or retire. They bought houses on public service wages without degrees.

I don’t have anything against OF or sex work, but I’ve always though that negative judgements against clients suggest a negative judgement against the service provider. If the act of providing the service is OK then surely the act of receiving the service is also morally sound? Unless the service provider has a morally ambivalent attitude to their own work? I say this as someone who had a long term partner doing sex work. Contempt for clients seems unfair and possibly hypocritical. Just people trying to satisfy a biological and emotional need.

Those balls ain’t right.

Do a barrel roll!