eureka

Cheers mate!

There's an interesting discussion about whether forcing people who don't want to vote into voting is a good thing.

I definitely think our mandatory voting system has some great benefits, especially that it makes voter suppression far more difficult. But at the end if the day, I've seen electors who couldn't name two federal PM candidates or the party policies of the two main parties. What is the benefit of forcing such people into voting? They clearly don't have an interest in making the correct decision for themselves or our state. So it simply makes the election less effective, turning it more into a gimmicky popularity spectacle than a decision making process.

fr why are you becoming a politician in Aus if you just hate democracy and transparency

People who care about those things don't get the support of mass media major shareholders, huge financial backers, and other corporate interests that have the power to more easily sway elections.

The bottom line is our electoral system is dominated by people who don't benefit from democracy or transparency. Bad politicians aren't an outlier or corruption, but the system working as it's been built to.

That page interestingly advertises it both as a "food additive" and as an "OC spray" (a technical term for pepper spray). hile that technically doesn't imply a use-case, it's a term associated with the pepper spray weapon and its strength is in the high end of that range.

I'm being sincere, they compared it to a similar event to contrast the reaction.

But I just kinda feel like “no doxxing”

Who are you quoting?

[article] For his part, Louis Rossmann denies that his videos about Better Way Electronics involved doxxing. He says any information he shared was all publicly available, including the number provided on the company's website for customer service enquiries.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure this is still doxxing.

Hart was sentenced over the prank on Tuesday, with Perth District Court Judge Felicity Zempilas telling him she did not accept the claim he thought he had innocuous fart spray in his pocket and not Satan’s Spit as he was seen on CCTV repeatedly looking at the product.

Yeah, I had a hunch it wasn't "a prank". But even if this didn't happen and it was a fart spray, I'd say give them a slap on the wrist for that antisocial crap too (just not a full 16 months like this capsaicin chemical attack earned).

Dunno why traumatic is in quotes and prank isn’t.

I'm guessing it's an actual quote and not a scare quote, even if it doesn't read that way.

edit: I just realised, is there even a legitimate use for that product, culinary or otherwise, or is it effectively consumer-available pepper spray?

One of the few positions where I can agree with them. Anyone who claims to represent me in government shouldn't be swearing allegiance of a monarch.

The small protest did not disrupt proceedings, as it did when Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe gave the oath in 2022.

I'm glad the author added this line.

China for me, not for thee!

A test when you’re 18 that lasts the rest of your life? [...]

Good criticism, I didn't think that part through. Once every 3 years is probably to often. Somewhere in the middle would be ideal.

And the bottom line is that many people will just be in a hurry, stressed or tired. But I hope that this kind of thing would improve instinct and build habits that would reduce the impact of those inevitable factors.

And what happens if they can’t pass? Are they barred from voting?

Try again until they pass. Not registered until they pass. The test allows all the assistance that one would receive in a polling centre.

What's the point of letting someone in the polling booth if they can't fill out the ballot under ideal conditions? It's not empowering them, it's just compromising the democratic process.

That’s risky for both the reason of discrimination

I claim that if someone is unable to pass this test, their vote wouldn't have counted anyway. It's only as discriminatory as the election itself is.

Unless these people literally didn’t make it to year 6

That, and plenty of other edge cases too. There are a surprising amount of people who made it through school and remained illiterate or innumerate (I can't easily find stats).

That doesn’t mean they will [...] always want to.

It's perfectly valid (IMO) to nullify your vote. What disturbs me is how many people seem to unintentionally cast an invalid vote despite wanting to vote. It points me to suspect a systematic issue beyond just apathy.

Thanks for that little extra in the title.

Machine learning (well, more specifically, the marketing term "AI") has a bad reputation. It's a tool. And we're so used to seeing that tool wildly abused that it's hard not to have an instinctual reaction whenever it appears in the media. But recognising writing and text is one of the legitimately reasonable uses of the tool, so long as it's done properly and not misunderstood as an objective replacement for humans - it may have better accuracy that a typical person but still it's not objective and its training data will inevitably have limitations.

Rather, the court is being asked to determine more mundane questions. Is that 1 actually a 7; is that 6 an 8? and so on.

It consistently amazes me on the level of inability people have when it comes to simple tasks like filling in a ballot.

Now, I understand that I have advantages that not everyone has, like over a decade of local school experience filling exams, so I shouldn't consider what's natural and obvious to me to be universal expected knowledge. But at some point, the government and AEC should just have a mandatory 30 minute voting test when you enroll, so you have no excuse not to know how to print numbers clearly (hell, teach us about ~~7~~ and other good habits), so you know how to read simple English voting instructions or know how to ask for assistance if you're unable for any reason.

money not to scale

@zero_gravitas@aussie.zone