Ot. Hallelujah and praise the lord

[Eion]

If you are going to lock children up to deter the poor decisions of their parents, which I note is not a solution being suggested in any of the many other areas that parents make risky decisions for their children (or we would be locking up the children of drug users, children of people with speeding tickets, obese children, children of anti-vaxers, children who passively smoke at home etc), then you need to absolutely make sure that:

A) your solution is effective- we have no data on that. Indeed, the government actively avoids scrutiny and analysis on that point
B) there are no other solutions. I'm not sure the government has even tried.

If the idea is to hurt some children so that others don't get killed, maybe locking them up is not enough. Maybe we should start torturing them? (though some are pretty tortured from the sounds of it. Though again the government is trying to avoid scrutiny on that too).

So maybe we also need:

C) we need to be comfortable with the moral repercussions of deciding that we are OK with inflicting horrible things on some innocents to avoid horrible things happening to other innocents

It’s not a comparable argument. If you’re a deadbeat parent you risk losing your kids.

I’ve no problem with a healthy intake of refugees. But if you let them sail in and take the kids then that is exactly what they will do. How do I know this? Because that’s exactly what happened.

The libs have this right and even labor now begrudgingly agrees, so it wasn’t even an election issue.

 

[wibble]

It’s not a comparable argument. If you’re a deadbeat parent you risk losing your kids.

I’ve no problem with a healthy intake of refugees. But if you let them sail in and take the kids then that is exactly what they will do. How do I know this? Because that’s exactly what happened.

The libs have this right and even labor now begrudgingly agrees, so it wasn’t even an election issue.

How is it not a comparable argument?

You were saying it is better for kids to be locked up than for others to be drowned.
I am saying what the issues are with using kids as a deterrent like that. If you are a deadbeat parent we don't lock your kids up. No one has a good argument for why it is OK to lock kids up as a deterrent.

It is not an election issue because politicians don't give a shit if they do evil things to get votes. The Liberals decided to call it "virtue signalling" when people objected to kids being locked up. Not only do they not care about the evil they commit, they think people who do care are just pretending to care to look good.

Now you say the issue is that we let people sail in and bring their kids. At least that seems a bit more honest an argument, if that is the argument instead of locking kids up to act as a deterrent to drowning, which we never do in other circumstances.

That is the problem with xenophobic arguments, the goal posts shift whenever a decent moral objection is raised. Politicians are the masters of this.

So now, are kids being locked up as a deterrent to their parents inconveniencing us by ignoring our migration processes? I'm sure many people when they're not pretending it is about preventing people smugglers would say that this is the case, though they would probably not be aware of how this is an even more appalling justification.

Plenty of rational, seemingly ordinary adults were happy to participate in systems that saw millions of children gassed to death just due to their cultural heritage. I don't hold a lot of faith that humans on mass will object to lesser things like locking those children up because they are part of "scary groups".

But I do hold hope that enough people will see that for the absolute horror that it is. Hopefully, one day, the shameful politicians (as you say, on "both" sides of politics) who exploit this situation and these children for political capital will one day lose their jobs and be vilified as the monsters they are.

 

[Eion]

How is it not a comparable argument?

You were saying it is better for kids to be locked up than for others to be drowned.
I am saying what the issues are with using kids as a deterrent like that. If you are a deadbeat parent we don't lock your kids up. No one has a good argument for why it is OK to lock kids up as a deterrent.

It is not an election issue because politicians don't give a shit if they do evil things to get votes. The Liberals decided to call it "virtue signalling" when people objected to kids being locked up. Not only do they not care about the evil they commit, they think people who do care are just pretending to care to look good.

Now you say the issue is that we let people sail in and bring their kids. At least that seems a bit more honest an argument, if that is the argument instead of locking kids up to act as a deterrent to drowning, which we never do in other circumstances.

That is the problem with xenophobic arguments, the goal posts shift whenever a decent moral objection is raised. Politicians are the masters of this.

So now, are kids being locked up as a deterrent to their parents inconveniencing us by ignoring our migration processes? I'm sure many people when they're not pretending it is about preventing people smugglers would say that this is the case, though they would probably not be aware of how this is an even more appalling justification.

Plenty of rational, seemingly ordinary adults were happy to participate in systems that saw millions of children gassed to death just due to their cultural heritage. I don't hold a lot of faith that humans on mass will object to lesser things like locking those children up because they are part of "scary groups".

But I do hold hope that enough people will see that for the absolute horror that it is. Hopefully, one day, the shameful politicians (as you say, on "both" sides of politics) who exploit this situation and these children for political capital will one day lose their jobs and be vilified as the monsters they are.

They aren’t monsters. The only monsters are the people smugglers. But as you were, I’m just glad the policy is locked in by all except the greens and we dont have a trail of poor drowned kids from here to indo.

 

[wibble]

They aren’t monsters. The only monsters are the people smugglers. But as you were, I’m just glad the policy is locked in by all except the greens and we dont have a trail of poor drowned kids from here to indo.

So back to the locking kids up to deter the dangerous activities of their parents argument?

This is the problem. People just like locking up the "scary people". For no logical reason that they can articulate.

Indeed, the people smugglers are monsters. Doesn't mean cynical politicians who lock up kids aren't.

 

[Eion]

So back to the locking kids up to deter the dangerous activities of their parents argument?

This is the problem. People just like locking up the "scary people". For no logical reason that they can articulate.

Indeed, the people smugglers are monsters. Doesn't mean cynical politicians who lock up kids aren't.

You say I’m ok locking up kids. I say you are on with the drowning at sea.

Except there are 0 currently locked up and the dead ones stay dead.

 

[wibble]

You say I’m ok locking up kids. I say you are on with the drowning at sea.

Except there are 0 currently locked up and the dead ones stay dead.

So can you answer why it is good policy then to prevent drownings by locking up kids?

A) Is it effective? Do we have fewer drownings now than before we locked up kids? Taking into account as much data on world drownings and people smuggler activities as we can, of course.
B) Is there an alternative? Could we maybe achieve the same result (if we have achieved a result) without locking up kids?
C) Are we OK with locking up innocent kids to prevent deaths to other innocent kids? Is that something we would like to extend to other areas?

 

[Surely]

We have been doing things. Even China has been doing things. But not enough.

The main threat of climate change is to our food production. As it is the world does not produce enough food (though it could, it is poor management on a world basis that means we have a lot of people starving). Since we already can't manage our arable land and distribution networks well enough to feed everyone (due to poor political processes throughout the world), rapid change in where and how much food we can grow is likely to result in catastrophic food shortages in many regions.

Another big threat to people is an increase in catastrophic weather events. Of course, these are even worse in areas where there are already food shortages.

Economic threats outside of increased food prices and direct costs of weather events include the collapse of the insurance industries (due to the collapse of the reinsurance industry), the costs of managing millions of climate refugees, and ironically, increased energy costs required to cope with living in extreme temperatures.

There are undoubtedly opportunity costs and threats from mass extinction events as ecosystems are destroyed, but we will likely never know their true extent.

Obviously, the collapse of robust, technologically advanced civilisations like our own requires more than a few shocks. It may be that our Australian grandchildren merely have to live with terrible weather, a poorer economy and less reliable food sources, and the larger threats to countries with less capacity stay overseas.

But the biggest threat to western civilisation will be war over scarce resources. War has been, and will always be a threat, but it increases in likelihood when other systems are under stress.

I'm not sure who is trying to still prove climate change (though many people are still unconvinced. This will always be the way, some people genuinely believe in a flat Earth and still more (including a recently retired education minister) don't believe in evolution). Surely study of climate change is now directed at answering just these questions you have asked.

Asking when is the world ending if we don't take action on climate change is disingenuous. When do we all die if we don't have hospitals? When does the country burn if we don't have fire fighters?

I believe Shorten should have made a better effort to qualify (if not quantify) the effects of climate change, as should anyone hoping to change perceptions on the need for action. There are organisations who are trying to quantify these things (I guess one might mistake that for "still trying to prove it"), but the disadvantage of taking a scientific approach is that one's language should be bounded by probabilities, and possibilities, and nuances. As the world is nuanced.

And the simplified black and white view is an easy sell.

The original edition of The Population Bombbegan with this statement: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate ..."[18] Ehrlich argued that the human population was too great, and that while the extent of disaster could be mitigated, humanity could not prevent severe famines, the spread of disease, social unrest, and other negative consequences of overpopulation. By the end of the 1970s, this prediction proved to be incorrect.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich

Heard it all before

Food shortage ? .. stop making ethanol out of grain.

 

[Surely]

When do we all die if we don't have hospitals? When does the country burn if we don't have fire fighters

A Lot quicker than we will from an increase in co2

 

[wibble]

The original edition of The Population Bombbegan with this statement: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate ..."[18] Ehrlich argued that the human population was too great, and that while the extent of disaster could be mitigated, humanity could not prevent severe famines, the spread of disease, social unrest, and other negative consequences of overpopulation. By the end of the 1970s, this prediction proved to be incorrect.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich

Heard it all before

Food shortage ? .. stop making ethanol out of grain.

And stop feeding most of our grain to cattle.

So yes, there is no reason why we can't feed everyone, which is what I said.

And yet we don't. Not even close.

And given that these reasons are all preventable now, with agriculture having been a relatively stable industry for decades (no big changes since the green revolution, and no big changes before that since the invention of the plough), imagine how much worse it will be for our slow political systems to catch up and distribute food when our crops are mostly unable to be grown in the areas where they are currently being grown.

Here is the thing about climate change. It won't destroy humanity (though war from climate change might). Some people think about a few more degrees each day and think that sounds quite pleasant. And modern societies cope with storms and cyclones so we can cope with more storms and cyclones.

What climate change will do is stress systems that are already stressed, such as our world food production and distribution. Our condensed Chinese disease brewing centres may need to be more condensed to cope, and tropical diseases that define some economies and health systems may spread. The fear and crime and expense of managing hundreds of thousands of refugees becomes the fear and crime and expense of managing hundreds of millions. Our political tensions with 2nd world nations who have nuclear weapons but not enough food, such as Iran and North Korea, will become more tense. Economic systems that produce GFCs from out of nowhere, will have more unpredictable variables as businesses live in a world that is uninsurable, and energy costs continue to soar.

If we are lucky, climate change will make life unpleasant and more expensive. If we are unlucky it will trigger events (that can still happen otherwise) that will destroy civilisation. Most likely people will survive, but "Australia" may not.

 

[Quigs]

Oh I believe in Climate change. The world’s climate has always been changing.

But I’m not foolish to think mankind can change the climate.

It’s actually hilarious that people think the world can change the climate let alone little Australia with it’s contribution to the issue.

Who needs drugs eh?

Ozone layer ring a bell? Mankind had to make changes.

 

[Eion]

So can you answer why it is good policy then to prevent drownings by locking up kids?

A) Is it effective? Do we have fewer drownings now than before we locked up kids? Taking into account as much data on world drownings and people smuggler activities as we can, of course.
B) Is there an alternative? Could we maybe achieve the same result (if we have achieved a result) without locking up kids?
C) Are we OK with locking up innocent kids to prevent deaths to other innocent kids? Is that something we would like to extend to other areas?

You’ve got lots of questions but no answers.

Libs have stumbled across the answer and it’s supported by every political party in Australia except the greens. Not hard to see why as it equals 0 deaths and 0 locked up.

 

[Quigs]

Don't worry youse non believers. Malcolm Roberts has been returned to the Senate. He will be the orator for all flat earthers, denialist and get your military rifles back to you to cull all the black african gangs that are marauding in the streets as we type.

 

[Surely]

Ozone layer ring a bell? Mankind had to make changes.

The hole in the Earth's ozone layer has shielded Antarctica from the worst effects of global warming until now, according to the most comprehensive review to date of the state of the Antarctic climate. But scientists warned that as the hole closes up in the next few decades, temperatures on the continent could rise by around 3C on average, with melting ice contributing to a global sea-level increases of up to 1.4m.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/dec/01/ozone-antarctica


Better punch a hole back in it

 

[wibble]

A Lot quicker than we will from an increase in co2

You do realise why these questions are not definitively answerable? If you genuinely care about climate change (from any perspective, even if you care that we are spending too much thought/political capital/money on it) you should ask genuine questions with genuine answers possible (even if just theoretically answerable, rather than possible with our current knowledge).

We had no hospitals or fire fighters for most of the history of humanity, so they are not essential to survival. What they do is provide, at great expense, is a form of insurance or protection from disastrous situations. It is possible to make guesses at the relative costs of paying more or less for these, and getting more or less protection, but it is not possible to say definitively that we will die due to the lack of them, or when we will.

Asking when is the world ending if we don't do something, and answering when will we die if we don't have hospitals or fire fighters with sooner than from an increase in CO^2 (which is probably true, in many cases, and probably not true in a few cases), do not appear as genuine attempts at unravelling the issues around climate change. I apologise if they are. But hopefully you can see that glib questions and answers, though the tools of politicians, are not the tools required for better understanding our challenges and how to meet them.

 

[Surely]

You do realise why these questions are not definitively answerable? If you genuinely care about climate change (from any perspective, even if you care that we are spending too much thought/political capital/money on it) you should ask genuine questions with genuine answers possible (even if just theoretically answerable, rather than possible with our current knowledge).

We had no hospitals or fire fighters for most of the history of humanity, so they are not essential to survival. What they do is provide, at great expense, is a form of insurance or protection from disastrous situations. It is possible to make guesses at the relative costs of paying more or less for these, and getting more or less protection, but it is not possible to say definitively that we will die due to the lack of them, or when we will.

Asking when is the world ending if we don't do something, and answering when will we die if we don't have hospitals or fire fighters with sooner than from an increase in CO^2 (which is probably true, in many cases, and probably not true in a few cases), do not appear as genuine attempts at unravelling the issues around climate change. I apologise if they are. But hopefully you can see that glib questions and answers, though the tools of politicians, are not the tools required for better understanding our challenges and how to meet them.

Let's get serious , nothing is going to stop emissions short of replacing the world's power supply with nuclear power and electric vehicles

Nobody has the stomach for that because they are all f**king scared.

 

[wibble]

The hole in the Earth's ozone layer has shielded Antarctica from the worst effects of global warming until now, according to the most comprehensive review to date of the state of the Antarctic climate. But scientists warned that as the hole closes up in the next few decades, temperatures on the continent could rise by around 3C on average, with melting ice contributing to a global sea-level increases of up to 1.4m.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/dec/01/ozone-antarctica


Better punch a hole back in it

The ozone layer is a great example. Little old us managed to some how miraculously damage the mighty Earth. We were doing it with unheralded and innocuous seeming gasses, and the hole represented a clear threat to humanity, that would probably not have killed everyone, but would have killed plenty and drastically changed our way of life.

To combat the hole, we had to band together as a species, in countries across the world, and change our technologies, at dramatic cost to some industries. And we did it. We reduced our ozone damaging gasses to virtually zero, and averted disaster.

The main differences between the hole in the ozone layer and the build up of greenhouse gasses are that the greenhouse gasses have been building up for longer, and the effects will play out over a much longer period, and the greenhouse gasses are produced by industries with much more power than the ozone damaging gas industries. Hence people don't see the threat as imminently, and the industries responsible have been defending business as usual more effectively.

There are plenty of possible solutions to climate change that raise plenty of alarms themselves (a nuclear winter is a solution that comes to mind). That doesn't mean that we don't need solutions.

 

[wibble]

Let's get serious , nothing is going to stop emissions short of replacing the world's power supply with nuclear power and electric vehicles

Nobody has the stomach for that because they are all f**king scared.

Well, if that's what it takes.

We have the technology right now to reduce emissions to practically zero. There are plenty of energy solutions that greatly reduce CO^2 emissions.

People are scared. People don't like change. People remain ignorant, sometimes wilfully. People have vested interests. People can't think clearly when threatened.

That is true whenever we are challenged. It was true when we fixed the hole in the ozone layer. We had better get over these issues this time too, if we want a future for our grandchildren.

 

[BatteredFlake]

Ozone layer ring a bell? Mankind had to make changes.

Dont bother with that one quigs I was on a forum a few yrs back where a smart fellow was saying that all predictions about CFCs and ozone layer were rubbish and had never eventuated never happened blah blah Another poster put up two pages of real Data from a long study that was done by absolutely reputable institutions with no political Agendas . Without even glancing at it the denialist simply immediately repeated his ridiculous denial . Only fools argue with fools.They have to take a stance and be strong! Unfortunately its now certain history will show them as fools sadly I wish I was wrong. Only interest left in this debate on this forum is how long before DS says we could fit entire population of world into QLD with 1mtr Sq each So how could we possibly be overpopulating ,polluting the earth,and changing the climate and environment? He must be saving that as his knockout blow.
.

 

[Quigs]

I can remember as a youngun when the Parra river west of the Harbour Bridge was declared a dead river. Too munch shit and chemical being poured into it.

Drastic changes were made and maybe youse can tell me how that went. Beautiful Syd-a-ney Harbour.

 

[wibble]

Well the action worked because it stopped the boats.

No children will be locked up now because there is no more boats.

No more children drowning at sea because there is no more boats.

You need to have strong policies for the stupidity at sea to stop and that is why the Liberals have been voted 3 times in a row.

You’ve got lots of questions but no answers.

Libs have stumbled across the answer and it’s supported by every political party in Australia except the greens. Not hard to see why as it equals 0 deaths and 0 locked up.

If we could prevent child deaths from locking up the children of reckless parents, what are the parameters that would satisfy you that would make this OK? I don't have to define those parameters because I'm not OK with locking children up (and I'm broadly utilitarian, which means I actually would be OK with locking children up to save others, if it could be shown to have that effect and if we could be OK living in a world where that is a normal practice. Thankfully I'm not convinced of either.).

How do you know there are no more boats? How do you know there are no more drownings? Even if you disregard the "alternative" drownings as people smugglers go to different areas instead (which you shouldn't), for "operational security" reasons we are not being told if there are drownings or boats.

The Liberals and Labor share the same policy, I'm being told, in regard to locking up kids, so that can't be why they have been voted in 3 times in a row. Obviously it is a bit more complicated than that. But in regards to "boat people", plenty of people support the policy because they are xenophobic. That doesn't make it good policy, and that doesn't make the people voting for it "correct".

Others may have genuine concern for people drowning at sea. In that case, we need our political parties to be open. They need to share data about the effects of the policy. They need to allow studies to see if it is effective. They need to treat the policy like any other policy that has negative and positive effects and compare them. But they don't (well, no party compares its own policy and finds it failing, but we need the media, NGOs, and other political parties for example, to have access to the data to discuss the policies).

I would have thought that locking up children is a last resort, if used at all. I have not seen any attempts to justify this policy that aren't glib and slogan driven. No serious analysis. No discussion of alternatives. Maybe we could try....not locking children up? But still not allowing boat people to settle if we want a deterrent? Maybe we could process claims more efficiently, so kids don't spend years locked up. Maybe we could allow children to be part of a community, and receive adequate medical care, even as we process the claims of their parents? These are just a few suggestions, I'm sure policy makers not hell bent on scoring political points with racists could think of more.

So what other answers do you want before you lock children up? Surely you get all your ducks in a row, as it were, before you even consider it?

And surely you examine the issues in detail again and again, to check that it is the best policy?

Instead, our PM rants about letting murderers in when we want locked up people to have medical care, while he is busy letting murderers in.

And is it still an issue? Well, it may be. But the reason it was raised in the first place was because our newly elected PM was the champion of that policy (and is supposedly a good Christian man). So if our PM is happy to lock children up to score political points, and people are OK with him doing that, I think that has consequences for the way our society develops in the next few years.​