Tim, If you go back to some of the earlier iterations of the "discussion" you'll probably find me asking Peter some of the same questions you have been, with similar "success". I agree with you, that somewhere you need to say "OK, so what is the solution, the alternative, the answer?", given that you don't like the current situation. I agree with Peter that I don't like the current situation and I think it's inhumane, and really there has to be a better way. I just don't know what a better way is and throwing the blame at any one of the governments doesn't help. Stomping your foot and whining about it doesn't help. Indonesia is playing its charade for its people. Both sides of Australian politics are playing their hands for their electorates, from Tampa to "stop the boats". I'd love to bring every asylum seeker here and give them a home, without razor wire fences, but I think doing so would just invite others to put up their hands. I'd love to put up a sign saying "no boats allowed" and stop the drownings and stop the streams of asylum seekers coming through Indonesia and through wherever else they're coming. I'd love to have no need for asylum seekers. Michael On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 9:52 PM, Tim Josling <tim.josling@gmail.com> wrote:

Michael,

OK. No worries.

I wrongly assumed from the comment about "but I'm pretty sure the current policy isn't it" that you felt otherwise.

I think it was Nassim Taleb who pointed out that there aren't necessarily nice solutions to the problems the universe throws at us.

Tim Josling

On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 3:46 PM, Michael Scott <luv@inoz.net> wrote:

...

Tim,

I've been following this subject on LUV and your postings and Peter's and I have fully supported you and mostly agreed with what you've said in relation to what Peter's said, just to make myself clear.

I don't know WHAT is the solution. I can't offer a solution. For me, send over Hercules after Hercules and bring them all back here. That will open the flood gates and double the numbers wanting to come here. It's not the solution. I don't know what the solution is!

On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 3:05 PM, Tim Josling <tim.josling@gmail.com>wrote:

...

From: Michael Scott Subject: Re: [luv-talk] Mike Godwin comments on Australian politics

...

... I'm not sure what the right answer is to Australia's "asylum seeker" situation, but I'm pretty sure the current policy isn't it. The current policy suits the current populism, on both sides of politics.... It may have started under Howard but it continued and was revised to something similar under Rudd/Gillard...and is being continued under Abbott. The only difference I can see is that Abbott is trying to make it less visible....

If you have no alternative, how are you so "sure" that the current policy is not the best that governments can do in the circumstances? How do you know such an alternative exists? Particularly when the ALP came to power in a blaze of moral indignation claiming they would do away with the coalition's inhumane policy and would do far better. And then - as you suggest - proceeded, after some delay, to do the same thing but less competently.

You seem to have plenty of energy to spend on denouncing "populism" and by implication the general moral inferiority of other people etc. Why not spend that energy coming up with an actual alternative?

Tim

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On Sun, Mar 02, 2014 at 01:49:57PM +1100, David wrote:

Worth reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/magazine/how-to-build-a-perfect-refugee-ca...

nice article. thanks for the link. ultimately it's very depressing though 'cos even with a sane and humane refugee policy there's still no real solution except to not have refugees in the first place. presumably this is what the (now depleted) foreign aid budget was meant to help with - stopping the flow of refugees at its source by making people's lives better in their homelands. maybe the Libs look at it economically and think it's cheaper to be cruel to aquatic asylum seekers at our borders than be kind to many more people abroad. walled garden instead of world peace. or indeed our government could step up locally and help to fund solutions for some of the global problems of our time - climate, inequality, food, energy - which are usually responsible for insecurity and warzones in the first place. currently it appears they prefer to ignore such things and leave them for other countries and future generations to deal with. cheers, robin

Hi All, On 04/03/14 22:13, Russell Coker wrote: ...

According to the CIA we have a birth rate of 1.77 children per woman which is significantly less than the ~2.1 that would be needed to maintain the population.

If Australia is going to maintain it's current population then we have to have some migration. ...

Why in the world would we need to maintain Australia's current population, especially in the face of global warming negatively impacting on our ability to produce food for consumption and export? Just because Chambers of Commerce chant "growth, growth, growth" (so that any member who can walk and chew gum at the same time can run a viable business) doesn't mean we need to heed that call. When a country needs to create desalination plants in most of its major cities just to survive, and has 2 of the world's 10 least affordable cities, it's really time to seriously consider that our population is already =too= high. I very highly recommend Jared Diamond's book "Collapse". If you're in a rush, then just Part 4 (Practical Lessons). If you're really in a rush, then just Chapter 16 (The World as a Polder: What Does it All Mean to Us Today). Read somewhere that a minimum of 10,000,000 humans died of malnutrition last year. 7,000,000,000 people (and still doubling every 70 years) is not an ecosystem that I think needs maintaining. Cheers, Carl

Russell Coker wrote:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/as.html

According to the CIA we have a birth rate of 1.77 children per woman which is significantly less than the ~2.1 that would be needed to maintain the population.

If Australia is going to maintain it's current population then we have to have some migration. For every 177 children born in Australia we need about 33 immigrants.

Apropos: | Almost a quarter of Victoria's population was born overseas. | | Melbourne exceeds the national average in terms of proportion of | residents born overseas: 34.8% compared to a national average of | 23.1%. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Melbourne

On Sun, 2 Mar 2014, Tim Josling <tim.josling@gmail.com> wrote:

Interesting essay here about contrarianism and its temptations.

TLDR: While ostentatiously displaying socially approved attitudes (especially attitudes approved of by the in-group but not by the wider society) can be a form of status display, refusing to do so can be even more so a status display.

So when most people are craven cowards only the contrarians are brave?

I remember I famer I knew who was so rich he dressed like a hobo (dirty ragged clothes, in the pocket of which he kept a couple of hundred thousand in cash).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Australian_dollar http://www.scottevest.com/ $200K would be 2000 * $100 notes. That's more than 2KG of banknotes excluding whatever you use to hold them together in bundles. In a single pile that would be over 28cm high if the notes are perfectly flat and stacked tightly. Even if you have Scott clothing you can't fit that in one pocket. When someone who is wealthy is unable to perform basic self-care tasks such as cleaning their clothes then mental illness is the most likely explanation. I read an article about alcoholism which suggested that poor people are more likely to seek treatment because it's easier for them to reach rock bottom. Rich alcoholics (and addicts of any substance) can survive for longer without running out of money or having serious legal problems. Treatment for mental health problems is probably similar, someone who has more money is probably less likely to hit rock bottom from mental illness. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

On Tue, 4 Mar 2014 17:38:26 Tim Josling wrote:

On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 9:02 PM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:

...

So when most people are craven cowards only the contrarians are brave?

No I don't think that making status displays (or meta status-displays) is related to being courageous. My point was that there are many ways of status whoring and no-one is immune from the temptation.

The issue of immigration in Australia is very much about cowardice.

...

$200K would be <long calculation>

This was only an anecdote and I have no aspiration to be awarded "pedant of the month" but whatever... I had translated 1975 dollars to present equivalents for the convenience of readers; this happened back when I lived in the country. in those days governments were less concerned about "money laundering" and you could readily get $50 notes, the equivalent of $300 now. The $100 note did not even exist at the time. The $200,000 is the 2014 equivalent of $30,000 in 1975. This was 600 notes or slightly over 1 ream. Quite doable in two overcoat pockets. My informant told me he saw this chap pay the deposit on a substantial farm with cash taken from his overcoat pockets.

ATMs and credit cards were both developed in the 60's. Neither of them was that widely used in the 70's. Back in the 70's if you wanted to be able to make unplanned purchases you simply needed to have sufficient cash. Having large amounts of cash is very unusual nowadays due to the fact that all major stores accept EFTPOS (and usually cash out), ATMs are everywhere that there are many people, and credit card payment is accepted for most things.

...

When someone who is wealthy is unable to perform basic self-care tasks such as cleaning their clothes then mental illness is the most likely explanation.

I knew someone who worked for him and he did not notice any signs of mental illness.

People always say that. Apart from the usual issue of people not noticing such things there's the additional factor that people are very unlikely to question their source of money. If someone is OK to work for then any other evidence of problems isn't going to be considered that much.

I'm not sure that failure to comply with white collar standards of "personal hygiene" is a very strong sign of mental illness. Inability to do so might be, but I have no evidence he was actually unable to care for himself. He seemed to be able to run very successful farming enterprises. In the farming community we ran into quite a few people who were unusual characters. Some were dysfunctional, others were not.

So your anecdote is not about someone who is unusually dirty who carried an inexplicable amount of money. It's instead about someone who worked on a farm and at the end of a working day was as dirty as any other farmer and who carried a large amount of money because ATMs and credit card facilities weren't invented soon enough to satisfy their financial needs. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

On Mon, 10 Mar 2014 16:36:15 Tim Josling wrote:

...

...

No I don't think that making status displays (or meta status-displays) is related to being courageous. My point was that there are many ways of status whoring and no-one is immune from the temptation.

The issue of immigration in Australia is very much about cowardice.

I don't see why. Most people espouse the views of their peer group, which is not particularly courageous.

https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/r/stat-as.php Being scared of a tiny number of immigrants is cowardice. We are talking about a very small number of people, see the above page for statistics. In 2012-2013 there were 10,898 final grant applications, that's nothing compared to the ~130,000 migrants we get who aren't refugees. If there was a problem with population growth then we could deduct the number of refugees from the quota for other immigration, EG we could accept ~120,000 economic migrants each year.

You might have the view that politicians are cowardly because they are not following the best, most moral policy, in a craven attempt to curry favour with bogans and such.

Absolutely.

But to say that you would first have to establish that there is such an alternative... and none has come to light in the several months of discussion here (other than mine, which no-one has approved of as far as I recall. Calling the "Greens"' document a policy is an abuse of language).

You are just too cowardly to accept anything that doesn't keep foreigners out. Except for the foreigners who can afford an airline ticket.

For what it's worth IMHO the conservatives' immigration policy is about a) Adding to the labour supply in order to keep wages down and to weaken trade unions b) Keep the numbers high so that industries that depend on population growth - housing, infrastructure - remain prosperous. c) Refugees are not desired by big business, so except for ideological reasons eg the Vietnamese boat people or perhaps to populate regional areas the conservatives don't want them.

Actually refugees should be good for business. The main reason for wanting more low wage workers who aren't refugees is racism.

I have more trouble understanding the rationale for Labor's immigration policy. Why for example would a Labor party support high levels of immigration in general? In Rudd's case it seems to have been some combination of the Biblical "be fruitful and multiply" with "more peasants means more taxes" (Peter Turchin) and egotistical desire for Australia to be a "middle power".

The ALP don't represent workers as well as they claim to do. Some people who used to always vote Labor are switching to the Greens for this reason.

The ALP also has a historical association with immigrant communities; with multiculturalism and family reunion immigration as vote winners among the affected communities. Rudd did say that he was trying to "reduce pressure on the labour market", which is Treasury-speak for forcing wages down - which suggests he is naive and was snowed by the bureaucrats.

Also he's catering to rich voters and tea-party types (lumpen-proletariat) who vote against their own interests. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

On Mon, 10 Mar 2014 19:21:18 Tim Josling wrote:

...

You are just too cowardly to accept anything that doesn't keep foreigners out.

This is an outright lie. I have already proposed on this list a large increase in refugee intake.

A large increase in refugee intake would be to allow as many refugees as economic migrants. If that was done then we would never have the quota filled, we haven't ever had enough refugees arriving here and it doesn't seem likely that it will happen until climate change gets bad. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/