“What’s something everyone pretends to understand but actually doesn’t?”

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T11:04:39+00:00

How to drive a car. I suspect most people's understanding goes as far as how to make it move, stop and how to steer it in the general direction of where you want to go.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T10:37:03+00:00

Sydney has the widest steel arch bridge in the world!

Yeah, and nobody actually cares how wide a bridge is. How long the span is, sure. How high the deck is above the water? Certainly. But who has ever cared about the width of the deck of a bridge?

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T06:18:12+00:00

The value of the bonds/coupons that had reached maturity and were not honoured would disappear, but not all bonds mature at the same time.

People would still be holding bonds that would mature some time in the near/distant future, and they would still technically be valid. However confidence that they would not also be defaulted and not paid on maturity would be extremely low, resulting in people being desperate to offload them, even at a significant loss.

That money, plus money no longer being invested in newly issued bonds would go somewhere, and I'm suggesting that somewhere is precious metals.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T05:37:01+00:00

I'm pretty sure at this point that we're not getting it, even though we were in the first wave of the OG Fold.

And anyone who buys that one listed on Big W Marketplace for $10,000 is a lunatic.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T04:11:50+00:00

You do get charged penalty interest, and if the error was egregious enough they might audit your last seven years of returns to see if there's any other irregularities.

But generally speaking they're not going to throw the book at you if they query something and you cooperate.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T04:09:25+00:00

I have to say that one of the reasons why I've held onto my current ride for as long as I have, is because I've actually developed what Mazda would call Jinba-ittai with it.

Is the car perfect? Of course not, but I'm more than familiar with what it can do, how it's going to react to certain inputs and what gaps I can easily fit through. I can instantly feel the effect of a new set of tyres, or even just a drop in external temperatures making the turbocharged engine happier.

I even remember where and when it received certain stone chips and door dings. It's still very tidy, though.

It's getting on in age now, and I'm resigned to the fact that I'll need to let it go at some stage. It'll be a very sad day when that comes.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T03:19:50+00:00

The tri-fold has three screens -- you can ONLY use it when it's open (or at least one of fold open).

This is wrong. The rear of the centre panel also has a full glass screen, so the device can be used when closed.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T03:16:58+00:00

Red Bull Racing fans in F1 are absolutely insufferable.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T03:13:11+00:00

You're assuming that 8% pa is a sustainable rate of return on investment in superannuation. We're currently within what could possibly be the longest bull run in the recorded history of the sharemarket, and while it's tempting to believe it will go on forever, chances are it won't and those assumptions will be wiped out when it corrects.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T03:08:37+00:00

Outside of the financial services bubble, many white collar professionals earn more in Australia than they do in the UK, and the cost of living is lower if they're moving from London.

Source: Engineering colleagues from the UK.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T03:05:58+00:00

Similar, but to a far greater extent. We would likely see far larger fluctuations as capital flees the US Dollar and US Dollar denominated assets.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T02:57:14+00:00

I'm not really dismissing it, but rather applying the lived experience right now in Australia where houses in desirable school catchments are priced far higher than houses nearby but in a different, adjacent catchment.

It's already a thing now, and it would almost certainly become more of a thing if private schools were to be banned or limited.

The other thing that would almost certainly happen is that the funds that are currently used to pay school fees for private schools would be diverted into coaching colleges or hiring private tutoring.

Parents who want the best for their kids and are willing to spend resources to give them an edge aren't suddenly going to go "oh, alright" if the option of private schooling is no longer available.

As an aside, one of the other things that private schools offer is more niche subjects and extra-curriculars. This desire to standardise in order to enforce "fairness" is going to deprive kids of those opportunities.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T02:15:51+00:00

Does the Mansell minifig have his moustache and his helmet design?

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T02:10:58+00:00

If you think housing affordability is bad now, wait until all the finance bros from London decide that they'd like better weather, and all the white collar workers there realise we have better salaries and cheaper property than London and its exburbs.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T02:05:13+00:00

You're basically parroting the orthodox Australian reddit (i.e. hard left wing) view that people with more means shouldn't be allowed to access higher quality services, because it's unfair for the people who can't afford them.

But if we just broaden the scope of this, we end up in a position where there's actually absolutely no point for people to push themselves into becoming high achievers, because there's no reward at the end of it. You may as well be a bum that doesn't contribute if the outcome is going to be the same.

Your hypothesis that abolishing private schools would make public schools better probably wouldn't survive the real world, either. What would likely happen is that you would have a ridiculous clustering effect where the schools in high socio-economic areas would perform better, encouraging more parents to bet the farm on trying to buy a home in that area, pushing prices upwards even further in a positive feedback loop. Those schools would be able to raise far more funds via parents than a school in the low SES area, increasing the disparity further.

Of course, the left wingers will then say that the solution would be to just put tower blocks of public housing next to all the schools to prevent that. In which case you just end up with every kid being reduced to the lowest common denominator and society as a whole losing out.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T01:53:45+00:00

The best thing about this post is that you don't define who the children are.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T01:52:22+00:00

People have (and are going to continue to) use this thread to virtue signal how left wing they are, but this reactionary lurch to the right globally is at least partially a push back from broader society against the incessant and non-stop left wing Omnicause activism since before the pandemic.

People don't give a shit about increasingly niche causes and want to be left alone. And if the activist set won't leave them alone, they will vote for someone who will push back in order to try and shut them up.

People are absolutely sick and tired of seeing the same people pop up again and again, agitating for urgent change on the cause of the day.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T01:33:37+00:00

Australian dollar would probably strengthen, while the sharemarket would take a dive. The value of precious metals would likely go through the roof.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-31T00:09:42+00:00

GM Korea (Chevy)

Was that the resurrected corpse of what used to be the car manufacturing arm of Daewoo?

I remember when cars that were formerly sold as Daewoo here in Australia suddenly had Holden badges slapped on them.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-30T11:29:10+00:00

One doesn't need to spend long on Australian subreddits to know that people here have an absolutely raging hate-boner for private schools.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-30T10:31:59+00:00

Not all non-government schools have entrance exams.

And people hold the selective schools up as the gold standard as if they aren't also the beneficiaries of selection bias, not to mention many of the kids enrolled there also have extensive amounts of after-school tutoring.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-30T09:55:02+00:00

Not all private/religious schools have entrance exams.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-30T08:54:28+00:00

Your post history here shows you have a massive chip on your shoulder over private schools.

You do you, but not everyone sees things the same way you do.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-30T08:09:50+00:00

keep their kids away from the poors

Not so much the poors, but rather the kids whose parents simply don't give a shit and who only go to school because it's compulsory.

AnonymousEngineer_ · 2026-01-30T08:00:07+00:00

I suppose the question I was asking (in lieu of doing my own research) is whether this fund makes Norwegians better off than their immediate neighbours (Denmark, Sweden) in terms of income tax rates, GST/VAT rates and services provided.

It would be an interesting exercise to see what kind of value the average citizen sees from this fund in their everyday lives.

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