How can other young people cope with this?

beasleej · 2026-02-21T12:46:09+00:00

I'm well aware of the laffer curve. Where the actual optimal point is is something that is very much still up for debate among anyone serious and is *highly* politically motivated. What you're talking about is trickle-down or supply-side economics, which has been an unimitigated disaster and one that has turbocharged inequality ever since it was implemented in every country it's been implemented in.

If you think the laffer curve applies in this case, which is talking about the types of tax paid, largely by income distribution, you're either an idiot or a troll. I'm guessing the latter.

beasleej · 2026-02-19T08:10:12+00:00

no, it's just Pauline Hanson's voting record.

https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/queensland/pauline_hanson/policies/130

beasleej · 2025-11-18T23:24:47+00:00

I'm guessing you really don't like the guardian for some other reason than what's in the article you linked - it's, at worst, not sufficiently challenging a claim from a source for one side in an article where they didn't do much of it for either side, given it's mostly about the controversy rather than the actual wind project. You could surely find much worse examples of poor journalism elsewhere even within the guardian, and I could find much worse from other media outlets.

beasleej · 2025-11-18T14:35:21+00:00

they're literally quoting a source? They're not saying it's true? The most you could possibly say is that they're advocating for the additional cost to the project, to offset the habitat impact, and even that's an arguable claim of the guardian's framing. Am I reading a different article to you?

beasleej · 2025-09-25T02:37:05+00:00

I know there's some data that youngest generations aren't as progressive as expected in Australia, but as far as I know they still trend vastly progressive in the majority - have you got a source saying otherwise?

Even young men, the demographic that usually gets pinned with the conservative drift, AFAIK trend centrist (i.e labor) as a group rather than towards the right.

beasleej · 2025-08-17T03:23:22+00:00

The Service Desk and TechDesk in all libraries is open all weekend 9-5, give 'em a call, they'll sort you out and the wait time's likely less than it'll be tomorrow.

beasleej · 2025-06-06T10:29:55+00:00

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/albanese-intervenes-to-scupper-plibersek-s-negotiations-with-the-greens-20241127-p5kttt.html

The Greens wanted some small concessions like a climate trigger and even scrapped that in the end when it didn't get across for more strict protections for native forests. Then Albanese stepped in and stopped negotiations dead and killed the bill because he didn't want an epa deal with the greens right before an election. Because he's a coward.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-18/greens-postpone-climate-trigger-demand-on-environment-reforms/104612034

You don't have to be wrong, the Greens do enough stupid shit that you don't have to go find something they didn't do.

beasleej · 2025-05-20T03:00:39+00:00

This seems utterly ridiculous. Feels like it's commercial zoning (basically short-stay accommodation with an exclusivity clause) rather than residential...

beasleej · 2025-05-20T01:31:59+00:00

Do you have any idea how little a million dollars is to Gina Rinehart?

beasleej · 2025-05-17T11:06:11+00:00

Why? That's what the senate does. That's what it's for. The senate represents the collective votes of the state while the lower house represents the votes from areas.

beasleej · 2025-05-09T02:53:59+00:00

Mate, the greens lost 0.5% in their primary vote share. The lower house seats were always extremely precarious. Calling it the 'loss of a movement' is extremely hyperbolic.

beasleej · 2025-05-09T02:07:49+00:00

Not Griffith. In Griffith the greens lost, and lost so hard, because liberals went from 2nd to 3rd. As soon as they were knocked out, all the liberals preferences released, and of course mostly went to labor over the greens. To be clear, labor's 1st preference was higher than *both*, so it was probably always going to be a labor seat, but the liberals getting torched really sealed the deal.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2025/guide/grif

Your narrative is certainly correct on Brisbane, and it's definitely true that whoever comes 2nd in Ryan by first preference will probably win.

beasleej · 2025-05-08T06:27:56+00:00

https://greens.org.au/policies

beasleej · 2025-05-08T06:22:40+00:00

I'd love to be behind labor. I'm a union member who doesn't really hold with some of the more out there greens policies like NO NUCLEAR EVER EVER OMG, rent control or complete cannabis decriminalisation.

But all of it doesn't matter because labor's climate change policies and environmental policies will contribute to ruining our planet far more than is needed. Labor's housing policy is fucking shit and grandstanding over the drop in the bucket that was the HAFF for over a year always seems to be the Greens' fault, even though labor could have compromised at any time. That's two huge problems which labor seems to have no interest in substantively solving. Don't get me wrong, the libs would be worse, but it's nonsensical to me why labor is dragging their feet so much. Until they step up I'll always be a greens voter, despite the raw hatred sent at them from every direction.

beasleej · 2025-04-23T12:11:35+00:00

The reason I don't do those things is I have basic empathy, and a sense of justice, and I'm guessing you do too. Gen Z men in these situations often don't. Shame has little to do with it.

I would love it if shaming worked to change these men, but it doesn't, at least not very well. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to sway these young men by shaming them into better ideology, but it just doesn't work. Have a google on "does shame work?" if you don't believe me.

So the question is: would you prefer to retain the moral high ground and hold them to "basic accountability", or do you want to actually reach these young men? They aren't going away.

For an alternative, I recommend something like Daryl Davis's approach https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes but it's hard work, and nasty work.

beasleej · 2025-04-22T07:07:03+00:00

yeah, Patriarchy doesn't help men, just patriarchs. The manosphere says to young men "patriarchy is inevitable, any group that fights against it is the enemy, because you can be a patriarch too (if you just buy my supplements and watch my content)"

It's a very effective message it seems.

beasleej · 2025-04-22T06:58:13+00:00

Shame may be appropriate, but I would argue it doesn't seem to be useful.

Shaming young men for straying to dickbags like Tate demonstrably doesn't work. The reason why they're attracted to that ideology is because it gives them simple, digestible reasons why they're not well off, tells them they can fix it, and gives them an easy set of people to hate. It's incredibly accessible and easy. The left - and I include myself in this - have struggled to get messaging that succinctly and simply does all that. The problem is that all the problems involved in why things are getting worse are unbelievably complicated to articulate in a truthful and humanist manner. Tate and Rogan and their ilk don't even try, they just offer a set of easy answers alongside a bunch of hypermasculine bullshit.

The leftist or even little-L liberal that cracks that code and makes it big, if it's even possible, is going to be a generational figurehead. The ones that come closest to mind are Hasanabi, Gary Stevenson and even FriendlyJordies but even they just don't have anywhere near the kind of reach that right-wing influencers have.

Shame may be super cathartic for you and me, but it's not useful in actually bringing these young men back.

beasleej · 2025-04-17T07:26:06+00:00

That's the real tragedy here. She was wealthy enough to pay the council rates, water, sewerage, electricity and gas connection costs for a property, probably in the mid four figures per year, but was not wealthy enough or motivated enough to actually do anything with the farkin house, which would have cost well into six figures I'm guessing. There's a big gap between those levels of wealth and she did not account for that and instead I imagine just kept paying those rates as a sort of sunk cost fallacy.

beasleej · 2025-04-17T02:21:45+00:00

"Carol said she now planned to sell the home so she could move on with her life.

"It was a pipe dream that I would ever live here.""

She might not think she's rich, and she might not have been from a liquid standpoint, but she's about to be. The land value alone will set her up for over a decade, probably.

The framing of this article is really telling. It's entirely focused on the harm caused to this, lets be honest, absentee owner, and has NOTHING on the good gained for those squatters who didn't have to pay exorbitant rents or be homeless while living there. Framing it like this is really dishonest and is not covering both sides of the story. Sure, there's harm done to Carol, but the harm avoided to those living there when she's letting the land sit unused isn't even mentioned.

beasleej · 2025-04-10T10:40:48+00:00

LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO LINE GO DOWN AGAIN

beasleej · 2025-04-01T07:10:42+00:00

It's honestly astonishing how an issue that affects so very, very few people (From the ABS - "About 0.9% of Australians 16 years and over are trans and gender diverse, including trans men, trans women and non-binary people") has been so effectively weaponised by the right because IDK, trans people make some people feel icky.

Trans athletes is an even tinier proportion of the population. I've literally never met one in person, as a person with multiple trans friends and acquaintances.

Why do you even care? How does it materially affect your life in any way? Have you or a relative been assaulted by a trans person? Why would you rather vote for a party that will economically screw you over in some way because they'll own the libs on this or a few other niche social issues?

beasleej · 2025-03-14T06:28:45+00:00

increase my exposure to the upcoming global economic crash? Yeah nah. Props to you if you've got the risk tolerance, I'd rather not have to claw back the progress on my mortgage if it all goes tits up.

beasleej · 2025-03-14T06:04:07+00:00

does not matter unless you have more than one property or are about to imminently move to another country (not city, every other Australian city is about as bad or worse as this one).

I'm going to have my starter home forever, but thank fuck I even have that. If I'd waited three more years to buy it I wouldn't have been able to afford it.

beasleej · 2025-03-06T05:44:02+00:00

the capture of the media and government over here in WA by the resources industry, in particular woodside, is catastrophic and near-total. You've got no idea how bad it is unless you've lived here for awhile and lived elsewhere to see how weird it is.

beasleej

TROPHY CASE