Heuristics can be incredibly useful and can also mess you up. In the interest of not just repeating Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s life’s work, I’d like to talk about heuristics in moral decision making only. Here is an interesting encyclopedia article for those who want a background on what heuristics and cognitive biases are, from the world’s most popular encyclopedia. Example one: Freegan vs. Vegan A good example of the failure of moral heuristics is militant veganism. I am of the opinion that one person’s consumption habits make practically no difference on the welfare of animals. People (myself included) make decisions like this to feel good about the effect they have on the world. With this in mind, let’s look at “freegan” vs. vegan. “Freegans”, by my definition, are vegan when it comes to increasing the demand of products (buying things), but not when their action has neither a real nor theoretical effect on demand. Take the following example: Morgan Freegan and Dolly Vegan are sitting next to each other at a wedding with shared platters for the main. They both received special meals due to their diet choices, and did not add to the amount of meat required on the shared platters in the middle of the table. They have finished their meal, but are both still a bit peckish because they are in a bulking phase. There is plenty of food left in the middle of the all the tables (meat and sides), and everyone at the tables has finished eating. Morgan Freegan makes a moral choice in the moment and loads up his plate with fish and devours it. Dolly Vegan refers to her moral heuristic and hits a delicious quinoa salad like a freight train. Once everything is cleared, the leftovers go in the bin. Who is making the decision more in line with environmental and animal harm minimisation? My take on it is that neither contribute to increased meat consumption in this case, which is a mutual goal. I would say though, that Morgan eating lots of fish will add things to his diet that vegans don’t usually get, meaning he requires less supplementation and is less likely to have diet related health issues. Another view is to look at what goes in the bin. If Morgan eats 200g of fish, which represents higher environmental impact being saved from becoming waste than Dolly’s 200g of quinoa salad. It’s surely a good thing to be consuming the most ethically expensive thing when it’s all going in the bin otherwise.Yet I feel that many people would see this and think “Morgan Freegan isn’t a real vegan, he cares about deliciousness more than what really happens to the animals”. I’m also not saying deliciousness isn’t a factor. If I don’t see a moral difference between eating fish delish and quinoa salad, I’m going to end up with fatty omega-3s in and around my face. Example two: Gun Control in America The Land of the Free and Home of the Imbecile (and a host of other generalisations about the most diverse country in the world). A lot of people in America love the Constitution and its Second Amendment. Many others do not love it at all. There isn’t much middle ground. The people who are “pro gun” will arc up at any mention of even a slight tightening of the laws, even if it’s super reasonable (selling guns at gun shows). Those on the “pro gun safety” side seem unwilling to settle for any position other than somewhere around where Australia has landed (need a “good reason” to own a gun). Then you have a jabroni like Sam Harris piping up in the middle of all this, essentially saying “people should be able to own a gun based on them being fun, but they need to be super trained in safety”. This idea cops absolute flak from both sides. People stick to their guns on both sides, either “no changes” or “no guns”. Taking Sides I feel like this speaks to one of the things that’s beginning to frustrate me: tribalism. On individual issues, people are in one tribe, at the opposite end to the opposing tribe (at least it’s reported that way). Even though it’s only Jihadists blowing themselves up in stadiums, and 100% of Jihadists are Muslim, putting more focus in the airport line on a mid-20s man of Middle-Eastern appearance than a late 80s woman with a walking frame is profiling and shouldn’t be done according to people on the left. According to people on the right, Muslims shouldn’t be let in the country at all, even though the majority are fleeing the horrible things we are accusing them of perpetrating. Progressive: transgender people should be allowed in whatever bathroom they identify with and called by their preferred pronoun. Conservative: a man goes into the bathroom my daughter is in and I’ll drop him. Green: solar power is the way forward and we should all install it as soon as we can because in Australia we can afford to do it. Blue: climate change isn’t a problem. Traditionalist: drugs are bad mk. Liberal: people should be able to do what they want with their minds and bodies. PC Principal: everyone is exactly equal. Free Speech Exponent: I can tell you to keep your fat homosexual religious blind Asian dog away from me. Capitalist: trickle down economics works. Socialist: the poor deserve your money because they need it. I feel like a few in there are stereotypes and not representative of real actual people’s views, but when you look at the way things are reported, you often hear from only the people on the extreme ends of the argument. Which makes sense in a way. If I hosted a chat show (omnipotent God forbid), and the issue of immigration came up, my producer would be booking people to make it balanced which means hearing from both sides of the topic. You don’t want to turn on your TV and hear someone say, “this is a really tough topic and there’s no clear cut right answer” because that infers that whoever is making the decision might not be fully convinced of what they are doing. It’s nice to feel like someone is in control and that things aren’t left up to chance. It’s better to have someone say “we should stop all the boats and immigration and only us original Australians can stay” which some people will relate to, and someone else say “let all these disadvantaged people in, how are they different from us, have some compassion” which other people will relate to. The whole immigration situation is so murky because yeah of course we want to help people, but of course we can’t have a million people come here in the next year, and funding and deficit and the future and hungry children and a million other factors that can’t be explained in anything less than a ten week special which takes a year to make and even then only brushes the surface because we don’t have enough data on what potential solutions might work and I’ve only got a 15 minute segment to talk about it and people’s attention span is only the length of a snapchat or headline anyway, so here’s P. Dutty and Dick di Nat who will throw pre-made word salad over each other’s heads, thinking that they are convincing people of their message and that any concession to reason will lose them voters. Deep consecutives. Maybe it’s all perspective. Maybe people on the left of the topic hear the left and right people on the TV and think of the left-leaning commentator as being balanced and reasonable, but the conservative personality as being bang out of order, and vice-versa. Maybe I’m asking for a “centrist” view, but that’s because I’m a centrist so of course I would see a centrist as reasonable and balanced. So when I’m listening to Sam Harris making “reasonable” comments and being attacked for it, he’s not being reasonable at all and there’s no such thing as objective reasonability, it’s just how much someone aligns with your views. I don’t buy it. I know this comes across in an arrogant way, because I’m basically saying “think about each issue on it’s merits” which implies that people currently don’t and that I currently do, so I’m superior. I don’t mean that at all. Every day I do things because I’m following a heuristic that doesn’t hold true in that situation. The way I indicate when cycling. The way I chop food when cooking. The way I decide whether or not to shop in the morning. The way I prioritise emails at work. The way I think about Australian Politics. And half the time I only think I have a system for things that I’m following, and it’s not even that, it’s just how I feel about it at the time, based on nothing. What I want is to encourage people to pull me (and others) up if I’m doing something that seemingly doesn’t make sense. I want to improve the way I do things. I want to see the faults in what I do and either accept them and move on, or take some accountability and address them. What’s the actual effect if I actually watch something silly on YouTube for an hour? What’s the difference if I donate money to MND Australia instead of the Against Malaria Foundation? Should I buy slippers from Kmart or would I be screwing Bangladeshis by doing so? Action I’m trying a new thing where at the end of each post, I’ll write a thing that’s actionable and ideally relevant to that post. I’m doing it because I’m thinking about what constitutes a “good life” (not being a good person, but being happy), and I think there are a lot of things I’d like to think I do, that I actually don’t do. So if I do things that make me happy and share them, then other people who do those things might be a bit happier too. This one is simple: if something is dubbed “controversial”, think about what your default stance on it is, then try to see the other perspective.
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I haven't spent the last month only doing this post, I do have another few on the way. There are so many topics mashed up in there and it's taking me longer than I thought to polish them. I wrote this in the meantime just to keep this kind of regular. I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, and while I weave most of them in to my blog posts (often the source of the line of thinking in the blog post is a podcast), I figured I might as well do a post on some that I like. How detailed they are depends on my mood at the time of writing and other irrelevant things, but they are all great in my opinion, depending on what you want to get out of them. Standouts for me are Revisionist History, Waking Up and Hardcore History, which are all very different. CJ’s Key Podcast Recommendations
Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell Episode Length: 35 - 45 minutes Speed: 1.4x Listen time: 25 - 35 minutes (short walk along the river) You should try this if: you’re interested in why things are the way they are. Major topics covered: inequality, unfairness and generally strange things. From gender to income, Gladwell focuses on the effect of inequality through education and opportunity. There’s a really interesting one about Toyota and stuck accelerators too. This has changed my life by: helping me to intuitively think twice about what “everyone is saying”. Often things are the way they are because that’s the way they are, not because that’s the best way. Recommended one to start: just start from the start and work through. The first one is about moral licensing and is super interesting, though when you get to the bit on Julia Gillard, you’ll be a bit ashamed to be an Australian man if you are, in fact, an Australian man. Waking Up with Sam Harris by Sam Harris Episode Length: 30 - 150 minutes Speed: 1.6x Listen time: 20 - 90 minutes (riding to work) You should try this if: you watched Westworld and don’t know what life means any more. If you think about actual moral things rather than what people do to think they are moral. I’m super into this guy at the moment. Major topics covered: religion, morality, free will, consciousness, politics, science. This podcast is mainly in the form of conversations with a few AMAs in there. This has changed my life by: I’ve started to meditate. Recommended one to start: the AMAs are quite good to get an idea of what he’s on about, then move into some conversations with people you like (Paul Bloom is a good one). “Why I don’t criticize Israel” is a good one too (#2). Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History by Dan Carlin Episode Length: 3.5 - 5.5 hours Speed: 1.6x Listen time: 2 - 3.5 hours (all day) You should try this if: you want to think about what life would have been like in the past. Major topics covered: Persia, WWI, Mongols. This podcast could be the high school history curriculum and it would improve things. (He goes into a whole thing on the Common Sense podcast about what history at school should actually be like and it’s not Hoardcore History. His idea is that kids should learn the process of history, not the facts of history. In well taught science, you learn the scientific method and use it to discover facts, not just the facts themselves. In history, this might mean learning how to discern what actually happened from evidence and a good project would be to let kids pick any topic they want from punk rock and hair straighteners to shoes and Hinduism and have them work out what the critical steps were for those things to be what they are today. This would encourage a strong critical thinking filter through which to process one’s experience in the world, which is something that we could use more of given the sheer volume of media and other inputs these days.) This has changed my life by: opening myself to the way people used to think. And now I pronounce Genghis Khan correctly. Recommended one to start: The King of Kings series is a good one to start but the Wrath of the Khans (pay on website to download on app) series is my favourite. Freakonomics Radio Episode Length: 30 - 60 minutes Speed: 1.3x Listen time: 25 - 45 minutes (walking to the shops) You should try this if: you want to learn to think like a freak. Major topics covered: too many to list, but basically they apply economic thinking to a broad range of issues. This has changed my life by: teaching me to teach myself in a different way. Recommended one to start: Bad Medicine series. S-Town Episode Length: 40 - 60 minutes Speed: 1.3x Listen time: 30 - 45 minutes You should try this if: You liked Serial and want to get drawn into a compelling story. Major topics covered: Mental health, The South. This has changed my life by: enlightening me to what happens in The South. Recommended one to start: the first one, it’s a story. Common Sense with Dan Carlin by Dan Carlin Episode Length: 45 - 80 minutes Speed: 1.6x Listen time: 30 - 50 minutes (riding to work) You should try this if: you’re interested in American politics and imagining a future which makes sense, not which conforms to the current norms. Major topics covered: US politics, morality. Dan Carlin tells it how it is and back up his claims with evidence. This has changed my life by: enlightening me to the fact that the whole deal we’ve been given is fraudulent. Recommended one to start: In Search Of Context or The Illusion Of Control. This American Life Episode Length: 50 - 60 minutes Speed: 1.4x Listen time: 35 - 45 minutes You should try this if: you like being taken in by a story about something new. Major topics covered: everything, but from the point of view of the person it’s happening to. This has changed my life by: realising that everyone is the protagonist of their own story. Recommended one to start: this list (pay to download, listen online for free, recent episodes are free to download on Podcast Republic.) The Tim Ferriss Show by Tim Ferriss Episode Length: 45 - 180 minutes Speed: 1.4x Listen time: 30 - 130 minutes You should try this if: you want to actually improve your life in the way you think you want to improve your life. Major topics covered: lifestyle design by way of mental tricks and techniques that top professional performers being interviewed use. This has changed my life by: making my work life more efficient, resulting in me working less and doing things I like to do more. Recommended one to start: just pick an interviewee that you like. Planet Money Episode Length: 15 - 25 minutes Speed: 1.3x Listen time: 12 - 19 minutes (any time!) You should try this if: you want to learn about the hidden side of everything. Major topics covered: everything, based in economics. This has changed my life by: broadening my interest in things which I didn’t initially think were interesting, because they have such a range of topics and are only around 20 minutes long. Recommended one to start: the series on The Planet Money T Shirt (around #500) The Joe Rogan Experience by Joe Rogan Episode Length: 2 - 4 hours Speed: 1.5x Listen time: 1.5 - 2.5 hours You should try this if: someone you like is on there. Major topics covered: depend on interviewee, a lot about drugs, martial arts and the meaning of life. This has changed my life by: nothing concrete yet, but it’s interesting that a lot of people I like that are interviewed here are into some form of martial art. Recommended one to start: #804. Flip It BackThese are my recommendations. What are yours? There are at least five podcasts out there that should be on this list for me, but I haven’t heard of them. So tell me.
I’m going to do one of these on the books that I’ve read in the last two years that I really recommend. I think my last two years of reading has been by far cumulatively more amazing that all other reading I’ve done, but hey, that’s just me. Question OneWhy did the chicken cross the road? To get to the Other Side. I only realised a couple of months ago that this is a joke about suicide. Back to the BlogWell, well, well. I just finished listening to Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He’s one of my favourite people. The return to writing was catalysed by this book. I realise that I like writing, I would like to be better at writing, and being better at writing in the future will definitely be beneficial to me. Outliers made me realise that the only way to not only get better, but to get good, is to practice. Deliberately practice. So I’m going to try out different styles to see which suit me the best, and try to write for 25 minutes per day. This includes any research I might do. I’m not sure which topics I’d like to write on, but I think I’ll mix up between books/podcasts that I’m consuming, things I’m thinking about, and random topics that will focus more on research, learning and simplification. I’ll play around with SEO and stuff like that, but if I find it interrupts the flow too much, I’ll ditch it because I don’t overly care if people actually read what I’m writing, it’s just practice. Though it would be good to practice incorporating it, I suppose. Catch 22Catch 22 is my favourite book. I read it for the first time in 2014 because some girl on Tinder had as her bio a quote from it, which I looked up to impress her, then decided I liked the sound of the book. Once I finished it, I immediately started over. I have read it five times in total and it makes me giggle every time, on almost every page. Its absurdity is so realistic. While on holiday, my girlfriend and I tried reading it to each other, which made me realise for the first time that it uses an incredible number of relatively complex words. I think my vocabulary is pretty good for a 27 year old human, but there were not only many words per chapter that I couldn’t easily define (sometimes not define at all), but there were many that I couldn’t pronounce. Despite having read the book five times without registering this, I think it was one of the reasons I liked the book so much from the start. Language is becoming simpler, and communicating loquaciously is not looked upon favourably in many circles. In fact, you’ll likely come across as a bit of a dick. Dan CarlinisationSo I’ve gone a bit mad lately listening to Dan Carlin. I was first turned on to his history podcast and immensely enjoyed the one about the rise of the Persian Empire (the King of Kings series). They are very long and I would recommend listening at 1.5x speed. I then moved on to the six part series about WWI, then The Road To Armageddon about the nuclear situation. At this point I was out of free Hardcore History shows (after two or three years they archive them and make them a couple of bucks a show) and I was about to buy the whole back catalogue when I came upon his other podcast. Common Sense with Dan Carlin is fantastic. I knew I liked the guy and the way he thinks, but when he spells out the political situation for what it really is, it truly clicks for me. I know that the whole thing these days of listening to the news/social media that interests you gets you more and more in an echo-chamber of your own people, continually reinforcing your own ideas. For me, that’s Dan Carlin. When I was in the US on the campaign trail, I had the feeling that it was all a farce, and I’m generally a cynical person by nature, but the way he spells it out, I find it difficult to imagine someone arguing against it. “In 93 percent of House of Representatives races and 94 percent of Senate races that had been decided by mid-day Nov. 5, the candidate who spent the most money ended up winning, according to a post-election analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.” That statistic alone is frightening when you think you are in a democracy. I don’t want to go into the whole Trump thing too deeply, but I think there are arguments that he’s good and bad. He’s obviously bad, but he’s potentially so bad that he’s good. In a system that is so obviously broken to some, but apparently functioning to many, the way to get people to see what is wrong with it is to have someone come through who doesn’t pay much attention to “the way politics is done”. Bernie on the left and Trumpy on the right both did this and I think now the American people *should* be better informed for it. Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party should now see that people are pissed with those in the system only to benefit themselves and will protest vote on a scale that actually gets someone like the Donald elected. Yeah, it’s probably worse under someone like him than an insider in the short term, but voters are saying f*ck you to the insiders, we’ll wear it for now. The same thing happened to a lesser extent in Australia when we voted in so many minor parties in our last election. I don’t think the major parties have listened at all, as they seem to be playing the same “oh but look what the other team did” card every day of the week now. Anyway, if you’re interested in this stuff (and things like US foreign policy, why Russia was forced into doing what they’ve done recently, why ISIS isn’t a terrorist group, but actually a group which has some members that use terrorist tactics), listen to old Dan Carlin’s Common Sense and see if you like it. I’m not sure which to start with (I just listened to 30 hours of it in a week, so it’s all blended into one for me), but I would give “Trumped” a go. “In Search Of Context” is good and “The Illusion Of Control” if you are interested in the Russia situation. My New Favourite QuestionWhat is your favourite thing to do outside of work that you do by yourself?
I came up with this a few weekends ago and I love asking people. Y'all should try it. I'm not saying cars are useless, and I'm not getting off on the technicality that cars might not be called cars in the future. Partly this comes down to practicality and partly down to my predilection for going against the grain (one day I'll write a post about this, including the time in Grade 2 when Margot Tidey brought in a chocolate birthday cake for her birthday and I everyone said they loved chocolate cake so I said I didn't like chocolate cake and didn't have any, then cried because I was missing out on chocolate cake which I actually really liked). Cars are mainly useful for 3 reasons: commuting, transporting things and getaways (and maybe pleasure too) I won't commute by car1.I'm happy to ride a long way to work. In Melbourne I lived around 10km from work and that was a really nice distance. In London for a month I was 16km, which was fine, and after that only 4km. In Montpellier it was 14km. These distances are all totally fine cycle commuting distances in basically all weather. In Melbourne after working an 18 hour shift, having worked 80 hours that week, getting back to the warehouse at 3am, I genuinely looked forward to the half hour ride home. Driving would have been a chore, but getting off my feet to really pump it along the empty cycle paths using different muscles and clearing my head was something that seems like it should have been undesirable which was anything but. 2. I can move closer to work easily. I don't plan on buying a house any time soon slash ever. I know people say it's good to invest in property. I know it's nice to have certainty regarding your family home. Realistically, it depends on your preferences and world view a lot, but I think the tradition of it sways people to make the incorrect choice to buy. [I know I am an example of someone who would rather spend money to do things when I'm young and let the future worry about itself. Instead of starting my career four years ago (which I can just do this year if I want), I've lived overseas and travelled for nearly the whole four years. If I'd chosen to start a career, spending my mid 20s living in London and Montpellier, cycling around Europe and travelling South America would not be an option. Sure, with money you can do these things later, but waiting leads to a greater opportunity cost (missing out on higher wages), often a serious relationship (travelling alone is so different to travelling with someone, regardless of your relationship to them) and eventually smaller versions of yourself (travelling with kids is also very different). I can give up my bulging salary and travel with my SO and kids later in life, but I can only travel young, poor and solo now. Way better to do more and not be permanently paying off a mortgage.] I clearly think it's better to do living while I can and worry about the future in the future. So instead of putting money down on a house, I'd rather rent and live. The reason this is relevant to car buying is that if I do change jobs to one in a different part of whatever city I'm living in (something that wouldn't happen very often), it would be easy for me to just pack up and move to a different suburb if the commute were over 20km. I don't need a car for transport1. Transporting small things like shopping is something that happens fairly frequently. I tend to shop often and buy things for the next set of meals (I'm a batch cooker). This means I can transport everything I buy on my bike easily. Whether I have panniers to transport or a milk crate and my backpack, four or five days of groceries is not difficult to transport on two wheels. 2. Transporting large things may require more than a bicycle. This is a very rare occurrence for me. I could transport everything I currently own by bike across Melbourne if I needed to. Obviously when I have a job and presumably things like a bed, I won't be able to bike them, but moving the large things I might own will only be required if I move house, which might be a once a year event at worst. In these cases I can either hire a car/van, or borrow the transportation services of a friend who owns a car because they do need one for work. I don't need a permanent car for infrequent getaways1. I'm realistic about my getaway frequency. Some people might go and do things in their car every weekend. I'm not the kind of person who does that. At most I would actually want either to drive to a National Park, go to a distant beach or visit my faraway family once a month. People live for the trips they might take every weekend, just like they keep clothes that they haven't worn for a long time just because they might wear them again. Give them to the charity shop. If they are ever in the situation where they would actually choose those old jeans, they have other options that it would make literally no difference to wear. 2. Owning something for monthly use is silly. The car is an amazing invention. It has changed the lives of billions of people around the world. They cost a significant amount to build (raw materials, labour cost) and a lot to buy (think of what else I could buy with that money). There is a reasonable running cost to own one (registration, insurance, depreciation) and I would be paying every trip (fuel). If I am using a car every day, it makes sense to buy one. If I owned a car, an insanely useful invention which can transport me and other things at many times my own top speed, and it spent 99% of it's life sitting idle in my garage or one the street, still costing me a lot of money (rego, insurance, depreciation), that would seem a bit wasteful right? If there is the option to hire one when I need it, that makes more sense right? From the perspective of the planet, humans can take raw materials, process them and build a machine which is used every day, servicing the needs of many people (hire car). If each of those people owned their own car, they are using many times the resources for them to only lay idle most of the time. From the perspective of my wallet: Buying Total cost = net cost of car + running costs = (buy price – sell price) + insurance per year + registration per year + fuel So for a Toyota Camry which I might own for five years: Total cost = (31,000 – 13,000) + 900x5yrs + 700x5yrs + fuel = $26,000 + fuel = $100/week + fuel Hiring SUV=$180, Passenger Van=$200, Toyota Camry=$163 for 5pm Friday to 5pm Sunday. So if I'm going out once a month, it will be less than half the cost, plus I can choose something closer to what I actually need. This is excluding choosing between a street permit or it taking up garage space. Plus, if I buy a 2011 car, the longer I own it, the lower the overall depreciation. This makes it preferable to own a car for six years rather than two years in terms of cost. The obvious downside is that I would spend a lot of time owning a reasonably old car. If I hire, my car is always new. Anyway, I would normally have an automotive requiring getaway type situation less frequently than once a month, but even at worst case estimates, it makes sense to hire when required. Another reason: pleasureThere is of course the pleasure of driving. Back in the day going from the farm near Beaconsfield to Launceston was a really pleasurable drive. Knowing the road well means I could sort of switch my mind off and absently process things, kind of meditation. Personally, I found another way to better achieve this state of meditation (cycling), but I understand that this may not be the case for many people. Also, the kick of rapid acceleration is undeniable (though not as great as the wind in my hair as I weave through traffic). For whatever reason people gain their pleasure from driving, I would say hiring a car can most likely provide the same benefits. To add to this, there is the negatively pleasurable side of driving (traffic), which can be negated by commuting in a different way. If I commute by bike but own a car, I am likely to choose to drive to work some days which will leave me in the awkward middle zone of not driving frequently enough in traffic to be used to it and driving in it often enough that a fair portion of my time is spent in traffic. A change in circumstanceI understand that my own situation in life will likely (hopefully) change at some point to wife and kids. Depending on whether the wife in this situation allows it, I could totally see myself as one of those people who has a child seat on their bike. I doubt I would have a wife who wouldn't want our kids will be learning to cycle early on. Final NoteI can see that in this post I seem to be trying to convince you, the reader, to not buy a car again. For this, I apologise. I understand that there are plenty of legitimate reasons to own a car. It's just that none are relevant to me.
I tend to find that around election time, there is a lot of information out there coming from the major parties and minor parties and independents and then there are people's comments on what politicians are saying because that's news, then because we're Australia there are commentators commenting on the comments and it all just spirals out of control from there. Last election I wrote a couple of words or lines on all the Senate Parties so I knew who to vote for when I went to vote. This year I've done the same thing and I thought I might share it. It's not comprehensive and not objective. Basically it reflects my opinion of what's important and where each party sits or stands or simply exists on each issue. Nearly the information comes from the website of that party, but includes my personal interpretation. I haven't done LibLabGrn because you already probably know a lot about them and where you're preferencing them. As I've mentioned previously, I think you should preference first the party with which you're most aligned, especially if they are a small party, and go from there (above the line because you can do that now). It's really funny reading about racist and bigot parties who are trying to be PC because that's what you need to do in 2016. Here We Go!Derryn Hinch's Justice Party: wants harsher sentencing for violent crimes (not longer maximums, but more regularly getting close to those maximums). Pro gay marriage. Pro euthanasia. Wants a public sex offender register which I'm not a total fan of. In general, DHJP isn't as bad as I thought, but they have no information on their stance for a lot of other important issues eg “the boats”. Australian Democrats: want to double humanitarian immigration and cut business immigration. Sounds pretty boss. Other things they say about immigration are also nice, but maybe not detailed enough (need a limit). They have drug law reform policy which is progressive without being “all drugs, legal now”, though it mentions lawmaking and scientific evidence which we all know don't go together. They say a lot about renewables. Animal Justice Party: the three headings in policy are “Animals”, “Environment” and “Humans”. They have policies for pretty much each animal. Reading “wombat” and “koala” in this context makes me feel happy. I think they want everyone to be vegetarian eventually, but are saying that it'll take a very gradual change to get there. I'm on board with this. “Population” is also a heading which piqued my interest, and it says that the home-grown population should be at replacement levels. I'm also on board with this. Science Party / Cyclists Party: the website is shit but I'm obviously on board with all their major ideas. Evidence based cycling, woo, get on a bike ya mug. Palmer United Party: don't even think about it. The end of the environment. Jacqui Lambie Network: pro military which I don't like, but part of that is better veteran support which I do like. She's against high frequency trading which I think is a good stance. She's pro nuclear which is clearly good. By clearly, I mean the skies will be clearer with nuclear because it's “zero emissions”. Keen on scrapping negative gearing for people with many houses, which makes sense. Is worried about Sharia Law which makes about zero sense. She also has a thing about Halal certification which would make the process more transparent which I think is good. Certification generally needs a bit more transparency. She's worried that the Halal certification funding goes to terrorists which I'm not sure is a legitimate claim. She wants dedicated indigenous seats which I'm kinda into. Also is pro conscience vote on all ethical issues, though is pro plebiscite for marriage equality. Wants to halve foreign aid which is already at a record low I believe. Opposes carbon tax. Wants an investigation into energy prices because we currently pay through the dick for it. Anti mining on prime agricultural land. Australian Christians: so many lies, so much misinformation. They will be getting a high number. Sustainable Australia: formerly Sustainable Population Party. So they sound like a renewable energy party, but they are just racist AF. Pirate Party: trying to bring politics and lawmaking into the 21st century. They leave out a bit that I'm interested in, but their policies of drug law reform, patent law reform and education reform are all top notch. They are pro marriage equality and increasing immigration and all those good things too. Socialist Equality Party: so much propaganda. Sanders and Corbyn on steroids. Trotsky in political party form. They are absolute in their targets, which I am not into at all. We don't need a revolution. Health Australia Party: basically want the politicians to be more transparent and connect more with the Australian people. Good luck with that. Renewable Energy Party: self explanatory. Keen for renewables and renewable powered public transport. Voteflux.org / Upgrade Democracy: sick of politicians, want everyday people to be voting on issues using a smartphone app. I intuitively like this but when I engage System 2, I realise that it's not great. People don't have the time to make the best decisions all the time. I don't vote for people to represent my view, I vote for them to make the right decision for everyone. I know that's not what happens, but if everyone voted on every issue, debt would go through the roof along with a host of other issues. They also mention issue based voting in their video (which is worth the watch), which doesn't make overall sense because if I'm a scientist, of course I'll think science needs more funding and if I'm in the public health system, of course I'll think public health needs more funding. And so on. Though a phone app for moral/ethical issues might be good. Takes the place of a conscience vote. In theory. Family First Party: anti immigration, anti same sex marriage, anti climate change (as in they don't “believe” in it). They use the word family a lot to make people feel like they are friendly. They are not. They are arseholes. They might end up last. Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group): Worse than the other religious parties. These guys will be close to last for me too. The Arts Party: I'm one of the least artsy people around in terms of creation, but I've learnt a lot about life from being entertained by Vonnegut, Heller and Huxley, along with kids shows like Captain Planet back in the day. I don't have much time for “entertainment” TV if it doesn't make me think, but I would rather have Australian mindless crap on TV than American mindless crap. And our crap is funnier anyway. I know I'm skipping other areas of the arts, but hey, I ain't no artist. Aussie music though. Eff yeah. Plus if we don't have funding in the ABC and Triple J etc. to hold the pollies to account (albeit satirically and unjustly too often), then who's going to do it? They have a video gaming policy because we consume but don't create much in that industry and it'll be a big market going forward. I'll be putting these guys above majors. DLP Democratic Labour: basically doesn't like the two majors being beholden to corporations and unions. Against same sex marriage. At the lower end but not abhorrent. Citizens Electoral Council: conspiracy theorists. Raging idiots. Secular Party Of Australia: anti-religion. Well, not anti-religion, but they think that a human person should have more rights than a made up fairy tale idea. Anti war on drugs and would like many currently illegal drugs to be sold legally with users registered. I can see problems with this considering current stigma, but it would be a good idea to have in the mix. Australian Liberty Alliance: would prefer small government, built on Judeo-Christian values but are secular, want migrants to enjoy a free Australia. “Stop the Islamation of Australia”, though they seem generally anti-racist. They think if you have an Australian Passport, it's the only one you should have, which I don't love. They are against same sex marriage, but for making same sex couples the same as a heterosexual married couple legally and financially which is fine, but they don't think two fellas or two gals should have kiddies which I don't like. Below middle of the road for me. Nick Xenophon Team: damn he looks different on the landing page of his website. Most people probably already have an opinion on him. I'm not into Independents holding the balance of power, but I think that happens when the majors are too unlikable which I think is the case now. Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party: yeah, nah, don't talk to me about your place in the future. Though I do like that they state their one field of interest and stick to it. It's just that I think that field will be gone in a few decades and the sooner the better. Marriage Equality: these guys also just run their one platform, this one I do believe in though. Go them. Pauline Hanson's One Nation: We all know where we sit on this one. Socialist Alliance: they seem pro revolution. I like their values, but their plan is rubbish so I'd put them middle of the road, above the arseholes, below the people with actual ideas. Australian Country Party: only take a view on country related issues and seem reasonable. MFP: Manufacturing and Farming Party. As above but slightly more racist. Want to increase defence spending. Drug Law Reform: as per my recent blog post, I'm all for this. Evidence based policy. Though unless both majors go for it, the one against reform will slag off the pro reform one mercilessly and nothing will go through. This party doesn't have stances on other issues. Voluntary Euthanasia Party: only talk about this issue. I'm for it so they'll go above the majors. Mature Australian: kinda anti immigration but under the guise of being pro immigration. They don't seem to say much else so will go below the majors. Shooter, Fishers and Farmers: historically I haven't liked these guys and I still don't, but they aren't as bad as some of the others. Below the majors though, so it doesn't matter. Liberal Democrats: anti PC, anti big government, think people can make their own choices. Substantially cut tax, substantially reduce government spending. Idiots. Anti foreign aid, pro guns, pro market, pro immigration, pro same sex marriage, pro choice (in many topics), pro drug reform. Below majors, below most others. They have a picture of Cradle Mountain in their environment section. Go Tassie! Rise Up Australia Party: website is so bad. Racist while trying to seem tolerant. Openly oppose multiculturalism. They are pro income equality and I like the way they put it, but it's just doesn't catch them up considering all their other policies are not agreeable to me. I'll put them near the bottom.
Australian Progressives: as you would expect, pro same sex marriage etc. They actually put a number on the increase of asylum seekers at 26k. Nearly double what is current, just over half what the Greenies want. Above majors, but just a bit (some of their tax reform doesn't make sense to me). Australian Sex Party: saved the best until last. I agree with literally everything and I love they include things like ending religious tax exemptions, ending tampon tax (apparently lube isn't taxed, wtf), reducing recidivism, increasing internet literacy and increasing political literacy. These guys are getting my number one. Disclaimer: I've proven to myself unequivocally, while writing this post, that I am not very good at transferring the crystal clear logic in my head in to words on a screen. Tips are welcome. Australian tips (advice), not American tips (scrill). It's easier to vote above the line, we can all admit that. It's important to vote below the line. Here's why. Preference voting is great because it makes it possible for voters to support a non-major party without helping the party they don't want to be in power. For example, if Bernie Sanders ran as an independent, Trump would certainly win because Bernie would be taking votes from Clinton in first past the post (which is the current system in the US). If preference voting was used, whomever out of Clinton and Sanders got the fewest votes would be eliminated and their voter's second preferences would be awarded votes (likely not Trump). CGP Grey does a great series of explanations starting with the video below. I'm happy that Australia uses preference voting. I think it could certainly be improved. For example, currently you can choose a party above the line which is quick and easy, but they get to determine your preferences if they are knocked out. If you vote below the line there are often a ludicrous number of individual candidates, which can take a long time to fill out, also increasing the chance you'll make a mistake. Below the line voting increases your control at the cost of time. I would like a third option in which you can preference parties without having to preference each candidate. This would mean you retain the control of your vote if your chosen party becomes the least popular in your electorate, but it doesn't take hours to fill out the form. The party would get to choose to which of their candidates the votes are prioritised (something most people don't care too much about) anyway. But that isn't how it works. I'll use myself as an example to explain why I think you should vote below the line in the upcoming Australian election. If I vote below the line:Number One: Sex Party! My views on “the issues” most closely align with the Australian Sex Party (viewable here). Even though I know they won't win, I want to give them my primary vote. When the results of the election are shown, it will be known that they are gaining popularity and the major parties will take this into account (albeit an infinitesimally small amount for the meagre one vote I am able to cast). But where do their preferences go? I'm not sure and even if I research that now, it may change by election day. Either way, it's very unlikely that it'll be exactly as I would like my preferences to go. So we go to… Number Two: An Independent! I happen to have a good one in my electorate who actually might get the green light again. Her views are the second closest to mine. But let's just say she doesn't win. When the results of the election are shown, it will be known that they are gaining popularity and the major parties will take this into account (albeit an infinitesimally small amount for the meagre one vote I am able to cast). Which brings us to... Number Three: The Greens! OK, so my third preference isn't the Greens, but I haven't done my research yet and this is just an example so whatever. The Greens also aren't going to win my seat, but when the Sex Party (inevitably) and the independent (maybe) get eliminated, I want it to be known that the Greens hold some sway with me and that I like their policies more than the other parties. When the results of the election are shown, it will be known that they are gaining popularity and the major parties will take this into account (albeit an infinitesimally small amount for the meagre one vote I am able to cast). And so on. If I vote above the line:Option one is to vote for the party who most closely aligns with my views, the Sex Party. This is problematic because their preferences might be Lib, Lab or Green and I don't want them to be given preference over the Independent. Not a very good choice. The second option is to vote for the candidate who has a chance of winning whom I want to win, the Independent. She will likely win and will almost certainly be one of the final two candidates. In this case, the candidate I want to win will get my vote the same as if I'd voted below the line. The difference is that this does not demonstrate that my views are closer to the Sex Party than the Independent. Also not ideal. In Summary:One of the major benefits of preference voting over first past the post is that you can support minor parties with views closer to yours without negatively affecting major party candidates. You should use this ability to demonstrate your values accurately, while still helping the major candidate with values as close as possible as yours.
The reason I wrote this post is because I'm sick of hearing politicians talk as though the fact that their party won an election means that the Australian people on the whole agree with all of their policies. How many times have we heard that we voted against a carbon tax because the Coalition won in 2013. No, we didn't. There were a plethora of reasons the Coalition won. Don't talk as though that was the only issue we voted on. While we're at it, I would love to have a second piece of paper with "the issues" to show our views. If the Libs win this election, that doesn't mean that Australians all think there should be a plebiscite on gay marriage. We literally employ you to pass laws like this (that most people want), we shouldn't be doing your job for you (a whole new kettle of worms, I know). I recently read a book called Narconomics by Tom Wainwright (thanks Jaya). It was really good. I'm not really sure if the book is supposed to be enlightening only, but as it turns out, it gives excellent advice regarding the best way to improve the drugs situation. Much of the book follows the violence in Latin America, but I'm going to leave that out, assuming people don't care about stuff not on their doorstep, which generally we don't. I would obviously suggest that you read it, but nobody will, so I'll try to point out a few logical steps he makes. I do have the physical copy of the book, so if you do want to borrow it, just let me know. 1. Going for the supply side doesn't work The cost of growing coca leaves is tiny. If that costs goes up by 10 times (if nearly all the crops are destroyed), cartels still make loads of money. The cost of destroying crops is ludicrous and ineffective because growing moves to another country. You can't supply out a 30,000% mark up. 2. Enforcement is expensive and targets the wrong people If the money spent on enforcing drug laws was spent on rehabilitation, creating relevant jobs and drug education, there would be many fewer people working in the industry. Prevention is better than cure. Incidentally, it's much cheaper too. This is more relevant in the US than Australia, but still relevant in our sunburnt country. Incidentally, much of the funding which is supposed to go to prevention in Australia, ends up in other places and if one B Bishop had her way in 2007, it would be much worse. 3. National enforcement against a global business is ineffective Think of squeezing a balloon. Succeed in decimating narcotic production in one country, it just pops up in another. Rich countries are happy to continue consuming drugs as long as the killings associated don't happen on their turf. Poorer, source countries are happy for rich countries to consume drugs, but would prefer them to not fund the associations doing the killings in the poor countries. 4. Prohibition is not control Since the UN event in 1998 with the slogan: “A drug-free world: we can do it”, governments have spent “well in excess of $1 trillion enforcing prohibition” and “total consumption of marijuana and cocaine has increased by half, and consumption of opiates has almost trebled.” Prohibition doesn't work. We know that. The ratio of amount required for a high to the amount required to kill is 1:6 for heroin, 1:10 for alcohol, and one to infinity for weed. Dodgy pills kill people at festivals. Synthetic drugs manufacturers continually change the compounds to stay a step ahead of the law, which means as they run out they are getting more dangerous for a smaller high. People get addicted to opioids from over-prescription then need to look to heroin to lower costs. Legalising drugs would give the government a level of control on them that they will never see by trying to stop people from using them. There are a bunch of other points which I can't really remember perfectly, but basically from whichever angle you look at it, drugs should not just be decriminalised, but they should be legalised. If you think automatically that this means people will become addicted to drugs en mass, you need to look at the facts. There is a chapter about Colorado where marijuana is legal and the technology going into it is pretty great. People know exactly how much of which compounds are in each product. They have stupidly high limits on edibles (one chocolate bar which is supposed to be shared between 16 people), but if correct limits are in place, why not make it legal? Not many people have tried it for the first time since legalisation and use it regularly. It's now a good source of revenue for the government. Violence is down because weed dealers are out of business. I think it's fair to say that people aren't going to stop taking drugs in Australia, no matter what the government does. Might as well keep people in Australia safe (know what they are getting), make some money (tax) and make people in the drug violence ravaged countries of Latin America safer too. (The wiki article on “Illicit drug use in Australia” is a good read.)
Some people are always going to want to get high. Governments choose how much health risk and violence is involved in that process. Currently they're choosing wrong. I've decided to break my blog in to bits. There is no easy way to move old posts around so I'm just starting this bit from scratch. The only thought and idea blog is this one.
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