Draconian Aussie Science Censorship Law Takes Effect Next Month (theconversation.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Conversation reports that beginning next month Australian scientists and engineers face 10 years imprisonment for communicating without a government permit on biotech, robotics or manufacturing. Geoffrey Roberston QC says the laws are "sloppily drafted" and threatens research with "no sensible connection to military technology". But the government is barreling ahead, despite warnings from Defence Report it will kill Australia's high-tech economy. The law is opposed by Civil Liberties Australia where scientists are petitioning against it.

Comments

Better for everyone else

[Dog-Cow]

Keep going, Australia! Committing economic suicide makes it better for everyone else. Thanks for taking one for the team!

Re:Better for everyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

The world is not a zero sum game. If Australians were rich and sensible they would buy and use more of your products. If they did that you would buy more of their products. Everybody would be happy. Only idiots think that "take take take" will make them richer (long term) and in the same way, if Australia goes crazy it means one less place to escape to when your country goes bad.

Re: Better for everyone else

[harvey the nerd]

Idiot. Those guns are why our (un)civil serpents (wannabe masters) even slow down from imitating yours.

Drugs? Don't take them and don't hang around those that do. Castle doctrine and stand your ground even means you can shoot the criminally bad ones.you fear.

Slavery? You mean work? Well yes, maybe more than la dolce vida Aussies used to have.

The white dentists and engineers are going abroad where the women are friendly.

Re:Better for everyone else

[TapeCutter]

The recent rash of anti-science and pro-military actions of our government are a direct consequence of Abbot stacking the public service with far right loons when he became PM. Tony was Australia's Trump light, he was (and still is) itching for us to go to war with somebody, it doesn't seem to matter who that somebody is. As with Trump, Abbot (aka the mad monk) is a private school bully boy who drove a xenophobic wedge thru his own party to gain and hold onto personal power.

Re: Better for everyone else

[TapeCutter]

Mate, I'd seriously consider buying a one way ticket for a wanker like you.

Re:Better for everyone else

[cold fjord]

We are fortunate indeed that Trump has come along, otherwise how could we understand Australian politics?

Re:Better for everyone else

[dbIII]

They are a party for their own pockets but are "supposedly a party for farmers". They are currently led by an accountant who had a history of giving water rights to a multinational cotton company by taking it away from local food producers.

Re: Better for everyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the USA is big into "local government" - typically, police, fire department, schools, etc are all managed and funded at the level of very small districts. For example, in Los Angeles, some of the best public schools in the USA are literally only a few miles from some of the worst public schools in the USA. And, of course, if you want to live in one of the best school districts in the USA then you're going to have to either live in a very small apartment or be very rich. So, yes, there are places in Rhode Island and Massachusetts that are very dangerous and there are places in New Mexico and Florida that are very safe.

But the broader point is that, at this point, the USA as a whole is now very ethnically and racially diverse. So any neighborhood that is good enough that the best and brightest in the USA are actively moving there will be quite ethnically and racially diverse. The only exception is old predominantly white neighborhoods that used to be very good and where all the good people haven't yet got around to moving away yet - typically these neighborhoods have mostly old people.

Re:Better for everyone else

[Archtech]

Aldous Huxley nailed this syndrome well over half a century ago. He wrote that:

"One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters".

So people create governments to keep them safe and provide law and order. Gradually the governments grow, until they become massive cancerous organizations concerned mostly with their own survival - and further growth. Eventually they either kill the host, or have to be overthrown in bloody wars or revolutions.

Re:Better for everyone else

[PolygamousRanchKid]

The recent rash of anti-science and pro-military actions of our government.

It sounds like you are an Australian . . . did you get a government permit to post your comment . . . ?

Otherwise, it's off to prison with you, we'll all see you back here in 10 years.

Re:Better for everyone else

[gweihir]

Yep. Because the one critical skill the human race has not mastered is keeping those with a thirst for power and control of others under control. If we could identify and them drown them at birth, this planet would be paradise.

Re:Better for everyone else

[drsmithy]

Kinda.

Australia is the country whose leaders have, for the last thirty or so years, looked to the US and UK and decided "the problem these guys have is that they're just not going hard enough".

Re:Better for everyone else

[CurryCamel]

The world is not a zero sum game. If Australians were rich and sensible they would buy and use more of your products.

I disagree: untill we learn to mine asteroids, it sort of is a zero-sum game. Currently we seem to be quite a lot in the red, and I for one agree with GP and salute Australia's effort of turning the world to a more sustainable pace of consumption.
Your profits be damned.

Re:Better for everyone else

[AmiMoJo]

Name one post-war western democracy that has either "killed its host" or been violently overthrown.

It used to be true, but we have worked out how to make democracy stable now.

Re:Better for everyone else

[Salgak1]

Really ? That would explain the really high violent crime rates in Utah, which is about as ethnically diverse as a loaf of Wonder Bread. Except they're about half the national average. You get high crime with large deltas in income over a small area. . .

Re:Better for everyone else

[Applehu Akbar]

So Australia is in an anti-science race with the US, then?

With a little more cooperation between the two societies instead, we could both reach the Stone Age faster. The US can contribute a lot of Bible technology and has the world's most powerful set of activist lawyers who are old hands at shutting down science, while Australia can contribute the police-state methods that we have been behind in.

Re:Better for everyone else

[fustakrakich]

Did it ever occur to you that maybe people like tyranny? How else could there be so much of it?

Re:Better for everyone else

[Archtech]

I think it's not so much that people like tyranny, as that we instinctively want a strong leader. We evolved from communal apes whose groups - varying in size from a single family to a clan of perhaps 200 - could only survive if they had strong, undisputed leadership. Such a leader (we might call him a "silverback", even though the phenomenon applies to chimps and many monkeys, too) may not always be right, but he must be decisive. A study of natural history programs, or books, or even a few visits to the Zoo, show that leaders often assert their authority in unfair ways. They randomly bite and strike others, apparently just to keep them apprised of who is the boss. Because when a crisis occurs, or a decision has to be made, the rest of them must wait for his call and then obey it unquestioningly.

None of this sounds very nice from a human philosophic, political science, or ethical viewpoint. But that's just the way it is. The alternative, of not having a clear-cut leader, tends to be fatal for everyone in the group.

So while clever academics (from Plato on) devise their schemes of ideal government, we remain instinctively apes with ape instincts and needs. When there is trouble, we find we want a strong leader to tell us what to do. It's not a matter of thought, it's something that leaps out of our hindbrains and takes us over - just as you pull your hand away when you tocuh a hot surface, without having any time to think about it.

Re:Better for everyone else

[drinkypoo]

On 1-10 year scale, it is not zero-sum because we create value by turning raw materials & energy into complicated products. Eventually, most raw materials run out, but it still won't be a zero-sum game.

On the long scale it's a negative-sum game, because we're spending natural capital that we can't replenish. For example, there is no topsoil factory.

Re: Better for everyone else

[jeremyp]

Unless you are gay, or you disagree with Putin on anything.

Re:Better for everyone else

[bzipitidoo]

No, people like rules. We bathe in rules the same as frogs live in water. Lawmaking is like applying heat to the water. Nice at first, then uncomfortable. The powerful are always testing the people, seeing what outrageous rulemaking they can get away with. It's up to us to push back. There's little choice but to boil or rebel.

But there is so much to oppose that it's difficult to keep up with it all. There's the TPP and copyright extremism, the War on Drugs and high prescription drug prices (which extreme intellectual property laws empower), rackets that target automobile owners such as parking meter enforcement, speed traps, and red light cameras, telecoms monopolies on Internet service, and so on. Redflex, one of the major red light camera service providers, is Australian.

Plus, every jurisdiction has their own peculiar home grown racket. The US state of Virginia has a little extra requirement for automobiles: no cracked windshields. The excuse is safety. Healthcare is a big racket in the US. Australia has an especially weird one: cemetery lots. Yes, one of the top nations in the world for unused space claims there isn't enough room for the dead, there is no ownership of grave sites, there is only rental, and descendants must renew the leases of their dead ancestors every 50 years, or the grave sites will be reused. To add to the insult, if unpaid, the markers with the names of the dead are removed.

Re:Better for everyone else

[doctorfaustus]

It doesn't sound life they're leftists. They sound like far right wingnuts.... At least the ones under discussion here, who seem to have a majority

Re:Better for everyone else

[sudon't]

Yeah, I've learned some things recently about Australia that kinda blew my mind. I had no idea it was such a conservative country. I certainly never got that impression from the Australians I've met.

What if...

[vikingpower]

...this nightmare had unintended and unforeseen positive side-effects, with researchers setting off in entirely new fields ? Granted, this is just a desperate attempt at seeing at least some positivity in something very, very disheartening.

Re:What if...

[Syberz]

From what I understood, the law is so poorly written that even "entirely new fields" would fall under it's umbrella and the scientists would still be boned.

Clowns in office

[hengist]

This is just another example of how clueless the current Australian government is. It explains why there are now more New Zealanders moving from Australia to New Zealand, than from New Zealand to Australia. That hasn't been the case for decades!

I left four years ago, and haven't been back. If I were still there, I could be prosecuted for publishing in any of my research topics. Ridiculous.

I know politicions are stupid but...

[aduxorth]

I know politicians are stupid but this is getting ridiculous.
This country is seriously going down the gurgler fast :(

Re: The usual right wing idiocy

[cyber-vandal]

Yeah no one from the entertainment industry could ever be president.

Re: Austrailia was doomed

[cyber-vandal]

Legal gun ownership is why South Africa it's such a safe place to live.

Re:I left Australia more than 6 years ago...

[spyfrog]

According to Wikipedia, you have an population of 21 million people. Sweden has 9.5 million and managed to have 100.000 immigrants in 2014 and was overwhelmed with over 170.000 in 2015. So I am quite sure you could manage 30.000 without problem.

This is journalism??

[Sibko]

This is one of the most biased headlines I've seen around recently. This isn't journalism, the headline is literally telling you what to think of the law instead of just stating the facts of it.

Re:This is journalism??

[Xyrus]

This is one of the most biased headlines I've seen around recently. This isn't journalism, the headline is literally telling you what to think of the law instead of just stating the facts of it.

The headline correctly describes the law. It IS draconian.

Re:I left Australia more than 6 years ago...

[drsmithy]

Australia has a small population and can't afford to subsidize the 30,000 plus refugees who pay smugglers to bring them to Australia. Settled refugees flock to the big cities, causing a massive increase in the cost of living. Worse, certain foreigners refuse to assimilate, creating an isolated community with a decreasing standard of living and increasing crime. Australia has just recovered from the damage caused by refugees settled here in the 1980s. A lot of people don't want to approach that hot potato again.

This is complete bullshit. Refugees are a rounding error in Australia's immigrant intake over any meaningful timeframe.

They do, however, provide a convenient scapegoat for the people's quite reasonable concern over the extremely high immigration rate and tragic underinvestment in infrastructure.

Re:I left Australia more than 6 years ago...

[drsmithy]

The major cities in Australia often get ranked as best / most-livable in the world.

Because those liveability lists are largely based on surveying highly paid expatriates.

For normal people, they're basically useless.

Re:I left Australia more than 6 years ago...

[harlequinn]

There are 24 million people in Australia. We take over 200,000 migrants (net) a year.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats...