Life is a game of trade-offs, nothing is free & any adaptation given by nature costs something in return. E.g finely tuned muscles give us the motor skills that allow us to manipulate small objects in a nuanced fashion, but the cost is the brute strength that chimpanzees have over us.
The cost of safety is freedom, & so safety is paid for through control. A child loses a hand to a firecracker, so we ban them in the name of safety. A mass shooting occurs so we ban guns. Yet a man can stuff his face with sugar & fat-filled burgers, die of a heart attack at 42 & that is choice. The only freedom allowed is those actions that are un-romantic & not aesthetically grotesque. The sight of a child’s blown off-hand from a firework is horrifying, the sight of a middle-aged man in a hospital bed feels normal. Smoke tobacco & drink alcohol all you want, but Grass is unsightly, or more so unproductive. Every inch of ground lost to more strict legislation is almost universally framed as an appeal for safety. Yet more often these laws are used to abdicate responsibility, of the child, the child’s parents, the manufacturer & the politician.
I recall last year, having a conversation with an older gentleman about the role of the government in Australia. Right next to us on the wall were those hideous signs that litter every bar, the usual legal liability waver disguised as a PSA. We were talking about government control & Australian culture, I pointed to them & said something along the lines of “I hate these fucking things, they’re so patronizing & ugly.” To which the gentlemen said, “They are there for your safety.” I said something about feeling insulted that I needed to be constantly told that everything the government does is for my safety. “No, you’re missing the point. The government sees it’s role as an entity to provide safety for the people of Australia, however it sees fit to do so. I’m not saying that I like it, but that’s what it’s mission is according to them.”
That is the government’s claim on its face, & it uses any evidence of Australia’s wellbeing to make the case that it is succeeding in its mission. All the while subtlely establishing a vile surveillance state, covering up its mistakes, & lying about its motives. Say you want to stop all car crash deaths as is obviously the goal of the “Towards Zero” campaign. The solution is simple, ban driving, or reduce the speed limit to 10kmph. But everyone would agree that this solution is not feasible. We all unconsciously accept that the amount of road deaths is acceptable to keep society functioning, so a campaign like Towards Zero is, in reality, a sham. When unexamined it seems compassionate, but it is just a revenue stream to cushion the increasing cost of the police force. Where do you think the income goes?
COVID
Australia could have totally avoided COVID altogether, or at least the first wave. Regardless Australia earned its title as the lucky country, our geographic reality is naturally adverse to widespread infection. In the pandemic game, Australia is like playing the game on easy mode, & yet the ruling class still failed. So now here we are, cautiously tiptoeing around as to not get infected while Scott Morrison & Gladys Berjyklian attend press conferences to congratulate themselves on the amazing job they did.
What shocks me the most, is the willingness of people to give up freedoms, without even the most basic inquiry. Even those that do tend to object do so quietly, pessimistically complaining, with no actual intention to do a fucking thing about it. Even when it came to saving the nightlife.
Sydney Lockout Laws
I’ve had my fill of rants about Sydney’s Lockout Laws since the day they were implemented, again all under the guise of safety for the public. Every evening out became more drab & depressing, watching the night’s demons desperately scramble to pubs before the lockout. Those unlucky bastards making the walk of shame to that God damned casino. As the years went on I realized that no one had the stomach to fight it. It was easier to justify laziness with improving wellness, treating a drinking problem as the cause of existential dread then as a symptom of underlying dissatisfaction with life.
Though not intentional in some master plan, those laws only accelerated an already occurring process of atomization into late-stage capitalism. pushing us all into the depressing reality of drinking alone, binge-watching Netflix & Uber eats in rented apartments. Finally, the lockout laws were repealed early this year. After the construction industry carved up a big slice to sell to bullshit finance companies.
The hard pill for me to swallow is to admit that I was complicit, every time I worshipped the red “N” I pulled my attention away from my own country. The American’s just have better digital products than us. That’s the bottom line, & even now in my COVID coma I continually choose to ignore reality through escapism.
Australia’s media complex in comparison is a bloated corpse covered in clown makeup, puppeted by Rupert Murdoch’s silent henchmen. Watching literally anything on those networks is akin to A Clockwork Orange style torture. These networks have been hemorrhaging money, quality & relevance for the last decade.
While I can’t wait to dance on their graves, the unfortunate trade-off is the journalists who are meant to expose the corruption of our “leaders.” They have become more desperate to make ends meet. So they’ve deluded themselves, receiving their sustenance from massive advertising firms with strict guidelines on what stories they can cover, keeping in line with the GIN. The Disney world happiness & sunshine image cannot be broken by a blood-soaked hellscape.
We are staring down the barrel of having all of our networks bought by American networks, or government-funded propaganda, & people still unironically wonder why everyone is depressed & anxious. When the options are between selling your soul for meals or burying your mind in chemical & digital opiates. There probably won’t be a traumatic event to wake us up into a greater purpose, just a slow decay into a new dark age as we fight over the best seat on a sinking ship.
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