Raunch China (Up-Late)
Added 2025-08-21 06:26:45 +0000 UTC
Comments
Given the level of the vocal Australians. No. We'd look like Tasmania or European countries going to vote every year.
Alex Isaac
2025-08-30 03:32:18 +0000 UTCI think those anarchist peasants in Monty pythons holy grail seemed to have a fairly civilised system.
Jesse Lawrence-brown
2025-08-29 09:21:17 +0000 UTCAlso I think we should get rid of Governor general and have the position taken up by a jury of Aussies that are representative of the population and with that allow the ability for the country (a majority) to "recall" the government or petition the government council to dissolve parliament. It would provide another check in the system and be a good way to replace the monarch. Fuck the royals.
Andrew Stanley
2025-08-28 12:10:41 +0000 UTCmaybe I’m oversimplifying it but isn’t the answer to true democracy as easy as significant donations and lobbying reform?
Adam Steel
2025-08-28 11:39:58 +0000 UTCThat's just a philosopher saying philosophers should be in power.
Andrew Stanley
2025-08-27 04:22:08 +0000 UTCThat would be too wide to test and to easy to cut out people who wouldn't vote for you.
Andrew Stanley
2025-08-27 04:20:33 +0000 UTCI think democracy is fine, in Australia. The only tweak I would do is to make the media and informing people better, but that's not easy. Yes there is dumb people but the point of democracy isn't to be smart or be run by smart people, is collective agreement and collective government. Sometimes (read most) it means shit happens that you don't like because you're in the minority, even if it's a large minority, you still had a say. I will point out that voting is the bare minimum for democracy, everyone should be joining a party to advocate for their views or views they support.
Andrew Stanley
2025-08-27 03:59:15 +0000 UTCReally?
George
2025-08-24 22:11:06 +0000 UTCMy god I was just told Brent Hinds passed. Is mislav alright?
krazeeeyezzkillah
2025-08-24 20:20:45 +0000 UTCJohn Cena can speak fluent mandarin so it would probably be a lot less volatile
Yakub Da Scientist
2025-08-23 23:52:24 +0000 UTCNewsom is a fantastic speaker i gotta admit
Paulie
2025-08-23 02:18:38 +0000 UTCGreat Wall of China and rub and tugs probably
Jacob Long
2025-08-22 23:29:06 +0000 UTCGet the project done!
Bryan
2025-08-22 13:01:27 +0000 UTCI want to believe its simply education, but the past couple of pods has convinced me that people in the west are too self centred and don't have enough humility to accept that maybe they don't know enough to actually talk on something. Sceptics are too sceptical of others rather than being sceptical about whether their thinking on a subject is actually sound.
Bryan
2025-08-22 13:00:06 +0000 UTCWhen you put it like that, "the final Brent Hinds update", it really hit home
FledglingErection
2025-08-22 12:25:36 +0000 UTCI mean, Jordan is on the front line for almost a decade for Labor. A thankless job you never really wish to be praised upon. I think it is important to realised that people need to be informed and educated and the leaders need to make institutions trust worthy again. Anti intellectualism from both sides of the whinge merchants need to be shamed to oblivion. Put trust back in expertise and institutions, and do what South Aus is doing, take money out of the direct political power structures. Otherwise, expect the Alien universe as our future. A corp ruling future. And on the side of what's happening in the US and the way you two interpreted the situation needs a significant overhaul on keeping it on a "logic only" lenses. US is actively dismantling its very essence as a nation and a symbol for freedom with the ways ICE is deporting migrants, undocumented or otherwise. Nothing of what Trump is doing is remotely normal or beneficial to the masses and it's only going to destabilise US even further. The doomer response to what's happening over there is not helping anyone. Let's be a little more human on this one, dont cold logic your way out of this nightmare. As much as you feel this may be impossible, the only way we are going to stop mass migration is to redistribute resources to stabilise countries Europe and USA have fucked over for the last 200 years. No one wants to leave their homeland unless they're forced to. What's happening in the UK and in the US is the direct consequences of their past actions. A way to start is to keep written history as closely resemble the past as possible. I highly recommend Rutger Bregman's HumanKind and Utopia for Realists. They are one of the best narrative driven scientific literatures out there that utilise the research methodology to its fullest on offer the well tested idea that we are not the worst and it is in our nature to do better, for reason no other than to help each other. But you're right, as public servant, these NIMBY fucks really do waste alot of public service resources.
Dob WoLF
2025-08-22 11:06:52 +0000 UTCYou’ll never guess who our head of state is
Jake
2025-08-22 07:24:10 +0000 UTCI feel that last part, I've also got parents that enjoy Qanon rabbit holes as well. Especially with older generations, a lot of these ideas become far more entrenched over time. Trying to map there lines of reasoning and biases is even more difficult when they live in a completely world of infomation, and distrust how you verify and disseminate your own. It's just something you gotta accept I guess.
Jarrod webber
2025-08-22 07:14:38 +0000 UTCBanger intro
Jake
2025-08-22 07:08:41 +0000 UTCBro ali I know it makes seem like a pussy but man you did the right thing by telling her about it because you were houest with her you didn't try and hide it i mean how you got the put across a bit werid but you did the right thing by telling her Man
Jake Fisher
2025-08-22 07:02:22 +0000 UTCRegarding the last segment I don't think it's a democracy issue, I think it's an education issue. Like Jordan said about his audience knowing how much they don't know (Dunning-Kruger effect), people need to be better educated so they don't fall into the trap of thinking they know better than experts. Social media echo chambers, AI slop, and brainrot etc are making things 10x worse too but can also be combated by better education.
Emi
2025-08-22 06:42:14 +0000 UTCAli finally validates trans identities on this ep 🏳️⚧️ 🖤
Leo Roboto
2025-08-22 06:15:43 +0000 UTCWhen Mislav gets back we need the final Brent Hinds update. Very sad. RIP to one of the best.
Max humphrey
2025-08-22 04:41:56 +0000 UTCDon’t worry Ali, I did the same thing in Thailand. Tipped cos I felt bad for not getting the rub n tug 😂
7thattempt@breeding
2025-08-22 04:27:19 +0000 UTCHow about a test required to vote which makes sure you know about the issues you are voting on
Patrick
2025-08-22 04:20:24 +0000 UTCI feel like the only way to convince someone about a topic is if they don't hold any ground in it already. That's why when im working with apprentices I try and talk to them about labour and all the things they and we get from it and all the bad things libs try and do. It seems to be almost the only people I can convince and that's because they were people who never had a stake in either side. My mother has gone down the path of being some conspiracy theorist (think Alex Jones type shit) and I think there isn't anything I can say to her to convince her otherwise. During covid she sent me some thing saying about the vaccine had killed hundreds of Australians early on and I went out of my way to find the source and explain why it wasn't true but she just wouldn't listen. Basically you can only convince people who are younger I found and definitely not all of them.
Brayden Clampett
2025-08-22 03:08:43 +0000 UTC"Always be closing." -Ali's masseuse
Johann S
2025-08-22 01:47:29 +0000 UTCI think the flaws of democracy are on full display in the US, but I'm feeling good about the situation in Australia. In the end "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others"
Callum
2025-08-22 01:43:02 +0000 UTCAhh yes, traps aren't gay & democracy has failed. Can't believe it took 10 years of the pod, but we got there in the end
scottbars
2025-08-22 01:31:41 +0000 UTCObviously overly ambitious and wishful thinking, that would likely not work but it’s another non-democratic system
Will
2025-08-22 01:22:35 +0000 UTCPlato’s republic a ruling elite trained from birth, an idea to potentially prevent corruption, these ruling elites are stoic who aren’t allowed many material comforts(ripped right out of the republic). Those ruling elites would be people who have an IQ of 115+ (not overly high so you still have a decent sample size), should be trained to understand history, law, economics and politics. This ruling elite should be made up from every ethnicity and roughly proportional to the population. If you are part of this ruling elite, you are assigned at the age of say 25 to either local, state or federal politics (probably based on some grading scale where the best go to federal government and the lower end on local council) If your assigned to council you start as a councillor, if assigned to state or federal government you start as a staffer to a backbencher. Promotions would be given if you show competence and if you don’t you stay in these low level roles for your career. You’d be selected at age 15 (not in the mood to create a bloodline aristocracy).
Will
2025-08-22 01:21:38 +0000 UTCThe old media model for democracy was flawed gatekeepers curated a shared reality by excluding inconvenient views. The new algorithmic model is equally flawed instead of exclusion it relies on information saturation overwhelming the public sphere with noise and making a shared reality impossible. Until the information space is fixed democracy is dead
Isaac
2025-08-22 01:10:53 +0000 UTCI reckon democracy doesn’t necessarily need to be scrapped and rebuilt, but it does need to be reworked so it actually functions the way people think it does. What’s interesting is that if you look at China, they arguably do have a functioning democracy, just not through Western-style fair elections. People there still have multiple pathways to get their views heard and acted on. Petitions, party feedback mechanisms, local experiments. So representation happens, just in a different way. On the other hand, Australia probably has the best Western version of electoral democracy. Compulsory and preferential voting means outcomes reflect the actual majority will, rather than whoever can energise 30% of people to turn up. Even though we’ve got a super disengaged political culture, the system itself still spits out relatively good results compared to the US or UK. The bigger point for me is that the electoral system has to match the culture of the population. China’s model works because it matches Chinese culture. Australia’s model works because it matches Australian culture. So for Western countries, the Aussie way is probably the best bet, while for Eastern countries, the Chinese way might actually be the most functional.
chewbacca
2025-08-22 00:07:01 +0000 UTCBrent Hinds tribute pod next week?
James
2025-08-22 00:03:49 +0000 UTCWhat did you guys do in China?
Alex Isaac
2025-08-21 23:04:24 +0000 UTCAs I said on the other pod, that’s why we need to reinforce Labor as the party of cool. You inspired me Jordan, you’re the larrikin of Labor, I’ve started to bring masculinity back to progressive politics, and it’s gaining momentum. We’ve all gotta do our bit. Find your unfair advantage, and attach that to the Labor party. We’re starting to get those characters who also have all the union qualifications. The party system usually does a good job of getting people with the right qualifications. They just need a boot camp at the start to give them a dash of populism for whatever stereotype they can fill. If anything, I’d say ban independents. If they don’t have enough national consensus to run candidates in over 10 seats, go away.
George
2025-08-21 22:39:25 +0000 UTCDid anyone catch the book name?
Hayden
2025-08-21 22:00:41 +0000 UTCI think Britain and Japan did it right; Britain and Japan have a spiritual leader as their head of state, all the while still being democratic.
Jack
2025-08-21 12:30:58 +0000 UTCDo you have a book list Jordan/Can you put one on your website please? The democracy book from this pod and last pod sounds interesting.
Samuel
2025-08-21 12:11:48 +0000 UTCTo the question asked at the very end, yeah I dunno. If you're just looking for a "quick fix" then yeah, somehow forcing every democratic country to adopt the Australian electoral system will immediately improve practically everything, but like, how? What would have to be done to make that happen, what circumstances would all those countries have to be in to accept those changes? Do we wait for the collapse of the Western world, us coming out unscathed by outright attaching to China, and then getting China to help us impose our system on those countries? Would they even still be democratic at that point? I do sadly think that it's almost too late for them, that it's almost a lost cause to ensure democracy in those countries, and we should cut ourselves loose while we still can
Samuel Hanman
2025-08-21 11:22:38 +0000 UTCI think your main problem with democracy is American "Democracy". And even then what is your alternative? Go back to Feudalism while the vast majority of people live in cities? That could only end in catastrophe. Make it so only people with a Tertiary Education can vote? That's basically just putting Democracy behind a paywall that will of course be price hiked to the moon and back. I get the uneducated regularly vote against their interests and the interests of the regular educated folk, but ostensibly ripping away their chance for any form of upwards social mobility can't possibly be a better option, not even to mention the amount of exploitation that would be even easier to pull off. This is all also considering that this is the West we're talking about. How do we get to whatever end goal you have, from where we are now. Obviously there's going to be a transitionary period, and going right into that form of Democracy, or lack of, with the systems in place across the Western World right now will just end in a much worse system than we have going on already. Capitalism bad yada yada Socialism good yada yada buzzword buzzword buzzword. Basically I believe you can't have a properly functioning Democracy or a fair/ethical non-Democracy without being in some sort of Socialist, or even further, society. Full Democracy when proper education is readily available and universally encouraged would be infinitely better than any current Democracy, Non-Democracy when the public can still have heavy impact on businesses and government and not be expendable meat sacks is obviously much fairer than the Non-Democracies of today as well
Samuel Hanman
2025-08-21 10:19:36 +0000 UTCThis might be an uninformed point but if people exercised some of the tools they have in a democracy to induce change or at least act as a counterweight. For example unions, volunteer work, track 2 and 3 diplomacy, working with civil society groups. Perhaps there are ways to expand participation, but it seems like outside of just voting every few years people don't tend to utilise these avenues for democratic engagement. Most of this stuff doesn't require either that you devote your life to political activism, but that it just becomes a pieceof your life as a democratic citizen.
sixdollarpints
2025-08-21 09:50:15 +0000 UTCThe most liberating thing for me was the realisation a few years ago that I don't know everything - *and that's okay* For a number of years before that, I feared being labelled as a dumb arse so I papered a facade over myself where I had to have an opinion about everything and pretend I knew about everything - basically, a Greens voter. Being able to say, I don't know, allowed me the freedom to learn, the freedom to make mistakes along the way. I listen to you guys because you have staked out a niche where you know a lot about politics and can communicate ideas to me in an accessible way. I'm happy to learn and continue to learn from you. On the subject of Ali's question - surely our strain of democracy is the most stable of all the western political structures. It keeps extremism at the peripheries and it provides a level of stability that is unmatched. God help us if it ever went to a voluntary voting system. Where we need to improve is introducing kids to civics at a much younger age. They used to teach it back in my Mum and Dad's day (1950's) such that they have a political literacy that I only obtained much later in life.
Dean
2025-08-21 07:37:08 +0000 UTCAlso we were promised an uplate with Mr E and it's also a day late 😐
Darien M
2025-08-21 06:34:57 +0000 UTCFuarkn that song was terrible was the whole thing necessary 😅
Darien M
2025-08-21 06:30:58 +0000 UTC
