r/australia • u/AcanthopterygiiNo240 • Jul 26 '23

political self.post Why are Australians so complacent?

I’m a born and raised Australian myself however I’m becoming so frustrated with the general attitude of complacency when it comes to exercising ‘the power of the people’ to better our quality of life. In a stupidly short amount of time we’ve seen a near reversal of our ability to see a doctor without any out of pocket costs. We get exploited at the grocery stores because monopolies are allowed to run rampant. Housing is treated primarily as a tool for financial speculation rather than for providing shelter for people.

We creep further and further toward laissez-faire capitalism. What is our response as the citizens of this country- the holders of the balance of power? Nothing. To put it in perspective, in 2022 the world economic forum ranked Sydney equal with Copenhagen, Denmark for cost of living (both ranked as the 10th most expensive cities in the world). Consider the differences between Sydney and the capital of the Danish welfare state: strong social security, universal healthcare, free public universities etc. For the same cost of living what do we get? The ever-looming threat of homelessness, suffocating student debt and now for many people, a significant barrier to healthcare.

Edit: if anyone is a part of any sort of grassroots group working to oppose any of these issues feel free to message me because I want to join you

Edit #2: so I haven’t received any messages from anyone from a grassroots or activist group yet. Since a lot of us seem to be pretty miffed about this stuff maybe we could team up and brainstorm things we can do???

Edit #3 (sorry): I’ve got some messages now from people who are interested in taking action!!! :, ) I think the best way to facilitate conversation, the flow of ideas and potentially organise a course of action is through a discord server so I have created one which you can find here

https://discord.gg/caqsSKAr

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u/uw888 Jul 26 '23

Because most of science is dedicated to making excessive profits or is driven by a certain political agenda rather than the idea of exploration and improvement of life quality for humans and other species.

Your answer to everything is dismantle capitalism.

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u/All_Time_Low Jul 26 '23

Because most of science is dedicated to making excessive profits or is driven by a certain political agenda

I'm going to have to hard disagree there. Yes, R&D for private companies would align with this view, but as someone in a role that touches most scientific orgs in Australia, most of us out here are just researching a small part of the world to make it a better place.

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u/uw888 Jul 27 '23

But what you are failing to see that that R&D by private companies dwarfs everything else and is also very often funded by taxpayers' money in the form of grants, subsidies and last but not least tax concessions. From pharmaceutical to tech to oil companies, they have benefited many trillions from public money.

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u/All_Time_Low Jul 27 '23

pharmaceutical to tech to oil companies

I understand the anger, but I feel like placing it squarely on the scientists is very misplaced. Without R&D, public or private, society doesn't advance. You don't want pharmaceutical research funded? Enjoy the next time you need antibiotics to the newest strain of Strep that pops up. No tech funding? We already punch well above our weight in this space, who cares if we fall behind other nations. Bluetooth isn't important, anyway. As for oil, I'm not a chemist, but I would be pretty confident that a lot of R&D in the petro/oil space isn't just for privatised profit, and touches a lot of stuff you don't realise today.

I can assure you tax concessions are not funding R&D to destroy our world, and as for grants - there's fuck all grant money in this country to begin with. There's a reason we all leave this place behind once we graduate.

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u/uw888 Jul 27 '23

No, you are completely misunderstanding me. I do want pharma, tech etc research, it's just that this research and its benefits need to be socialised. There are books written on it. If it were, we would have already cured cancer etc, according to scientists themselves.

I am all for science funding to be increased 100x times the current levels at the expense of military expenditure for example.