Comment by plugger | Hacker News Reader

Comment by plugger | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Since leaving Australia (and started living in Europe) I have come to the conclusion that Australia is not a "real" country - it is just a continent owned by corporate interests that happens to also have people living on it.

Since leaving the USA and moving to Australia I've come to the conclusion that the USA is in a unstoppable decline and will continue to degrade, both in terms of society and infrastructure, for the foreseeable future. And say what you will about Australia being a driven by corporate interests but one thing we've gotten right in comparison to the rest of the Western world is our insistence of handling the pandemic correctly, ie placing human life over the short term economic interests of the upper class.

We lock down in Western Australia when we have one case of COVID in the community. I don't believe ANY European or North American country can say the same. Who's beholden to corporate interests again?

So who pays to support dozens of people who lost their jobs in the name of protecting one guy?

It's not about protecting one guy, but about stopping the spread as early as possible.

So as an individual, it doesn't matter if your livelihood is destroyed because for the greater good of the community?

Correct. A conscious decision has been made in Australia to prioritize human life over business profits. What most didn't realize is that by choosing this path we're optimizing both, eg because we don't have any community spread our economy is booming.

Ah so what you view as business profits, somebody views it as a livelihood, way to live does not mean anything? But no its just profits.

Sounds like Australia has got ideas from CCP.

So you believe a livelihood is greater than human life? Someone running their own business should be viewed as more important than their neighbor living? Sounds pretty psychopathic to me.

When is running a livelihood harmful to someone? Your entire premise is based on all businessmen are psychopaths, which is very narrow-minded.

It will be interesting and funny, when food distribution will be impacted due to people's stupidity, and you will have to resort to growing your own food. Because lockdown for everyone means including those big bulky trucks that fill up the supermarket. Because profit right? Famine, and starvation...

the federal government. We had two programs, JobKeeper and JobSeeker. In my opinion this is why we have governments, to support the citizens in their time of need.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com