Blazer or No

Why do Australian children wear a range of different uniform styles?

Why do they wear uniforms at all? And why are they so smart?

Some schools enforce a uniform, some offer uniforms as an option, and some schools have no dress code other than you turn up dressed.

Many Private schools and some Public schools have strict and high standards of dress with their uniforms, including senior levels wearing blazers, collared shirts and ties.

This higher standard is a legacy of Australia's British past, namely the Upper Class, copying off the "Public" and Grammar schools and Ivy League Colleges attended by the privileged, the elite classes and the rich.

What is a higher standard of dress? Compare attending a wedding or addressing the UN or the Queen in your shorts and a singlet, with wearing a tuxedo or suit with tie.

Nuff said.

This higher standard of school dress is just a tiny part of the concept of a higher standard of everything. It is part of the unwritten laws of what it means to be a higher level of person: sophisticated, civilised and refined as a member of the shaved monkey community.

The differences create Classes of social status, which indicate and create opportunities.

Dressing at a higher standard is one way to BE a higher standard of person.

Alongside dress, we have other outwardly facing expressions of our higher place in society: bearing, posture, gait, speech, manners, behaviour and appearance in all public settings.

Behind the apppearance are higher standards of thinking: ego, moral values, world view, self-respect.

Politicians, diplomats, businessmen, salesmen and other sections of society use these higher standards, especially dress, for additonal reasons than appearing elite, rich or privileged. They dress at a higher standard to achieve certain goals based on the affect they wish to have on onlookers: especially the goal of being taken seriously, being thought of as smart, powerful, well-educated, impressive, looked up to, respected, revered, trusted, believed, followed.

And whether we like it or not, these impressions are felt by onlookers just by a higher standard of dress. It says something about the person that is intuitively impressive.

Your outwardly expressed standards tell people about your level of civilisation, refinement and sophistication. It earns respect, disrespect or indifference by compulsion.

A well-dressed man is treated and perceived differently by onlookers from a scruffy, poorly-dressed man. The difference is in level of respect, trust, authority, power.

We all know, how you look affects how people think of you and treat you.

This fact of Human Nature is law-like and has versions in every part of the world.

We don't attend job interviews in our trackie dacks and the shirt we slept in.

This dress standard is understood at the adult level. But their is patently an issue at the school age level, considering the difference in and the attitudes towards school uniforms.

How do we explain higher standards, class, refinement and sophistication to children?

Children are not so concerned about social status and refinement. But they are concerned about how they look. But how they look is something they believe heartedly should reflect their individuality, their personal self-awareness, and their appearance to their peers.

If given the option, most children would likely abandon smart blazers for personalised civvy clothes. Unless they were as pompous as their parents.

How do we explain to our children why they should wear a smart school uniform?

Should we bother? It's not like they have much choice.

We think we should bother.

We should bother, if we want our children to get a head start on understanding how the world works and not lag behind, finding out only after life-long irrepairable mistakes are made.

We can explain to our children the seemingly pointless and uncomfortable dressing up concept using terms they already understand.

Some people swear in public, pee in public, scuff their feet, talk at volume in quiet places, make a scene, lose their shit and other behaviour.

Surely even children can see that there is a difference between this kind of person and others who don't partake.

Surely we can point to the medieval times of Europe, composed of peasants and their royal rulers.

Closer to home, is the concept teenagers already have of being self-conscious about their appearance. They know from experience how their appearance affects their onlookers and soon after, their own self-worth. They know appearance matters. Pimples, lumps and hair popping out of puberty, being fat or thin, short or tall, having a disfigurement, looking like a Kardashian or Napolean Dynamite etc.

Once they confirm the law of appearance, we can move into the degrees of appearance from peasant Bogan to Princess and President.

And there are degrees across all outward appearances and behaviours we can point to that children can see every day.

So. Kids. There are actual reasons behind why people dress in suits and ties. It's not by accident. There is a practical effect. There is therefore a reason why we have high standards of dress in schools. It's to prepare you for your future. It is to introduce you to the concept of Class: refinement, sophistication and status. It is to warn you how much these things will matter throughout your life.

If you present yourself as a peasant, you will be treated thus.


As ZZ Top put it, Every girl crazy bout a sharp dressed man.

Gender Equity

What does the term Gender Equity mean?

Does it mean improving societal actions that cause the unfair discrimination between Men and Women?

Is this meaning based on an inequality in the treatment of Men and Women.

Does it refer to an inequality of treatment between Men and Women, based only on gender?

Are people of one gender treated differently from the other?

If the term refers to a "fairness" sense of equality between the treatment of people regardless of gender, then we need to understand what is meant by "equality".

Equality can mean two things:

1. Equality of outcome; and

2. Equality of opportunity.

Equality of outcome means that we make one gender achieve the same outcome that another gender achieves.

If an organisation has an unequal number of men and women on their board of directors, then we simply sack some men and replace them with women, for the sole purpose of having an equal number of each gender on the board. Merit is not considered. Only gender is considered.

If you have an unequal number of certain gender of employees, you simply hire people until you get an equal number of genders in your employ.

If most men are awarded something, you simply award more women to achieve equity between genders, regardless of merit.

All this is Equity by Outcome.

If you ensure your organisation offers the same opportunity to men as to women, then you are practising Equity by Opportunity.

There is clearly a massive difference between outcome and opportunity.

Outcome aims only at the end result and not the means to get there.

Opportunity aims at providing as much chance of acheivement by men as women.

Example: you offer the opportunity to compete in the 100 metre sprint to men and women.

The opportunity is equally given to men and women. But the outcome will not be equal.

So it seems that Gender Equity refers to giving one gender a handicap advantage above another gender. Gender Equity refers to Equality of Outcome.

Gender Equality refers to a belief that both genders are the same and given the same opportunities will achieve the same outcomes.

In some areas, both Genders will achieve the same outcomes if given the same opportunities.

But not in all areas.

This is because men and women are actually different; they are unequal in some areas.

New Theory of the Mind - Two Speeds of Thought and Para-Consciousness

The following is an original theory of the mind from the authors.

The complete theory includes two inter-dependant theories of the mind: The Two Speeds of Thought Theory and The Para-Consciousness Theory:

Assumptions:

Firstly, we assume that there is a causal relation between thought processes and their conclusion.

Secondly, we assume that the thought processe's cause and effect are separated by time, therefore time is taken between thinking and concluding the thought. The awareness of a process occurs over time. Consciousness therefore takes time.

Defintions:

Thought processes include:

1. Recollection concluding with memories (remembering).
2. Memory generation.
3. Logical deduction or induction (cognition).
4. Conscious awareness of thought processes and their conclusions.
5. Emotion generation and awareness, sustained or not.
6. Imagination.
7. Visualisation.

Two Speeds of Thought:

Assuming these assumptions to be true, we propose the following: There are at least two speeds of thought:

1. The speed when thought processes bring conclusions (such as memories) to conscious awareness, so that the conclusions are experienced consciously and experienced for a sustained time through becoming repeatedly memorised experiences themselves.
In other words, this is the normal speed of thought when we recall memories and are able to dwell on them.

2. The speed of thought processes that occur so fast, and produce typical conclusions in cognition and memory, that they are not sustained enough to become memories themselves and therefore do not make it into conscious awareness, where conscious awareness refers to thought processes that are remembered. They are processed and concluded, but forgotten.

What this second speed means is that some thought processes, thinking, occur and produce results and typical conclusions of some thought activity like cognition, without our recollection of the awareness of those processes.

This second speed explains why we become aware of cognitive results, but not the processes that led to them.

Example, you try to recall a memory, but can't. So you direct your mind to other activites. Later, the memory comes to you seemingly out of  nowhere. This happens often in answering game show questions on the TV.

Para-Consciousness:

The second speed explains why some thought activity conclusions appear in your consciousness without you recalling undertaking the process itself.

The second speed also explains how you think of a word or its concept and an associated memory appears. The appearance of the associated memory is the result of an activity of thought process that occurred too fast to remember and therefore too fast for sustained awareness.

In other words, your brain or mind can think at a speed so fast you can't remember it happening.

This theory is similar but distinct from the unconscious mind theory.

You are conscious of the thought process, but it occurs too fast to be remembered, so it appears to be unconscious. It is not unconscious. It is conscious, but it occurs too fast to be remembered.

Evidence:

We have no empirically verifiable evidence to support this theory currently, so it remains a hypothesis. However, We can define the conditions by which the theory would be proved by experiment.

Proof Experiment:

If we assume that thought processes and their conclusions can be represented by discrete electrically charged signals in the sections of the brain relevant to their nature, then the proof experiment would consist in measuring the signals of both in real-time, using existing cerebral signal sensors from a patient who is asked to answer certain questions and timing the process.

Examples of these questions could include: Think of the concept Happiness and tell us what memory first comes into your awareness.

This form of question would confirm that time is taken between thought processes and conclusions.

A second set of questions would be asked to confirm the conclusion of thought processes that are not remembered.

An example question could be: Will a right-handed glove turned inside out still fit the right hand?

This type of question must require thought processes, such as logic and imagination, and must be answered immediately, without spending time processing related thoughts. The answers will be intuitive.

The question if answered correctly would prove that a process of thinking occurred, but too fast to be remembered and therefore to be made aware.

The experiment has its own assumptions and limitations based on the patient, including comprehension of the questions, the questions can be answered, answering the question immediately, following the instructions and without distraction, and telling the truth.

Critique of the Theory of Memory by Association:

We know through scientific investigation that it is widely accepted in the field of psychology that memories are associated with other similar memories, thus we can remember something by associating it with another memory.

What has not been explained is the connection between the two associated memories.

Nor is it adequately explained why a concept can trigger a memory.

The explanation of the term association or similarity is not enough. How does one lead to the other?

The Two Speeds of Thought and Para-Consciousness theories can explain this missing link between associated memories and concepts.

Critique of the Theory of Unconsciousness:

Unconsciousness is the mainstream theory that thought processes occur without any conscious awareness.

The Para-Conscious theory proposes that these thought processes occur with awareness, but at such a speed they are not remembered. This gives the impression that they occurred without awareness. But it is just the speed of thought that makes this impression.

Unconsciousness does not explain how thought conclusions are generated. Without awareness of thought processes, they could not have been generated. Unconsciousness entails that thought processes do not occur, for if they did, we would be aware of them.

Para-Consciousness proposes that they do appear, but are forgotten immediately.

Sympathy versus Empathy

What's the difference?

Sometimes you feel the feelings of someone else.

Someone feels sad and you feel sad with them. Their being sad makes you sad.

Someone feels grief and you have grieved before so you have felt what they feel. You've been there.

This social phenomenon describes you feeling (Greek "pathos") with (Greek "sym") someone.

This is what we call Sympathy. Feeling a feeling together.

Sympathy is shared feelings between people. Feeling with someone.

Alternatively:

Sometimes you are with someone who is feeling something that you don't feel, or have not felt before.

But you can still try and imagine how they might feel.

When you do that, you are making (Greek "em") yourself feel (Greek "pathos") what someone might feel. You make feeling.

E-, Em-, and En- are Greek prefixes that Make the following noun or verb happen: empower, enable, encourage.

You can make yourself feel something to understand relatively how someone feels or understand their situation.

This is what we call Empathy.


The distinction is important, because the two experiences are very VERY different.

If you have never feared your father, spiders, public speaking, you cannot sympathise with someone who does, but you can empathise, because you have feared something else before, or been in a similar situation before.

You can empathise with victims of the Hiroshima bombing, but you certainly can't sympathise with them (unless you were there too).

But because sympathy and empathy look and sound the same, they are often confused or used interchangebly.

It's a problem that Sympathy is used for Empathy in Condolence cards and messages of sympathy instead of empathy. This use of Sympathy is often the wrong word.

More problematic to stopping the confusion is that it is rude to correct someone's misuse of the term during the sensitive moment you share. How rude is that!

Sympathy is an instinctive reactive experience. Empathy is an intellectual activity to achieve an experience.

So it's important to know the difference.

Now you know.

Safe Spaces

Safe Spaces belie a movement that will kill and obliviate free speech, but especially the ability to address or solve important societal problems through debate.

Safe Spaces will cause important problems never to be raised/discussed let alone solved or even understood.

Safe Spaces will kill all discussion and all speech, if left unchecked.

Safe Spaces come from the same movement that brought you Micro-Agressions, Trigger Warnings, Anti-Patriarchy, Toxic Masculinity and other Millenial, Gen Y and Z fads.







WHAT IS A SAFE SPACE?

A Safe Space is a place where people can congregate to debate or discuss important issues with the assurance that participants will not be subject to emotional harm caused by other participants, as saying anything harmful is forbidden.

Harm means experiencing unwanted negative emotions attributed by an external actor's words.

But debate on serious controversial issues is exepected to cause this harm. It's a debate!

So the concept behind Safe Space is contrary to free speech and contrary to free discourse.

A Safe Space is not a special place you go to, a special room. Any venue for debate or discourse is turned into, transformed into, a Safe Space, by the imposition of ground rules before discussion commences.

Safe Spaces are imposed upon venues, in meetings, in classrooms, university lecture halls and tutorials, panel debates in auditoriums.

Safe Spaces are imposed on existing discussion platforms. These platforms must therefore have been Unsafe or harmful beforehand.

The fundamental intent behind Safe Spaces is to preserve the feelings of participants, and to do this by compelling participants to refrain from speaking harmfully or raising harmful issues.


REDUNDANT CONCEPTS

A lot of the concepts behind Safe Space are redundant; we already address them.

If Safe Space is about Respectful dialogue, then we already have this concept and practices that promote it. Safe Space in this sense is redundant. Being respectful is already a social norm.

If Safe Space is about avoiding harrassment and negative discrimination, then we also already have these and they are enshrined in law. There is in most societies legislation against unlawful harrassment and discrimination.

So what is left from the concept of Safe Space? Not much. The remainder is merely about hurt feelings and hurt ego. A Safe Space is a discussion venue that forbids hurtful speech and emotional harm. But, these hurts and harms can and usually do occur in criticism. So a Safe Space denies criticism when it harms or hurts.

In intellectual discussion we have the falacy of ad hominem, when we attack the person in debate, rather than their argument. So any attack on the person in debate is already covered by the status and establishment of this falacy and where ad hominem occurs, it will be argued against by those familiar with the falacy. If Safe Space is about attacking the individual, it is redundant.



CRITICISM HARMS

Safe Spaces shoot down harmful or hurtful criticism.

But criticism is by nature and definition harmful, especially to the ego and to closely held cherished values and beliefs. The goal of criticism is truth and understanding.

So what use is a serious intellectual discussion to address an important issue without criticism?


THE TERM SAFE

The term Safe is a poor choice that distracts from the intent by connotation.

Safety is a concept that relates to physical wellbeing, not emotional. So again we see a commonly understood and consistently used term perverted to cover things previously precluded.

Unsafe spaces are connoted with physical harm, hazards and risks to health.

A better term than Safe Space is Space Free of Criticism.


A NEW CONCEPT?

So, the concept of being respectful towards people is not new. Nor is the concept of being hurt emotionally by criticism during discourse.

But SJWs believe it is a brand new phenomenon. And they have decided they are the best tribe in society to define it, and to enforce it, and to defend it with attack against any contrarian.

SJWs invented the term Safe Space as a solution to being argued against, claiming their intellectual opponent is being disrespectful, using harmful behaviour in contradicting them, and hurting their feelings and ego.

SJWs often have their feelings hurt only after they have been contradicted. They would say:

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words harm me more than anything.


IDENTITY

Identity is the real subject in Safe Spaces, rather than individuals.

That which is being offended is a member who identifies as a X. Offenders are accused of vilifying or upsetting a group of people who identify as members of X.

The fundamental group with which they belong, to which all Xs belong, is the minority.

A newish modernism is the rise of minorities: by number of minorities, by activity of minorities, the voice of minorities, the consolidation of minority members, and by the fragility of minorities.

All these qualities of minorities have risen to levels never before seen in society. This growth is mostly due to Political Correctness and the Internet. These are the tools that empower all minority groups.

Their development has lead to the Identity Politics phenomenon.


VICTIMISM

We live in the era of the victim.

There have always been victims of harm caused by the words of others. But today, being a victim is a status symbol. It used to be embarrassing to be a victim. A weakness. Now it is treasured and sought after. Now being a victim is a strength. Being a victim is a goal and when it is acheived it is protected and sustained.

Why the urge to be and to remain a victim?

Because today victims get attention, special treatment, comfort and protection never seen before.

Victims also have political power now and power of numbers. Thanks Internet!

People want to be victims because of all the benefits. As a victim you can win arguments, stop opponents to your view, cease all discussion or prevent it, defeat powerful opponents, force people to agree with you and make accommodations for you.

It is good to be a victim.

THE TRUE INTENT BEHIND SAFE SPACES

The true intent behind Safe Spaces is to ensure the current leftist SJW agenda is promoted, established, developed, legitimised, legislated and protected from anyone in opposition to their ideology.

The leftist SJW ideology aims to ban all badness in the world, which will reveal the beautiful wonderful true world of endless goodness, rainbows and unicorns, where everyone is lovely and perfect and happiness reigns.

To acheive this aim, the first thing to do is rid the world of bad words, then bad people, by silencing them and forcing everyone only to be nice and say nice things.

This ideological world view is a fantasy, posing as objective reality.


SUBJECTIVITY

The problem for Safe Space advocates is its subjectivity. What one person thinks is offensive, another will not. Offense is subjective. What is offensive is in the eye of the beholder.

Safe Space advocates want offense to be objective, but it is not.

They want someone to be blamed for being offensive, but being offended is subjective. So you being offended are to blame for your feelings. Own them!

So there is no offender, only an offendee.

Safe Space implies that offense is objectively true. But it is not. Offense is a subjective perception.

It is not the person saying something who is the cause of offense, it is the person listening.

A truly Safe Space is a place where you feel safe to say anything you want free of censorship or intimidation. But is being Safe a good thing?

UNSAFE IS GOOD

We don't actually want people to be safe in the terms above. We want people to be unsafe.

We want to be exposed to all the views in the world, so we can talk about them, analyse and critique them.

The goal of Safe Spaces is to protect people from this exposure, because sometimes it hurts our emotions.

But free speech in discussion is the only way we develop and solve and progress and learn.

Knowledge, solution, understanding, progress, resilience, all require emotional and ego harm.

If you have something to say, some belief or argument you hold dear, you are well to have it pulled apart and criticised no matter how much it hurts. The goal is truth and understanding.


If you can't handle free debate, get out of the debate. Do some needlecraft or yoga.

What does it mean to be Australian?

There are things that are uniquely Australian.

These things are dying a slow quiet death.

Australia is heading towards a generic state, as a country. And Australians are looking at transforming into just another generic group of humans, no different from any other group on the planet. That's because the whole planet is following the sedan car deisgn of generic invisibility.

We can now barely tell the difference between an Audi A4 and a Toyota Camry.

That's the future all humans are looking at.

You can't tell an Australian from any other nation, if you blur Australian into every other nation.

So what's at risk? What is an Australian?

What does the question mean? Being Australian has many meanings.

You can be Australian by getting citizenship. By being born in Australia. Having Australian parents. Living in Australia.

That's not what We mean. We mean what is an Australian in the sense of being a member of a nation of people called Australian.

So we proceed on this definition:

Australians didn't just appear. They became Australians and over a long time. But they didn't start out consciously to be different. They evolved naturally, organically from starting out as a British prison colony to becoming a stand alone nation, distinct from their foundings and distinct from the nation of their British forefathers.

More recently, since Federation, Australians have noticed that change. They have now a long history of noticing the special differences between them and other nations, especially between Australians and Mother England and also between themselves and other nations. They have proudly developed these evolved Australian differences into a conscious effort and what it means to be uniquely Australian, not just another British colony.

Note: The idigenous people of Australia are not part of this discussion. They have their own nation and nations more accurately.

Australians created their own national identity and they are well on their way to preserving it.

Australians have created their own culture and national identity over two centuries of national development.

The Aussie lingo, the language itself reflects this national development.

Legacy language has lasted decades, and the idiocentric Australian terminology reflects the unique Australian values:

1. Laid Back

She'll be right, no worries, phrases that reflect the Laid Back attitude of Australians and that contrast with their stiff British heritage.

Aussies don't stride, they stroll.

Relax mate. Calm down. Dress down. Undo your top button. We don't wear suits and tuxedos to restaurants.

Dress and bearing between Brits and Aussies is starkly different. The mix of hot, tropical and desert dry weather helps dictate how Aussies clothe themselves.

This casual approach to everything, this attitude contrasts with the strict, stiff upper-lip, conservative attitude of the Old Country, the British.

Australians don't get tied up in old conventions from Britain. They promote a carefree, take it easy approach to life and social norms.

Aussies recognise the constriction of convention and abandon it unless it's useful, or part of an important tradition, like a wedding, a funeral or job interview, the military.

2. Fair Go

Australians have a long history of valuing egalitarianism, a social glue that promotes fairness and equality for all in stark contrast to the divisive social class system traditional to Britain.

Nepotism, favourtism, status benefit, are all abhorred by Australians. Everyone gets the same deal.

You get to where you are on your own steam, not through inheritance or connection or title.

3. Classlessness

Australians reject the old British class system. Australians all have the same social value. The British have an Aristocratic class, a middle class and a lowly-perceived working class (formerly a peasant class).

Australians are largely descendants of the prisoner colonies Australia was founded on by the Crown.

Australians don't appreciate the luck they had with Aristocrats choosing not to join them.

In opposition to the class divisions of the Old Country, Australians view themselves as equals.

There is no social class in Australia. Australians don't have a House of Lords in parliament.

Australians drop formal titles, Mr, Mrs, Doctor, Sir, Ma'am, in preference to first names, even between strangers.

G'day mate is the standard greeting no matter the status of those greeted. Prime Minister, bosses, leaders, women.

Acceptable standards are lower in Australia than in Britain. Low standards are tolerated. Lower standards in ettiquette, goods and services quality, accuracy, manners. It's all good. Good enough.

Marrying into the right family is foreign to Australians.

4. Rebellion Against Authority

Legacy heroes of Australians include the poster boy of Rebellion, Ned Kelly, who fought to split Victoria from the Crown and defied the local Anglicsied authorities.

Ned Kelly drafted a Victorian Constitution and sought to break the state of Victoria from the British Empire.

The second Australian national flag is the flag of the Eureka Rebellion. The Southern Cross stars overlaying a simple cross.

Australians replaced the Order of the British Empire with the Order of Australia.

Australians do not keep Butlers, servants, chaiffeurs, as the British Lords do.

5. No Worries

Australians have honed the rejection of fuss, trouble, sqaubling.

Stop arguing and get on with it. Get over it.

Australians are laconical. They don't elaborate on a point or labour a point. Make a bloody decision and stop jabbering on.

6. Have a Crack

Give it a go, attitude.


THE BRITISH CONNECTION

These disitncitvely Australian attitudes derive mainly from the feeling of separation from Britain's Monarchy. The Australian character derives from a relative freedom from the Crown and its conservative conventions.

However, the break from Mother England wasn't a clean break. There are some wholely British institutions kept and held dearly by Australians as time honoured traditions from their British heritage.

Australia is a Christian country and derives its moral bearings from the Anglican values of the Commonwealth. The Christian morality is Australia's moral foundation. Australians still hold to Christian teachings and doctrine.

The sanctity of the individual over society, except in national defence and war. Christmas and other Christian celebrations and ceremonies. Marriage is between no more than two people. Separation of Church and State. Secular government.

Other British traditions are held today.

Freedom of expression. Democracy. Fair trial. Innocence until proven guilty. Education for all. The right to vote.

Sunday Roast. English food. Cricket, Rugby and Football. Christmas. Beer.

Romanitc love leading to marriage and partnerships, as opposed to arranged marriages based on tribal appeasement, tribal status and financial stability.

Clinging onto the past... older Aussies still keep a stash of the old British currency, and pictures of the Queen on their walls.

AUSTRALIANA

Each of the these attitudes are fundamental to how Australians behave, from what they eat to how they treat each other. Australians have modified British traditions to make them their own.

Australians have made the simple BBQ a social institution.

A cold beer on a hot day. The primacy of beer above all drinks. The lampooning of fancy cocktails.

The meat pie, a British tradition, has been sanctified as an Aussie symbol up there with the national flag.

Australians worship sport and sporting champions are treated as hereos and role-models.

Australian men are encouraged to be tough, fearless and averse to expressing emotion.

So, we have thus far defined what it means to be Australian by disitnct behaviours modified by a common British heritage and a break from that homeland, by distinct attitudes to life, society, freedom and status. These differences make Australians stand out as their own nation of people with a shared history, shared values and expression of those values.

A nation also has a shared language among its people.

An Australian speaks English at home because they descended from the English. It is the sole language of the founders of Australia.

Unsurprisingly there is an Australian accent, itself divided into three variants (Plumbish, Ocker, Moderate). The Australian accent has a drawl to it. There is a particular pronunciation of some long vowels like "i", spoken more as "e". Latent dipthongs and tripthongs, like when "day" is spoken with a, e and i.

Australian, like all national languages, has its own colloquialisms, idioms, slang.

If you want to understand what makes a nation in the world, looking at its language and speech is a good start.

Food:

A good way to see how nations differ is with their food, their diet, their cooking techniques.

We can all answer instantly the foods likely to be eaten by a nation as their staple diet.

Food tells us instantly what nation we belong to. Australians have their own staples in their daily diets which they inherited from the British and modified a little, but kept the essentials as fundamental.

What people eat day to day is the smoking gun of their nationality.

Some nations eat rice three times a day every day, as their staple. The Australian staple was potatoes. That's changing but the fall back is always bangers and mash or some other Brit meal.

So far, being Australian means belonging to a nation, which means a shared history and heritage, a shared ethnicity, shared values and their expression, shared home language and speech, shared diet. A shared approach to life and attitude to society.

It is these things that define and identify your nationality and distinguish your nation from others.

Having citizenship is not enough to make you a member of a nation. Living in a country is not enough.

THE QUIET DEATH OF AUSTRALIANA

All the above Australianisms are facing existential destruction today.

External forces have crept into Australian life that are quietly chipping away at what Australians have long believed to be quintessential Australian features, values and treasures. And Australians are doing a poor job of resisting their own slow national death.

Immigration, political correctness, extreme liberal views are combining as a global force that will accidentally or intentionally eradicate everything above that makes Australians Australian.

Australians are now told to stop or dial down everything Australian in order to accept social changes brought in from outside Australia.

Larrikin behaviour, traditionally treated as a harmless cheeky behaviour, is now at least politically incorrect and offensive or at worst a criminal offence.

Australians are now being compelled to accept external national and global influences, other nations, religions, external values and are forced to sit back and watch their country fill up with:

1. Arranged marriages

2. Child brides

3. Supremacy of religion as the moral and social authority

4. Christmas being sidelined to make way for other religions

5. Behaviours offensive to minorities cleaned up or abolished

6. English demoted to just one of many national languages


WHAT DISTINGUISHES AUSTRALIANS FROM OTHER NATIONS?

1. English language.

2. Australian accent.

3. Australian colloquialisms.

4. Australian values: fair go, no worries, laid back.

5. Australians swear and speak coarsely...


If all it takes to be Australian is to live in Australia, then what it means to be Australian means nothing more than living in Australia.

But immigrants living Australia don't just live in Australia. They practice the nationality of where they came from. Australia has become a nation living alongside other nations.

APOLOGISTS

It is clear when you ask people, Aussies, that they have no idea what Nation means.

Australians asked on the street "what does it mean to be Australian" just say things that every other nation says: tolerant, freedom, democracy, easy going, happy, fortunate.

But these things are said by all nations, so they say nothing about how being Australian is distinctively Australian from other nations. It just says what it has in common with other nations.

What's a bath? It's a thing that holds water. So a glass is a bath?

Everyone says their nation is tolerant, democratic, happy.

No one in Australia knows what it means to belong to their nation. They don't think about it.

Many state that Australia is a nation that has lots of other nations in it. How does that define your nation? You define your nation as being a composite of all nations. That's no definition of your nation, that's a definition of all other nations.

The question unanswered is What does it mean to belong to a Nation?

What is a Nation?

The UN defines Nation by shared qualities: history, ethnicity, language, values.

That explains a lot of nations: Jews, Chinese, Muslims.

It should also define Australia as a nation. Australians have a British history, Anglosaxon ethnicity, English language, Christian values.

Australians call themselves a multinational country. How can you be multinational and national at the same time?

So is there no Australian nation?

If you believe that Australia is multinational then the answer is yes. Australia is simply a place where many nations live. Australia is an international airport. No identity itself.

Some answers from TV discussions and Vox Pops:

1. Safety, freedom, environment, beaches, weather.

So being Australian means beaches?

2. Plumber's cracks, thongs, helping out a mate.

3. Being proud, being nice, being multicultural, being kind to others.

4. Swooped by magpies.

5. Willing to embrace all people, values people, opportunities for everyone.

6. Healthcare.

7. Diversity. Open-minded. You can be yourself.

8. Patriotic. Lots of opportunities.

9. Open-hearted and open-minded.

10. I don't know. I just can't think of anything.

11. The beach. Relaxing. BBQs.

12. Love the outdoors. Gum trees.

13. Poking fun at ourselves.

Are these people saying only Australians have these things? Really?

None of this is distinctively Australian. These are just typical human values. They are not national values. They are things that all nations claim to have.

If this is what it means to be Australian, then being Australian is no different to being any other nation. Being Australian to these idiots is just being a nice human. So if this is what is means to be Australian, then there is no Australian identity.

So the question is unanswered.

To be Australian you need to show how being Australian differs from being anyone else.

We have shown what we think the difference is above.

Terrible Metaphors

What if the metaphors we use actually happened? What would we see?


Fell pregnant

Fell in love

Couple broke up

Lost their virginity

Lost weight

Lost their mind

Justice served

Dropped out of school

Got fired

Hurl abuse

Stone cold sober

Pissed off

Pissed

Straight

Bent

Dress up

Drag Queen

Taking the piss

Throwing up

It's pissing down

Off my tits

I'm game

The weather is shit

Bugger me

Skin in the game

Good looking

Busting someone's balls

Talking shit

Mortified

Gob-smacked

Dumb struck

Pop over

Backseat driver

Blood curdling scream

Come up for a night cap

He's driven

Poppy cock

Jump start

Kick start

Stoned

Burned out

Got the axe

Tied up in knots

Tongue tied

Gender Fluidity and Real Life Practical Implications

If we agree that we cannot use the names Male and Female as physical classifications, then we have a problem with some implications on medical treatment and law enforcement.

Ambulance paramedics and police use these binary terms for very good reasons.

Ambulance paramedics and medical emergency responders need to know ahead of time whether the person they are rushing to attend is male or female. That is because there will be a difference in what they expect, how the patient will be examined, diagnosed by symptoms that differ greatly between males and females, and how they will be treated medically.

Acute stomach pain gives responders a number of potential options for what is wrong with the person. If they are male, their stomach pain can be caused by a number of factors that are quite different from those complained by a female.

This is why responders want to know the sexual gender of their patient.

The response to men will be different from the response to women. Both sexes have different causes and symptoms of their complaints and conditions, which require different treatments.

You won't treat a man for possible endometriosis, post-partum pregnancy or other female diseases.

You won't treat a woman for possible twisted testicle.

With law enforcement, police responders want to know what sex their person of interest is.

That's because the response will differ depending on the sex. Identifying perpetrators is reduced by half.

Someone calling 911 to say they were raped is likely to be a woman and the suspect likely to be a man.

A violent suspect will receive a different repsonse if the suspect is a man, than a woman. The police will prepare differently.

We need to understand the reasons why medical professionals and the police need to know and demand to know the sex of the person they are interested in.

If sex was fluid, this wouldn't be needed.

Empirically speaking, men and women are different. They look different, they respond differently, they present differently, they act differently. Because they are different, we can prepare and manage their situation with the appropriate intervention.

Employers also need to know whether someone is male or female, to decide on how they will perform their function as an employee.

Think about how many forms you fill out that ask for your sexual gender. Why do they ask?

If it didn't matter, if it didn't mean anything, they wouldn't ask. But they do.

Why are we even having this argument? Why do we need to work so hard to show the difference between the two sexes?

Because some people have a psychological disorder that means they can't tell what they are, they feel they don't belong to either sex because they suffer a delusion of self.

Instead of treating the mental disorder of a tiny minority of mentally ill people, some people are supporting their delusion, reinforcing their delusion and are forcing us all to change our reality to suit their delusion.

How arrogant is that?

You cannot expect people to change their reality and understanding of gender just because you tell them to.

You cannot point to a dog and force people to say that is a cat.

You cannot tell people that they don't know what a man or a woman is.

Men are so different from women physically and mentally, we don't even question our own intuitive judgment.

Imagine the poor police patrolling the streets, looking for a suspect who is neither male nor female.

Imagine the police seeing someone near the crime scene with a beard, but they could be male or female.

Imagine the poor ambulance staff driving to a scene without knowing whether their patient is male or female.

Imagine them asking a man if he is pregnant. Asking someone who is pregnant, if they are male or female.

Then we have sport.

Sport competitions are divided into male and female categories. Imagine if we were forced to remove this division and accept any sexual gender into a competition. Men competing against women in athletics and sport achieved through muscle mass and height.

Teachers are also forced to deny their reality. A student complains of period pain. Are they male or female? A male student can be excused from class for period pain or needing to attend a pregnancy appointment.

All this bullshit assumes that even the dumbest adult can't tell the difference between men and women.

All of the professions above need to know the sexual gender of their people of interest. But how do they confirm that?

They either ask someone who's with the person and believe them, or they look at the person's appearance themselves.

They don't need to see their genitalia, their sex chromosomes, hormone levels. They just need to look and listen and they know.

That's because women and men appear different, act different, sound different.

We don't need to ask everyone, Are you male or female?

Voluptuous Does NOT mean Curvey

When pedestrians use the term Voluptuous, they mean a female body shape that is full-figured, larger, shapely, curvy.

It is used as a euphemistic compliment for overweight women, focussing on the aesthetic quality of their figure that is a positive statement aimed at attraction, politeness or sympathy or morale.

This is NOT what the term Voluptuous means.

Voluptuous means pleasing to the senses. Something that excites our senses to a state of aesthetic enjoyment.

Ice-cream is voluptuous. A thin model can be voluptuous. A poem can be voluptuous.

A song, a shirt, a car, a dog.

So how did this misuse originate?

What the uneducated often do is to confuse words that look the same to be the same.

The term Largesse is used for Large. But it means Generosity, especially with money, not Size.

The term Enormity is used for Enormous. But it means an extreme scale of something morally wrong, like the enormity of the Holocaust. Enormity does NOT mean Huge.

The term Expediently is used for Quickly. But it means appropriate, practical, convenient. But expedient sounds like speed. It does not have anything to do with speed.

Stupendous does not mean Stupid. It means Impressive.



People are confusing Voluptuous with Volumous.

Trump Acquitted of Impeachment Charges

Drumpf was recently acquitted of all impeachment charges of abuse of power (53 to 47), obstruction of Congress and obstruction of justice (52-48).

Who acquitted him?

The Senate.

Who rules the Senate? Drumpf's own party the Republicans.

Surprising result?

In a civil case of corruption, the accused would be brought before the Judiciary and a trial held following a police investigation.

But if you are the President of the USA, you get to bypass this democratic process and instead get to be judged by your subordinates.

How democratic is that?

I am accused of corruption, so let's ask my friends and employees to judge me.

That is Dictatorship.

How can you possibly defeat corruption in high office using a process that itself is corrupt?

A democratically elected president is acquitted by an undemocratic process.

Congratulations, America. You now have a corrupt President and a corrupt democracy.

Fat Makes You Look Young

Fat people look younger than they are because the fat in their faces presses out their wrinkles.

A deflated balloon is wrinkly and becomes smooth when full of air. Same thing.

When fat people lose their excess fat, guess what happens?

They age ten years. Their wrinkles are no longer stretched smooth and are revealed.

Want to look younger?

Fatten up.

Philosophy is Useless

Professor Peter Strawson once answered my question, How do you respond when someone says philosophy is useless?

This claim that philosophy is useless is commonly held by educated and uneducated alike. Even scientists have bitten off the hand that fed them with this statement.

Professor Strawson answered, All the best things in life are useless: love, music, sex, friendship, happiness, art etc. They are all things we seek to have for their own value. Not because they are useful.

The status of usefulness must be re-evaluated from ultimate greatness to its true subordinate status.

Useful things are by definition not as important as their aim. A thing is useful because it acheives a greater good, the thing desired in the first place. A useful thing is merely a tool for achieving our goal, which itself may be useful or may be useless. If a useful things achieves another useful thing, we will eventually end at the thing wanted and that itself has no use.

The useless thing is that which has no further use; it is wanted for itself.

Useful things are only wanted to achieve what they are being used for. After that aim is achieved, the useful thing can be abandoned.

So usefulness does not deserve the status some give it.

Wittgenstein said, tools are like boats used to cross a river. Why drag the boat with you after you've crossed the river?

Usefulness is secondary to what it aims to be used for. It must be remembered as merely a means to an end. The end is of more value than the means, because we only want the usefulness to achieve the end.

So, if philosohy is useless, it is because it is the end. Like happiness and fine art, philosophy can be appreciated as an end in itself.

So, the statement that philosophy is useless becomes a compliment.

Aside from being an end in itself, a thing worthy of acheiving for its own value, philosophy actually is also uselful.

Philosophy also is used to achieve other ends, such as understanding, clarification, identification of fallacy and meaninglessness, knowledge and wisdom, solutions to problems unsolvable by no other means.

All the best things in life are useless.

Religious Scientists

In science, evidence is used and demanded to establish the truth-value of a hypothesis.

In religion, evidence is not required to establish a statement's truth.

In religion, a statement can be held to be true on faith or authority.

In science, a statement is held to be true on logic and evidence, never on faith or authority.

So, how can someone who demands evidence in their scientific activities abandon this demand when claiming their religious beliefs?

This is a self-contradiction. A statement that claims to explain X is demanded to show evidence and is not demanded to show evidence.

This is what religious people who are scientists have to admit. They must admit that they contradict themselves by holding opposing views on the same thing.

A religious scientist demands a cause for the Big Bang, but not for God.

What came before the Big Bang? ask the religious.

Answer: What came before God?

Pick one demand and stick to it. You cannot have both without looking like an utter fool.

Metaphors - The Good, The Bad, The Stupid

Whoever writes the headline descriptors for news readers needs a medal for adding humour to our lives (unless they are offensive of course):

The costs of launching the first manned mission to Mars have skyrocketed.

Domestic violence statistics hit home.

New laxative cleans out the competition.

Random attack was planned.

Lost hiker found himself alone.

Charity indebted to bank for large donation.

New regulations on gambling labelled a bad deal for Casinos.

Coronavirus video goes viral.

Children's hairdresser accused of grooming.

Minister's inflammatory remarks on bush fires sparks debate.

Prostitution laws ahead of the game.

Toll booth operators respond to upcoming change.

Burger chain grilled over new menu.

Vegan nightclub, a meat market.

Anti-fascist protesters shut down free speech conference.

Obesity a huge problem.

Climate Change debate gets heated.

Amputees up in arms.

Poor turnout for inclusive demonstration.

Depression at an all time low.

Nude art exhibition unveiled.

Obese people fed up with criticism.

Why? - A Silly Question

The question Why is a silly question.

It is a noise made by people who have a hidden thought in mind unexpressed.

Those thoughts include:

- I don't undertsand X. But, I want to understand X.
- I don't have enough information to evaluate X. I will try and gain more information.
- X must have a cause. So I will seek to find out that cause.
- I don't know the reason behind X being said, so I will seek to know that reason.
- Someone said X. I want to know how they arrived at X.

These are better questions, but are hidden by the lazy propensity in our language use to represent them all with a single word inflected on speech, Why?

It is with this use of the term Why as a question that often demands from the respondent the very same question: Why do you ask? What do you mean, Why? Why what?

This conversation becomes quite silly, but the point of the respondent is that they don't have enough information to answer the lazy question Why?

The solution is to avoid the question Why by itself, and enumerate your thoughts and what it is that you are thinking at the time the question comes to you.

Trans-Gender People - Listen Up

Hey you guys who call yourselves Trans-Gender!

We can still tell whether you're male or female just by looking at you, or if even by hearing your voice.

You can say you are non-binary, male or female, you can say anything. Doesn't make it true or even meaningful. It doesn't matter.

I can say I'm Jesus Christ trapped in a fat mexican lesbian unicorn's body.

Saying something does NOT make it true.

Your physiology goes against you.

It doesn't matter what you say, we all know what you are. Because what you are is dictated by everyone who is not you. We are assigned what we are. We don't get to choose. We have no say.

Gender is a choice. But it is not your choice, it is our choice, your observer.

Example, you can say you are friendly. But others will judge whether you are or not.

Transgender is synonymous with Transvestite (cross-dressing). It is an expression of physical appearance.

If Transgender has nothing to do with physicality and only mentality, why the choice to appear physically as male or female?

If women are not defined by appearance, but only a feeling or mental experience, why seek to reinforce that feeling through physical appearance, especially appearances that follow the very conventions of male and female appearance in society that you oppose?

You dress like a woman and wear your hair and nakeup like a conventional woman, because you know that that is how you reinforce society's conventional acceptance of what being a woman is.

You can wear clothes, put on makeup, have surgery, make statements.

None of that makes any difference. We decide what you are. We can see what you are and what you are not.

So, please, continue to try using words to change reality. If you think words make a difference, go ahead. Keep talking. You cannot talk yourself away from how others see you.

Your sexual gender is obvious to us. You can't hide it with words or clothes or makeup or surgery.

The biggest thing going against you is the Bullshit Radar. We all have it. And it works.

We all can tell when someone is blatantly bullshitting.

And we can all tell a male from a female.

We don't even need to examine your chromosomes, your hormone levels, your role in reproduction, or even your genitalia.

We just need to look at you and hear your voice and we know what you are.

You are not fooling anyone.

The Fallacy of "Cultural Appropriation" and its role in Fiction

The argument (or whine) goes like this:

You can't write in the first person narrative a fictional character of a "culture" different from your own, as the author.

Further, how can you presume to express the thoughts of someone from another culture? You would have to be a black lesbian in order to write from their perspective.

This barbarity is referred to as Cultural Appropriation.

The logical consequence of this statement is devestating for the world's body of fictional literature.

If we cannot represent or portray a different "culture" (a misnomer for ethnicity), then what makes that the case is also the case for any fundamental difference between individuals. This is because the raw argument is that you have to be X to portray X. If you are Y, you can only portray Y.

The CA argument is logically bound to hold for all individuals who are not you.

Every single great work of fictional literature could not exist if this statement were enforced.

Not even the Bible, Koran or Torah are immune (where if not considered works of fiction themselves, these works certainly make great use of fictional characters in parables to teach lessons and doctrine).

Behind the argument is the necessity that you cannot represent anyone who you are not yourself.

This must include women writing for men, authors writing for various professionals (as lawyers, accountants, generals, soldiers, killers etc etc). Adults writing as children. Gays as straights. Caucasian and Asian. The innocent as murderers. The modern writer as an ancestor. A Republican as a Democrat. A butcher as a surgeon (although granted these two are similar).

Clearly, the entire body of fictional literature is destroyed, past present and future, by the CA argument.

The entire point of writing fiction is to represent a range of characters, themselves representing all walks of life, all creeds, all ethnicities.

It is a catastrophic premise.

Now, there is some merit to the argument, but also some untested assumptions.

There is merit in a person of one ethnicity not being another and therefore cannot know what it is like to be the other ethnicity.

The only meaningful principle implicit in the argument is that one cannot portray any character they are not.

So, not only is all fictional writing destroyed, but also all fictional films, plays, songs, poems and other forms of expression that portray characters different from their players by sex, gender, ethnicity, creed and all the rest.

This fascist dictum even comes so close to many laws and policies, advocacy and charity that claim to represent the Other, that on cursory scrutiny they may also need to line up against the wall of the SJW firing squad.

Imagine the world after all that excision from life.

It is also a wonder that this abhorent illogical behaviour has lasted this long through history without protest or abolition.

But there is an assumption within the concept that can be attacked with equal verve.

CA assumes that no one can be represented or portrayed at all under any circumstance.

The necessary assumption makes it impossible to relate to anyone who is not exactly you.

It negates sympathy, empathy and basic human understanding between people.

This is because, if you cannot represent or portray anyone, then you cannot sympathise with them, you cannot understand them, grieve with them, have laws that cover behaviour across people, you cannot advocate for them, you could barely understand a word they said.

Thus, the decree of CA is utterly destroyed by the first test of its most fundamental principle.

Thus armed, if you ever experience this phenomenon, kill it on sight with extreme prejudice.

Coronavirus is going Viral

Millenials, who are responsible for the over-use of the metaphorical term Viral in social media, are now being exposed to the original meaning of the term Viral.

The Coronavirus is actually going viral.

Perhaps after they see the negative aspects of going viral, they might change their use of the term currently used in a positive sense in their social media experience.

Going viral for Millenials is a great acheivement, a thing to be sought after, a sign of greater status and popularity.

But now the term is being reclaimed for its original literal use. And it's not so positive.

Going viral will soon take on a whole new understanding.

People infecting eachother with this virus in communities will spread exponentially with death as the unimpeded result.

A video on Youtube goes viral, but no one dies. Theses videos are not infective or deadly, but they spread and spread rapidly, as people share the videos with people who share them and so on.

Perhaps from this terrible global crisis, the term going viral will be second-guessed before being used to express an excitement of popularity in social media.

Tea or Dinner?

What's for tea tonight?

What's for dinner tonight?

Which term should we use?

They seem to refer to the same thing: an evening meal, last of the day.

The quaint vernacular "tea" is used for the evening meal, but also the more formal sounding "dinner"?

In the old days, the midday meal, lunch, was the largest meal. In the evening, they would minimalise the diet and just have a cup of tea and some toast or some small snack.

Dinner describes the experience better for today's norms. It is the meal that requires a dining table, not a kitchen table.

Restaurants have a Dinner menu, not a Tea menu, for the evening event.

We dine when we have dinner.

So, we don't go out to a restaurant for an evening meal and call it Tea. We call it Dinner.

There's the difference.

Drongos and Smart-Arses

It's interesting, especially in Australia, how we have slang that denigrates people of low intellectual capacity, or who engage in it, but at the same time we have slang that denigrates its opposite: people of high intellectual capacity. Dumb-arse and Smart-arse.


LOW:

- Drongo
- Dickhead
- Dumb Arse
- Moron
- Idiot
- Air-head

HIGH:

- Smart-arse
- Smart-alec
- Nerd
- Geek
- Book-nerd
- Brainiac

You can't win!