Articles from Club Troppo
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12 lessons from the weird, unnoticed end of Australia’s bitter broadband war
What if we held an Australian broadband crisis and nobody came? That’s pretty much what happened in Australian broadband policy over the decade to 2025. Governments, forecasters and the media can all learn lessons from this episode.
Mime, misdirection and pyramid of code
The Gregorian revolution gave rise to a form of organisation that was gradually stamped out all over the Western world and then to its followers.
Copilot stopped talking to me
I was reading some arguments by Bettina Arndt recently about women dominating the legal profession, especially in the Family Law sphere, so I thought I would the check the facts. This is my modus operandi. Read polar views on an issue (I also consult OurWatch and White Ribbon on issues like this) but then check the facts to see who deceive and lie (which these days go under the Orwellian names of “mis” and “dis” information).
Some philosophy is probably fraud; let’s try to find it
If scientific fraud represents five per cent of scientific papers, we might well expect to have a great deal of philosophic fraud as well. But how can we detect philosophy’s fraudsters? Here’s a first attempt at some rules of thumb.
Trump would be a disaster for the world economy (and climate change)
As the US presidential election count continues, it becomes increasingly likely that Donald Trump will win. It appears that the majority of Americans believe that Trump is more trustworthy than Kamala Harris on economic issues, and they say that the economy is their principal concern.
The irony in this belief is that it is the opposite of the real situation, at least if we assume that Trump will carry out the promises that he has made.
Advocating Very Fast Train travel for Australia
The possibility of one or more Very Fast Train (VFT) lines for Australia has been debated for more than 40 years, most often being treated as a complete joke. However, perhaps that’s about to change.
The US Election and the End of the Media Monoculture
There’s a strong gerontocratic tinge to US politics of late — the youngest of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren and Mitch McConnel is Chuck at 73.
Many a theory has been propounded to explain this phenomenon, but a simple one shall be put to the test in a couple of days: Trump is the last of the political candidates borne of the media monoculture and so Trump will win the election comfortably.
Global heating heresy?
As I argued in a recent article, the election of Donald Trump as President would be disastrous for climate change compared with the current Democrat administration of President Biden. The situation is quite different in Australia. The election of a Coalition government federally next year, even under Peter Dutton, would not be all that much worse than the situation under the current Labor administration of Anthony Albanese.