Huh?

Personally I think if LW wants to ban a certain kind of content, more power to them. But they should be transparent about it.

If they’ve said they’ll unban pirate content, then pirate content should be allowed. If they want it banned, fine, but make a statement clarifying that that is the case.

OP is doing good work by pointing this out.

Even on Reddit, the state subreddits are an afterthought compared to the capital city subreddits. The best place to go for Queensland politics is /r/brisbane, for example. /r/queensland exists, but is not nearly as active.

If Reddit can’t make state subreddits work, I don’t think there’s much point in us trying here.

P.S., this type of post should be in !meta@aussie.zone.

Cmon Crisafulli, take the hint! It’s an easy win for you!

Whisky is a fantastic example of exactly what I’m talking about. Nobody has a regional claim preventing you making whisky wherever you want. Scotch whisky uses Scotch as an adjective telling you it’s the type of whisky made in Scotland.

If the town of Parma didn’t want people calling their cheese parmesan, they shouldn’t have named it using their town name as the noun for the whole style of cheese.

If they think their ingredients are so much superior than the same product made elsewhere, they should be fine with calling it “parmesan from Parma”. As it is, in places that respect this form of intellectual property, they’re essentially given a state-backed artificial monopoly that props them up more than their product can earn on its own merits.

No, I’m pointing out that one particular style of cheese has been conflated by the region. But parmesan cheese is a style of cheese. You wouldn’t start calling a smooth, creamy, yellow cheese “parmesan” just because it was made in Parma. No, that’s still gouda. Likewise, a hard granular aged cheese doesn’t become gouda when you make it in the town of Gouda. In fact, if that was true, I’d probably have more respect for the geographic indications. If any style of cheese was Parmesan when made in Parma, then the word “Parmesan” would be an accurate adjective worthy of protection, in the same way I’m saying “Belgian chocolate” should be protected for chocolate made in Belgium. But they insist on saying it’s one specific style of cheese. But they want you to only call it by the name of the style of cheese that it is if it’s also made there. No thanks.

The name belongs to the style, and the EU’s protectionist policies don’t change that fact.

Why would you think I need to look anything up?

I think you’re right that capitalism is involved. But the capitalists are the ones rigidly trying to enforce one of the most ludicrous types of intellectual property. If someone says “parmesan cheese” or “champagne”, I don’t care where it was made. I care about the qualities of the product itself. Which can be made anywhere. All that happens when they restrict it is they’re artificially supporting businesses in one area by giving them a state-sponsored monopoly on an entire class of product.

It’s not super different from trademarks. And while I’m not necessarily in favour of the total abolition of trademarks, I am in favour of legal genericisation being much, much easier. Velcro, frisbee, and bandaid, for example, are so obviously genericised now in practice, they should be legally. Words like parmesan and champagne are no different. Indeed, geographic indicators are always like this, because they by definition can’t be limited in the way a true trademark is.

If the people of Parma believe their parmesan is superior, they should be able to survive by calling it “parmesan made in Parma”. And if they didn’t want their region’s name to be part of the generic name for the product…they shouldn’t have insisted on conflating their region with the type of cheese in the first place.

It’s like calling a Lepatata from Botswana a Didgeridoo because they are both wind instruments

No, it’s not. It’s like calling a didgeridoo made in Botswana a didgeridoo. Which would be fair, because that’s what it would be. A didgeridoo has a different shape to a lepatata. Saying that any two woodwind instruments are the same is absurd.

Australia already has plenty of parmesan cheese on the shelves. If parmesan from Parma is a superior product, it can succeed on its own merits. Government crony capitalism protecting it shouldn’t be forced on us to make it succeed.

Take the chocolate example I made above. In addition to the countries I listed, you can also sell chocolate as being “made in America”. And because of the reputation, I would avoid the American chocolate and buy the Swiss or Belgian chocolate. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to call their product what it is.

This is just yet another shitty example of the EU forcing its protectionism onto the rest of the world while claiming to be a bastion of free markets and capitalism. The hypocrisy is laughable. And even more laughable is the amount of people who back them up on it.

But it’s not parmigiano reggiano

Yes, it is. Some dumb fuck ultra conservative European laws don’t change that. Australian law doesn’t currently protect the name, and I can go out right now and buy parmesan cheese that wasn’t made in Italy.

The law changing would make it illegal to keep doing that, but it wouldn’t change reality. Reality being that the type of cheese they sell today is the same as the type of cheese they’re selling in the future.

edit:

Let me put it this way: parmesan is a type of cheese. Think of it like “milk chocolate”. I could buy milk chocolate made in Switzerland, or in Belgium, or the UK, or here in Australia. Differences in ingredients and the sources of those ingredients would all affect the ultimate taste and texture of the chocolate. But they don’t change the fact that it is chocolate. There’s no good reason that cheese and wine should be any different, except for nationalism and conservatism. If you want to call it “parmesan made in northern Italy”, be my guest. And that should be protected, because “made in X” is a clear descriptor, and you shouldn’t be allowed to lie about things like that. But the name of the product itself should not allow some conservative fucks half a world away to have special privileges. And a so-called “free trade” agreement shouldn’t be honouring those strict restrictions on the act of free trade.

The problem is when the region is the name of the product. That shouldn’t be allowed. Using words like “made in” should absolutely be protected and required to be honest, because anything else is dishonest marketing. But parmesan is a type of cheese, and the fact that it’s named after a region in Italy doesn’t change the fact that you can make exactly the same type of cheese in Victoria.

I fucking detest geographic indicators. How is parmesan from northern Italy meaningfully different from parmesan made in Victoria? I hope that point doesn’t get compromised on.

then I will wave them through

As both a driver and a pedestrian I absolutely hate when people do this. As a driver, I’m trying to do the right thing. People need to follow the law and give way when they’re required to give way. That keeps everything predictable, and predictable is safe. (There are certainly times when it’s appropriate to break the letter of the law, especially as a pedestrian or cyclist. But those times are basically “when there’s nothing a driver has to do to avoid even coming close to you.”)

As a pedestrian, I hate it because it just reinforces motornormacy and car supremacy, as though there isn’t already enough in our society that does that. In the long run, all it does is make things less safe for pedestrians, because it increases the chances that the next driver will just go through without even trying to give way.

Holy shit. I had no idea about that!

My problem is that by doing that, you reward those drivers who deliberately try to take advantage and ignore the law.

Because they’ll speed around the corner and go on with their day, probably not even realising they did anything wrong. What I do is still safe: I know I won’t be in the way if they do keep speeding through. But it means if they try to speed through, they’re gonna get one hell of a fright in the process.

Context for the rest of the world:

Chris Minns is the Premier of the state of NSW (Premier being the state equivalent of Prime Minister) in Australia. Earlier this week, on the invitation of the Prime Minister of the country, Israel’s President Herzog was in Sydney, NSW to commemorate the victims of last December’s Bondi mass shooting at a Hanukkah event. Never mind that he’s an Israeli political leader, not a Jewish religious leader who would have any business being there. And never mind that the shooter’s motivation had nothing to do with the state of Israel (it was an ISIS-inspired shooting, not a Palestinian one).

Anyway, the event saw huge protests all over the country, especially in Sydney. And in Sydney, the police used some of the most brutal tactics we’ve seen in this country. “Kettling”, where one set of police give an order to disperse, while other police refuse to allow them to move that way, effectively forcing protestors into direct conflict with police. Three particularly bad videos emerged, showing (a) police assaulting Muslims who were down on their knees praying, (b) a bicycle officer who tried to attack a protestor in office clothing, but comically fell over his own bike and tripped, leading the protestor to at first try to reflexively catch the guy, before the officer started beating him up while the protestor raised his arms up in the sign of surrender. Then a bunch more officers came in with full on swinging punches. And © a protestor restrained on his belly, as the officer holding him repeatedly close-fist punched him in the neck and around the liver.

At first the police were staunchly standing by the line that they followed all the necessary procedures, public safety, yada yada. The police have since announced that they will be conducting a review, but Minns, the Premier, has still refused to apologise.

NSW premier won’t apologise to Muslims after police grab men praying at rally against Isaac Herzog

I also do not recall anyone ever being encouraged to step out on to the road to get cars to stop! That’s lunacy if true. Unless I misheard.

I might also have misheard it, but I recall being confused by the same section you were. In my case, I heard it not as something people are actively encouraged to do, but as a learned behaviour that’s somehow meant to make things safer. Only, I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work…

edit: ok I just rewatched. He said

When boarding from the kerbside, the rules do say you should wait for the tram to stop before stepping onto the road, however in reality the accepted normal practice is to step out into the lane as the tram is approaching, because this forces the cars to stop.

So, I misunderstood it because I thought it was talking about when getting off the tram. Like, swing out of the tram as it’s slowing down. And I was thoroughly confused how that would help anything. Probably because…it wouldn’t.

But when doing it while getting on the tram, that kinda makes sense actually. You wouldn’t step out right in front of a fast-moving car, but if you make it very visibly obvious you’re about to step out when there’s a car further away that looks like it might be headed in your direction, it can see you’re there and stop in time.

I do a very similar thing all the time wherever I am, when crossing side streets, zebra crossings, etc. Places where the car is supposed to stop to give way, but where there’s a high frequency that they won’t actually do it. I make every effort to look like I’m about to step out in front of them without caring, while being hyper-aware and ready to stop or step back if they don’t actually give way as they’re required to. It nearly always works: people who weren’t going to give way if I had slowed down and acted visibly cautious as most pedestrians do, end up following the law when it looks like I’m forcing them to.

“Alleged+” is certainly an interesting way of phrasing “officially declared by the relevant independent UN commission”. That certainly is above alleged.

You’re right, the point of the AFL isn’t the same as a protest.

The point of the protest is to stop our country’s government from aiding and abetting a genocide. Anything else pales in comparison.

Yeah sorry, I was mostly just making a joke there.

What do we do now that shitty government policies are forcing us off of Discord? Revolt.