u/Major_Conflict

As in, if you already have the inclination for working in a classroom why not just become a teacher? I don't understand it because they earn such a low salary compared to teachers.

Given how concentrated Australian media ownership is, particularly with Murdoch's influence, I sometimes wonder whether the optimistic discussion around AI and UBI is partly a way of reassuring people that if AI replaces a significant portion of jobs, everything will still be fine and there is no reason to become too concerned about it.

At the same time, I struggle to understand why billionaires and corporations would voluntarily help fund a genuinely liveable UBI when their behaviour generally follows the opposite logic. If a company discovers that it can replace workers and increase profits, it usually does so. If AI allows corporations to reduce labour costs even further, why should we assume that the resulting wealth will simply be redistributed back to everyone else?

And who would actually be expected to pay more tax for this UBI? The middle class?

I find it difficult to believe that the ultra-wealthy would willingly accept the level of taxation and redistribution that a serious UBI would require simply because millions of people had lost their jobs. Historically, large concessions from wealthy and powerful groups have often come only when there has been enough political pressure for refusing those concessions to become risky.

That is why I think nothing short of a credible threat of revolution, widespread unrest, or a serious destabilisation of the existing political order would be likely to produce redistribution on that scale. Not because revolution itself is necessarily desirable, but because the possibility of something more radical has often been what makes reform seem like the safer option to those at the top.

This is the part that seems missing whenever people say that AI taking jobs will be fine because we can just introduce UBI. The difficult question is not whether an advanced automated economy could afford to support everyone. It is whether the people who own most of the capital and benefit most from automation would ever agree to share enough of those gains without being placed under enormous political pressure.

Will people assume you are a pedo and say that about you behind your back? Are false accusations commonplace and is it easy for them to ruin your career?

Genuine question: why does the idea of a general strike seem basically impossible in Australia?

People constantly complain about stagnant wages, cost of living, housing, insecure work, understaffing and declining working conditions. Yet the response always seems to be individual: find another job, negotiate harder, retrain, move somewhere cheaper, etc.

Historically, workers got a lot of their bargaining power from collective action. So why couldn’t Australian workers across multiple industries coordinate and simply refuse to work until there were meaningful concessions?

I understand there are legal restrictions around industrial action in Australia, and obviously most people can’t afford to just stop getting paid indefinitely. But that almost seems like the point: if workers are too financially precarious to strike, employers have an enormous advantage.

Is a large-scale general strike genuinely impossible under Australian industrial relations law, or is it more that unions and workers simply don’t have the organisation or appetite for one anymore?

Not advocating anything illegal here. I’m genuinely interested in why Australia, despite having a strong labour movement historically, seems so far removed from this kind of mass industrial action today.

I think plenty of left-wing ideas are actually popular when you strip away the ideological branding. Cheaper healthcare, stronger worker protections, affordable housing, better public transport, higher wages, and stopping huge corporations from screwing people over are not particularly difficult ideas to sell.

The problem is that a very visible part of the left seems incapable of advocating for these things without turning politics into a test of whether everyone else is morally pure enough.

People get lectured about their vocabulary, told they need to “educate themselves,” accused of being terrible people for having fairly ordinary disagreements, or treated as ignorant because they don’t understand whatever political terminology is currently fashionable. There’s often this underlying attitude that disagreement doesn’t just mean you’re wrong, it means you’re a bad person. That is incredibly alienating.

You can be completely correct about an issue and still make people hate your side if you communicate it in the most condescending way possible.

I also think this is one reason economically left-wing policies sometimes poll better than explicitly left-wing politicians or movements. Someone might support taxing billionaires more, universal healthcare, unions, or government investment in housing while simultaneously finding left-wing political culture absolutely unbearable.

And before someone says “the right does this too,” yes, obviously. Conservatives can be smug, preachy and moralistic as well. But that doesn’t change the fact that the left frequently damages its own causes by acting as though ordinary people need to pass a moral and linguistic purity test before they’re welcome.

If your goal is actually to persuade people rather than demonstrate that you’re a better person than them, being less sanctimonious would probably accomplish a lot more.

I keep hearing teachers say behaviour is much worse now than it used to be. But older people complaining that the younger generation is lazy, disrespectful or immoral has been a thing since forever.

I also wonder how much we see our own childhood through rose-coloured glasses and forget how badly kids behaved back then too.

For teachers who have been around a while, do you think kids are genuinely worse now? If so, what has actually changed?

From my own anecdotal experience it's more common that secondary teachers do it for this reason. Is there something about primary that makes it uniquely challenging to go into it having this attitude?

As in, if you work in both public and independent/Catholic schools, which union do you join? Would they defend you if an incident happened at the wrong school. Obviously I already understand the worker solidarity aspect of it.

They're so alien to me. When I see a rodent or a cow or sheep crying or in pain I feel sorry for them because I know they feel the same way I do but when I see a fish struggling for its life 1) it's not obvious to me that it's in pain 2) I'm pretty sure fish don't have emotions anyway. So I don't feel bad when I eat fish.

As in do Singaporeans look down on Malaysians because of their perceived first world status? Is it more nuanced than that?

I'm just wondering if I'll be a competitive candidate for secondary CRT work once I graduate. How tough of a market is it? I hope to get booked most days. Is that possible? I live on the lower north shore but I'm willing to drive to wherever the work is. Just want to get an idea of whether my plan is realistic or not.

I've been to most countries in SEA and EA and I was wondering if it's worth going or not.

I mean they're completely free now I thought that would be a good incentive but apparently not? The bus network isn't even bad either you can get anywhere you want in a reasonable amount of time. Frequent buses, etc. the buses often have AC, etc. But I guess people would rather pay dear prices for petrol for their bikes and risk death by truck if they drive on the roads long enough?

I went to the food court in the basement of low yat and I bought chicken rice there and the one I received was really pink. It was really bloody. When I went to complain that it was basically raw, the seller told me that it's not meant to be hot (as if I didn't know that). Eventually they redid it and it was cooked through that time but they made me out to be the difficult person.

Anyway is it normal for it to be pink? If it was a little pink I would be fine with it but it looked raw to me. I wish I took a photo of it to post.

In NSW an experienced CRT earns 582 dollars a day. That's 582 dollars for 6 hours of work since lesson prep, marking, dealing with parents, admin and meetings are not part of the job. It's a true 9 to 3.

I imagine at the secondary level most of the job is just classroom management. At least when I was in highschool the substitute teacher just sat at the back of the classroom, told us to finish the work our regular teacher left us, and made sure we weren't gaming on our laptops That seems pretty easy. I imagine the worst of it is getting called slurs by the students and not being respected by the regular staff but I'd put up with it for that pay.

Is there some aspect of the job I'm missing? I have a large pool of assets to draw down from so I'm not too worried about inconsistent earnings. I think I could retire now if I really wanted to but I'd rather not risk it. I still have potentially a few decades left to live.

I've thought about it and I really can't think of many jobs that pay better for those hours that aren't either insanely competitive to get or require physical labour or risking your health.

Maybe this question is a bit biased but in my anecdotal experience most straight guys are ugly and could barely score anyone attractive even if they tried while gay and bisexual men, while not universally attractive, have a higher proportion of attractive men than the straight population. Is there something about being more open to novel sexual experiences that comes with being attractive?

I heard teaching was an employee's market but there are only 6 teaching jobs listed on the primary temporary opportunities section of JobFeed. I'm starting to worry that I might not be able to find work in the sector after I finish my MTeach (primary). Would it help if I'm male? I heard that can be advantageous as many schools want to maintain a balanced proportion of male and female teachers.

I paid 12 ringgit for a kilogram of longan is that a fair price?

I've been to Penang, Malacca, Ipoh and KL so far.