u/Polyphagous_person

> Big Tungus > > As a character with Tungusic Heritage, form a Hegemony and choose the fecund trait in Architected Ancestry.

This is in reference to the Big Chungus meme showing a fat Bugs Bunny.

First and foremost, before you tell me "if you like dictatorships so much go move there" I need to emphasise that I am a staunch supporter of liberal democracy. So therefore, it pains me to have to accept that liberal democracy is becoming a discredited concept, if it isn't already. I will also try to avoid the left-right debate in this post and focus on other factors.

As an Australian citizen, this country has a crash in the support for democracy, as a result of financial strain. Our other institutions are also no longer trusted by the people. Our international reputation is in shambles because the whole world knows of how we sabotaged East Timor, how we have slow internet, how gambling problem is out of control, how we excessively damaged the environment and how we subjected our Indigenous people to genocide. I live with my parents, so one can accuse me of only liking democracy because I have it easy.

On social media, I also often encounter people reminding me of how badly the USA has acted throughout history. As a frequent user of this subreddit, here is an example from this subreddit alone.

But there's a reason this post is not named "Australia gives liberal democracy a bad name" or "The USA gives liberal democracy a bad name". It's because almost every liberal democracy has serious egg on their faces right now:

• Across Europe, young people no longer believe in democracy because of their economic struggles.
• Canada has a very similar list of problems as Australia.
• Most liberal democracies have an aging population, but South Korea has this problem on steroids.
• The only democracy in the Middle East is currently committing a genocide.

Now you might rebut with:

• "Norway and Switzerland prove that you can do liberal democracy right"
  • My rebuttal to this is that having only 2 liberal democracies remaining truly successful shows that long-term success in democracies is the exception, not the rule.
• "What about all the people fleeing to democracies to escape dictatorships".
  • My rebuttal is that my family moved from the Philippines (a democracy) to Australia, and Australia also receives lots of immigrants from other democracies like India, the UK and New Zealand. Plus, millions of people from Southeast and South Asian democracies willingly feed themselves into the Kafala system of non-democratic Middle Eastern countries because prospects in Southeast and South Asia are that bad.
• "Your examples are not real democracies anyway"
  • My rebuttal is that do you realise how similar this is to the "not real communism" excuse used by communists?

I have travelled widely, and I have witnessed certain examples that may make the liberal democratic model look like the inferior model:

• The PRC, a single party state, scores 11th on the Global Innovation Index (and punches way above its income level on that index), has built a gargantuan high speed rail network, is leading the transition to renewable energy and manages to come out on top of most geopolitical events through shrewd strategy.
• Singapore, an illiberal dominant-party state, scores 5th on the Global Innovation Index, 1st in all 3 PISA scores, has the 2nd lowest homicide rate and is the 3rd least corrupt country in the world.
• El Salvador, a nation where the president used self-coups to force through legislation and weaken opposition, achieved a drop from 4.8 homicides per day to 0.5 in 2 months (and some might blame the USA's drug addiction for El Salvador having a violent crime problem in the first place, so another stain on democracy) by using mass incarceration. My father and I went there last year and we were flabbergasted at how safe and clean the country was for its income level - we then went to Costa Rica (Central America's most democratic country) and we were shocked at how crime-ridden and expensive it was.
• There are also a few more examples widely praised on social media for their successes, like Rwanda, Cuba and Burkina Faso; but since I've never been to those countries, I don't want to comment on them.

Back when I was in school, we had civics classes and we examined different forms of government (instead of them just indoctrinating us that democracy is better). And one of the flaws we found with non-democratic systems is that dictators and absolute monarchs may lead their country to oblivion because they suppress other opinions. Certainly, some still do that, but there are also now examples of non-democratic systems which have avoided that trap and are instead jumping from strength to strength. In the English language, we have a saying "absolute power corrupts absolutely" yet the successes of certain non-democratic countries disprove this saying.

In the 1980s and 1990s, both former communist countries and former American-backed dictatorships enjoyed a wave of democratisation; and who can blame them since the most successful countries of the time were liberal democracies? Nowadays, this isn't going to happen anymore since liberal democracies have problems that they struggle to fix, and certain non-democratic systems are overtaking them.

Do non-democratic countries commit atrocities too? Of course. But for countries seeking to choose a model, can you blame them for choosing the one which offers faster economic growth, more innovation and less crime?

Please CMV, because I really wished that liberal democracy triumphed, and instead it pains me that all the signs point to it fast becoming a discredited concept, partly due to its own missteps, and partly due to certain authoritarian governments achieving great successes.

This question is inspired by this map of a Redditor's rail electrification wishlist. Maybe electrification of long rural lines is overly optimistic, but what do you think about resurrecting other passenger rail services?

• I think the one with the most potential is a repaired Sydney to Brisbane via Armidale line. It has many significant towns on the route, and it has multiple industries that can benefit from it. I'm surprised the Inland Rail proposal didn't consider repairing this line for active use.
• Correct me if I'm wrong, but Newcastle to Dubbo is still an operational train line, it seems like the one with the 2nd most potential. Perhaps could restoring passenger services there help de-centralise NSW away from Sydney, especially as Newcastle, Gulgong and Dubbo continue to grow?
• I've also heard that the line to Oberon is slowly being restored, but will it eventually be able to handle a train to Lithgow or even Sydney?
• Sydney to Mudgee and Sydney to Cowra seem further fetched.

Aboriginal Australians have inhabited the Australian continent for 50,000 to 65,000 years.

We do have a few examples of pre-contact human remains. The 40,000 year old Lake Mungo remains, while offering revolutionary findings about cremation, are too fragmentary to identify causes of death. The 4,000 year old Narrabeen Man has a skeleton in much better condition, but his cause of death is clearly either an execution or a ritual murder. On an anecdotal note, an Aboriginal elder once told me that they used to bury bodies in tree hollows.

I've been working as a bush regenerator for over 3 years now. I've never come across any Aboriginal artifacts or found human remains in a tree hollow. In my job, we talk about the concept of cultural burns, as it is sometimes necessary.

• That leads me to ask this question, did many pre-contact Aboriginal Australians get affected by smoke inhalation?
• Did many die due to disasters or accidents?
• What sort of diseases affected them before European contact?
• Did many die due to malnutrition or starvation?
• Or was violent death like that of Narrabeen Man the leading cause of death?

But it seems like we do not have enough Aboriginal Australian human remains to answer these questions. So where are 50k-65k years worth of Aboriginal Australian human remains?

• Were many remains deliberately destroyed by previous governments trying to preserve the lie of Terra nullius?
• Did many remains get lost due to being collected before researchers find out about them?
• Did many remains just get thrown out in as lumbermill waste?
• Was it likely that most Aboriginal Australian human remains have been lost due to a more thorough cremation than those of the Lake Mungo remains?
• Did some Aboriginal Australian groups dispose of their dead in ways where it's difficult or impossible for us to find the remains (e.g. into the ocean)?

I also find it curious that there's this American horror fiction trope of the "Indian burial ground", but no such equivalent exists in Australia. Is there a reason why no such equivalent trope ever came about in Australia?

This question is inspired by this news article: Low-cost Asian giant considers Qantas challenge with local carrier

On social media, it's commonly mentioned that we need more competition in the airline sector. And who can blame people for thinking this way when Qantas engages in dodgy business practices and charges high fares.

Having been to Vietnam, I'm interested to see what an Australian VietJet subsidiary can bring to the table. They are a well-established budget airline over there, but being a budget airline carries the constraint of being expected to offer low fares.

• What new tactics would VietJet use to be able to compete in Australia's high-risk, yet expensive aviation sector (other than the leaseback strategy mentioned in the article)?
  • Considering to the high fuel costs and insecure fuel supply that all Australian airlines face, do they have a way around that?
  • Does VietJet have certain efficient practices (which are legal in Australia, that is) that no Australian airline uses?
  • VietJet successfully deals with severe congestion at SGN airport, which is arguably much worse than SYD airport, so what practices do they use to thrive despite airport and airspace constraints?
• Considering all the dodgy business practices Qantas uses to stay afloat, will an Australian VietJet subsidiary kill Qantas?
• Or would they just end up like Bonza, unable to keep up with costs?
• Or is VietJet just making empty promises, like Koala Airlines, which still hasn't started flying yet?
• Can Qantas or Virgin Australia, or even Rex or Koala Airlines copy VietJet's leaseback strategy to enable themselves to grow at a low price?

The video above is one I took while flying SYD-MEL in December 2025.

Canberra is the capital city and butt-monkey of Australia, even in this very sub. One such joke about Canberra is that it's "a good sheep station ruined". But was Canberra actually built on ideal sheep-raising country?

Just looking at farming conditions alone, the Australian Capital Territory is somewhat dry and infertile, but not nearly as dry and infertile as large chunks of the Australian continent. There are at least enough fertile patches for vegetable farms along the Molonglo River. There are also a few wineries and pine plantations all across the ACT.

What geographic features actually make ideal sheep-raising country? Was Canberra home to some really productive grasslands? Australian history classes teach of all the challenges that our agricultural sector had to innovate our way out of (e.g. Federation wheat, sheep dips, stump-jump ploughs) as well as numerous self-inflicted problems in the name of agriculture (e.g. introducing Cane toads, Prickly pear and African lovegrass).

Source.

The Boost Juice CEO and Hughesy are both frequently whingeing about the reforms Labor brought about, and friendlyjordies went in-depth to explain how both were wrong:

• You Don't Deserve Your Wealth
• meth

friendlyjordies loves to claim that if you want to get unfettered wealth gain and step on your fellow citizen, then move to America. But IMHO, I don't think we as a society are any better than that:

• Outside of our left-wing bubble, Australians, even young Australians are rejecting the most recent budget, and are responding by clinging to One Nation - they resent higher taxation of their shares and are unconvinced that Labor's longer-term thinking makes up for it.
• Labor was previously in hot water for not lowering house prices, and now they're losing popularity points because the property market is weak. It shows that Australians want it both ways (i.e. cheap houses and fast price growth), they don't care that such a situation is neither sustainable nor feasible.
• Despite being able to watch the damage Trump does to the USA, having compulsory instant-runoff voting, and witnessing Pauline Hanson's gaffes, Australians aren't put off by these, and One Nation are forecast to become Federal opposition and have a decent possibility of winning in the Victoria state election.

friendlyjordies seems to believe in the pre-Howard Australian society where the fair go was a central pillar. Labor may be trying to return us to that paradigm, but unfortunately, Australian society has evolved past that. Australians of today appear to be interested in wealth and "Make Australia Great Again"; not a mere comfortable lifestyle and a healthy society. One can argue that years of Coalition government have turned us into society of "fuck you, got mine", or even "fuck you, haven't got mine yet".

friendlyjordies shouldn't need to make long-form videos explaining in detail why the Boost Juice CEO and Hughesy are wrong; and the fact he has to shows that most Australians are receptive to the right-wing message. Also note that despite their well-known stances, the Boost Juice CEO and Hughesy aren't being cancelled, nor are they being boycotted.

In short, this is not a spiel about Labor not being good enough. It is a spiel about society evolving to become more sympathetic to businesspeople and Trumpists; and away from the friendlyjordies mindset.

Source