A decade ago I was in Monash to do my bachelor's. Within the first year I had decided that Australia was not the country I wanted to invest my entrepreneurial spirit in (I was not interested in opening a restaurant, a boutique or a nail shop). Logistics moved at a snail's pace, people stopped working by 5pm, labour was costly, and most importantly, it seemed like people were content to just cruise along in life. Don't get me started on the random acts of violence in public.
I did not bother staying in the country after graduation, but I have made visits from time to time until 2019. With every visit I see an increasing dependence on large corporations or the government for jobs, while innovative or interesting SMEs were throttled and discouraged due to neoliberal economic policies that favoured large capitals. The few manufacturing-related cottage industries were barely eking out a living due to rising rent and competition from imported goods. With the exception of the hippiest places I could count with my hands, high streets in various towns outside of state capitals looked stagnant at best, but mostly depressing and run-down. Your photos reminded me of those high streets. Immigrants are corralled into the country to fill up low-wage jobs but noone is building low-cost housing for them, driving the lower and middle-classes out into the countryside just to be able to afford a roof over one's head.
Obviously if one is rich, one can live within the bubble of comfort that Australia is more than capable of providing. Just don't look at the mess below and all is fine.
Dear Mr. Dinh, I've learned a hard lesson recently. One, had I been a little bit smarter, I would have learned decades ago: Most people don't want to think. Thinking for them, trying to understand the world in a logical coherent manner only disturbs their torpid somnolence. Such folk don't want reason, logic or insight. They just want to stay mentally asleep in a sort of never ending torpor. One can't reason with these people.
The recently deceased Dr. Robert Altemeyer (he just passed in February of this year) wrote about this in his important book, "The Authoritarians."
These folk are the Fox News "ditto heads" who do what ever their dominant authoritarian leaders tell them to do (saving them from the painful experience of thinking for themselves).
Thank you for allowing me access to your posts. Your essays are unfailingly refreshing in a world of idiots.
I saw someone who was otherwise able to think but seemed to refuse to put in any of the work and thought something similar to this. Thinking for oneself is harder. Trying to investigate and consider different perspectives and different possibilities is harder.
Most people want to come home in the afternoon and not think. They want to turn on MSNBC or Fox and have their views beamed directly into their heads. There is no work and it is very annoying if anyone starts to point out what they've been brain washed with doesn't add up. Their favorite pastime is to make fun of the idiots on the other side of the coin since it helps prevent ever looking in the mirror.
Penny wise and pound foolish. You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig; a leopard doesn't change its spots. The older I become the more I appreciate these trite platitudes.
And by happy coincidence, the world's best YouTube travel vlogger, the one and only Harald Baldr, is also currently at large in Linh's homeland Vietnam!
Hello, I came across that guy, Mr Bladr, a few years ago. He seemed sort of ingenious in his ability to market himself as a world traveler. Nothing wrong with that. More power to him.
“While a rap tune might be one way to wind down, it’s not a banger for everyone.”
I need to get some sign making materials and recreate this gem of an understatement for display on the street near my apartment. It would augment the "P.I.T.S: PEACE IN THE STREETS" signs which some of the neighbors have placed in their lawns.
Wow Linh, I loved this! So interesting. I'll be glad when you are back in Viet Nam, though. The West seems kind of scary to me Even here in Sacramento.
linh, apparently you plan to be back in vietnam during the first biden-trump debate - scheduled 9 pm eastern daylight time, June 27 - i hope you will watch it and comment on it
and I wonder if you will bother to cast an absentee ballot in the presidential election this fall
spouse and self watched a television series about the royal flying doctor service in oz - here's a daily mail story that mentions it
A decade ago I was in Monash to do my bachelor's. Within the first year I had decided that Australia was not the country I wanted to invest my entrepreneurial spirit in (I was not interested in opening a restaurant, a boutique or a nail shop). Logistics moved at a snail's pace, people stopped working by 5pm, labour was costly, and most importantly, it seemed like people were content to just cruise along in life. Don't get me started on the random acts of violence in public.
I did not bother staying in the country after graduation, but I have made visits from time to time until 2019. With every visit I see an increasing dependence on large corporations or the government for jobs, while innovative or interesting SMEs were throttled and discouraged due to neoliberal economic policies that favoured large capitals. The few manufacturing-related cottage industries were barely eking out a living due to rising rent and competition from imported goods. With the exception of the hippiest places I could count with my hands, high streets in various towns outside of state capitals looked stagnant at best, but mostly depressing and run-down. Your photos reminded me of those high streets. Immigrants are corralled into the country to fill up low-wage jobs but noone is building low-cost housing for them, driving the lower and middle-classes out into the countryside just to be able to afford a roof over one's head.
Obviously if one is rich, one can live within the bubble of comfort that Australia is more than capable of providing. Just don't look at the mess below and all is fine.
Dear Mr. Dinh, I've learned a hard lesson recently. One, had I been a little bit smarter, I would have learned decades ago: Most people don't want to think. Thinking for them, trying to understand the world in a logical coherent manner only disturbs their torpid somnolence. Such folk don't want reason, logic or insight. They just want to stay mentally asleep in a sort of never ending torpor. One can't reason with these people.
The recently deceased Dr. Robert Altemeyer (he just passed in February of this year) wrote about this in his important book, "The Authoritarians."
These folk are the Fox News "ditto heads" who do what ever their dominant authoritarian leaders tell them to do (saving them from the painful experience of thinking for themselves).
Thank you for allowing me access to your posts. Your essays are unfailingly refreshing in a world of idiots.
I saw someone who was otherwise able to think but seemed to refuse to put in any of the work and thought something similar to this. Thinking for oneself is harder. Trying to investigate and consider different perspectives and different possibilities is harder.
Most people want to come home in the afternoon and not think. They want to turn on MSNBC or Fox and have their views beamed directly into their heads. There is no work and it is very annoying if anyone starts to point out what they've been brain washed with doesn't add up. Their favorite pastime is to make fun of the idiots on the other side of the coin since it helps prevent ever looking in the mirror.
It's kinda sad when I think about it.
Penny wise and pound foolish. You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig; a leopard doesn't change its spots. The older I become the more I appreciate these trite platitudes.
Flippin' A! 😀
And by happy coincidence, the world's best YouTube travel vlogger, the one and only Harald Baldr, is also currently at large in Linh's homeland Vietnam!
https://youtu.be/Fsgwcw2D-eI?si=EeyIwS6LFlv_z2LY
Hello, I came across that guy, Mr Bladr, a few years ago. He seemed sort of ingenious in his ability to market himself as a world traveler. Nothing wrong with that. More power to him.
“While a rap tune might be one way to wind down, it’s not a banger for everyone.”
I need to get some sign making materials and recreate this gem of an understatement for display on the street near my apartment. It would augment the "P.I.T.S: PEACE IN THE STREETS" signs which some of the neighbors have placed in their lawns.
Wow Linh, I loved this! So interesting. I'll be glad when you are back in Viet Nam, though. The West seems kind of scary to me Even here in Sacramento.
linh, apparently you plan to be back in vietnam during the first biden-trump debate - scheduled 9 pm eastern daylight time, June 27 - i hope you will watch it and comment on it
and I wonder if you will bother to cast an absentee ballot in the presidential election this fall
spouse and self watched a television series about the royal flying doctor service in oz - here's a daily mail story that mentions it
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13326617/Royal-flying-doctor-pilot-mick-young-viral-photo-kangaroo-port-augusta.html
musing about who is the most famous living australian - could it be nicole kidman?