
Don’t worry, Paul Graham, Australians aren’t all stupid - nreece
http://delimiter.com.au/2010/11/29/dont-worry-paul-graham-australians-arent-all-stupid/?
======
ra
Renai has a habit of writing link bait like this.

He made no friends with this one: [http://delimiter.com.au/2010/07/15/how-
long-can-atlassian-st...](http://delimiter.com.au/2010/07/15/how-long-can-
atlassian-stay-australian/#comment-12555)

(link to comment from Mike Cannon-Brooks, Atlassian cofounder)

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hartror
Probably not Renai's best bit of writing . . but the point is made. As it was
by quite a number of us on the original post.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1948436>

~~~
aymeric
Agreed, I feel he didn't present his arguments clearly.

~~~
thret
Hookers and blackjack tho.

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olalonde
Why get so defensive? PG was merely stating a fact.

~~~
jacques_chester

      Why is it that 90% of the stories we hear involving 
      Australia and technology are about stupid moves by the 
      government? Is there something unique about Australia?
    

This can be read as implying that Australians at-large are responsible. This
isn't really true, it's an anomaly of our voting system (proportional
representation in the Senate on a per-state basis) that sometimes leads to bad
policy.

So, for example, the retarded-policy bandwagon got rolling when Senator
Harradine from Tasmania held the balance of power. He was able to block bills
in the Senate and he used that power to get a lot of what he wanted, including
bulk pork for Tasmania and some stupid internet policies.

In the current Senate one of the cross-benchers (who can sometimes affect the
outcome of votes, depending on what the Greens and other cross-benchers do) is
Senator Fielding, a member of a speaking-in-tongues, happy-clappy christian
party. One of their pet peeves is pornography, they think it makes god most
displeased. Hence the government has been dangling the filtering stuff for
years to help secure his vote.

Technology-wise the current big argument is about a "National Broadband
Network" a AU$50 billion (or $35 billion, depending on how you count) project
to tear up Australia's copper network and replace it with fibre. To every home
in the country. In US terms that's approximately like a $630 billion project
(ie ~4.3% of GDP).

~~~
hartror
_... tear up Australia's copper network and replace it with fibre. To every
home in the country. In US terms that's approximately like a $630 billion
project._

This deserves front billing. It will make us the envy of the western world
when it comes to IT infrastructure and will hopefully drive a lot of
innovation. We are doing this at a time when the rest of the world bar China
(and thanks to China) is dealing with a crippling budget problem.

It isn't controversial so it doesn't hit the front page of (and I don't say
this to be inflammatory) American centric sites/blogs/media. There are many
sexy IT stories that appear in local media all the time, but don't get covered
simply because of where the mainstream blogs focus themselves.

I have read similar complaints from non-silicon valley types.

~~~
jacques_chester
> It isn't controversial so it doesn't hit the front page of (and I don't say
> this to be inflammatory) American centric sites/blogs/media

It is highly controversial. I run a blog network including the "Terrible Trio"
of Ozblog politics -- <http://catallaxyfiles.com/>,
<http://clubtroppo.com.au/> and <http://larvatusprodeo.net/> \-- and they
spend a lot of time arguing the pros and cons. The posters on Larvatus Prodeo
are generally bullish on the NBN, the posters on Catallaxy Files are quite
anti-NBN.

While I personally don't think that there can be any sensible technical
argument made about the supremacy of FTTH for performance, the technical
argument is not the key issue. It's about the cost-benefit tradeoffs, which
aren't being seriously explored.

Remember, this is the single largest infrastructure project in Australian
history -- bigger in adjusted dollars than the Snowy Mountains Scheme -- it
deserves some serious scrutiny on principle.

~~~
hartror
I mean controversial on the world stage. And I would be happy with it being
debated, pity the opposition is too busy trying to scuttle the government to
actually provide a cohesive argument and analysis.

~~~
jacques_chester
> I mean controversial on the world stage.

Why would it be controversial on the world stage? It largely only affects us,
it's too small an amount to place our government bonds under serious pressure
and Australia's economy is only 1/50th of the world economy.

While it is very important for Australians to debate the issue, I don't see
why anyone else would need to care. To be honest, arguments about port
development in the Pilbara region are far more important to the world economy
than FTTH.

~~~
hartror
Gah!

> It isn't controversial so it doesn't hit the front page of American centric
> sites/blogs/media.

This is the context in which I said it was not controversial to which you said
it was. I never said it WAS controversial on the world stage, in fact that was
my original point.

~~~
jacques_chester
Sorry, I misread your post.

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rodh257
Poorly written article, but the main point is that some of the comments made
over the last few days were a bit rough, and misinformed.

We had a government with a huge majority plan to install a mandatory internet
filter and everyone met it with huge opposition, it was quite clearly voted
against in a number of areas, and as such the parliament is setup so that it
is impossible for them to pass it.The reason that you had seen articles on the
internet filter is because Australians were outraged by it all.

Not only that, but we're pushing ahead with a national fiber network, which
will provide brilliant opportunities for startups, 100 mbit or higher to the
majority of citizens is the goal. Pretty impressive for a country with such a
spread out population.

I'm not saying our government isn't dumb, but aren't they all? What I'm saying
(and I guess what the author of this horrible article is saying) is that
Australia isn't a black hole for technical innovation, and it would be unwise
to ignore the opportunities that can arise from having fast internet across
the nation - especially given we are doing it in rural areas as well, plenty
of opportunities for startups in e-health, agriculture and mining.

------
invisible
You might want to fix your link concerning Startmate:
[http://delimiter.com.au/2010/11/29/dont-worry-paul-graham-
au...](http://delimiter.com.au/2010/11/29/dont-worry-paul-graham-australians-
arent-all-stupid/news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1616586)
(news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1616586) should be
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1616586>

------
wyclif
What Australian startups are hiring American developers, _and_ taking care of
the work visa?

~~~
pufuwozu
Atlassian will help with getting a visa - might be a stretch to still call it
a startup, though.

