The reason I think mandatory voting in Australia is nice (tiny fine for not doing it, so turn out is like 85-95% every time) is that because everyone obliged, it keeps voter disenfranchisement politically difficult. When you go to vote on election day, you wait 20 mins, tops, usually less, and you can vote ahead of time via mail or in person. It’s always Saturday for this reason too.

I’d argue it’s this easy partially because everyone HAS to do it, so if politicians start making it hard, people are gonna be pissed very quickly, so no one messes with the well-oiled machine.

And there are no stupid “get out to vote campaigns” wasting valuable headspace where instead we could be talking about actually issues.

Australia’s electoral system is far from perfect (single member local electorates which basically guarantees two stronger parties), but mandatory voting is definitely a feature I do not want to be rid of.

100% Reddit astroturfing. It’s so unnatural

I think that’s the point they were making.

Or rather, we replace the bad science with the best explanations we can offer, right now.

I’ll take the plumb pudding model over “deity did it, stop asking questions” any day, because you can still do something useful with it.

Doesn’t even matter if our understanding is wrong and will be updated later.

Science is the best philosophy 💪

I’d argue that while we are much more diligent than other countries, and regulations are much stronger. The average person doesn’t pay nearly enough attention, and the fact the UV index isn’t required to be mentioned on weather reports, or as prominently or more prominently than the temperature, is a big oversight in my opinion.

I check the UV every time I go outside (other than when it’s died down over winter), just as you’d check the temperature, and I think it’s wild barely anyone else does.

The sun is still awful here, the ozone hole is still a thing.

But thanks world, at least I can go out for a solid 4.5 months of the year without worrying about the sun at all, and 6 of only needing to be somewhat careful. Not too shabby :)

Why not just put them on the hook regardless? This seems like a really stupid way to achieve that goal, with horrific consequences.