The Voice Referendum in Australia

I am afraid the Voice referendum will fail because of the style and substance of the Yes campaign.

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On October 14, the Australians will vote for a constitutional amendment aimed at giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders representation as a permanent bloc in the Parliament. The government announced the referendum text last year and now the date is set.

The Yes votes started strong at the beginning but have been falling since then:

It was 65% ten months ago and it is 45% now. The Australian Electoral Commission site says that in order for a referendum to pass, it needs to be agreed to by the majority of voters nationally, as well as the majority of voters in the majority of states. This test is called the Double Majority..

The reason that the sentiment is turning from Yes to No is the way the Yes campaign is conducted I think. Based on what I hear from the politicians and other campaigners, I can summarise the Yes narrative as follows: The Yes option is the only right option. We believe in the justice sense of the Australian people. Therefore, we are sure their good sense will prevail and they will vote Yes.

When this does not work the first time, they repeat louder and then more people join the chorus.

I am not a politician but I do not think the argument ‘you must say Yes; otherwise you are not good people’ is convincing.

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Why will I vote Yes?

Both sides of the politics accept that the living conditions of Aborigines today are bad. Compared to the rest of the population, they live unhealthier lives, receive less education, go to prison more quickly, and die faster. Since my arrival, the Australian Commonwealth has tried perhaps ten different methods to improve the situation; and has failed in all of them. I believe that one reason for the failure was that the solutions always came from top. A delegation elected from among Aborigines and their inclusion the parliament may contribute to the search for better solutions by starting the search from bottom to top. It will also help the adoption of these solutions by the Aboriginal population. Finally, a permanent representation and elected representatives would act as role models for aboriginal youth and help them engage with the society better.

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Why are they saying No?

Friends who are considering to vote No have the following reservations about the proposal:

• The premise is too vague. More radical steps will come later. For example, some believe that if there is a Yes vote, this will soon lead to signing a Treaty with the Aboriginals. This means that 3% of the population (the current Aboriginal ratio according to the Census) will be given rights and benefits ahead of the remaining 97%.

• If the proposal is accepted and mistakes are discovered later, it will be difficult to hold a new referendum and reverse the constitutional amendment. We would then have to continue with a broken system.

• If the proposal is approved, the winners will not be real Aboriginals but charlatans trying to get rich by exploiting them.

The first reservation is not valid methinks. The proposed Aboriginal representation is said to only have advisory power. Whether to process with any of its advice will be at the discretion of the government and will be voted in the parliament. Whatever the Aboriginal delegation recommends, what the parliamentary majority does not want will not pass.

The second reservation is disingenious. Technically it is true, but by this token, no Constitutional amendment can be made lest it may turn out to be a mistake.

The third reservation, I think, is valid. “Who is the real Aboriginals?” discussion will start from the point of who can be considered Aboriginal and eligible to vote to elect the Voice representation if the referendum succeeds. The conditions that the state currently deems necessary and sufficient to be Aboriginal are as follows:

• Come from Aboriginal ancestry

• Self-identification

• Aboriginal community recognition.

In other words, if someone applies to the government to benefit from the rights granted to Aboriginal people (for example, university with free scholarship), the government looks at the above three conditions to make a decision.

When it comes to elections and representation in the parliament, I think these three conditions are not sufficient. More rigorous measures are needed otherwise we will run the risk of stacking the aboriginal electorates with new “aboriginals” by unscrupulous candidates and corruption. The first thing that comes to mind is genetic testing, but equivalents to the gene tests used to distinguish US natives from later arrivals are not possible in Australia because there is not a rich enough Aboriginal gene database. There may be other methods that will work.

My point is that the Yes campaign is ignoring and even blocking these issues to their own peril. I hope they change their strategy.

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Why do I think the No will win?

The Yes side believes that everyone who is not a racist will vote Yes; so instead of answering the question 'Why Yes?', they choose to imply that anyone who says No must be a racist. Some No spokespeople actually deserve such an accusation. However, their racist rhetoric does not mean that anyone who has reservations about the proposition is a racist.

Unless the Yes camp acknowledges and replies to the reservations of people whose votes are leaning towards No, the No trend will continue to grow. The party who wants a change must always explain why change is necessary and how everything will be better after the change. That's why opposing change is always easier. It is sufficient to intimidate the nation by saying 'This will end very badly'. People are always afraid of the unknown.

That's why if they want to win this referendum, the Yes side must clearly and explicitly explain what they are proposing and what kind of change they envision, without virtue signaling. Unfortunately, they don't seem to understand this yet.

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Short Takes

I haven't written on AI for a long time. Actually, I follow the developments of LLM (Large Language Models) very closely, and I am working on the same subject myself, but I do not think what I do will attract the attention of other readers yet. At higher level, there seems to be both a lot going on and at the same time not much going on. I mean there is a lot of noise but no beef yet. Some developments are as follows:

• OpenAI, the inventor of ChatGPT, started monetizing their invention. With the new Enterprise product, which offers the ChatGPT software to companies, their monthly income reportedly reached 80 million. Since it's a private company, they don't have to disclose their balance sheet, so I don't know how much of that revenue is profit..

• Google offered a similar service a week ago. But since Google's LLMs are not as good as ChatGPT, I expect the demand to be low. Google knows this and has included open source Llama2 on its platform probably for that reason. Llama2 is open source, but because it is a model with too many parameters, it does not work without a GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) and needs lots of RAM (memory). I cannot run it on my computer for example. Even Google Colabs (a Google service to developers) fail for real-size problems. So, Google rents its GPU machines to companies wanting to use Llama2. One cannot earn much money by renting machinery.

• By releasing Llama2, Meta (i.e. Facebook) wanted to hurt OpenAI's revenue stream. I think the fact that it avoids direct competition with OpenAI by offering a similar service is itself an indication of how technically empty Meta has become.

• Baidu launched ChatGPT Chinese equivalent 'Ernie' last week. To use it, you need to have a Baidu account and get a license to use Ernie. It takes a month or two to open a new Baidu account and get this license. That's why I didn't try.

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You Tube

The video I chose for you this week says that ideologies are like pyramids. At the base of the pyramid are basic motives and understandings. For example, rights, justice, equality, etc. As you go higher up, these basic motives transform to some abstract symbols and slogans. Different ideologies have different symbols and slogans even though they may share the same basic values.

The fight between ideologies, for example what is currently taking place as culture wars in the USA, inevitably occurs at the level of symbols and slogans. It wouldn't be a problem if all parties had good intentions, but some who believe in different ideas have selfish and hidden purposes. Ashley, who presented the video, calls them pathological fans. The pathological subscribers to different ideas fight at the level of symbols, which they bend to their interpretation, and they also stigmatize the opponents according to the rhetoric of their most extreme pathological advocates. That's why people who basically defend the same basics can become enemies by getting stirred up by pathologists on both sides.

I watched a few more Ashley (no last name) videos. I think she deserves more followers. She is able to express complex and interesting concepts in a simple way.

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Diary

Taylan and Yi (and Eleanor for 11 months now) come for dinner once a week. Once every few weeks, I turn the grill on.

For BBQ, I always buy rib fillet (entrecote). I buy a whole piece and have the butcher slice it. I usually buy some lamb chops too. Kids love cutlets. Even Eleanor loves nibbling on a cutlet.

An hour before putting the steaks on the grill, I take them out of the fridge and rub olive oil on both sides. Lamb chops don't need anything.

I have a gas barbecue. I do not keep spare cylinders for safety concerns. So I weigh the tube just in case. The full tube weighs 17, the empty tube weighs 9 kilograms. If it is close, I go and buy a new cylinder in case I run out of gas while the meat is cooking.

I use a spring scale:

No new cylinder was needed this time. I lit the stove, and when the grill got hot, I started with the steaks:

Steaks are about 2-cm thick and I cook them three minutes on each side. I use a high setting for the first 30 seconds, then continue at medium flame.

I am wearing the apron that was a Father's Day gift from Taylan and Yi last year. The birds are Pascal and Hagi.

Here are the cooked steaks:

And then it is the turn of the lamb chops:

I keep them on the grill a little bit longer:

Meat was cooked exactly as I wanted. Taylan might have liked it a little more raw maybe, but other members of the family, including me, like it medium rare.: