Anyone in academic international relations knows Realism is the only thing that matters.
I suppose since HN is a Western tech website, they don't know international relations and believe in International Relations Idealism/institutionalism.
It's genuinely US vs China now.
You can go full neutral Ukraine and see how that works out. You can side with China who has 0 political freedom and did 100,000,000 forced abortions.
Gosh if Kamala was elected, there'd still be a war in Iran, but we'd pretend it's different. Obama bombed Syria and no one cared.
The orange man is unbelievably incompetent, but this happened in Athens with Alcibidies and Cleon. Do we hate giving the uneducated masses a vote?
As an Australian, I have noticed a shift personally in feeling like I identify more with "European" culture, compared to 10 years ago I felt like we were the 51st state and I felt very close with the US.
This seems to be shared by others, I remember reading there was a survey that asked Australians who they felt our closest international friend was. The US was the top answer for over a decade, having stolen the crown from the UK I think in the late 90s or something. Recently though, it switched to New Zealand.
Australia's alignment with the US was a major consequence of World War 2 and the aftermath of that.
Pre WW2 we were basically in lockstep with the UK. However after Singapore fell to the Japanese it became increasingly obvious that the UK could not be relied upon to defend Australia. At the time most of the elite Australian troops were fighting in North Africa (El-Alamein, Tobruk etc). and there was a genuine perceived threat that Australia could be invaded. PNG which was Australian territory at the time was invaded. The Japanese bombing of Darwin only intensified this.
Almost overnight our foreign policy swung behind the US instead. Post WW2 this led to things like the ANZUS Treaty. It is the reason there are US military bases in Australia and the reason why we have followed the US into all of their wars which we arguably had no business involving ourselves in (Vietnam, Iraq etc.).
Personally I feel the recent actions of the US are not beneficial to Australia's interests at all. Trump has squandered an awful lot of accumulated goodwill already, even if another government is elected in US a lot of damage has already been done.
I've been thinking the silver lining of the current situation is that we'll be less inclined to send troops to aid US in their latest Middle East boondoggle, in the expectation of reciprocation in the future.
In other online spaces, I've seen some conservative commenters from the US asserting that America is so powerful, the rest of the world has no choice but to go along with them, and therefore there is no need to maintain good relationships and the US should do what most immediately benefits itself at all times. Certainly, there are some areas where we simply have to play along with the US, but I think they are underestimating the amount of things where they will no longer be our first choice to deal with.
From the American side it felt like we had more cross-pollination with Australia in the 90s than in the decades following. Disney even had a studio out there that animated some of the TV shows it aired in the US (and presumably in Australia too).
There was a really great writeup by someone who worked in that Disney animation shop on a blog I once stumbled on - he wrote about how he took on the 'job of a lifetime' as a teenager while his mother was terminally ill and how that impacts your priorities.
Incredibly moving read that I unfortunately can't find now, but it covered how the Sydney office ended, from memory it was a combination of CGI changing the industry, and cost - Australian wages weren't cheap and the studio was mostly used for producing direct-to-video sequels which was a market that dried up.
The actual big influence on the Australian-American cross pollination though, I suspect, was Rupert Murdoch's expansion into the American film and TV industry. For all his faults, he was a big champion of talent from his homeland in both his movies and Fox TV network. Even the infamous Simpsons Australia episode was likely influenced by the big influence of Australians at Fox at that time.
Apart from the "Crocodile Dundee" and "Men at Work" phenomena in the late 80s, there is no real cultural pollination between Australia and the US, as far as I can tell. It's too far away and there are no real reasons for Americans to visit, nor are there enough internationally notable Australian music brands, films, or products that give visibility to the country, which is one price of being a commodity producing nation rather than finished goods. We know about Japanese and British prodigious cultural output, Japanese manufactures, German cars and Swiss machine tools and watches, but what product makes Australia stand out? Coal, copper, etc.
Didn't Australia used to have an auto industry? I kinda feel like Australia stopped producing culturally relevant output in the late 80s or 90s.
Haven’t Australians just moved to US - Keith Urban, Chris Hemsworth, Russel Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and the list goes on … it’s not the same way as Japanese’s or Korean output, because English as the native language makes the transition seamless and doesn’t stand out.
Oh! I forgot JIRA and Atlassian are Australian too :D Now you really can’t deny you haven’t felt the Australian influence in your life. Lol
In the 80-90's, the most popular destination for Australians was the UK: Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue, Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance fame) and many others moved up there.
I'm surprised - aren't AU & NZ super close culturally and aligned politically? I would have thought the US, CA, et al would be vying for a distant second.
Not only close, but NZ was originally slated to join Australia and is indeed named in the original Australian Constitution (that created federation) as one of the original 7 states.
As a German guy who backpacked through Australia for a while when I was studying the drinking culture definitely made you guys seem European I can you tell you that much, I didn't feel far from home
I'm guessing Canada and Australia would go for an EFTA 'lite' type deal. As EFTA doesn't require a customs union it's probably the easiest to implement and build up from.
I think they amended EFTA to require free movement which was a no-op as all the EFTA countries had free movement with the EU. I could see the EU agreeing to a NAFTA style workers visa if they really wanted push the freedom of movement side hence the 'lite' bit.
It is an interesting position we are in here, I suspect we will do the usual thing and walk the middle road. Australia, is part of the Commonwealth, huge trade partner with Asia and allies with the US. Why not throw Canada into the mix some more.
This setup is why I call this place an equal opportunist whore. If we can do business with you, we will. I also call it the worlds largest Mining town, but that just acknowledging the reality of the place a little.
As much as many are going against the US, I don't think there is much constitution at the top here to make such a bold move. We will just be pottering around down here hoping all the bad stuff passes us by as nobody notices us.
I'm Australian and am increasingly ok with this approach. I'm growing slowly out of a protectionist mindset, toward one of cautious, and considered collaboration. Singapore follows this approach and it has worked well for them so far.
Singapore is a city, Australia is a continent. Singapore is a poor analog for pretty much every other country. It was founded precisely because it sits near a busy sea route. It makes sense for Singapore to be very open to trade. That does not mean it works for Australia.
(I'm not arguing that the reverse is true, just that Singapore proves nothing.)
India does the same. They try to be friendly (or at least on business terms) with as many countries as they can and stay out of global conflicts as much as possible. They were buying oil from Russia well after the Russia-Ukraine war started. It also worked well for India as they were able to get rock bottom prices.
From a purely economic standpoint, this would make sense. Not sure what to feel about the ethics of it though - at least part of the Russian war bill was footed by the money India paid for Russian oil. One can argue the Ukraine's problems are not India's problems. One could also argue it would be nice to not fund shitty wars, even a little, even indirectly.
Geopolitics is a complex subject I suppose, for a layman like me.
Russian crude made up 35-40% of India's oil imports in 2024. I'm sure it is not much different at present. Although a bill just passed through congress that will allow Trump to put up to a 100% Tariff on Indian imports.
The Australian government has always taken "great interest" in what Canada does in regards to policy - they practically copy Canada all the time, even my Economics lecturer made a point about this. This isn't news.
Australia also has a huge problem with exports. For decades, China had huge demand for Australia's resources, particularly Iron Ore. However China is reducing this, so Australia needs a new plan.
There are many obvious differences, but Canada and Australia share many characteristics and I find myself comparing to Aussies. Similar population, massive landmass, population mostly contained in narrow stripes at the edges, ex UK colony, middle power, etc..
you might be overstating the problem. for sure there's overreliance on China which is decreasing slightly (1-3% from what I remember), but Australian exports are still increasing because of the US, India, Japan and many others
Just to be clear on this - Australia is primarily interested in methods of reducing trade barriers, not any sort of political union.
Australia is economically served well by free trade: most of its production is low cost, high quality primary production of mining outputs and agricultural goods (grains, wool and meat) where if price and quality are the primary selection criteria it wins.
The downside of this is that Australia hasn't really got any significant manufacturing or advanced technology industry.
But it has made Australia one of the best performing economies of the past 25 years.
The high performing economies that didn't make it illegal to build are high performing because of that.
This is why the highest standard of living on the planet, with the highest GDP over the largest population... is in Texas.
The fact the people there aren't pathologically conservative/authoritarian in the "build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything" sense is the precise reason why that is.
As an Australian, I don't think our 'heritage' is of much consequence. Current constituency and overall stability matter more, to me.
If you mean 'our British heritage' as in, the percentage of the Australian population with British backgrounds, then that counts towards 'current constituency' in my definition.
This is unfair to the aboriginals, however, and that's a circle I believe is impossible to square.
It's because the British heritage involved committing huge crimes against the indigenous folks that we haven't really acknowledged and haven't dealt with. We can't move on until we do. So we're kinda stuck.
I think it's fairly well acknowledged, but there is no 'dealt with' that fits into any kind of reality I'm familiar with.
My purely observational understanding is that there are fundamental incompatibilities between aboriginal and 'western/British' culture. "Ownership" of land as probably the primary example. I don't know how that gets 'dealt with'.
I don’t know the discussion in Australia, but in Alaska (also having an indigenous population with land ownership) they found solutions. Regional “native corporations” were given large amounts of valuable land, natives were given preferential resource rights (fishing, etc).
Not everything is perfect (far from it), but a lot has been done.
As yes, I was wondering when my Federal government’s sense of FOMO would compel it to needlessly yap into the void like anybody cares. I see today was the day.
That's a brilliant move by von der Leyen and Mark Carney (I guess he's in on it as well).
There is currently no such status as "associate member" defined in the EU treates although the idea of special status for not being a complete member was floating around for a while now.
Just calling it a "unique alliance" or "deepening of their relationship" wouldn't have had such a public effect.
Half of the right wing influencers on X is going bananas because when the US was "offering" Canada to join them, they said a firm "NO" but for the EU they are opening the door.
Trump even said when the Canada joins the EU as associate member, it could be considered a hostile act.
All that for a status nobody knows yet what it will entail. More than a simple trade deal, for sure, but also a lot less than a proper membership.
While there isn't an official "associate member" status, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland all have custom deals with the EU so this just codifies what already exists in an ad-hoc form.
The only bit the EU is rowing back is that they mentioned during BRExit that there would be no more custom deals so this simply a case of the realpolitik winning out.
I'm sure the UK will be looking at this very carefully as well.
There is this Venn diagram[1]. Canada could shift into the Council of Europe like Georgia or join Schengen with an independent currency like the Swiss. The latter would be a nice arrangement for Canadian passport holders.
Canada doesn't share a land border with any Schengen countries, so I'm not sure how valuable passport-free travel would be - you're already taking a transatlantic flight, it's not like passport control is a huge additional hassle.
However, I could see a big argument for a labour mobility agreement similar to the NAFTA model, where EU citizens in a long list of professions have the right to work in Canada and vice-versa.
Canada is just trying to encourage Europe to invest in Canada which is fine I suppose… all the power to Europeans if they want to invest their money here instead of the US… but I am not holding my breath
US GDP is mostly imaginary and not tangible. It's dependent on both international respect for intellectual property laws (reason for the anger toward China), and the natural resources of other lands (that have had their governments blamed by the current administration actively misleading US citizens about provenance of what is needed to sustain American life)
Intellectual property laws being recognized, US fiat currency, etc. vs. the hard value of natural resources of these other countries (that the US would prefer to try to annex and loot since the former is not a base you can build on)
When you're deciding on long term trade and economic policy, are you thinking about fabricated valuations of US tech companies, or whether you have energy, minerals, and food supply that have an actual value attached?
GDP is not "imaginary" or "not tangible" anymore than an accounting statement of profit and loss is imaginary. It is a very real thing but you have some subtle approaches about how you measure things like depreciation or what accounting rules you follow. The fact that a lot of people don't understand this stuff doesn't mean it is arbitrary or has no meaning. There are also huge teams of accountants that spend tens of thousands of hours getting these statistics, and their work is much maligned by the smarmy internet posters who think they know better at how to determine profit and loss.
GDP is just national value added, and was developed in the early 20th century and broadly used during the Great Depression to measure economic activity. It is good at what it does. People have taken it to measure military power, wealth, success, happiness, capability to build a specific thing, fertility, etc. That is the fault of people not understanding what GDP is or what it was meant to measure, it's not the fault of the metric itself, or the carefully developed system of accounting conventions that were developed over a hundred years of refinement.
I really think there should be mandatory accountancy training in universal education to get people to understand this stuff. The millions of hours saved in online arguments alone would make this a good investment.
Having said that, the valuation of tech companies is based on market sentiment, not accountancy rules. I don't pretend to understand how many of the companies on the equities exchanges are valued, they all seem to be too pricey for me. That, too, has nothing to do with GDP.
CFMEU sounded like some EU thing, but it's not, it's Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU), one of Australia's largest blue-collar trade unions.
Anyone in academic international relations knows Realism is the only thing that matters.
I suppose since HN is a Western tech website, they don't know international relations and believe in International Relations Idealism/institutionalism.
It's genuinely US vs China now.
You can go full neutral Ukraine and see how that works out. You can side with China who has 0 political freedom and did 100,000,000 forced abortions.
Gosh if Kamala was elected, there'd still be a war in Iran, but we'd pretend it's different. Obama bombed Syria and no one cared.
The orange man is unbelievably incompetent, but this happened in Athens with Alcibidies and Cleon. Do we hate giving the uneducated masses a vote?
This seems to be shared by others, I remember reading there was a survey that asked Australians who they felt our closest international friend was. The US was the top answer for over a decade, having stolen the crown from the UK I think in the late 90s or something. Recently though, it switched to New Zealand.
Pre WW2 we were basically in lockstep with the UK. However after Singapore fell to the Japanese it became increasingly obvious that the UK could not be relied upon to defend Australia. At the time most of the elite Australian troops were fighting in North Africa (El-Alamein, Tobruk etc). and there was a genuine perceived threat that Australia could be invaded. PNG which was Australian territory at the time was invaded. The Japanese bombing of Darwin only intensified this.
Almost overnight our foreign policy swung behind the US instead. Post WW2 this led to things like the ANZUS Treaty. It is the reason there are US military bases in Australia and the reason why we have followed the US into all of their wars which we arguably had no business involving ourselves in (Vietnam, Iraq etc.).
Personally I feel the recent actions of the US are not beneficial to Australia's interests at all. Trump has squandered an awful lot of accumulated goodwill already, even if another government is elected in US a lot of damage has already been done.
In other online spaces, I've seen some conservative commenters from the US asserting that America is so powerful, the rest of the world has no choice but to go along with them, and therefore there is no need to maintain good relationships and the US should do what most immediately benefits itself at all times. Certainly, there are some areas where we simply have to play along with the US, but I think they are underestimating the amount of things where they will no longer be our first choice to deal with.
Not sure what changed.
Incredibly moving read that I unfortunately can't find now, but it covered how the Sydney office ended, from memory it was a combination of CGI changing the industry, and cost - Australian wages weren't cheap and the studio was mostly used for producing direct-to-video sequels which was a market that dried up.
The actual big influence on the Australian-American cross pollination though, I suspect, was Rupert Murdoch's expansion into the American film and TV industry. For all his faults, he was a big champion of talent from his homeland in both his movies and Fox TV network. Even the infamous Simpsons Australia episode was likely influenced by the big influence of Australians at Fox at that time.
Didn't Australia used to have an auto industry? I kinda feel like Australia stopped producing culturally relevant output in the late 80s or 90s.
Oh! I forgot JIRA and Atlassian are Australian too :D Now you really can’t deny you haven’t felt the Australian influence in your life. Lol
In the 80-90's, the most popular destination for Australians was the UK: Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue, Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance fame) and many others moved up there.
(which like most good Australian innovations only became global when it was licensed to another country, in Bluey's case the BBC/UK)
You are probably listening or watching the same folks who are calling the UK an "Islamic sultanate".
I think they amended EFTA to require free movement which was a no-op as all the EFTA countries had free movement with the EU. I could see the EU agreeing to a NAFTA style workers visa if they really wanted push the freedom of movement side hence the 'lite' bit.
This setup is why I call this place an equal opportunist whore. If we can do business with you, we will. I also call it the worlds largest Mining town, but that just acknowledging the reality of the place a little.
As much as many are going against the US, I don't think there is much constitution at the top here to make such a bold move. We will just be pottering around down here hoping all the bad stuff passes us by as nobody notices us.
(I'm not arguing that the reverse is true, just that Singapore proves nothing.)
its an island and a country on it's own.
but its posistioning is relevent yes.
From a purely economic standpoint, this would make sense. Not sure what to feel about the ethics of it though - at least part of the Russian war bill was footed by the money India paid for Russian oil. One can argue the Ukraine's problems are not India's problems. One could also argue it would be nice to not fund shitty wars, even a little, even indirectly.
Geopolitics is a complex subject I suppose, for a layman like me.
It's weird India gets held to this standard. Don't European countries still buy some natural gas from Russia?
I want a government which does the cost effective thing, not one which tries to make statements with bold headlines.
I want boring government policy which sensibly hedges against future risk in correct appreciation of our unbelievably fortunate geopolitical luck.
Australia also has a huge problem with exports. For decades, China had huge demand for Australia's resources, particularly Iron Ore. However China is reducing this, so Australia needs a new plan.
Australia is economically served well by free trade: most of its production is low cost, high quality primary production of mining outputs and agricultural goods (grains, wool and meat) where if price and quality are the primary selection criteria it wins.
The downside of this is that Australia hasn't really got any significant manufacturing or advanced technology industry.
But it has made Australia one of the best performing economies of the past 25 years.
Has had implications on housing affordability, but it's great for GDP statistics.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/aus/aus...
Which high performing economy DOESN'T struggle with housing affordability?
>mostly through immigration
*SKILLED immigration
This is why the highest standard of living on the planet, with the highest GDP over the largest population... is in Texas.
The fact the people there aren't pathologically conservative/authoritarian in the "build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything" sense is the precise reason why that is.
If you mean 'our British heritage' as in, the percentage of the Australian population with British backgrounds, then that counts towards 'current constituency' in my definition.
This is unfair to the aboriginals, however, and that's a circle I believe is impossible to square.
My purely observational understanding is that there are fundamental incompatibilities between aboriginal and 'western/British' culture. "Ownership" of land as probably the primary example. I don't know how that gets 'dealt with'.
Not everything is perfect (far from it), but a lot has been done.
There is currently no such status as "associate member" defined in the EU treates although the idea of special status for not being a complete member was floating around for a while now.
Just calling it a "unique alliance" or "deepening of their relationship" wouldn't have had such a public effect.
Half of the right wing influencers on X is going bananas because when the US was "offering" Canada to join them, they said a firm "NO" but for the EU they are opening the door.
Trump even said when the Canada joins the EU as associate member, it could be considered a hostile act.
All that for a status nobody knows yet what it will entail. More than a simple trade deal, for sure, but also a lot less than a proper membership.
The only bit the EU is rowing back is that they mentioned during BRExit that there would be no more custom deals so this simply a case of the realpolitik winning out.
I'm sure the UK will be looking at this very carefully as well.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1qbq43v/european_in...
However, I could see a big argument for a labour mobility agreement similar to the NAFTA model, where EU citizens in a long list of professions have the right to work in Canada and vice-versa.
Intellectual property laws being recognized, US fiat currency, etc. vs. the hard value of natural resources of these other countries (that the US would prefer to try to annex and loot since the former is not a base you can build on)
When you're deciding on long term trade and economic policy, are you thinking about fabricated valuations of US tech companies, or whether you have energy, minerals, and food supply that have an actual value attached?
GDP is just national value added, and was developed in the early 20th century and broadly used during the Great Depression to measure economic activity. It is good at what it does. People have taken it to measure military power, wealth, success, happiness, capability to build a specific thing, fertility, etc. That is the fault of people not understanding what GDP is or what it was meant to measure, it's not the fault of the metric itself, or the carefully developed system of accounting conventions that were developed over a hundred years of refinement.
I really think there should be mandatory accountancy training in universal education to get people to understand this stuff. The millions of hours saved in online arguments alone would make this a good investment.
Having said that, the valuation of tech companies is based on market sentiment, not accountancy rules. I don't pretend to understand how many of the companies on the equities exchanges are valued, they all seem to be too pricey for me. That, too, has nothing to do with GDP.