"Good for him. This was an absolute ridiculous case."
Absolutely so. I watched Tom's Explosions & Fire video just after he published it and as he said this prosecution was a gross overreaction by authorities. I say that as someone who once worked in nuclear safeguards/surveillance (I'm an ardent non-proliferation guy).
Living in Australia one has become to expect such incidents although this was the first one involving nuclear materials. The reasons are complex and too difficult to describe in detail here but it's a combination of poor education in tech matters, a very timid, risk averse and conservative Australian population and the fact that we've precious little high tech industries/infrastructure, concomitantly we've almost no high tech culture to speak of.
Moreover, it wasn't always like this, it has gotten worse over the years. For instance, when I was at school quite some decades ago we had samples of metallic uranium and some small amounts of other radioactive materials to do physics experiments with. Today, the mere thought of that would send shivers down the backs of educators and most of the population.
Such high levels of timidy and concern are not just limited to radioactive materials, the same concern applies to chemicals well and above that necessary to protect public safety—for instance, the state where I live has now banned fireworks (and that's just for starters).
That has ramifications past just safety considerations, one of the reasons I became interested in chemistry was fireworks and that we leaned to make black powder in highschool chemistry and actually got to test it (today, even that's banned in our school system). Similarly, we've even produced a generation of kids and young adults who've never seen liquid mercury.
Let no one say I'm against safety as I'm particularly careful around dangerous substances. That said, you can have both in a well regulated environment and with a well educated population.
Without hands-on experience, Australia is deskilling its population and tragically this unfortunate prosecution is testament to that.
Superstition and witch-burning are natural human behaviors. Philosophy has always required a ceaseless struggle against them. William Kamkwamba was nearly lynched by his neighbors for building a windmill.
Thanks for the info, I wasn't aware of the fact. BTW, I've always thought civilization is only one step removed from superstition and witch-burning if but not for the fact of education.
That film was made about 40 years ago and even then the Dundee character was a dying breed and only found in pockets of Australian society—those parts where life was hard and day-to-day activities were hands-on with the physical world (like those portrayed in the film).
Even in the '80s most Australians wouldn't have lived and worked like that, these days much less so. Most Australians live in a highly urbanized city environment and many of them live in high-rise buildings without even a backyard. Moreover, nowadays, they mostly work in the service industries such as banking, finance, tourism and retail. Put simply, a reasonable percentage would hardly know one end of a screwdriver from another let alone perform manual labour or know how to ride a horse, or use a lathe or milling machine.
That may sound harsh but having lived through that time (I was an adult when the film was released) I reckon that's a reasonable assessment. You also need to keep in mind that Australia has essentially killed off its manufacturing industries over that time with China being the beneficiary. Thus, Australian society has lost many of those hands-on, down-to-earth skills it had at the end of WWII through to the end of the 1960s. Today's Australian society is nothing like it was when I was growing up, I now live in a totally different world.
BTW, what made Paul Hogan (Dundee) so suitable for the film's character was that he is one of that dying breed of hardworking ruffians and was so before he became an actor, his persona was essentially behind the making of the film. He came from the rough outback opal mining town of Lightning Ridge and then worked as a rigger on the Sydney Harbour Bridge—a very dangerous job that required working at hundreds of feet in the air—those with the slightest fear of heights would have been terrified, and that would include most Australians. (I can say that because in my younger days I used to work on radio and television towers—shame I can't show you photos I took from the top of them).
Absolutely so. I watched Tom's Explosions & Fire video just after he published it and as he said this prosecution was a gross overreaction by authorities. I say that as someone who once worked in nuclear safeguards/surveillance (I'm an ardent non-proliferation guy).
Living in Australia one has become to expect such incidents although this was the first one involving nuclear materials. The reasons are complex and too difficult to describe in detail here but it's a combination of poor education in tech matters, a very timid, risk averse and conservative Australian population and the fact that we've precious little high tech industries/infrastructure, concomitantly we've almost no high tech culture to speak of.
Moreover, it wasn't always like this, it has gotten worse over the years. For instance, when I was at school quite some decades ago we had samples of metallic uranium and some small amounts of other radioactive materials to do physics experiments with. Today, the mere thought of that would send shivers down the backs of educators and most of the population.
Such high levels of timidy and concern are not just limited to radioactive materials, the same concern applies to chemicals well and above that necessary to protect public safety—for instance, the state where I live has now banned fireworks (and that's just for starters).
That has ramifications past just safety considerations, one of the reasons I became interested in chemistry was fireworks and that we leaned to make black powder in highschool chemistry and actually got to test it (today, even that's banned in our school system). Similarly, we've even produced a generation of kids and young adults who've never seen liquid mercury.
Let no one say I'm against safety as I'm particularly careful around dangerous substances. That said, you can have both in a well regulated environment and with a well educated population.
Without hands-on experience, Australia is deskilling its population and tragically this unfortunate prosecution is testament to that.