Online racial trolling & BigFooty.

[CharlieMortdecai]

If we didn't settle here, and this land was left untouched, life expectancy would not have changed here and life would have continued on like it did for the previous 60 000 years here.

Holy s**t, you don't really believe life and society was the same for 60k years do you? It was as a diverse and ever changing as anywhere else on the globe.

 

[Xtreme]

Maybe he was injured.

At this point Goodesy transcended the earthly plane into the realms of myth and legend.

He only sat out one week.... ONE WEEK.

You've got someone like Buddy having 10+ weeks for a "hammy" and an ex footballer who disappeared from the face of the earth after blowback from hooking up with a "great mate's" former partner.

I feel it was an attempt to stage manage the 'situation'.

 

[Holy Rioli]

Holy sh*t, you don't really believe life and society was the same for 60k years do you? It was as a diverse and ever changing as anywhere else on the globe.

Sure things evolved and changed, but 200 years is a drop in the ocean. As I said if it was left untouched by the outside world, I doubt there would have been any change in life expectancy or averages.

And why just quote this part, why ignore my strong beliefs and values on how Indigenous Australians have been treated, even to this very day?

 

[CharlieMortdecai]

Sure things evolved and changed, but 200 years is a drop in the ocean. As I said if it was left untouched by the outside world, I doubt there would have been any change in life expectancy or averages.

And why just quote this part, why ignore my strong beliefs and values on how Indigenous Australians have been treated, even to this very day?

I was just quoting the bit that flabbergasted me. I am in total agreeance that we should be empowering Indigenous Australians to improve a whole range of outcomes.
The counterfactual that if the continent remained walled off from the rest of the world life expectancy outcomes would have remained the same is too ridiculous to contemplate. The fifth biggest continent was not going to sit there undiscovered like some remote part of the Amazon.
I don't know if there are any good estimates of life expectancy in pre-colonial Australia. We can be fairly certain it sharply declined immediately after white settlement among groups in contact with settlers, and that pattern no doubt continued as colonization expanded. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't until the 20th century that it attained pre-invasion levels again, but I'm open to any data or sources if people have them.

 

[sprockets]

I was just quoting the bit that flabbergasted me. I am in total agreeance that we should be empowering Indigenous Australians to improve a whole range of outcomes.
The counterfactual that if the continent remained walled off from the rest of the world life expectancy outcomes would have remained the same is too ridiculous to contemplate. The fifth biggest continent was not going to sit there undiscovered like some remote part of the Amazon.
I don't know if there are any good estimates of life expectancy in pre-colonial Australia. We can be fairly certain it sharply declined immediately after white settlement among groups in contact with settlers, and that pattern no doubt continued as colonization expanded. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't until the 20th century that it attained pre-invasion levels again, but I'm open to any data or sources if people have them.

Precisely (except the aboriginals had already discovered it and maybe some other race before that), and what do people think would have happened? However, the poster you quoted obviously meant if another (any) country hadn't settled here.

 

[owen87]

Precisely (except the aboriginals had already discovered it and maybe some other race before that), and what do people think would have happened? However, the poster you quoted obviously meant if another (any) country hadn't settled here.

Colonisation was an inevitability, it was just a matter of who and when.

 

[sprockets]

Colonisation was an inevitability, it was just a matter of who and when.

Exactly. And along with that would have come associated diseases, conflict, no doubt alcohol and probably everything else that arrived back in the day.

 

[owen87]

Exactly. And along with that would have come associated diseases, conflict, no doubt alcohol and probably everything else that arrived back in the day.

I'm not sure whether anyone could categorically say the British were any better or worse than whatever other group was going to colonise the place next, but it's unrealistic to think that the people here were going to exist distinct from the rest of the world for all that much longer, or that the outcome would be drastically better if it was the Dutch, or the French, or anyone else who came along.

 

[PatonsSnapChat]

This is the shitiest thread on BF and that’s no mean feat. Congratulations all.

 

[deanc]

I'm not sure whether anyone could categorically say the British were any better or worse than whatever other group was going to colonise the place next, but it's unrealistic to think that the people here were going to exist distinct from the rest of the world for all that much longer, or that the outcome would be drastically better if it was the Dutch, or the French, or anyone else who came along.

Concur, moreover, as historians have speculated, if any number of 'Asian' countries had bothered to jump on a boat, history would more than likely now be reflecting on a 'former indigenous population' !!!

While not discounting the recorded atrocities of the British against our indigenous Australians, can you imagine the outcome with descendants of Genghis Khan 'colonizing' the country?
Fortunately they were more interested in expanding their trade empires at the time than discovering new lands...

 

[JackOutback]

I'm not sure whether anyone could categorically say the British were any better or worse than whatever other group was going to colonise the place next, but it's unrealistic to think that the people here were going to exist distinct from the rest of the world for all that much longer, or that the outcome would be drastically better if it was the Dutch, or the French, or anyone else who came along.

This is a variation on excusing our bad behaviour because there's someone that does it worse i.e. how dare the UN criticise our refugee policies, they should be looking at China and Myanmar first. Doesn't matter if the Dutch would have been worse, we have inherited the mess, it's ours to deal with.

 

[owen87]

This is a variation on excusing our bad behaviour because there's someone that does it worse i.e. how dare the UN criticise our refugee policies, they should be looking at China and Myanmar first. Doesn't matter if the Dutch would have been worse, we have inherited the mess, it's ours to deal with.

You what?

I made literally no commentary on past behaviour.

Take your strawman somewhere else.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Colonisation was an inevitability, it was just a matter of who and when.

Yeah , so that makes it ok

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Yeah , so that makes it ok

It’s the way of the world. Lots of things happen that are not ok, according to prevailing standards.

 

[CharlieMortdecai]

It’s the way of the world. Lots of things happen that are not ok, according to prevailing standards.

Lol, what's with the moral relativism? Lots of things happen that are not ok. Full stop.

 

[owen87]

Yeah , so that makes it ok

Also not what I said, was it?

 

[mr bagcroft]

Not a single land on the face of the Earth has not been fought over, invaded, occupied for a period or whatever in history.
get real, thats been the way of the world.
Not saying it makes it ok, but reality IS reality.

 

[Festerz]

but reality IS reality.

The 'reality' is that your comment about 'wars and invasions', an echo of something oft repeated across social media as if it actually means something, is totally irrelevant to the discussion of Australian Indigenous history post 1788.


Because by the late 18th Century Britain had a sophisticated set of laws and protocols in relation to colonisation of foreign lands, specifically relating to how it dealt with the ownership and recompense of land. Laws and protocols that had been in development for well over 2 centuries prior to 1788 but were specifically ignored in relation to the land we now know as Australia. This was in complete contrast to how they treated the occupants of other nations in the southern pacific and even the Indigenous people's of North America.

Britain did NOT regard their colonisation of this land as an invasion or a war, as your false comparison attempts to suggest. They treated Australia as terra nullus - an unowned land. And they used that falsehood to apply British colonial law to deny Indigenous Australians any property rights in the land and vested ownership of the entire continent to the British Government.

The doctrine of terra nullus remained the law in Australia to as recently as 1992, when the factual negligence of the claim as the basis for subsequent actions by the British was exposed by the Australian Court.


There is deep irony in the fact that so many posters in this thread and in discussions of Australian history in general go to great lengths to highlight the substantial legacy and debt owed to Great Britain by successive generations of Australians, specifically in relation to the adoption of the British legal system. Yet at the same time the failure of the British to apply their own laws in relation to recognising Indigenous rights for over 200 years is simply ignored.

Not saying it makes it ok, but reality IS reality.

Your so-called 'reality' is nothing of the sort. It the sort of simplistic nonsense that continues to underlie much of the unconscious systemic racism that still exists in Australia almost 250 years after the arrival of the first convict transport fleet at Botany Bay.

Until Australians get a thirst to get a factual understanding of the history of their colonial past as opposed to making cheap false comparisons with comic book stories of past 'wars' and 'invasions' we will be no closer to understanding why there is still a substantial gap between the quality of life of Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians in 2021.

 

[ElectricG]

There is deep irony in the fact that so many posters in this thread and in discussions of Australian history in general go to great lengths to highlight the substantial legacy and debt owed to Great Britain by successive generations of Australians, specifically in relation to the adoption of the British legal system. Yet at the same time the failure of the British to apply their own laws in relation to recognising Indigenous rights for over 200 years is simply ignored.

I think the main sticking point with all of this talk about debt is that most people are being shaken down for something neither they, nor their ancestors, took any part in.

 

[CharlieMortdecai]

I think the main sticking point with all of this talk about debt is that most people are being shaken down for something neither they, nor their ancestors, took any part in.

This makes no sense. Do you think Great Britain is trying to collect on their "debt"? I think even the most strident apologists for British Imperialism would blush at the prospect of former colonies paying them further reparations in gratitude for their enlightened benevolence, on top of the centuries of economic prosperity it formerly delivered them.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Also not what I said, was it?

You were justifying it, so yes

 

[Festerz]

I think the main sticking point with all of this talk about debt is that most people are being shaken down for something neither they, nor their ancestors, took any part in.

And yet, these 'most people' (?), which of course includes you in their number, are quite fixed in their view that this debt be recognised by an annual national holiday on the 26 January:

Because the modern nation of Australia has a national character borne in its history as a British colony, and the arrival of the first fleet is a day of high significance in that context. That’s it. People who heavily shaped the future of the country arrived and proclaimed ownership of the land for England. Are you seriously arguing that arrival of the first fleet is not significant? Or that it’s not appropriate?

Can you not see the hypocrisy in that stance?

 

[ElectricG]

And yet, these 'most people' (?), which of course includes you in their number, are quite fixed in their view that this debt be recognised by an annual national holiday on the 26 January:




Can you not see the hypocrisy in that stance?

I don’t actually. I’m not being a smart arse, I just don’t see your point.

 

[owen87]

You were justifying it, so yes

How was I justifying it? I made no commentary whatsoever on it.

Do you believe that, had the British not turned up in 1788 with some convicts, the Aboriginal peoples living here would have been left undisturbed for the following 200 odd years? If not, you're agreeing with exactly what I wrote, the colonisation was an inevitability.

 

[owen87]

And yet, these 'most people' (?), which of course includes you in their number, are quite fixed in their view that this debt be recognised by an annual national holiday on the 26 January:

I think 'most' people actually just like a long weekend in January.

When the Queen goes, put a simple proposal for a Referendum and it'll likely pass since no one really likes Charles, then make the new date somewhere between mid-January and mid-February. The masses will be happy.