If the mainstream media is anything to go by, it’s the end of days for Australia and we’re on a precipice of a massive Muslim takeover of everything Us Aussies^TM hold dearest. Our traditional secular meat pies will become Halal and the golden tans from the legs of our girls will no longer glow from beneath their short summer dresses once full-body Muslim attire becomes the norm. And of course, then there’s the beheadings and religious violence we’ve been told to prepare ourselves for. So how do we stop this new threat to Australia before it takes over?

Abbott tell us he’s got the answer, and all we’ll need to do is sign on the dotted line and that at the cost of a few liberties these threats will be dealt with and life will continue as normal. Sidenote: Picture him holding a blood-soaked trident, with dark red skin and a smile that leads evilly up to two bony horns on his forehead while he says this… I know I did. Whether or not a credible threat exists against Australia, the government is using this as a way to get what it lives off: information and control.

As I write this, the National Security Amendment Bill (No.1) 2014 has become a topic of conversation, and is just the beginning of everything we have to be concerned about. It essentially gives multiple spy and authorative agencies the freedom to break the law when they deem it necessary.

Is signing away our freedoms and liberties what we really believe in, or is this nothing more than a new tactic – blatant fear mongering – in an effort to further the resolve of a greedy and backwards government? Before we lay face down on hot coals and allow our high-heel-sporting, heavy-set government to rock-step its way over us on the way to what we’re told is a better place for everyone, we need to understand what’s actually happening.

What these restrictions (and the mere mention of them) create is a distraction from the bad press that’s been circulating about the government (their broken promises, spying, racism, sexism and all those other fun activities you wish your leaders weren’t involved in, let alone publicly flaunting to the world) and that’s exactly what they want. We can’t trust any government with a blank cheque to our liberties, especially one with such a horrible track record in the short time they’ve been in power. Why are we so easily falling for this new farce when we can see that they’ve consistently lied to us in the past?

We also need to question whether the results of these apparent protections will outweigh any drawbacks. Will the government’s plan actually protect us, or will it just further the alienation and segmentation that certain cultures in our community already face, leading to even worse and more dangerous issues down the track? Are we willing to persecute others simply to allow ourselves to feel that little bit more secure? Do we really believe that all Muslims are at fault due to a few bad apples who took their book too literally?

Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely believe in the strengthening of security and protections for everybody, and any credible threat to the safety of Australians should be investigated thoroughly, but when that protection costs the rights and liberties of the innocent, we need to ensure it really is worth it (spoiler: it’s probably not) and whether we can we have those same protections without such a high cost.

It’s not just the government that’s to blame for this charade, either. The media has created such a negative perception of Muslims by attaching their religion to every negative news article, whether or not it’s warranted. A headline about a Muslim killer sells more copies than one without a religion attached. The fact that their religion drove them to do what they did is of course an issue, but when a disproportionate barrage of anti-Muslim tirades fill the newspapers, we only get increased segregation and fear, so why are news outlets willingly promoting these unnecessary distinctions that induce fear?

Islam, just as almost every other major religion, is a threat to modern progress and civility, but for the Australian people it is no more a threat than it was previously, and probably no more than Christianity, just in different ways. We don’t need to completely let our guard down, but we do need to look at these proposed changes with skepticism and an outlook that spans further than to our immediate future. We need to try to understand what effects any changes will have on the freedoms and rights of both the Australian people and whether we’re making decisions based on fear and misinformation instead of rationality and sense.

Remember, we don’t need to be afraid of the Muslim who lives a normal life but happens to praise a certain god. Just like every other religion, the majority of these people pose no threat to others, and who we need to be most cautious of are the fundamentalists and extremists – those who choose to follow their religion’s teachings to a tee. Muslim extremism may seem more violent and barbaric than Christian extremism, but we can’t simply equate that to mean that ordinary Muslims are more violent in general than ordinary Christians. Neither religion should ever be given major control or powers (it never turns out well), but as personal religions themselves they have the right to exist, and the people who are part of those religions deserve the right not to be treated unfairly for their participation in them.

Are there currently credible Islamic threats against Australian people? Yes. Has there been an increased likelihood of these threats coming to fruition? I doubt it. We’re looking at an increased exposure to fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, and a government toying with the emotions of its people in order to achieve greater power, nothing more.

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – Benjamin Franklin, 1755

The post The Islam Witch Trials appeared first on RyanStock.com.au.

Homeopathy is the process of diluting certain substances in alcohol or distilled water repeatedly until it contains no trace of the original substance, and using the resulting liquid as a medicine to cure various ailments. Current homeopathic theories claim that this process works because of some sort of “water memory” that stores information in the water molecules even after the original substance is gone. Yep, water memory.

Homeopathy is a theory that has been consistently refuted and disproved by medical experts, and although no amount of evidence would sway the beliefs of the die-hard supporters, a new publication by a respected Australian medical research council essentially negates the legitimacy of homeopathic processes. It gives me a little bit of hope that maybe those undecided people sitting on the fence somewhere between homeopathy and science may now have an easier time picking a side.

The NHMRC Publication

The National Health and Medical Research Council chose to review a range of studies regarding various alternative medicines – homeopathy in this case – in an effort to make clear any positive or negative effects from the use of these techniques to cure medical conditions.

By carefully examining and scrutinising existing studies and claimed evidence on the subject of homeopathy, NHMRC was able to conclude which of the studies were committed with a valid, systematic approach and which were based on unreliable or uncontrolled conditions and would therefore not be relevant in any scientific analyses or discussions. They have then taken the remaining valid studies and used them to deduce the effectiveness of homeopathy.

The Results

The results to the study were as most would expect:

There were no health conditions for which there was reliable evidence that homeopathy was effective. No good-quality, well-designed studies with enough participants for a meaningful result reported either that homeopathy caused greater health improvements than a substance with no effect on the health condition (placebo), or that homeopathy caused health improvements equal to those of another treatment.

This study is still open for rebuttal and discussion until May 26th via submission of alternative evidence that credibly demonstrates any positive medicinal effects of homeopathy. But if evidence hasn’t already been presented, it’s unlikely it will be presented now, so I wouldn’t hold your breath (which is also an alternative medicine by the way). We can safely assume these conclusions won’t change before the close date.

Quack, quack!

The entire business of homeopathy, along with most other alternative medicines, thrives on the fact that people are unknowingly susceptible to biased pseudo-evidence.

Although it seems almost counter-intuitive, first-hand accounts by people who have used these remedies and have personally noticed positive results are actually one of the least reliable forms of evidence, simply due to the numerous problems caused by human cognitive biases. These personal accounts do not prove that homeopathy generates a positive medical result at all; instead they simply demonstrate the distortions that placebos and cognitive biases have on our perception of our world and ourselves.

Generally, people who want homeopathic solutions to work will notice positive results whether or not they actually occur. Then there’s the fact that people who try alternative medicines and find good results are more likely to tell people about it than those who try it and find that it has no effect. These situations, multiplied by the millions of people who try homeopathy, generate an overall consensus that it works, but when put to scientific scrutiny we can cut through the biases and see that these practices have no legitimate medical advantage when compared with a simple placebo.

Why We Can’t Just “Let Homeopathy Be”

I often hear alternative medicine sympathisers say “Why can’t we let people use homeopathy if they want to?” and to some degree I understand that point of view – people should have the right to administer alternative medicine to themselves if they believe it works. The problem, however, is the danger that the alternative medicine industry poses to unsuspecting patients looking for a miracle cure.

Millions of people all over the world, ignorant to current scientific consensus and evidence, when facing life-threatening medical conditions turn to alternative medicines such as homeopathy instead of seeking legitimate medical advice from physicians who use proven and reputable techniques, and in doing so put themselves in a dangerous situation without the benefit of modern scientific knowledge to protect them.

Sure, homeopathy gives a sense of security and comfort to those in pain or suffering from basic medical conditions, but at the same time it convinces people to irrationally dismiss proven scientific techniques, often resulting in a decrease in health or even death. This is aside from the fact that unlike mainstream medical industries the alternative medicine industry is mostly unregulated, which can lead to neglectful or unsafe practices by the people and companies creating these remedies. Giving homeopathy the freedom to pass itself off as science makes people think it’s a viable alternative that can solve any medical issue, when no evidence supports this.

At best, it’s unnecessary. At worst, it’s deadly.

Obviously, we can’t force patients to take scientific approaches when making medical choices, but what we can do is spread awareness of this pseudo-scientific non-medicine so when people are deciding where to place their faith, they can make their decision based on solid, scientific evidence rather than hear-say and unverifiable “evidence” that homeopathy relies on.

Don’t forget:

If water has a memory, then homeopathy is full of crap.

Literally. Think about it.

Related

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
• http://consultations.nhmrc.gov.au/public_consultations/homeopathy_health
• http://consultations.nhmrc.gov.au/files/consultations/drafts/nhmrcdrafthomeopathyinformationpaper140408.pdf
• http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/meta-study-confirms-homeopathy-doesnt-work

The post Delusions of Dilution: Homeopathetic Quackery appeared first on RyanStock.com.au.

Accompanied by hyper-realistic computer-generated graphics and a clever, inspiring script, popular scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson is our guide throughout the series, imaginatively flying in his CGI vessel through all of space and time, all while teaching us about the origins and fundamentals of our very existence – atomic life, planets, asteroids, galaxies, and how everything fits together in a universal jigsaw puzzle.

Sagan’s Legacy

The new series is based on and has been referred to as a “sequel” to the 1980 series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was presented by Carl Sagan, who some see as the previous generation’s Neil deGrasse Tyson. Both are vessels for the popularisation of science and the discovery of knowledge in mainstream culture. Tyson makes multiple references to Sagan, which is understandable as Tyson wouldn’t be the scientist he was today without the influence and inspiration of Sagan, who he met once as a young student and based his career on throughout his life.

Seth MacFarlane, creator of animated series Family Guy and American Dad, surprisingly enough played a vital role in the development of Cosmos. He is an executive producer for the series and along with Carl Sagan’s widow Ann Druyan helped to fund financially and support Sagan’s continued dream of Cosmos.

The Battle Rages On: Religion vs. Cosmos

Before Cosmos even aired wars were waged in forums online between two polarised groups of people – young-Earth creationists and science-enthusiasts – a spark which ignited again due to the apparent offence that Cosmos dealt to the credibility of some fundamentalist religious beliefs. Young-Earth creationism, a subset of creationism (the belief that everything in existence was created by a god), is based on the unquestionable belief that the Earth and Universe is younger than the nearly 14 billion years old that scientists and evidence suggests it is, and claim that it is instead somewhere between five and six thousand years old. This belief stems from a literal interpretation of Christian Biblical parables, which I guess explains its believers unwavering defence of its legitimacy in the face of evidence.

Cosmos cheekily attacks young-Earth creationist beliefs at various moments throughout the first few episodes by illustrating the sheer impossibility of this view being at all realistic. And it’s not just young-Earth creationists who are upset by Cosmos – many “old-Earth” creationists are upset too, instead by the show’s portrayal of “anti-Christian” sentiments and by the belief that the show is propaganda aimed at luring people away from their religious beliefs.

Creationists Respond to Cosmos

In retaliation to the program, creationists of all kinds have taken to the social networks to vent their frustration at this “blasphemy”, choosing to boycott the show and completely deny any facts presented by it.

Here are just a few examples from Twitter, written during and just after the first episode aired:

You may think these people are just web “trolls” setting out to get a rise out of proponents of science on social networks, but these people do exist and these beliefs are unfortunately widespread. Cosmos (and all scientific pursuits for that matter) set out to extinguish ignorant and misinformed opinions like these, and though maybe not for the people in the screenshots above, I think it has done just that to a fair few people who watched it. We just probably won’t hear from those people on Twitter, unfortunately.

The Importance of Cosmos

Science thrives on the reevaluation of knowledge and the new understandings of the things we thought we once knew, and through scientific discovery the world generally becomes a safer, more connected and empathetic place.

Whether or not Cosmos dismantles fundamentalist belief systems, changes the world entirely or instead gets forgotten about in a few months isn’t important – what matters is the knowledge it presents and the message it sends: science is everything, knowledge is powerful and the very nature of existence is out there to be explored.

Then of course there’s the potential inspiration it provides to the next generation’s Neil deGrasse Tysons and Carl Sagans, who right now are sitting at home in their bedrooms with their cheap telescopes pointing to the blackness of space, wondering what’s out there and why it all exists. They’ll grow up asking questions, thinking critically, impervious to the influence of anti-science ignorance, and they’ll lead the next generation to the pursuit of scientific discovery, thanks to the detailed education that these documentaries provide.

Shows like Cosmos stimulate dormant minds by promoting science as more than just the study of flying rocks or lifeless plants growing under a lamp, which is fairly uninteresting to most people, and instead show it from an intriguing and exciting point of view, which is what people use to relate to these usually foreign topics in order to comprehend them.

Scale: Everything is Nothing. Nothing is Everything.

On a more personal and spiritual level, Cosmos helps us connect with the world around us by showing us that we’re not as large and important as we think we are – we are the dust of ancient exploding stars, in the form of a measly virus-like growth on a tiny planet orbiting a tiny star in a miniature galaxy, floating around in the vast emptiness of the space inside of an ever-expanding Universe, and that it’s completely okay to be that. In fact, it’s freaking amazing. Understanding the grand scale of everything doesn’t diminish the importance of life, it fortifies it.

Cosmos reminds us that after countless battles against each other and nature, through our very beginnings as bacterial growth to our first steps on land, to bombardments by asteroids, floods, fires, births, deaths, gods, idols, leaders, religions, evolution and extinction, war and peace, abundance and famine, and the very unlikelihood of our existence, life is still here thriving better than ever.

“The cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff.
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos

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The Main Premise

You own a base filled with storage containers (they contain gold and elixir) and a single town hall in the centre that you surround with defence turrets.

Players from all around the world attack your base, attempting to destroy your hall and steal your gold/elixir. If they get a good amount of it, they win. If not, you win. Your score goes up the more you win, and the more gold/elixir you have, the more items/defences/containers you can buy.

Attacking Other Players

So far it sort of sounds like all you do is watch as people steal your gold and destroy your buildings. This is only half the story. You’re able to attack other randomly-selected Clash of Clans players in the world, which means you can raise your own gold and elixir storage by taking it from others. It seems a little heartless, but after having your own stores emptied by others, it’s actually refreshing to get revenge and steal more back from others.

Building and Upgrading Your Base

As the game goes on you’re awarded with new abilities, new characters to battle with, new structures to build in your base, and heaps more – easily enough to keep you busy for months or even years. I’ve been playing for a couple of years now (which sounds a bit pathetic saying that out lou… well, in writing) and I still check my phone occasionally to see if my base has been attacked, or attacking other players when I’ve got a free few minutes.

You can use your gold to upgrade buildings and defences, which in turn increases your chances of surviving attacks from others. It’s a highly strategic game, so the placement of your defences, storages and buildings can have a huge effect on the outcome of the battle. And when attacking, the troops you use and the ways you place your troops will make or break your assault.

The Clan Aspect

Clans are supposed to be a massive part of the game. You can create a clan – a type of team – with your friends and share your troops with one another, giving you both stronger defences and offensives. I personally don’t know many people playing Clash of Clans so I opted for sticking to my lonesome self and attacking without the assistance of clans. It hasn’t been too disadvantageous so far, so don’t feel that you need to have friends playing to enjoy the game.

Why it’s Good

Being such a strategic game, Clash of Clans keeps my brain active while still allowing me to have fun, even if it’s just for a few minutes a day. It’s fast-paced (when you’re attacking at least) and gives you a sense of accomplishment when your base services a big attack or your attack destroys someone’s base, and being able to improve and build up your base over time gives you the growth aspect that games like Farmville have.

So, there you go. If you sort of wanted to play Farmville but you wanted it with swords, gold, magic, fire, destruction and total chaos, you’ll like Clash of Clans. Oh, did I mention there are dragons? Well, there are.

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As usual, Matt and Trey’s writing incorporates current events and plenty of hilarious references to previous South Park stories and characters, and features the usual insensitive, well thought out remarks that we know from the show. It’s not really everyone’s cup of tea (or Tweek Bros. Coffee perhaps?), but to me South Park is one of the best, most relevant and influential animated series of all time, and now that I finally got my hands on it and completed the story I’ve got a few thoughts about the game to share.

Humble Beginnings: South Park N64

I can’t talk about the Stick of Truth without at least mentioning the original. In 1998, the first South Park game was released on Nintendo 64, later coming out on a couple of other systems. According to some online game reviewers now, it seems there are mixed reviews about this game, but as a 10 year old kid just getting into South Park, I thought it was the bee’s knees and definitely had its enjoyable and hilarious moments. Really, how can you not have fun while throwing snowballs at raging turkeys? As a standalone game in today’s standards it really wasn’t anything special and probably won’t get much play time at all these days, but if anything it gives us a point of reference to see where Matt and Trey have improved in the new Stick of Truth game.

The Truthiest Stick of All Sticks

The Stick Of Truth is a role-playing game that stars you as The New Kid (dubbed Douchebag throughout the game) along with the South Park usuals Cartman (The Wizard King), Kyle (The Elf King), Stan (a warrior), Kenny (the… princess), Butters, Craig, Token, and Jimmy. You battle against various enemies and are able to choose which of the different characters battle with you, which allows you to attempt different strategies and makes the game less tedious and repetitive. The visuals are almost completely identical to the television series, in that you walk sideways on a scrolling 2D map, making it look like the entire game was created on an animation desk similar to the show.

Beginning in South Park and eventually reaching Canada for a bit, you set off on the quest for the Stick of Truth, along the way completing various quests ranging from simple exploration missions to more aggressive battles. The enemies range from normal humans to insane monsters and even to ex-vice-presidents. Similar to other RPGs, you use potions, magic, weapons and defences in strategic ways to take down your enemies. I don’t want to give anything away so I’ll it up to you to check out the rest.

Fart Jokes, Nazi Zombies, and Other Kids Bedtime Stories

If you’ve ever seen the South Park series, especially the more recent series over the past few years, you’ll know that it’s sometimes quite outlandish and random when it comes to the storyline, and the game is no different. Playing the game, you’ll find yourself battling against giant zombie fetus babies (seriously…), getting a helping hand from Jesus who sports a machine gun, and you may even find yourself shrunk down as a gnome, exploring characters’ revolting insides in order to defuse a bomb.

Okay, okay, so it’s obviously not a game for children. It’s been rated R in Australia for good reason, and has been censored in the most inappropriate or horrifying parts, instead displaying an Australian-themed message that describes what was meant to happen in that specific scene. This is the same for the European version, which I bought online hoping to outsmart the Australian censors, but unfortunately that failed and I was presented with European-themed censor messages instead. Sigh. But I will say this – the censored scenes did make me laugh quite a bit, so really in the end we’re probably not compromising too much in playing the censored version.

12 Hours of Epic Battles and Poop Jokes

Being the perfectionist I am, I went through and completed every minor mission I could find rather than just focusing purely on the main objective (The Stick) because I wanted to get a lasting experience out of this game, which in the end lasted for about 12 hours or so. I’d happily go back and replay the entire game again if I had the time, which I think demonstrates how much I enjoyed it.

If you’re a fan of South Park’s crude humour and you’ve seen a fair few episodes of the television series then you’re sure to love The Stick Of Truth, but if you’re a first-timer or have any sort of conscience or humanity in your soul, you might find it little more difficult to enjoy every aspect of the game. But, if you’re willing to sell a piece of your soul then open your mind and wallet, go buy this game and enjoy the coolest 12-hour-long, zombie-killing, poop-joke-spouting, choose-your-own-adventure episode of South Park you’ll ever see.

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After making his final preparations and fiddling with his GoPro cameras, Felix steps out onto the edge of his shiny, futuristic air balloon. The complete nothingness behind him demonstrates just how high he was (don’t forget, this took place during the day). He says a few mumbled words and steps away into very, very thin air. Within a few seconds he’s out of sight.

See what goes through the mind of a man free falling to Earth higher and faster than any sole man has before:

And a few highlights from the fall:

Is it ironic that Red Bull (“gives you wings”) sponsored this jump, yet the guy fell straight to the ground?

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Today in America during the 2014 Superbowl, an advertisement for Coca-Cola screened that features the above scene. With pretty much any well-spirited, friendly, positive commercial, alongside it comes a huge backlash of ‘citizens’ who claim that the message goes against everything their country stands for, and this Superbowl ad is no exception.

Via Facebook posts on the Coca-Cola page, in YouTube comments on the video itself and in posts on pretty much every ‘social’ network there is, people are using their freedom of speech to voice their unsubstantiable, misinformed and usually unintelligent views about the ad and their country, stating things like:

Racists Grazing In Their Natural Habitat… Facebook.

And there are many more irrational comments mixed in with the positive and intelligent ones on both the Coca-Cola page and the page for the YouTube video shown above, though I’m sure a lot of the negative comments have been deleted by moderators, so keep that in mind if you do read through them.

The fact that the advertisement was made by a corporation trying to sell a product does little to discredit its view – it’s still a clearly positive message: the most important and enriching part of a nation is its acceptance and tolerance of others as well as the diversity of its people. Hiding behind freedom of speech and claiming that people who embrace diversity are un-American leaves us with two possibilities: One, your country is outdated and below-par with where the evolution of social standards is taking us, or two, you’re a stupid, bigoted fool, who has no standing as a representative of your country.

I’m not sure if it’s worth me going into the reasoning behind my dislike of their point of view. I think even those bigoted people understand deep down exactly what’s wrong with what they’re posting and their point of view. They come from a country that’s known for its diversity and different cultures, so how can they say that a multicultural society has no place being multicultural or promoting its multiculturalism? It’s this same point of view that leads to racist attacks, hate speech, and more and more people being put down for who they naturally are.

Obviously, not every American shares the views of the few who choose to be annoyingly outspoken about their outdated faux-patriotic opinions in these situations, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a problem here.

I guess it’s not all bad, I can see the positives of situations like this. At least I have some reassurance that Australia isn’t the only country with a substantially large amount of citizens who believe they are the most patriotic, when really their blind intolerances make them some of the least patriotic.

Does Australia’s current immigration/refugee situation come to mind?

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Spoiler: Equality is going to happen whether our All Mighty Leader wants it or not.

Marriage Equality

• Overall, 52% of people support same sex marriage, 36% do not.
• Around 69% of 18-34 year olds support marriage equality, as opposed to only 34% of people over 55 years old. People aged between 34 and 55 generally support it.
• Just under half of the men support marriage equality, along with 60% of women.
• Over 85% of Greens voters support marriage equality.
• 78% of “Left” voters and 27% of “Right” voters support same sex marriage.
• Surprisingly, 50% of “Catholic” voters support marriage equality.
• 76% of non-religious people support marriage equality.

Euthanasia

• Overall, 75% of voters support a terminally ill patient’s right to legally end their own life with medical assistance.
• Non-religious people tend to support euthanasia (92%), as well as 70% of Catholics.

Abortion

• The overall impression is that the majority of people believe abortions should be accessible in Australia.
• Most Greens voters seem to support abortion availability.
• Slightly more women than men seem to be pro-choice.
• A large percentage (about 40%) seem to be neutral, undecided, or at least believe abortions are available enough currently.
• Younger people seem to be more certain on this matter than others, while the older generations (55+) are the most uncertain about their stance on abortions.
• Single people are more pro-choice than married people.
• The non-religious are the most liberal regarding abortions; Catholics and Protestants are the most traditional and are generally against or neutral about abortion availability.

Climate Change

• 61% of people seem to believe the federal government should do more to prevent climate change.
• 69% of Liberal supporters want to keep or improve climate change efforts, compared to 76% of Labour supporters and 90% of Greens.
• Women seem to want to do more to prevent climate change than men.
• Younger generations seem to be more aware of the climate change threat.
• Income doesn’t appear to be a factor in opinions, except for a slight change in certainty for lower income earners, who appear to be slightly more sure certain of the global warming problem.
• Queenslanders seem to want to do the least about global warming, while ACT and Victorian residents want to do the most.

Carbon Tax

• Generally, the majority of people believe there should be a price on carbon emissions.
• 82% of Greens voters want to have a carbon tax, compared to 71% of Labor voters and 24% of Coalition voters.
• Women and younger people are slightly happier to pay taxes on carbon.
• Metro-dwellers are more willing to pay a carbon tax than people in rural areas.

Important Issues

• Green voters care less about the economy (5% of their electoral opinion) than Labour (17%) and Liberal (49%) voters.
• Labour voters care more (13%) about Broadband/NBN than Liberals (1%).
• Green voters care more about climate change (25%) than Labour (11%) and other parties (~4%).
• People without a university education rate the economy as a slightly more important issue than those who have a university education.
• Women care more about asylum seekers, hospitals, climate change and education than men.
• Men are more concerned with the economy and broadband/NBN.
• Young voters care less about the economy, but more about education and broadband issues.
• Low income earners care less about the economy than high income earners.
• Northern Territory residents seem to care less about the economy than other states
• People who aren’t very political seem to care more about education, broadband, taxes and childcare, while people who are more political seem to care more about the economy and asylum seekers.

What it means

What surprised me was the lack of traditional religious values coming from people who claimed to have been religious, but this could just be attributed to people who claim to be religious due to family or social conditions but don’t practice or believe in any of their religion’s values. It could also be an issue of picking and choosing what to believe and not believe when it comes to these values.

Younger voters seem to be more concerned about larger issues such as the environment, global warming, and marriage equality, while the older voters are more concerned about more short term issues that most likely affect their own lives, namely the economy and healthcare.

Reliability of Statistics

There are some interesting statistics there, as well as some more obvious ones, but as mentioned earlier, it’s important to remember that although the sample size was large, it wasn’t a random sample and therefore only represents the views of those who took part in the survey. These people would have probably included ABC fans, voters who had doubts about their voting decision and more of the younger generation as it was an online-only survey. That being said, the statistics still display some clear trends regarding a voter’s age, religion and their political views.

Sources:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/news-and-analysis/vote-compass-results/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-09/vote-compass-data-results-important-issues/4872896
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-26/vote-compass-climate-change-environment/4908224
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-29/vote-compass-gay-marriage-euthanasia-abortion/4918494

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The Animatrix is a nine-part collection of short animated movies based on the The Matrix Trilogy movies. The movies, released in 2003, were written and directed by famous Japanese anime directors, under the supervision of the original creators of the Trilogy, the Wachowski brothers (although I use the term “brothers” lightly, since they are now actually Lana and Andy Wachowski. Yes… Lana), with characters voiced by various TV and video game actors.

The short films explore various aspects of the world and history shown in the original three Matrix movies, each in their own unique way through the use of various editing, animation and drawing techniques. Some of the movies take place during the same period as “The Matrix”, a time when humans are connected to giant networks used to run a simulated virtual world by a human-enslaving robotic society, while others (notably The Second Renaissance, shown below) explore how the world was before the creation of the virtual Matrix world, during the time when robots and humans lived together in relative peace (albeit not quite to the satisfaction of robots).

My thoughts on The Animatrix

I love these films, and my favourite thing about this series is the fact that they add a lot more content to the movie franchise and really help to define the details of theories never quite fully explained in the Trilogy. There has been some talk that some of the theories portrayed in the Animatrix clash with those in the original Trilogy, but for the most part I would say they fit quite well and really offer a strong basis and history to the world of The Matrix.

Some of the films delve into the ethics and moral values behind the treatment of those we define to be stronger or weaker than us, in this case robots. The humans in the films treat the robots much like garbage, without any respect or rights; something most of us to do this day, even if our technology hasn’t quite become advanced enough to “feel” negatively about the way we treat them yet. The robots eventually rebel against the humans, something that both I and many knowledgeable scientists and futurists believe to be a very likely scenario that will eventually appear sometime in the future of mankind (that is once we have created robots and computer CPUs strong and efficient enough to mimic the human brain).

I strongly recommend you check out the Animatrix trailer and a full Animatrix movie below, and then if you like what you see, go buy it on Bluray or DVD! It’s definitely one of my favourite DVDs I own.

The Animatrix Trailer

The original Animatrix Trailer, which shows various parts of each of the nine films.

The Animatrix – The Second Renaissance (Part 1)

This is a entire Part 1 of the first Animatrix movie titled The Second Renaissance. This episode describes the uprising of the robotic civilization, as well as the rivalry between humans and robots, and the ethical dilemmas behind the treatment of robots within human civilization.

The Animatrix – The Second Renaissance (Part 2)

Continuing from the first part shown above, this movie details the actual war between man and machine, as well as the creation of the Matrix simulated world and the “farms” used to store human beings who are connected to the Matrix.

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For fans of Portal and Portal 2, I’ve found this amazing live action short movie that you’re sure to enjoy. If you haven’t checked out the games, take a look at my Portal and Portal 2 post. After that, check this video out!

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