I’m gonna be real with you all, I’m in Australia and it’s a little embarrassing how hard you think we have it over here compared to the shit I’ve heard from other places. Like don’t fuck with the animals and don’t put your hands in areas you can’t see and you’re golden. I’ve had to deal with random violence like three times in my 34 years here. It’s pretty alright here.
One of the reasons stuff costs more in Australia is that there’s significantly more consumer protection. Steam originally didn’t allow refunds at all, and were fined AU$3 million as a result.
Game breaking bugs or bug that significantly affects the experience but don’t completely break the game
Changes that make the game behave significantly differently to how it was originally described on the site or in the documentation
Games that initially support Linux but the company dropped Linux support later on, etc.
Steam’s policy of only refunding a purchase within 14 days of purchase and less than 2 hours of play time is also not legal in Australia. You can’t have conditions like that on a refund policy. They have a separate refund policy specifically for Australia which excludes the 14 day / 2 hour limits.
Appliances also have to last for as long as a ‘reasonable consumer’ thinks they should last. For example, even if your TV or fridge has a “1 year warranty”, the manufacturer will still have to repair, refund, or replace it if it breaks down in 3 years, as a regular person would assume that a fridge or TV should last more than 3 years. The store or manufacturer has to cover the cost of picking it up and delivering a replacement. It’s also illegal for a store to tell you that you have to contact the manufacturer - the place you bought the product from has to let you handle all warranty claims through them.
Serious question: do you check your bed before you crawl into it for the night? Like, what’s the level of paranoia you guys have there? Does the room get a quick glance then you just go “yeah, I’m sure everything is fine”? Or do you turn all the lights on, rip the duvet up, and smack the bed frame to scare off any creepy crawlies that might be lingering about?
Haha no not quite that paranoid. Nah it’s mostly a rule for like moving stuff around in the garden and if you’re in the bush or whatever. Like the shit you have to worry about will either let you know, or set up a home far away from you. Generally. So it’s kind of another way of saying don’t put you hand into a redback nest.
Though saying that most people have had harrowing huntsman spider encounters, often in bed. They’re the most common surprise as they actively move around to hunt prey, instead of building webs. They can’t really hurt humans, aside from hiding behind your sun visor in the car and scaring you half to death, like my girlfriend had last year. They are a non zero statistic in cause of car accidents unfortunately.
Eh, I see plenty of shit around the world that makes me happy I’m here. It’s fucking wild to think that after your cats have found yet another majestic galloping hand sized spider that you have to save from them.
Probably the most I check in day to day life is just under the toilet seat before I sit on it. Haven’t yet had a spider under there yet but have definitely heard of it. Otherwise just being careful of huntsmen when you have something like two sheets of iron or wood, as they love to be in between them.
Have otherwise had little spiders come out from the car’s crevices while driving and calmly pulled over to deal with it.
Overall not really that paranoid or bad in Australia
Also, ironically a bit ethnocentric to suggest that the challenges in the US or Europe are in any way on par with life in places like Brazil, India, Africa!
For some reason New Guinea is included with Australia, even though the western half is owned by Indonesia, and the eastern half is its own country. Either way with the civil war going on there at the moment I’d much rather be living in Australia!
If you’re one of a tribe living in the jungle of West Papua, then yeah, it’s basically survival of the fittest there with no electricity or modern amenities. If you’re living in a city then it’s no different than the rest of the region, but with small risks of armed conflict with the separatist group.
That’s the interesting thing about empire, it’s self similar. A whole class of people may grow up geographically in or near the core, but their experience of life has more in common with someone in the semi- or outer periphery in terms of access to necessities or stability of life.
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