Every day, we publish a selection of your emails in our newsletter. We’d love to hear from you, you can email us at yoursay@theconversation.edu.au.
Monday September 28
“In response to your article about AI use in classrooms, I have the impression that parents are leaving it to others to protect their children. I am a parent of 4 children and 7 grandchildren and I see the solution as simple: do not give your child a smart phone. No child needs a smart phone. If you have safety concerns for your child, provide a simple phone from which they can send and receive phone calls and text messages. Be firm and ignore any tantrums, I’ve been there many times.”
Anne Jolly, Sunnyside TAS
“The recommendation made in your article on voluntary assisted dying, that people with dementia should be central to decisions about their care is crucial. However, it was disappointing that the article did not also recommend addressing the serious problem of people with dementia being abused. It is one thing if someone asks for euthanasia because they truly want to die, and quite another if they ask for euthanasia when what they really want, and deserve, is to live free from abuse.
Dr Amanda Tink
Tuesday September 29
"Your article ‘Are Australians really overeducated? It depends what education is for’ raises an interesting question. Most parents want to do the best they can for their children, and education is almost universally seen as a path to success. Employers contribute to this, progressively raising the expectations bar. So, even if, from an academic point of view, you might argue that "Australians are overeducated”, how would we ration or allocate a smaller supply of education to Australians? I believe if left to the market, it would disproportionately favour the rich and we might end up in a situation like South Korea or India where exam failure is seen as the end of one’s life.“
Mike Tyler, Drouin VIC 
"In your article ‘China’s economy is changing rapidly. It’s no longer Australia’s easy export market’, we should bear in mind that we are allowing the United States to use us as a base to fight a potential future nuclear war with China and heaven only knows who else under AUKUS. China would be pretty silly to keep trading with us. As would any country really.”
Lee Patrick
“In reference to your article ‘What does the OpenAI Medicare hack reveal about Australia’s cyber security?’, AI may be an incredibly valuable development, but when it is used or is able to hack into private databases, it should be recognised and prosecuted as "breaking and entering”. If any data is stolen, each person’s data should be prosecuted as an individual theft, not hundreds or perhaps millions of thefts lumped into one breach. Liability should include the organisation that was hacked (for failing to protect the data), as well as the developers of the rogue AI technology and that company’s owners, directors and executive managers. If this approach is implemented and strictly enforced globally, the likelihood of AI “breaking and entering” other people’s databases should be significantly controlled. There must be absolutely no excuse for AI going beyond the developers’ direct control.“
Jon Temby
Wednesday September 30
"Your useful article ‘Card surcharges are banned from October 1. What’s changing at the checkout?’ overlooks one unintended consequence. Your article points out that "only” 25% of under-$10 purchases are cash. In the past, many smaller businesses had a “minimum $10” rule, which was very inconvenient for those like me who never carry cash, and pay 99% with a card. More recently, these businesses offered under $10 purchases with a small extra fee of about 5 cents, something I and presumably others were happy to pay. Under the new rules, we may be forced back to having to top up our purchase to $10, go to the ATM for a $3 photo frame, or go to a big store that doesn’t have a minimum $10 limit.“
Mike Tyler, Drouin VIC
"Many thanks for the good-news story, ‘We can finally measure the damage each new coal, gas or oil project will do to people and nature’. As an environmental educator for over 50 years, this article gave me hope … well, just a little. The problem that remains is how we get governments and individual people to heed the clear evidence of emissions damage. For decades, the causal link between smoking and a whole raft of disease has been known. Yet smoking continues to be a major health issue. So, we need to urgently turn our attention to tackling the addiction our society has for fossil-fuel vehicles and home and business energy sources.”
Carmel McNaught, Balwyn North VIC
Thursday October 1
“In your article on governments convincing women to have more children, perhaps the falling birth rates globally are exactly what the world needs to start on a true pathway to long term sustainability. Yes there may be a temporary hurdle while coping with ageing populations, but the end result may well be a less-stressed planet and a general increase in overall, essential wellbeing for future generations.”
Bill Spiers, Emu Park QLD
“While reading the article on rising RBA rates, I think increasing pressure on mortgage holders and the flow-on increased cost to renters will place the burden squarely on the shoulders of the less well-off, the young and middle-class families who already are pillaged by our economic system. Meanwhile, higher interest rates benefit the well-to-do who don’t pay rent or hold a house mortgage or small business loans. The federal government needs to get some balls and do some of the things a number of economists recommend, like targeted tax increases instead of pledging tax cuts alone. How might reduced interest rates with an increase to the GST affect inflation? I don’t know the answer but it seems worth considering. Our economic system needs to be rebalanced to tax the consumers who spend, not the home owners who can’t afford to spend anymore or the people trying to buy their home. It seems the RBA has undone any benefit from the steps the government has introduced for first home buyers. The government needs to stop hiding behind RBA independence and do some things that require political courage.”
Lynda Paterson
Friday October 2
“As an ethicist, I have to say I appreciate the letter by Lynda Paterson in yesterday’s newsletter. I have often wondered whether a fairer approach to raising RBA rates would be to share the responsibility more broadly through temporary tax measures, targeted restrictions on speculative borrowing, and policies that increase housing and other essential supply. Whenever inflation rises, the standard response is to increase interest rates. Yet this seems to place a disproportionate burden on mortgage holders and small businesses with loans, while many others are largely unaffected. Interest rates may be an effective tool, but effectiveness and fairness are not necessarily the same thing. It is worth asking whether we have become too reliant on a policy that asks a relatively small section of society to carry most of the pain whenever inflation needs to be controlled? Surely there must be scope for our government to become more involved and use a wider range of measures so that the burden is shared more fairly across the community.”
Brian Lemin
“Wow. I had no idea that ‘helicopter parenting’ had progressed so far from when I was a primary school kid in the early 70s. With a mate, we used to walk home a couple of kilometres after school all by ourselves. This involved crossing a creek with willows where sometimes we would explore the odd tracks through the scrub and look for tadpoles in pools. Similarly after school, you would go to West Denistone park to see if anyone was playing touch footy or cricket. You might ride scooters or maybe do a skateboard circuit, or maybe go to a mate’s house… all by yourself. I nearly choked on my breakfast when the writer suggested 12 years of age is when kids want to start doing things independently. We had lived a whole unorganised and unregulated lifetime outside our parents’ gaze by then.”
Geoff Holmes, Woonona