Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

God no, Perth people are incredibly inventive and creative, it's not that we don't expect people to invent things here (and if my first post sounded like that then I got the tone totally wrong).

It's just that in a town where everyone knows everyone, we'd expect to hear about awesome stuff like this happening locally before it hits HN ;)

View on HN

I think what you're witnessing is the Perth "blow-hard" effect, wherein the culture has a proclivity towards hype and hubris if it thinks something is "world-changing", because Perth is an underdog city in the context of Australia, an underdog country. Perth culture promotes the idea that its citizens are bound by destiny to have a big impact on the world, since its literally a city on the edge of the world, very far from most of the major civilizing actions, and very isolated from most of what is going on. So it "has to be" a very progressive, "forward-thinking" place. Whenever someone in Perth invents something neat, its a "world-changing thing, invented here in humble Perth" .. usually turning out to be exactly the opposite.

(Disclaimer: Sandgroper.)

nah, there are genuinely world-changing people here.

I think it's more that finally, because of the internets, people can genuinely change the world from Perth. They always had to move East or North before. Now we actually have people here making a global impact we get astonished by it, and very very proud :)

Your assessment is unfair. I'm not from Perth and have no vested interest in defending it. The article is typical journalism. Perth blows no more smoke than anywhere else. The only place in Australia that could be accused of the arrogance you talk of is Victoria (nicknamed "France 2nd" for a good reason). Perth now isn't exactly a shining example of journalism. It's one of the lowest quality publications in Australia. Adelaide's advertiser is probably the worst. ABC News or The Australian probably the best.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com