91–100 of 106 posts
This is a bit offtopic, but Berlin is really beautifully mapped in OSM. In places the details are more than what I would have ever thought of, for example the individual pillars of the Holocaust Memorial: http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/arriving-in-berlin-a-map...
What about the millions of eastern / central europeans that have lower wages and worse quality of life and have been denied to work in german markets when the countries have been allowed to join the EU ? I guess nobody cares. Oh nobody cares either about people that are educated and can't get working visa because EU bureaucracy. Thanks Germany.
Germany was struggling with the reunification, having added 20 Million people from a collapsed country, the German Democratic Republic. That was difficult enough. Currently there are no special labor restrictions for EU citizens in Germany.
East Germany had mostly sustained itself by forbidding people from leaving the country (under threat of death), forcefully keeping its citizens in line (via ubiquitous surveillance and extortion) and frequently selling captives ("traitors" and "collaborators") to its next-door neighbour.
Heck, the entire country had been ransacked before it was even created. While the US and its closer allies limited themselves to seizing high-tech and research after WW2, the Soviets transferred a large part of the industry and factories out of Germany as reparations.
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No, they should stay in fucking Syria. If they're so keen on western values such as democracy and freedom of religion, they should take up arms and fight for them, just like our ancestors did. And if they're not keen on western values such as democracy and freedom of religion, they should stay the fuck out of the west. The right to live in a peaceful, prosperous country is not automatic. For those of us in the west,…
This has to be the most simplistic, nationalistic, view of history I've ever read. Ignoring that throughout history it is extremely common for groups to leave their countries and settle elsewhere when it becomes oppressive, for example America...
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They learned from history alright, just not in the way you think. Israel is one of the best defended states with some of the best social welfare for its citizens. They work six days a week to make it happen, and their public-private partnerships are top notch and generate a massive amount of real innovation (as in - life saving medical technology instead of boredom apps). If every state in the world was as self-suffi…
They sure are good in colonizing the land of Palestine with moral and monetary support of a western country that sadly forgot how to use their resources for space exploration and are colonizing third world countries since the WWII with government coups.
Colonization and exploitation are more than buzzwords, but in the real world they work the other way around. Look at the yearly trade balance between say Chile and South Korea. Chile is basically an enormous copper ore mine, it accounts for 50% of their exports. South Korea exports back finished goods. So who is really exploiting who, and what country is more important to the world? I'd say the imagination of South Koreans and the ability to make high quality products trump the Chileans. That doesn't mean the Chilean people are in any way lesser than the Koreans, but that they need to invest in what produces real value in 21st century - brains.
There is really not much to be gained for Israel by colonizing areas of Palestine, except better security (which is an economic bonus in itself). What I do wonder though - if Israel is magically relocated to an island nation, say in the middle of a trade route like Singapore, what would they be really capable of, unhindered by defensive considerations.
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But it's not his government, it's the German government. How Germany chooses to spend its money is a matter for the German people, and not anyone else.
I was referring to the EU, which is supposed to serve the interests of its member states -- a radical idea, it seems.
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The posting of this article was guaranteed to produce a political flamewar.
That doesn't excuse the commenters who made it so.
If you allow politically contentious articles, you're going to get politically charged discussion. Articles representing a left-wing worldview are let through and right-wingers are blamed for "starting flame wars" when they interject something that shows their own worldview.
HN should either commit to open discussion or declare itself officially a no-dissent-allowed Safe Space.
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That doesn't excuse the commenters who made it so.
Does it excuse the mods who let it through? If you allow politically contentious articles, you're going to get politically charged discussion. Articles representing a left-wing worldview are let through and right-wingers are blamed for "starting flame wars" when they interject something that shows their own worldview. HN should either commit to open discussion or declare itself officially a no-dissent-allowed Safe Sp…
More importantly, you have no standing to argue about what's appropriate on HN when you post dreck like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10453898 in violation of the site's rules. I've asked you before to stop doing this. Please follow the rules from now on.
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Economies of scale, eventual ending of some unnecessary zero-sum games (a single government doesn't need to maintain much military, nor it will end up in an arms race), getting rid of nationalism, tying people's identity to the whole planet as opposed to an arbitrary subset of it. I don't really see the benefits of keeping national sovereignty. One could think that we should've grown past it already.
If a world government decides to spy on its own citizens, the whistleblower will have nowhere to run.
I'm just not sure if having a safe haven for whistleblower is worth keeping around pockets of people pointing guns at each other like we do today. Also, the "safe haven" is something a whistleblower gets for giving a gun to one side to point at another, not at the goodness of any government's collective heart.
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If a world government decides to spy on its own citizens, the whistleblower will have nowhere to run.
I'm assuming at this point we'll grow past the privacy thing as well, but I'm going to upgrade your argument to "if a world government decides to do something evil, the whistleblower will have nowhere to run", which is indeed a concern. I'm just not sure if having a safe haven for whistleblower is worth keeping around pockets of people pointing guns at each other like we do today. Also, the "safe haven" is something…
How about the concern that the existence of a single government doesn't stop people shooting at each other, as indicated by, oh, say, the Syrian Civil War? Even in the optimal case where you somehow did achieve a one-world government that was democratic and benign (rather than resembling the average government) you would inevitably have groups of people thinking that this is a non-ideal government whose authority should be challenged. In the end you'd just wind up replacing all ordinary wars with civil wars. And the civil wars, instead of being confined to one country at a time, would rage simultaneously in all countries, always.
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You do realize where money comes from right? That the refugees get any thing when actual tax, social security, disability was paid into by citizens for citizens and even if it was as available as you think it should be, the citizens are having their money funneled and real estate taken from them in ways that are unsettling and downright disgraceful.
Yeah, I pay for it in my taxes and I am very happy the money goes to these causes. And your statement about real estate being taken from anyone is just outright false.