Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

So I guess Germany is one of those countries which reorganize their government on a brainstorming board by just throwing up concepts. And then it takes years for all the bureaucracy to move around and get back to work.

> Germany needs a new alignment of defense policy and research policy, but “we do not yet know how to do this,”

I learned in middle school that you were once really good at it. There is also a consensus it got quickly out of control and destroyed Europe.

All of this sound more like an Onion or Babylon Bee piece...

black_13 11 minutes ago [dead] | parent | context | unvouch | favorite | on: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for res...

The cynicism in these comments is telling, but misses crucial realities about Germany's capabilities and social achievements. Yes, Germany creates bureaucracies. Yes, Dorothee Bär's digital infrastructure record isn't impressive. And yes, German bureaucracy can be stifling. But this myopic focus on administrative inefficiency overlooks Germany's formidable strengths.

Germany maintains world-class engineering and manufacturing excellence through their Mittelstand network while America has hollowed out its industrial base. German research institutions like Max Planck and Fraunhofer consistently produce breakthrough innovations in renewable energy, advanced materials, and chemical engineering. Their aerospace contributions through Airbus and DLR deliver real technological advances.

More importantly, Germany excels precisely where America falters. Their dual education system creates exceptional technical competence without requiring college degrees. Germans enjoy comprehensive public transportation infrastructure, universal healthcare without administrative bloat, and urban planning that prioritizes livability over speculation.

The results speak for themselves: Germans live significantly longer (81.1 years vs America's 76.4), face virtually no gun violence (2 deaths per million annually vs America's 120), and don't suffer from the manufactured scarcity that plagues American housing, healthcare, and education markets.

Critically, Germany isn't now teetering on becoming a police state. While America expands surveillance powers, militarizes police forces, and faces growing authoritarianism, Germany's post-war constitutional framework continues to prioritize civil liberties, privacy protections, and democratic norms. Their painful historical lessons have created institutional guardrails against authoritarianism that America increasingly lacks.

Let's be honest about who's posting these dismissive takes - primarily privileged tech workers disconnected from the material realities faced by average citizens. While you mock German bureaucracy from comfortable positions, their social systems deliver concrete benefits that many Americans can only dream of.

Germany's approach allows for longer, healthier lives with dramatically less precarity than what Americans experience. Their new ministry may face bureaucratic challenges, but it builds on foundations of technical excellence and social achievement that deserve genuine consideration rather than facile mockery.

Everything that isn't dross in the computer world is either a well designed standard, or a well designed algorithm. If the German government adopted a sensible standard for government documents, for example, and mandated that all documents must be saved in it, that would already make a huge difference.

Germans are smart and capable, but the German lifestyle is not for "super high tech" industry