171–180 of 314 posts
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Sounds like you kinda just want an excuse to vote AfD without pointing to an element of their policy platform you think the rest of us should support too.
Q.E.D (Just for the record I don't vote AfD. I do like being German and I like what little culture we have left. You can be patriotic and at the same time left leaning.)
The upside is that this will actually provide lots of research funding to small companies. Think of it like the seed round from a VC, but instead of investing into new companies, they try to strategically invest into existing companies to boost future tax revenue. It'll probably be very German, meaning overly bureaucratic. But the basic idea of financing R&D in small companies to grow them more competitive seems legi…
I dont want the govt to fund any research funding. As a tax payer i did not vote this. I want to decide who i fund or not. It just means, my taxes will not go down. :/
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Applying for a grant is normally difficult. In Germany, it's outright hellish. I hope I will be pleasantly surprised.
Applying for a grant in the European Commission is a labyrinth of different websites each with their own need to register. Grant Specs are largely in PDFs or Word Documents that are attached to the call. And it takes at least 6-9 months from open to decision. I have applied to about 20 grants throughout 2024 and haven't heard anything back from a single one yet.
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I dont want the govt to fund any research funding. As a tax payer i did not vote this. I want to decide who i fund or not. It just means, my taxes will not go down. :/
I suppose then you won't get nearly as much medical research, technological research, scientific research. Seriously, you may not realize just how much genuine academic research at colleges, universities, and technical institutes rely on government grants. At least that's how it is in the US. I'm unsure how different, if at all, it is in Germany.
I actually think Germany would be really good at digital infrastructure if they stopped being afraid of friend computer. Germany is immensely proud of its history of creating standards - there's literally a place in berlin called DIN Platz. Germany is also very proud, and rightly so, in its history of mathematical innovation. Everything that isn't dross in the computer world is either a well designed standard, or a w…
Germany has tons of potential, but Germany is one of the most risk averse countries on the planet (see Uncertainty Avoidance Cultures)[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_avoidance ]. This makes it amazing at building high quality industrial products, taking innovation done elsewhere and refining and polishing it, slowly over many years - building standards as you say. However, it doesn't help much in the inno…
I actually think Germany would be really good at digital infrastructure if they stopped being afraid of friend computer. Germany is immensely proud of its history of creating standards - there's literally a place in berlin called DIN Platz. Germany is also very proud, and rightly so, in its history of mathematical innovation. Everything that isn't dross in the computer world is either a well designed standard, or a w…
Germany has tons of potential, but Germany is one of the most risk averse countries on the planet (see Uncertainty Avoidance Cultures)[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_avoidance ]. This makes it amazing at building high quality industrial products, taking innovation done elsewhere and refining and polishing it, slowly over many years - building standards as you say. However, it doesn't help much in the inno…
> Uncertainty Avoidance Cultures
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LOL - I can second that. There are a lot of memes about nothing screams more "Digitalisierung!" than having to send papers via fax. Or having to carry cash coz a lot of places don't even give you the option to pay by card (even though this seems to come to an end, hello 2025!)
Random German company: You open your intranet, manually search through hundreds of (pdf!) application-forms (because search is not implemented), downlod the right form, print it(!), fill the form, sign it, scan the paper, send it to the ticket system. That’s what they call „Digitalisierung“, because previously they had to send the printed paper-form to the helpdesk team.
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>Software in Germany is built to achieve a means to an end. It is never the end goal itself. Well, that's how it should be, I don't write software to worship any software deities, I use it to get a job done. If you don't you end up with that 700 dollar useless gadget that was basically a python API wrapper in a box that everyone rightfully made fun of. We can do a lot of things better in software in Germany but treat…
What he means is that Germans are less susceptible to the SV bullshit artists that are hyping up their bubble unicorns for VC money, inflating companies with workers just to sell them at peak of the hype before cutting all those “positions” and then en-shittifying the product. Technology coasted for a few decades gaining public’s trust as an unquestionable improvement over the past. That reputation is wearing out fas…
I agree Germans are less susceptible to SV bullshit artists, but they also miss out on the upside for game changing ideas. Whether this is a net negative or net positive is yet to be determined. Up to this point, it has been Germany’s financial loss to over index on the engineeriness. Maybe it is America’s loss to over index on the financial outcomes and the truly world changing ideas and those very same ideas can be a net negative. I would have said 2 months ago that you would be hard pressed to find people on this message board who would agree with the latter, but I think that may have changed significantly recently.
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The problem is not the bureaucracy. Nobody's stopping a local mid-market manufacturer from automating workflows. Or hindering a utility company from offering a better service process. The problem is corporate leadership. German companies tend to be run by people who are inflexible, uninspired, and cheap. Maybe it's in the culture. Compare this to Austria, where there's a cultural flair for the dramatic (and therefore…
> The problem is not the bureaucracy. It absolutely is. Try to open a company in Germany. Then try to do your tax. Then try to close your company. After that, let's talk again about bureaucracy. Oh, and the new government just announced plans that non-employeed people (freelancers, business owners, ...) are now forced to pay into national pension (with few exceptions). And don't get me started on that one. Just as an…
Americans constantly complain about the tax system and, like them or not in practice, a lot of US citizens on both sides of the aisle believe in one of the stated goals of DOGE (previously named the US Digital Service).
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thats also not helping, but it's not exactly a secret that German public infrastructure from roads to rails to electricity and whatnot are also all crumbling.
it's hard to build infrastructure when you have dysfunctional labor markets & your tax base is declining in real terms.