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More German than many Germans

mertbulan.com

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Re: More German than many Germans

#141

Post by notenlish »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #62

...What I knew about Germans.. ..who speak a language that sounds too harsh.. ..And of course, someone always brings up the Nazis That's bold, coming from Turkish people when their country is in an aggressive military dictatorship and the language not particularly pleasant to the ear. I guess we all need someone worse than us to cope.

I don't think Erdogans dictatorship can be classified as an aggressive military dictatorship.

I don't think neither German or Turkish is harsh to the ear.

Re: More German than many Germans

#142

Post by vw_bulli »

juvvel wrote: post #102
vw_bulli wrote: post #81

This resonates with me a lot, and reading it gave me some positive emotions about Germany which I unfortunately have less and less with each passing day. This country gave me a lot. Moving here from a third world country, the jump in my quality of life was immeasurable. All the rules everywhere were for me a blessing, coming originally from a chaotic city. Despite never taking any German courses, I had reached C1 lev…

You'll find that Scandinavian countries are not readily welcoming foreigners into their social circles either.

I don't expect to be welcomed, but also not actively "unwelcomed" by many. I never said it's about racism; My extremely pale Italian friend was complaining about exactly this to me as well. The "Verbitterung" here (The fact that people apriori want to fight you, before even any interaction) is sad. Scandinavian countries are even more closed off, that's true, but they are not known to be hostile.

Re: More German than many Germans

#144

Post by rglullis »

jyounker wrote: post #125
rglullis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would set an example No, it wouldn't. This type of logic only holds if we consider that drivers are automatons who can not analyze risks by themselves. Give the drivers autonomy to judge whether it's safe or not to deviate from the scheduled route. I rather have a driver signaling me "No, I will not open the door now because I don't think it is safe" over "No, I will not open the door now because I can't break t…

You need to understand that Germany is not logical. It is systematic.

Oh, I understand it alright. But understanding it doesn't mean I like it.

After 13 years living in Berlin, I've come to terms with the fact that most aspects of German culture are things I need to tolerate, but never embrace.

Re: More German than many Germans

#146

Post by tomaytotomato »

A nice read,

Immigration has many pulls and with that comes all sorts of immigrants whether great, average and terrible.

Unfortunately Western countries and bureaucracies seem to have committed the usual sin of developing processes that:

- make it incredibly hard for good immigrants to migrate, contribute and naturalise themselves legally.

- at the same time leaving lots of gaping holes of exploitation for criminals and other immigrants who are just looking for a meal ticket or to enter illegally and abuse our high trust societies.

Couple this with a news and media setup that optimises for covering news of bad migrants whilst hardly broadcasting news about good migrants.

Re: More German than many Germans

#147

Post by PfizerJaa »

OKRainbowKid wrote: post #127
PfizerJaa wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of person comes to an English speaking forum, drops a quote in a foreign language without any translation and pretends to not get called out?

What kind of person new to a community (account created today) tries to police more established members of that community in their very first comment ?

[dead]

Re: More German than many Germans

#148

Post by holowoodman »

rmoriz wrote: post #118
glimshe wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like better understand the German engineering culture. Why was it special in the past? What about today? As a kid in the 80s, I had some things from Germany and their quality was astounding. Fast forward to present time, our Volkswagen car made in Germany is the worst car I've ever had in terms of reliability. PS: an honest question getting downvotes?

There is no incentive to build a reliable product that can‘t compete in price. People are trained to consume and throw away. People are getting used to throw away cloths and household appliances after 1-3 years. Miele once built washing machines that outlast 30 years. They offered spare parts and regional service hubs. But the market decided to just buy the 50% cheaper ones every 5 years.

In the last 25 years, German companies got into "reliability engineering". Which is the art of adjusting your drawings in such a way that every component lasts exactly as long as it has to, and not a second longer.

Which is why back in the day, there were some car/washing machine/tool brands and models that seemed to last forever. Whereas now the current models last exactly their warranty/leasing period.

Edit: Other manufacturers do this, too. But for them, it's often coming from the other side of the reliability curve, so they are improving, the ones that were better back then are getting worse.

Re: More German than many Germans

#150

Post by klausa »

14u2c wrote: post #124
beeforpork wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The driver is not allowed to open the door anywhere but at a bus stop, the company running the bus forbids it. Quite strictly, actually. I think it is mainly because of insurance things. It is the same in a traffic jam when you are on the bus and the next bus stop is just a few meters away, and the bus is stuck and nothing moves -- impatient people will get angry because they want to leave the bus, but the driver is…

Is it typical for a company to run the busses? Somewhat interesting as that's one thing in the US that is rarely privatized. The driver, etc. will be a direct employees of the municipality.

They're usually private companies owned by the cities.
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