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More German than many Germans

mertbulan.com

261–270 of 545 posts

Re: More German than many Germans

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not? By no means did I mean Hamburg. If Hamburg was a country of its own I would love to live here to my last day, enduring the social-skills situation. The reason why I do would not like to settle here permanently is more about German politics, which makes one vomit. Additionally, the recent reforms to the pension system here pissed many young people off, and the trajectory says it will only get worse. > Like…

> By no means did I mean Hamburg Ok, from your sentence, was clear to me, you like Hamburg, but you don't want grow old there. > Additionally, the recent reforms to the pension system here pissed many young people off, and the trajectory says it will only get worse. So to leave the system now moving to Norway, will make you get a better Pension? I think it depends of many factors, but I am not sure it is true, specia…

Thanks for the note regarding domestic migration, learned something new today.

The very last point was meant sarcastically due to the Hamburg-Bavaria beef. Of course Bavaria has some things that are nicer. For example I really miss the mountains, living up here in the north where it can’t get any flatter.

Cheers!

Re: More German than many Germans

#262
> In January 2024, after it came out that far right politicians had talked about deporting people who already hold a German passport

That is - as determined by a German court - something between fake news and severely distorted representation of what happened.

Re: More German than many Germans

#263
post #13

The first time I was in Berlin I had to take a bus. It was just leaving the stop as I was getting there, but stopped at the next red light. So I ran to the bus and knocked on the door. The driver looked at me with a concerned look to see if something was wrong, and once he understood I was just asking to come onboard outside of the regular stop, he laughed. Not ironically or in a mean way: it was a genuine laugh like…

Because you did something very weird ;)

- for insurance reasons it's not allowed for them to let you one once they "departed" from the curb, even if just by 20cm. They can literally lose their job over it and while it is a very exhausting job it doesn't pay that badly. (This wasn't always this way).

- due to how Berlin has historically grown and the congestion issues that brought with it the buses have a hard time being on time(1) on the 6,589 bus stops across 152 (day) lines (~40-45 stops per line). So they try to avoid any additional delays, especially if this delay might cause them to miss a green light.

(1): Berlins love to blame the public transportation provider(s) for this delays. And in some cases (S-Bahn) this is partially true, but for the busses it is much more on the "actual hard problem" side then for S-Bahn. And some of the other problems also go back to politics, like so often.

Re: More German than many Germans

#264
I don't think most of those votes are about hating foreigners. Some people believe the story they get every day, that the country is broken and that immigrants are the problem.

I just don't understand this. It's not about hate or racism, it's about the speed of the change.

We've had too many immigrant, too fast. But since there's no brake on this thing apparently the only option normal politicians seems to have is to be dismissive of negative effects of mass migration so they don't have to admit there's no brake lever.

This then pushes people to a party that will at least admit the negative effects.

Re: More German than many Germans

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I laugh the same at their imploding automotive industry. Nothing ironic, nothing mean. They missed the stop and it's funny how they're not in the bus.

let's see how this turns out, but I would not underestimate the german engineering culture...

Since dieselgate I no longer believe in German engineering. That, and that they just can’t make their trains run on time. Never have I taken an ICE train that was not delayed. How could that happen in an actual engineering culture?

Re: More German than many Germans

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm living in Berlin for 13/45 of my life, but I don't think I will ever feel integrated. As much as I tried to get around and adapt to the local culture, I quickly found myself only connecting with non-Germans, most of them from Southern Europe, and on a smaller scale from Poland and the Balkans.

I have been living in Berlin since my birth and your experience is one _many Germans have in Berlin, too_. Berlin is it's own thing, both in good and bad, I would not treat it as representative for Germany at all. 1. Berlin is the _least_ German Germany city, by far. 2. around ~20% of people living in Berlin aren't from Germany, I can't find the numbers but I think another 30-40% where not born in Berlin and likely w…

I think the main problem is to see Berlin as a city. Even the official city is more a bunch of divided, but connected middle-sized cities. For example, the City Berlin has ~3.7 Million citizens, which is nearly double the size of the next biggest cities (Hamburg 1.8 Million, Munich 1.5 Million). And the region Berlin even has 4.7-6.3 Million, depending on which parts you add. Half of the German states have fewer citizens.

> 2. around ~20% of people living in Berlin aren't from Germany,

Notable part here: that's not even the highest amount in Germany. There are many cities with similar or higher numbers. But to be fair, depending on the region, there are likely many people from neighbouring countries which will have less problems with integration because of their shared cultural background. Berlin is for historical and political reasons a big melting pot of different cultures. It's not the only one, but a bit different because of it's size.

Re: More German than many Germans

#267
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i had to re-read your comment twice. i thought i might have misunderstood. it’s rare these days to read such a pure, unfiltered ethno-nationalist argument, that level of ethnic and racial essentialism is a rare sight. you are the realest of the real, a true heartfelt nazi. i’m impressed.

Why are blatant american supremacist posters like this not permabanned? Tolerating the advocacy of the erasure of ethnic groups and to have the whole world be subjected to the anachronistic american racial caste system creates an extremely hostile environment for for anyone that isn't an american or one of their cultural vassals

not sure he was american, but i am happy he is gone, wherever he is from.

Re: More German than many Germans

#268
post #124

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.

in EU it's normal

- a company run the busses

- its partially of fully owned by the city/state, i.e. NOT private investors, not private liquidity, no one expects any payouts

- its commonly a special form of "company", e.g. "Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts" in this case which you can roughly read as "installment/company based on public-law"

Practical that is "mostly" the same as state run when looking at it from a distance. But with some differences. Like it's still a company, has it's own company structure, it's own bookkeeping, it's own employees etc. This leads to a much more clean separation when it comes to budged managing, and where possible removes/reduces direct political influence into daily operations (just direct one, indirectly through ownership etc. there is very much still influence, but this makes it somewhat less suspect to damage from changing political parties non stop changing directions).

Through things can get far more complicated then just one company, in one legal form.

Re: More German than many Germans

#269
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're usually private companies owned by the cities.

Can something be private and owned by a state? Isn't the definition of private: non-public? And wouldn't the government in a democratic state count as public?

Yes, it can. Many public services in Germany are legally private companies, which just happen to be owned by public entities. Main reason seems to be that they can act more flexible and independent of public rules. On a more nasty side, it's also easier to sell them partly or full, if necessary. And in some cases they simply started as private companies and were bought up by the state for various reasons.

Re: More German than many Germans

#270
post #6

On rules - they certainly create clarity and also have the potential to enable NPC like behaviour which is all too common. Since you mentioned Traffic Light Coalition, the chancellor Olaf Scholz (who is a lawyer and was also the ex-mayor of Hamburg) recently said in an interview “Germany was known to be a country of engineers, we are now a country of lawyers”. Hamburg along side with Munich is what Germany should loo…

> rules[...] have the potential to enable NPC like behaviour which is all too common Would you mind explaining this? What is NPC-like behaviour?

NPCs are Non-Player-Characters in video games, i.e. "extras". Their programming is usually kept simple, so they're kind of famous for robotically repeating the same lines or doing the same actions.

I think here it might mean getting attached to the rules for the rules' sake and forgetting the deeper reason why the rules are there in the first place - like waiting on a red light on a deserted street.

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