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More German than many Germans

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Re: More German than many Germans

#371

Post by vladvasiliu »

rglullis wrote: post #247
bspinner wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would like to hear your thoughts on why that is the case.

I was going to respond with "Protestantism", but then I realized that I also lived in the US for ~5 years and I had no problem to adapt there. Mind you, I wouldn't go back to live in the US unless you were paying me a lot of money to do so, but at least there I felt integrated. But honestly I don't have a better answer. Despite all my sincerest efforts, I never got the German idea of humor. I never understood their l…

> I find it weird that I've been living in the same building for 7 years and I know basically nothing about my neighbors

Isn't this just par for the course when living in dense settings?

I've been living in my current apartment for more than three years, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recognize most of my neighbors if I randomly saw them in the street. We say hello when our paths cross coming and going, but that's it.

Many people come to the cities specifically looking to be more anonymous. You can't have that if everybody knows everybody.

Re: More German than many Germans

#372

Post by gfrecvh »

servo_sausage wrote: post #259
logicchains wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another Australian I'm glad to see it. I remember as a kid watching a neighbour's dog of many years being dragged away to the slaughter by a council worker as the old women pleaded for it to be spared, just because it wasn't the right breed. The rules don't leave any room for empathy. There's a saying, "the problem isn't that Australia was founded by prisoners, it's that it was founded by prison guards".

See, I would call getting a breed of dog that has been identified as dangerous, as incredibly selfish. Genuinely an insane degree of self centred reasoning. My special dog is fine, because it's my dog, and I know better than everyone else (but also can't convince anyone that you are in fact right, in order to change the rules). It's all the behaviour that we have identified as better overall if everyone follows it, a…

Also "don't worry he doesn't bite" after they allow their dog to jump at you.

Re: More German than many Germans

#373

Post by abcd_f »

breppp wrote: post #362
piva00 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you like how a country does things, why not change the country you originate from instead of going to that other country? Because it's neigh impossible for an individual to meaningfully change parts of the culture they dislike which are ingrained for hundreds of years. How am I supposed to change one of the major issues plaguing my home country: corruption? It's ingrained at all levels, from politicians to the p…

> I cannot change that, it's part of the culture, it annoyed me to no end, and my individual actions didn't matter at all while making my life harder. That's never true, countries changed extremely, also cultural-wise. If talking Germany the basic example is changing from a very militaristic society (far before the Nazis) to a rather pacifist society. If talking corruption, my own country has progressively became far…

One will be long dead when a desired fundamental change finally completes. So any suggestion to stay and wait it out is plain disingenuous.

Re: More German than many Germans

#374

Post by a2tech »

aix1 wrote: post #314
zelphirkalt wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know, that by now Switzerland frequently refuses German trains to enter the country, because of delays? They don't want Deutsche Bahn mismanagement and delays to affect their own train network. Very reasonable to put a stop to this.

What they do is very interesting, though IMO "refuse to enter the country" sounds harsher than it actually is. If an inbound German train is late to Basel by more than 20 minutes, the Swiss run their own substitute train from Basel (they keep rolling stock on standby). The replacement train runs to the original timetable so that local passengers are unaffected. The late train is then pulled out of service at Basel (t…

That sounds like an excellent solution for locals.

But it also seems very inefficient because of the need to keep rolling stock in reserve, ready to go just in case. That’s a lot of maintenance, staff, and machine time to burn.

Re: More German than many Germans

#375

Post by sevenzero »

Willkommen in Hamburg! Was a fun read. Seems like you were extremely lucky with your company and flat mate. I know a lot of immigrants working in logistics and they'd tell a different story. It's cool to see that it can work out positively too.

Re: More German than many Germans

#376

Post by abcd_f »

cicko wrote: post #253
usuaof wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I kindly invite you to come and show me how to fix Bosnia and Herzegovina. I would love to go back and work at a decent company and have my family and friends (who are now scattered around the world) for afternoon and weekends. All it takes is a genious (like you!) to show up and fix things. Hopefully in an afternoon?

The GP was trolling.

Re: More German than many Germans

#377

Post by 4ggr0 »

Gud wrote: post #166
mr_mitm wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, a German, went to Switzerland for vacation once. I talked to a Swiss guy about how I like Switzerland and all that. I told him how impressed I was with how organized everything is and how well everything works. The train system and public transport in general is wonderful compared to the one we have in Germany, for example. To my surprise, he said something along the line of "yeah well, it only looks like that fro…

I moved from Sweden to Switzerland, and I don't know what that guy was talking about. Switzerland is an extremely well run country.

I mean it helps that there's around 9M people living there, 1/10th of Germany or about the same amount as London or New York.

Also helps to accumulate wealth by taking care of global blood-money and being a diplomatic hub :) and let's not forget the tons of gold we got gifted about a hundred years ago, sadly can't quite remember where we got that from.

Re: More German than many Germans

#378

Post by jk3000 »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #184
ovb39 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the complaining comes from high taxes, remembering the "good old times" and just from being German. Germans love to complain. I left Germany for a few years and came back. There are very few other places I could imagine to live in. Maybe Norway, Canada or Switzerland. I hope Germany gets its things together, the recent uprise of xenophobia and social polarization is concerning. I grew up in a Germany…

Germany has been shifting wealth from middle class and lower class to the rich for a long time now and is at the forefront of inequality increase in Europe. All the xenophobia and polarization is happening for a reason. The people are no longer happy with their lives here. It is a result of decades of bad politicians and policies, bad election results, and mismanagement of the whole country and immigration and integr…

Spoken like a true German. All goes to shit. All the time.

Re: More German than many Germans

#379

Post by a2800276 »

breppp wrote: post #366
a2800276 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If talking Germany the basic example is changing from a very militaristic society (far before the Nazis) to a rather pacifist society. I seem to recall that this was not the result of Germans staying put and changing things for the better, but rather due to external forces reducing the majority of their country to rumble and and spending 2 decades reeducating them. Not sure what "your country" is, but here in Germa…

The way I see it is the cultural change happened after the Prussian elites lost power and the general German public understood their recent history as far from the eternal victory they were promised. That's a major cultural change however you want to spin it, and there are enough examples in history where countries haven't gone through the same changes in similar situations (Weimar Republic also comes to mind) Regard…

> Presuming we are talking about migration, most of these source countries were able to fight and win European colonization in the past, why do you think that's easier than fighting corruption?

While I neither claimed "nothing can change" corruption nor that fighting corruption is more difficult than fighting European colonization, here are some arguments to your straw man:

Corruption is very insidious to combat because you don't have a clearly demarcated enemy to unite against. Corruption spreads through all layers of society and most people in deeply corrupt societies will be both victims and beneficiaries of corruption: you want your house built and saved up enough dough? Sure you grease the wheels a bit so you can start building right away. Also, your brother who's helping you finance the house is a civil servant and a good chunk of his income is a result of taking bribes. The government itself sees it as "tips" that justify lower wages, and you sure as shit don't want taxes to go up with all the baksheesh you need to hand out...

At best you're in a "glass house" scenarios, it's very difficult to break out of without a general amnesty and serious external pressure, because all the parties that are actually qualified to run a government (or similar corrupt organization) are implicated.

Re: More German than many Germans

#380

Post by zeratax »

usuaof wrote: post #203
ido wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion (immigrant for the 2nd time, currently in Germany since 2013- so I've lived in 3 countries when counting my native one): Basically, all rich/"western" countries are pretty decent. Some better than other, but they're all 'ok' or rather they all have plenty of 'ok' options for people able to work at somewhat in-demands fields (despite the financial situation of the last couple years a career in tech or tech…

[flagged]

he didnt declare himself that, other germans declared him that...

> Many Germans have told me I'm more German than many Germans

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