Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

More German than many Germans

mertbulan.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 545 posts

Re: More German than many Germans

#401

Post by throwaway2037 »

ovb39 wrote: post #71
rockyj wrote: post #32

A very nice read and pretty much my experience. I have been here for a quarter of my life now, I do not think I can live anywhere else now. People may not like me being here because of my skin color or whatever but I do not mind. I keep to myself and follow all the "rules" I can. In fact, I like most of the rules, rules are good because they ensure order, fairness and equality. Will a little bit of empathy be nicer,…

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…

    > I grew up in a Germany where it didn't matter where you came from or what you looked like.
This is bullshit. Ask any Turkish heritage person who grew up in Germany before the 2010s. It was rough. You basically lived in a parallel society.

Re: More German than many Germans

#402

Post by scotty79 »

rglullis wrote: post #192
master-lincoln wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You not following rules makes me think less of you as a person. Rules are made so not everybody needs to judge every situation correctly themselves. People might overlook consequences or are not informed enough to make good decisions.

> Rules are made so not everybody needs to judge every situation correctly themselves. Rules are not the problem. Trying to apply one set of rules to every context is. > People might overlook consequences or are not informed enough to make good decisions. That happens regardless , so much so that "I was just following orders" defense has been tried many times before and never became morally acceptable.

> Rules are not the problem. Trying to apply one set of rules to every context is.

Ah, so basically you want more rules. Granular and detailed rules. Maybe you are more German than Germans too?

Re: More German than many Germans

#403

Post by scotty79 »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #355
master-lincoln wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You not following rules makes me think less of you as a person. Rules are made so not everybody needs to judge every situation correctly themselves. People might overlook consequences or are not informed enough to make good decisions.

There is a problem though. Who sets the rules? Is it guaranteed that the rules are always sane, and for the benefit of society? I think a baseline level of rebelliousness is necessary. I also think that the German cultural obsession to comply was necessary for the Nazi madness.

Nazis were saying "but we were just following orders" and for everyone else it sounded like a stupid excuse, but for Germans that's a strongly culturally rooted watertight argument. Event today. They just now ensured that their rules are better and orders are more thoughtful.

That said, I really love how Germany feels when you live there.

Re: More German than many Germans

#404

Post by throwaway2037 »

rglullis wrote: post #206
rockyj wrote: post #32

A very nice read and pretty much my experience. I have been here for a quarter of my life now, I do not think I can live anywhere else now. People may not like me being here because of my skin color or whatever but I do not mind. I keep to myself and follow all the "rules" I can. In fact, I like most of the rules, rules are good because they ensure order, fairness and equality. Will a little bit of empathy be nicer,…

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 don't think I will ever feel integrated.
Do you speak German well? That is biggest barrier for most.

Re: More German than many Germans

#405

Post by ido »

guenthert wrote: post #391
rockyj wrote: post #32

A very nice read and pretty much my experience. I have been here for a quarter of my life now, I do not think I can live anywhere else now. People may not like me being here because of my skin color or whatever but I do not mind. I keep to myself and follow all the "rules" I can. In fact, I like most of the rules, rules are good because they ensure order, fairness and equality. Will a little bit of empathy be nicer,…

> In fact, I like most of the rules, rules are good because they ensure order, fairness and equality. I'm sure some of the more entrepreneurial minds will argue that many of those rules stifle innovation and progress. But also on a personal level, at least to this returning German, some of the rules seem silly at best and at worst cause some underlying sense of oppression. Why, e.g., is there a Meldegesetz/Meldeamt?…

Yes, there are good rule and bad rules (and rules that were once reasonable but changes in technology or society rendered them suboptimal).

As an immigrant to Germany, I wish the authorities would think more about the chilling effect every new rule has on activity (add another item to your to-do checklist, and less people are likely to even start). A prime example is trying to open a company in Germany vs some other countries (not even going as far as the US, it's enough to compare with Finland or the UK).

Re: More German than many Germans

#406

Post by MandieD »

Congratulations on your Einbürgerung! That was an uplifting read.

My experiences with German bureaucracy have been similarly positive. The rules are the rules… but the rules are the rules, and can be contemplated at home in one’s own time, on one’s own private computer.

Re: More German than many Germans

#407

Post by throwaway2037 »

rglullis wrote: post #249
akie wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a foreigner in Berlin, and my guess is twofold: 1. Their German isn't good enough, which limits the pool of people you can connect to 2. They only or mostly hang out in the expat-scene, which limits the pool of people you can connect to

1) I am certified C1 German - studied in high school for 6 years. Granted, I don't like speaking German and will use English when possible, but it's not a matter of not being able to connect with them. 2) Shortly after moving in, I started dating a German woman. Lasted close to a whole year. That was more than enough time to meet a lot of her friends, I got to meet her family, etc. That was more than enough time and…

    > Granted, I don't like speaking German and will use English when possible, but it's not a matter of not being able to connect with them.
Why do you live in Germany? Why not somewhere else?

Re: More German than many Germans

#408

Post by 4ggr0 »

scotty79 wrote: post #397
4ggr0 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Also helps to accumulate wealth by taking care of global blood-money and being a diplomatic hub People say that, but ETFs that invest into plain old boring sectors of Swiss industry give long term returns half way between USA AI insanity and everything else in the world. So they must be doing something right with their industrial economy as well.

we got some huge, international companies here. pharma, banks, insurance, food and beverages, resource trading and a more-or-less stable political system.

https://companiesmarketcap.com/switzerland/largest-companies...

Re: More German than many Germans

#409

Post by nylonstrung »

> What stayed with me is that this is probably the only country in the western world that faced its own history properly, admitted the worst things it did, and built a lot of its identity around not repeating them.

Except it's the most ardent country in the EU when it comes to arming and supporting an ongoing genocide in Gaza and suppressing dissent against that

Re: More German than many Germans

#410

Post by chrisldgk »

nylonstrung wrote: post #409

> What stayed with me is that this is probably the only country in the western world that faced its own history properly, admitted the worst things it did, and built a lot of its identity around not repeating them. Except it's the most ardent country in the EU when it comes to arming and supporting an ongoing genocide in Gaza and suppressing dissent against that

To be fair, that is a thing mostly done by the political elites and not an opinion that most citizens (that I’ve interacted with) hold. Most of us would much prefer all of the money that’s being put into weapons for Israel to be invested in our country instead.

Then again, there’s currently a big political shift to the right and the US/UK flavor of identity politics seems to have made its way over here, so that’s probably also not changing anytime soon.

Post reply on HN