More German than many Germans • Hacker News Board

Re: More German than many Germans

#471

Post by piva00 » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

breppp wrote: post #385

abcd_f wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why? Do you think a country is going to improve if anyone with potential like the OP would move to the West? I haven't suggested someone should wait it out, but the notion that nothing can ever change because it's "culture" sounds absurd to me and as an excuse to not try

> I haven't suggested someone should wait it out, but the notion that nothing can ever change because it's "culture" sounds absurd to me and as an excuse to not try

I simply did not want to waste more of time by feeling powerless, I spent 10 years in civics organisations from 18-28 which didn't effect any change whatsoever even though we organised protests, education outreach for people to understand how government systems worked at each level for more conscious voting, one of my closest friends is a constitutional lawyer and helped to write motions to the state assembly.

Nothing of that ever helped anything, I wasted 10 years participating in civics for absolutely no gain. Much the contrary, I've been beaten by police, tear gas'ed, had a rubber bullet shot on my thigh (with a visible mark still there, 15 years later).

At some point you run out of steam, you are more than welcome to pick up the fight I gave up though.

Re: More German than many Germans

#472

Post by piva00 » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:00 PM UTC

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #470

piva00 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what happens when a culture is broken to the point of requiring generations of work to fix it: people who are unhappy will leave because there's no hope for enough to change to keep them there. How do you imagine that me staying in Brazil would have helped fixing major issues with corruption and violence? It's my life, I won't waste it living in a fantasy that as an individual I will have any meaningful impact…

> I won't waste it living in a fantasy that as an individual I will have any meaningful impact on lowering corruption, homicides, robberies, so on and so forth. The difference is: Some people are willing incredibly hard to fight for this, even though it is obvious to them that they will have no meaningful impact. Shouldn't you rather be willing to fight magnitudes harder if you know that you will have no meaningful i…

Sure, if they are extremely passionate about it and make it their life's purpose they will keep fighting even against hugely unfavourable odds.

I'm not one of those, I just commented somewhere else in this thread that I spent 10 years of my life engaged in political activities, from 18-28 (right before I moved out) I participated in organisations that tried to have some impact with nothing to show for it. It's not my passion to do that, I got tired, and there was nothing tethering me to that society after feeling like a fish out of water since I was a teenager.

In that case it's much better for my life to simply give up, I had my run while youth energy existed, nearing my 30s (which was more than a decade ago) I simply didn't want to waste more of my life swimming against the current.

I don't think many people understand how disheartening it is to run a civics education project for 2 years to try to educate people to vote better just to see they go to "church"* and vote on whomever their "pastor"* told them to.

* (Evangelicalism is not church for me, it's a money-grab scam to exploit poor desperate people)

Re: More German than many Germans

#473

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:03 PM UTC

a2800276 wrote: post #365

breppp wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

> considering how excited many Germans were about being able to deploy the Army for non defensive reasons in the Balkans, Afghanistan, etc.

Having lived at that time in Germany, I can tell you how excited many Germans rather were to openly name the responsible politicians "war criminals" (and would have been insanely happy if these politicians were brought before a war crimes tribunal) and the compatriot soldiers to participated in this campaign "murderers". I know this very well because I was among these people.

Even on the schoolyard there was a deep divide between the boys who were not completely rejecting the idea to do their (at that time near-compulsory) military service instead of considering at most doing alternative service as the only acceptable alternative, and those who did alternative service did then use every available opportunity to spread their opinion about wars and the military (they often had to work their alternative service in some welfare facility or retirement homes - places where you meet lots of people to whom you could tell your "soldiers are murderers" opinions).

Re: More German than many Germans

#474

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:10 PM UTC

a2tech wrote: post #374

aix1 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Considering how often the Deutsche Bahn isn't on time (I say this as a German), the SBB should have use for this rolling stock nearly all the time - so it's rather efficient. :-)

Re: More German than many Germans

#475

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:16 PM UTC

100percentjake wrote: post #462

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,…

Curious to get some perspective: How viable would starting a career in IT/Technology in Germany be as a mildly autistic American with an inability to learn foreign languages? I hear many opinions about this ranging from "English is commonly spoke, you'll be fine" to "You can visit but you will be unable to settle down due to xenophobia". The EU is incredibly appealing as someone highly dissatisfied with the trajector…

> Curious to get some perspective: How viable would starting a career in IT/Technology in Germany be as a mildly autistic American with an inability to learn foreign languages?

In my observation, in Germany the tolerance for the symptoms associated with mild autism is a little better than in the USA. On the other hand: if you aren't able to learn the German language fast: forget it.

Also be aware that starting a career in Germany is much harder than in the USA. On the other hand: once you are in, it is rather easy to stay in your job (in particular at a big company where there is a strong Betriebsrat (work council)) as long as you work somewhat dutifully and don't do anything really stupid. Just don't expect to move up the ladder (moving up the ladder or switching companies every few years is rather uncommon in Germany, so don't come with such an expectation).

> My family pre-immigration 150 years ago still exists in Germany and now appears to own a large road-construction concrete company. I wonder if that string is worth pulling.

This "I had ancestors in country X" seems to be a common sentiment among US-Americans. As a German I can really not understand how US-Americans get the idea that anybody in this country cares about that. If you really cared about the country, you would learn the language to a near-native level and get deeply into the country's culture.

Re: More German than many Germans

#476

Post by codingbot3000 » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:20 PM UTC

Sounds to me like the author worked at XING / NewWork SE which was a particularly nice German company to work with during their heyday.

Re: More German than many Germans

#477

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:30 PM UTC

moezd wrote: post #346

nbr42 wrote: post #220

What struck me most is how the author seems to confuse a very protected version of Germany with Germany itself. He landed in a relatively rare bubble: an international tech company, an English-speaking workplace, and a professional profile the system values. That experience is valid, but it is hardly representative. Even this bubble is shrinking as companies cut local roles and move more work to lower-cost locations.…

This. The landing story is uncharacteristically soft, surrounded by English speaking colleagues in an international company. On average, you'd find that Germans tend to grow weary speaking in English sooner and almost press you to speak German the first time you blurt a reply that sounds vaguely correct German. It almost becomes a matter of protecting your personal space if you don't want to feel embarrassed for maki…

> but the chat absolutely needs to happen in German. Why? Work culture.

Rather: because a lot of less formal thoughts (including jokes) are difficult to express in English since they often rely on structures that the English language does not have.

> if you speak German, you risk sounding like a child

I can ensure you that you don't sound like a child (nursery language is typically not taught in language courses for foreign speakers). Rather, you sound like a person who did not take learning German seriously.

Re: More German than many Germans

#478

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:31 PM UTC

OoooooooO wrote: post #466

100percentjake wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious to get some perspective: How viable would starting a career in IT/Technology in Germany be as a mildly autistic American with an inability to learn foreign languages? I hear many opinions about this ranging from "English is commonly spoke, you'll be fine" to "You can visit but you will be unable to settle down due to xenophobia". The EU is incredibly appealing as someone highly dissatisfied with the trajector…

Learning the language is vital here. Most things are not in english but only in german. Every official letter you receive will be in german. Looking for an apartment? Better speak german with the landlord. You may get through for a few years in an international city like Hamburg, Berlin, München if you find a job at an international company. But long term? Learn german or you will suffer.

> Every official letter you receive will be in german.

Is that different in any other country?

Would you expect to be able to recieve them in spanish, while living in France?

There is also https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leichte_Sprache , which many official websites provide, seems even to be mandatory for some services to have that option on offer.

Re: More German than many Germans

#479

Post by ventana » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC

ralferoo wrote: post #420

ventana wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my forty something years of life so far, a quarter is a little more than 10 years. I lived the first quarter + ε in one place during my childhood, then moved to a different city for the college and lived there for another quarter + ε, and I'm spending a quarter + ε in a completely different country. The sum of these three ε cover the remaining quarter. The fact that I spent a quarter of my life in three different…

Are they different ε or the same? TBH, if using quarter here is just shorthand for "a decade", so it might be easier just to say plainly "I spent over a decade in each of A, B and C".

Sure, I was just nitpicking on the phrase of the original comment that apparently put some extra weight on the fact that it was a quarter of life.

Re: More German than many Germans

#480

Post by aix1 » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

a2tech wrote: post #374

aix1 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It was the locals who decided that it was worth the extra hassle and expense (and that doing the same thing at St. Margrethen wasn't).

There was probably a referendum at some point. :)

I am not sure whether the stats are comparable, but I read somewhere that about half of Deutsche Bahn trains are late into Basel (and there are many trains a day). While I don't know this for a fact, it wouldn't surpise me if patterns of delays are relatively predictable and can be planned for.

There was some talk about just ending those routes at Basel at some far-away point in the future, but I'm not sure if that's something that's been decided.