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The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

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Re: The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

#81

Post by cyberpunk »

dinfinity wrote: post #80
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your framing is no better: Don't look at how much you are paying in taxes because somehow in the end you are getting more out of it. Of course you should look at what you are getting out of it and scrutinize every euro spent by the state. This is the basis of the social contract between a country and its citizens. Citizens pay money in the form of taxes and expect to receive decent services in return. If the state is…

Have you tried doing what I suggested? As an addendum to what I said to your sibling commenter: people in developed countries take a lot of shit for granted. Of course there is a judicial system. Of course sewage is properly dealt with. Of course there is a fire department, etc. etc. The whole point of the exercise is realizing what your taxes are actually providing. All that shit ain't free: it costs a lot of money…

I'd like more control where my money goes. I'd happily spend the time every year deciding what % of my contribution goes where, and it would be more democratic. I'm happy to have sewers, police, schools, infrastructure and so on.

I'm less enthused about the growing debt pile my children will inherit, and obvious wastes (e.g - the F126 story, everything Claudia Roth ever touched, 2.6 million* euros on whatever 'antisemitism funding' is, etc).

edit: I was wrong, it was 2.6 million in antisemitism, not billion, so that's a pretty much irrelevant sum.

Re: The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

#82

Post by Timon3 »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #53
pbasista wrote: post #42

I assume that these populist, extremist or dictator-willing-to-be politicians, not only in Germany but also in other European countries, in Russia, in the US, in Canada, as well as in China and elsewhere, are now all spending countless AI tokens to perfect their psychological manipulation and brainwashing techniques. So that they can secure more and more fanatic followers who will vote for them no matter what. And so…

> to them, the "illegal immigration issue" is just a vehicle to gain power. Nothing more. If what you said made any sense whatsoever, then the parties currently in charge would have stopped it along time ago. Because if according to you that makes the far-right parties grow stronger, then why would anyone in their right mind not do anything about it? Why wait for these parties to use this issue to fuel their growth?

The CDU has been trying to adopt more AfD positions and talking points, in the hopes of getting their votes. Meanwhile this keeps only strengthening the AfD, but the CDU would rather see the fascists in power than govern with anyone left of center.

Re: The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

#83

Post by tim333 »

cute_boi wrote: post #35

I don't understand why we even give the right an opportunity to speak on immigration. Is it really that hard to allow only legal immigration and stop giving incentives to illegal immigrants? I understand that there may be around 5% of people who are genuinely trying to escape dictatorships, but if 95% are just gaming the system, it's going to look very bad.

In the UK I think the issue is the European Court of Human Rights say you can't send them back and so it costs the taxpayer about £200k a head to house and feed them. The answer is probably to leave the court and send them back but only Reform + Reclaim I think are pitching that.

It's kind of a shame - if the mainstream politicians followed the views of the mainstream voters you wouldn't have the far right lot getting in.

For me it's a shame because I believe in democracy, human rights and rule of law and most of the anti - immigrant parties also believe in letting Russia trample those, probably because Russia funds them.

Re: The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

#84

Post by mizzao »

I've found this book to be particularly instructive in understanding how policies across the world ended up neglecting citizens and pushing them to the far right, from Trump to AfD and everything in between. It's made it clearer that these are common symptoms that arise from systemic problems, not one-off idiosyncrasies.

After the Fall: From the End of History to the Crisis of Democracy, How Politicians Broke Our World

https://shapiro.macmillan.yale.edu/publications/books/after-...

Re: The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

#85

Post by pbasista »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #53
pbasista wrote: post #42

I assume that these populist, extremist or dictator-willing-to-be politicians, not only in Germany but also in other European countries, in Russia, in the US, in Canada, as well as in China and elsewhere, are now all spending countless AI tokens to perfect their psychological manipulation and brainwashing techniques. So that they can secure more and more fanatic followers who will vote for them no matter what. And so…

> to them, the "illegal immigration issue" is just a vehicle to gain power. Nothing more. If what you said made any sense whatsoever, then the parties currently in charge would have stopped it along time ago. Because if according to you that makes the far-right parties grow stronger, then why would anyone in their right mind not do anything about it? Why wait for these parties to use this issue to fuel their growth?

> that makes the far-right parties grow stronger

That issue is just one of many that they use and abuse to gain popularity. They have also spread lies about vaccines. They promote antisemitism, xenophobia, hate against the LGBTI people, historical revisionism (e.g. they say nice things about the Nazis), etc. They are even fighting against the wind turbines (or, as Donald Trump calls them, the "wind mills"). You cannot satisfy their demands by "fixing" one issue. Because they will always find another. The more absurd one, the better, it seems. I think that the reason is that those absurd causes are supported by people who are easy to manipulate. They know it. And they abuse it.

> Why wait for these parties to use this issue to fuel their growth?

No one wants to wait. But at the same time, I have not yet seen a successful recipe on how to root out their populist practices and render them ineffective against the general population at large. Because, unfortunately, there is still a considerable number of people who are falling for it. And it seems to me that no politician or party so far has been able to figure out a reliable way to protect those who are most vulnerable from being manipulated this way.

Re: The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

#86

Post by archagon »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #37

The far right's win on hacker news goes mostly without comment, however. Very uh, interesting views you guys got in here.

Seconded. I guess it makes sense with tech leaders like Musk and DHH making white supremacy fun and cool again. But the internet always remembers, and will continue to remember when these things are not fun and cool anymore.

Re: The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

#87

Post by pbasista »

Timon3 wrote: post #82
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to them, the "illegal immigration issue" is just a vehicle to gain power. Nothing more. If what you said made any sense whatsoever, then the parties currently in charge would have stopped it along time ago. Because if according to you that makes the far-right parties grow stronger, then why would anyone in their right mind not do anything about it? Why wait for these parties to use this issue to fuel their growth?

The CDU has been trying to adopt more AfD positions and talking points, in the hopes of getting their votes. Meanwhile this keeps only strengthening the AfD, but the CDU would rather see the fascists in power than govern with anyone left of center.

> CDU has been trying to adopt more AfD positions

> this keeps only strengthening the AfD

I am unfamiliar with the details of German politics but if what you say is true, I am not surprised at all. I do not think that one can "win" against those parties by using their methods or adopting their positions. Because they are genuine at it. While the others would only fake it.

If the voters have a choice between a fake populist and a genuine populist, they would, in my opinion, naturally pick the genuine one.

I think that one of the reasons is that the "fakeness" is not very appealing to anyone. So they prefer the "real deal".

Re: The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

#88

Post by dingaling »

dinfinity wrote: post #80
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your framing is no better: Don't look at how much you are paying in taxes because somehow in the end you are getting more out of it. Of course you should look at what you are getting out of it and scrutinize every euro spent by the state. This is the basis of the social contract between a country and its citizens. Citizens pay money in the form of taxes and expect to receive decent services in return. If the state is…

Have you tried doing what I suggested? As an addendum to what I said to your sibling commenter: people in developed countries take a lot of shit for granted. Of course there is a judicial system. Of course sewage is properly dealt with. Of course there is a fire department, etc. etc. The whole point of the exercise is realizing what your taxes are actually providing. All that shit ain't free: it costs a lot of money…

" to spend half of your earnings on the collective"

Why not 99% then? Or 90%? Or a bargain 85%, leaving you some money for bread and circuses ?

It's for the collective good, so how could you complain?

Re: The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

#89

Post by dinfinity »

cyberpunk wrote: post #81
dinfinity wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried doing what I suggested? As an addendum to what I said to your sibling commenter: people in developed countries take a lot of shit for granted. Of course there is a judicial system. Of course sewage is properly dealt with. Of course there is a fire department, etc. etc. The whole point of the exercise is realizing what your taxes are actually providing. All that shit ain't free: it costs a lot of money…

I'd like more control where my money goes. I'd happily spend the time every year deciding what % of my contribution goes where, and it would be more democratic. I'm happy to have sewers, police, schools, infrastructure and so on. I'm less enthused about the growing debt pile my children will inherit, and obvious wastes (e.g - the F126 story, everything Claudia Roth ever touched, 2.6 million* euros on whatever 'antise…

> edit: I was wrong, it was 2.6 million in antisemitism, not billion, so that's a pretty much irrelevant sum.

Do you see how your initial feeling was far more extreme than the actual data show? That is the point of doing the actual work of looking at what your contribution funds: a scientific, solid basis for reasoning, rather than social media fueled primitive outrage. You should really try it.

> I'd like more control where my money goes.

Would you like everybody to have more control of that? What if people don't want to contribute to roads because they contribute to pollution (even though society would pretty much collapse without roads). Would you be okay with that?

Are you familiar with the Tragedy of the Commons [0]? Or perhaps any real world libertarian experiments?

Turns out individual people are generally selfish, highly incompetent and very fallible in making decisions on complex matters affecting lots of people. It's really, really hard to train individuals to make decisions that lead to collective prosperity, especially if they can choose options that are beneficial for them in the short term. The reason we effectively work towards collective prosperity at all is the evolution of systems and processes that mitigate individual incompetence (most voters really don't know how to run a sewage system), elevate individual specialization (experts), and push for a well-reasoned basis. This evolution took place over a long time and in the process a lot of people and systems died.

We can and must evolve it further, but that evolution should not ignore everything that went before it for the sake of feelings. See also Chesterton's Fence [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

[1] https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/

Re: The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

#90

Post by sajithdilshan »

dinfinity wrote: post #79
sajithdilshan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would have worked if the things were getting better and living standards are being elevated. Right now it’s more like your tax is being used in wasteful spending, funding wars and corruption that doesn’t improve the quality of life at all

Have you tried? Because most people judge these things based on feelings rather than data and actual numbers. Those feelings are almost always a bad heavily skewed representation of reality.

I live in Berlin and have experienced and living it. I have experienced how much I have to pay extra for groceries, utilities, heating and rent. I have seen how the public transportation has degraded even though the ticket prices are increasing. I have experienced how the take home salary has decreased even over the last 3 years. I have experienced how difficult it is just to get an appointment for a doctor even though I am paying even more for the health insurance. It’s not based on feelings but experience and evidence.

I am more than happy to pay the taxes and my share for the society, but only if it’s used for the good used and to make my living standards better. But since Covid times the opposite is happening

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