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More German than many Germans

mertbulan.com

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Re: More German than many Germans

#511

Post by pelasaco »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #425
vw_bulli wrote: post #177

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…

> Additionally, the recent reforms to the pension system here pissed many young people off The tax rates are already so high in Germany, it is probably impossible to raise taxes enough to sustain the system. What realistic alternative was there to fixing the (fiscally) unsustainable pension system? And if you think Germany has it bad, then look at France. That place is a ticking (fiscal) time bomb with their massive…

> What realistic alternative was there to fixing the (fiscally) unsustainable pension system

I think there are multiple alternatives. To make people work up to 70, when Men have a life expectancy in average of 78 and Women, in average 86, is probably not the most attractive one.

Re: More German than many Germans

#512

Post by account42 »

i_am_a_peasant wrote: post #134
juvvel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German films are mostly not great, but if one wants to get immersed into the language, music and literature are much better places. And also comedy. The language allows for some great puns.

A lot of good video games have decent German dubs, it was how I reached B2 German.

Or are German in the first place. The original Gothic games and Daedalic point and click adventures for example.

Re: More German than many Germans

#513

Post by account42 »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #334
i_am_a_peasant wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk, do you play those point and click adventure games from early 2000s? Syberia? Broken Sword? they’re decent. Deponia also good, Truberbrook. What I cannot stand are things that are medieval and then everyone refers to you as Ihr instead of du or Sie. Was that even a thing? Even the star wars games do it… which i guess it’s because jedi “knights”.

> do you play those point and click adventure games from early 2000s? Yes (but this is off-topic). > Deponia also good, Truberbrook. For both of these games, the original native version is in German, so of course their German (not-)translation is good. :-) > What I cannot stand are things that are medieval and then everyone refers to you as Ihr instead of du or Sie. Was that even a thing? Even the star wars games do…

> if you don't use it, it would feel deeply wrong to native German speakers

I don't think its true. In fact the opposite is both more common and more ridiculous, e.g. phrase like "Halten Sie die Fresse".

Re: More German than many Germans

#514

Post by account42 »

FinnKuhn wrote: post #135
juvvel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German films are mostly not great, but if one wants to get immersed into the language, music and literature are much better places. And also comedy. The language allows for some great puns.

On the other hand, the dubbing for foreign movies is usually very well done though.

Hard disagree. German dubs are extremely fake sounding and there way to few voice actors doing them so everything sounds the same. Completely unwatchable if you haven't grown up with that crap.

Re: More German than many Germans

#515

Post by account42 »

soco wrote: post #215
holowoodman wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German culture is imho stuck in a permanent subsidy slop problem. Basically every German film is written to appeal to the subsidy committee, not any greater audience. And it shows.

Some of my favourite movies are German - Das Boot, or Lola rennt. Also series, like Dark.

I think those are more the exception that proves the rule.

Re: More German than many Germans

#516

Post by account42 »

Yasuraka wrote: post #395
kioleanu wrote: post #39

There is one rule of thumb that I’ve noticed: if you are a reasonable person and integrate you will be treated as one of their own. Otherwise not. Your article mirrors my own experience 1:1, it’s like I’ve written it myself. Apart from the citizenship process. Even though it was also 14 months long (eerie lol), I had to do a lot of noise about it, because they are processing applications out of order (some people got…

> if you are a reasonable person and integrate you will be treated as one of their own. You won't, even if you were born and raised here - 3rd generation Turks get treated worse after 60 years than Ukranians after 4, let alone someone with an arab name, all else being equal[1]. This is natural in almost all nations for its humans in all of them, but the rampant arrogance and hypocrisy is exceptional and one does no g…

3rd generation Turks are by definition not integrated, otherwise they wouldn't refer to themselves as Turks.

Re: More German than many Germans

#517

Post by account42 »

Yasuraka wrote: post #464
throwaway2037 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hot take about Turks struggling to integrate: The didn't try hard enough. They held on to too much of their Islamic religion and culture. It didn't mix well with the primarily Christian religion and culture of Germany. The Ukranians have much more culturally in common with Germans which is why they have integrated so much faster.

You are describing assimilation, not integration, also disproven by the fact that the name alone is the only differentiator in this example. Plenty of justifications will be found ex-facto in any case, all are excuses. I'm not claiming any nation to be above racism, in fact globally most are worse, but this one is really high on its own supply.

They are not excuses. If you move to a foreign country but 100% keep your own culture without taking up the culture of the host country then you have not integrated and the locals are right to not want you there.

Re: More German than many Germans

#518

Post by account42 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #428
gyulai wrote: post #364

What percentage of your productive capacity is used for proper recycling and garbage disposal? ...that's the real metric to measure Germanness by, and yet it never got mentioned once!

I don't know why people make such a big deal out of this. When I travelled to Germany on holiday, it was a good sign to me that there were so many different bins. It tells me that they are doing a lot of recycling and very little dumping into landfills. If you look at other similarly rich countries that care a lot about the environment, it is similar.

You mean like the bins with separate openings in train stations that all lead to the same garbage bag? And if they had separate bags it probably would still all end up in one big pile later in the chain. A lot of it is purely performative and does not lead to any more recycling.

Re: More German than many Germans

#519

Post by account42 »

Anamon wrote: post #360
keiferski wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funniest situation is when you’re in a city (Berlin in my example) and one store accepts only cash, while the store next door only accepts cards. Germany is definitely way behind on the digital front. Which is not always a bad thing…even if it’s usually an annoying one.

It's not just about the digital readiness. I assume it's the same in Germany, but in Switzerland there are many smaller stores that very proudly only accept cash, or even used to accept cards and stopped. Some shops around where I live even put signs like "cash only, always and forever", to get people to stop asking. It's an interesting divide happening, some going cashless only for speed, safety and convenience, oth…

And others are going cash only for the undeclared income.

Not a fan of card only myself because of all the dystopian possibilities that come with it but there are definitely also less honorable motivations for only accepting cash.

Re: More German than many Germans

#520

Post by lbschenkel »

piva00 wrote: post #468
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…

> 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. After suffering a massive defeat, losing millions of lives, and being occupied for decades. Otherwise culture changes slowly, I won't waste my lifetime to see 5-10% improvements, you are totally free to move to Braz…

Hear hear, from another Brazilian (now dual citizen) who emigrated.
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