Posted by pmags 4/11/2025
Germans are smart and capable, but the German lifestyle is not for "super high tech" industry
Being a self-employed is a living hell in Germany, as well as receiving any money outside of employment. Esp. if money are small (but > than hobby money, 500 euro iirc) and don't justify the hurdle of dealing with Finanzamt, tax pre-payment, possible regulations with upfront Formulars etc.
German passionary patriotism has been artificially subverted and shut down, and the nation instead has been flooded with non-Germanic elements, thus completely destroying the very definition of German.
Ask any German on the street, and nobody will be able to answer: What defines being a German, who are the Germans, what is their history, and what awaits German people in the future.
Complete void of any ideology, national idea, any energy that could propel the nation in the great leap forward.
> Ask any German on the street, and nobody will be able to answer: What defines being a German, who are the Germans, what is their history, and what awaits German people in the future.
I don't think so, you will meet plently people that will be able to tell you about Germany's history, or at least recent history. And what defines being German, you might get different answers, but is that so bad, and where wouldn't you? Hasn't multiculturalism just become a big part of Germany's identity, and not destroyed it as you claim? Döner just as the simplest example.
Your post highlights all the problems with modern Germany
... doesn't sound very desirable, with how things by that name have gone historically.
I sincerely wish Germany luck. They'd better do a good job of securing their IP, though...
https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details?pubid=1098...
In 2023...13.5 percent (18.0 million households) were food insecure. Food-insecure households (those with low and very low food security) had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members because of a lack of resources...5.1 percent of U.S. households (6.8 million households) had very low food security...
Coincidentally, the collection of such detailed and useful data is at risk from the indiscriminate USDA firings.
This is not evidence that people are going hungry, though it is clearly designed to give that impression.
Here's collaborating trends for the same calendar year:
https://www.feedingamerica.org/research/charitable-food-assi...
Feeding America estimates more than 50 million people received charitable food assistance sometime in 2023
I'm guessing you'll respond that charities that feed people have a vested interest and are not to be trusted... (yes, I'm aware of cases of charities committing fraud; no there is no evidence that is the norm). Probably again without presenting data to support your assertion that there are no Americans who go hungry.
I'm curious what actually obtainable data you would accept as a counterfactual to your statement/belief?
1. USDA data on food insecurity
2. Food bank usage data
If you wanted to understand the extremes of food insecurity, than data on malnutrition related deaths in the US would also apply:
• Mostafa, N., Sayed, A., Rashad, O. et al. Malnutrition-related mortality trends in older adults in the United States from 1999 to 2020. BMC Med 21, 421 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-023-03143-8
From the paper above -- "Despite some initial decrements in malnutrition mortality among older adults in the U.S., the uptrend from 2013 to 2020 nullified all established progress. The end result is that malnutrition mortality rates represent a historical high...Effective interventions are strongly needed. Such interventions should aim to ensure food security and early detection and remedy of malnutrition among older adults..."
If you wanted to explore malnutrition related deaths for other groups / time periods you could query the CDC Wonder data base using ICD-10 Codes E40 – E46 (as was done in the paper cited above; see also https://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/E00-E89/E40-E46).
• https://wonder.cdc.gov/ -- Search CDC Wonder for underlying cause of death
I did the query for 2023 and found were >22,000 malnutrition related deaths recorded by the CDC.
If this number went down significantly I would see that as evidence of a decrease in malnutrition in the US. If this number was near zero I would accept your assertion that no/few Americans are starving.
Given the preponderance of data, the notion that one could argue with a straight face that food insecurity in the US is of no concern seems shocking to me.
> no Americans, rich or poor, black or white, are starving. Frankly, we could all use a little more starving.
You responding by providing evidence that some people had difficulty, at least once per year, in putting food on the table. This in no way contradicts the original claim, as having difficulty doing a thing is not synonymous with being unable to do a thing.
> Here's collaborating trends for the same calendar year
This shows that people are getting food. As presented, this is not evidence that people are going hungry.
> I'm curious what actually obtainable data you would accept as a counterfactual to your statement/belief?
If you want to contradict the claim that Americans aren't starving, you would want to provide evidence that Americans are starving.
• Mostafa, N., Sayed, A., Rashad, O. et al. Malnutrition-related mortality trends in older adults in the United States from 1999 to 2020. BMC Med 21, 421 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-023-03143-8
> Of these deaths, 34.3% took place inside medical facilities, 30.2% inside nursing homes/long-term care facilities, and 25.6% inside the descendant’s home.
Is America is so broke that we can't feed people in hospitals and nursing homes? Obviously not. These are people whose bodies are shutting down due to told age, not people who are being neglected by society.
In an attempt to show that people are starving due to poverty, you've instead shown that we're expending many, many times the cost of feeding them in an attempt to keep them alive. No doubt you're incapable of admitting that this is directly contradictory to the spirit of your thesis.
But for the record here's the breakdown of malnutrition related mortality (ICD codes E40-E46) by 5 year age blocks as reported by the CDC for 2023. First field is age range, 2nd field is total number of deaths attributed to ICD codes related to malnutrition:
25-29 years, 17
30-34 years, 22
35-39 years, 40
40-44 years, 71
45-49 years, 119
50-54 years, 197
55-59 years, 323
60-64 years, 651
65-69 years, 1112
70-74 years, 1722
75-79 years, 2507
80-84 years, 3321
85-89 years, 4147
90-94 years, 4362
95-99 years, 2821
100+ years, 824
Total 22284
ICD classifications aren't perfect but they are standardized. Here's the CDCs description of where this data comes from:
The Underlying Cause of Death database contains mortality and population counts for all U.S. counties. Data are based on death certificates for U.S. residents. Each death certificate identifies a single underlying cause of death and demographic data....
In the US, immigrants make a point of showing their patriotism by immersing themselves into American culture. We don't have a similar cultural phenomenon in Germany.
> consider Germany only as a source of welfare to extract and transfer elsewhere
You would be surprised how many natives share this viewpoint. This can only work for so long before something collapses...
(Just for the record I don't vote AfD. I do like being German and I like what little culture we have left. You can be patriotic and at the same time left leaning.)
Some countries are approximately 50% national flag by surface area, fist pumping and chanting the country's name at every opportunity despite being run by people making Nazi salutes, but "it's okay to like your country's culture" is instantly equated with Nazism? Come on man...
Tho when the median voter is 55 and national motto is "that's how it was always done" and "Pensions are secure" - I don't put much hope. I still remember the outcry when the digital health cards were introduced.
Your other points are more or less true, I just like to think that people complain a lot and media obviously makes it worse.
Digital health cards, online tax declaration, etc. These things did happen. People complained, but these decisions were not reverted. That's the most important.
By many things at once: Datenschutz, (over- and premature) regulations, bureaucracy, laws favoring old ways (e.g. broadcasting licenses for streamers), active sabotage from workers who don't want to learn things (and can't be fired) etc.
But all stems from risk averseness and active unwillingness to learn new ways.
As you say, (some) things did happened, but way too slow and way too little. Compared to its peers or especially developing countries German Digitalisierung is a joke, a not so funny one.
In the end Technicolor / Thomson, Exalead, SAP, France Telecom (Orange) got most of the funding if I remember right. Other than a few university, museum digitalisation projects nothing consumer facing ever so the light of day.
[1] Wikipedian Protester:
>Friend of The Merkler
>Protested nuclear energy
>Invited a million illiterates to an all-inclusive life in Germany, none who ever had an encounter with the technology of literacy
And so forth.
Germany wants to preserve Airbus and stay relevant in European space programs, but without cheap energy and raw materials this is a pipe dream. Quantum computing/hydrogen is theoretically promising, but they're already behind China and the US. Trying to catch up to Russia in drones and EW, but without energy independence or microelectronics it won't work.
Without Russian gas or nuclear power, high-tech manufacturing is unprofitable. Germany's best engineers are already in Shanghai and Silicon Valley. Russia/China/the US are sprinting ahead in hypersonics, AI, and 6G, while Germany is just forming a ministry.
Germany's move isn't a breakthrough, it's desperation. They're trying to save face, but they lack energy for advanced tech w/o Russia, have no military shield w/o the US, can’t manufacture at scale w/o China.
Accretive policy is strong there and in their Anglo-Saxon descendants.
Seems to be a truth: inventiveness moving to moribund navel-gazing.
That's the curse in Europe. Every European country has it's own ministry of digital innovation who's role is the grift of allocating taxpayer money to the right politically connected pockets while pretending to do innovation. Case in point, German fiber optic infrastructure is still lightyears behind Romania despite much higher costs. Means, somebody in Germany is making good money form that, even if there's nothing to show for.
Meanwhile the actuality innovative companies in Europe get real VC money from the US, then get incorporated in the US and become American companies, then EU has the audacity to complain about lacking tech sovereignty.
Apartment I stayed in while in Germany had annual Kabelgebühr of 100 EUR. It was not related with the ISP internet subscription of course. Any negotiations or questions were responded with "IT'S KABELGEBÜHR YOU HAVE TO PAY IT".