Germany. Third biggest economy of the world. Airports are bright, clean and quiet. Fast trains only slightly less comfortable than a living room. Incredible levels of wealth wherever you look. The world is coming to Germany and is marveled. Yet, have a look into the newspapers and all you see is doomerism. How can one explain this?
+bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@dmoser because anyone who lived here for longer than 15-20 years remembers how good it was compared to now.
@bonifartius @dmoser Whoever lived there 15-20 years ago is not 15-20 years older and sicker. What is objectively worse? Except for 15% voting for the neo-fascists?
@StephanSchulz @dmoser
i assume you mean "now" not "not".
let's start with "sick": there were more hospitals. you didn't have to pay for every recipe and quarterly to go to the doctor. there actually were sane unemployment benefits, not the bullshit we have now. you didn't have to pay for public broadcast as quasi tax. medics and firemen weren't regularly attacked. middle school degree was enough for almost all apprenticeships, ...
@bonifartius @StephanSchulz @dmoser maybe base it a bit more based on facts and reality? You completely ignore a massive change in demographics, availability of work force, access to schools limitations, and generally things such as much lower need for public infrastructure. Unemployment benefits were harder to acquire, work times and employee protection was lower, a class with ten people instead of 40 lets educators do a better job. Some research and more facts would help.
@danielsreichenbach @StephanSchulz @dmoser
you literally named many things proving my point.
change in demographics is largely due to "only get kids when you have settled down"-mindrot instilled into genx and millenials combined with "let's kill every chance of settling down". this of course echoes into the size of the workforce and other things. it's hard to have 2+ kids when you start at early 30s instead of mid 20s.
public infrastructure is the same or worse in most regions except big cities. there is the occasional new building, the big picture is one of decay. there are no more heated waiting rooms in countryside train stations for example.
a class of ten people is obviously better than 40, qed.
@bonifartius @StephanSchulz @dmoser All of these things happened long before any of those generations existed. Calling a responsible decision to only have children when you are grown up enough “mindrot” is is just a cheap way of pushing the blame one someone else without facts.
@danielsreichenbach @StephanSchulz @dmoser
you are indeed correct that these things happened on a larger timeframe.
unfortunately it's mindrot all the way down. the things i'll describe not necessarily happened in linear order but they happened nonetheless.
first was splitting large family units into "core families", everyone living apart. this largely happened during the industrialization. where parents or siblings could have helped, now there is a void. it was another small step to less kids from there, because one person alone can't realistically handle more than maybe three kids (yes, this means children have to be abused at least psychologically in institutionalized child care). still, people are starting families relatively early: a few decades ago, many people had e.g. their house done at age 30. things were cheaper _and_ they were fully trained for their job in their early 20s.
now many people start their career at 30 with some racked up debt and likely a prescription for psychiatric medication (one third of the population and counting, iirc). they pushed away having children to where it almost certainly requires medical intervention at birth. that people are very distanced from their animal nature and effectively are spiritually dead doesn't help with that. birth alone has a good chance of being traumatic for at least the mother.
so they likely will have one, maybe two children tops. spending most of their time with paying off debts or just fighting pure cost of living. instead of spending time with their kids. who are in whole day schools or kindergardens anyway so the parents are able to work their asses off.
this is the mindrot of the successfully "implemented cultural habit" of replacing family - nature, in a sense - with institutionalized child care and other services of a god-like mechanistic state.
it's the wet dream of everyone who wishes for a perfectly controllable population.
thanks for coming to my ted talk. you can keep the tinfoil hats as souvenir.
@danielsreichenbach @StephanSchulz @dmoser
i'm not exactly sure who extorts money off of me though. except the state, which you probably don't have in mind with this.
your sarcastic commentary and the facepalm emoji _again_ only proves my point of people having broken souls, sorry. have a funny raccoon.
@bonifartius @StephanSchulz @dmoser it’s a funny story but it basically repeats crude stories made up to extort money and time from you. Had a good laugh though. 🤦