I see that problem also in a kind of “contact guilt” in certain topics.

That is, if there’s any polarized issue, there’s always the liberal/left/progressive position with extremely clear boundaries to what is acceptable to even discuss. And then there’s the vast conservative-fascist spectrum. If any problem arises within that issue, even mentioning it is immediately labeled as outside of the acceptable part, simply out of fear that this could be used as a wedge against the liberal position.

That in turn alienates people, they see an actual problem and the liberal side either ignores the problem or says it’s fascist. And the actual problem never gets solved or even tackled, simply because nobody wants to touch it.

This leads to a situation where for a whole bunch of people the fascists seem downright reasonable and then the radicalization pipeline kicks in and suddenly they think Hitler might not be such a bad guy after all.

So essentially, the left feeds the right gullible people out of fear they might legitimize some of their points.

Just an example from Germany: when the first wave of Syrian refugees came to Germany in 2015, they were greeted with literally open arms. Great thing. But if you let about a million people into the country, you also need about 500k new apartments for them, the bureaucracy has to be capable of processing everything, language courses have to be expanded drastically, job trainings have to be organized, etc etc. A whole bunch of problems.

Now, what happened? Nothing. There was great fanfare, the local governments did their best, but nothing substantive happened. Nobody talked about it, because that might fuel the existing resentments. Nobody tackled the problems. And within a few months, we had tens of thousands of young men, who had nothing to do, were not allowed to work, were completely alone and had no money or social safety net. Well, of course a bunch of them turned criminal, which then fueled the resentment even more, because suddenly the fascists actually had what they hoped for: criminal foreigners. Even if the actual problem was tiny, it was the spark that ignited the fascist resurgence.

Unfortunately, the current finance minister is really that stupid.

Absolute braindead wannabe neoliberal.

Fake news! We should ask Ukraine for peace talks! Otherwise we might provoke Putin!!

Half an Apple a day keeps the IDF away!

I find it really weird that something as simple as the basic functionality of nextcloud seemingly can’t be implemented in a stable and lightweight manner.

Nextcloud always seems one update away from self destruction and it prepares for that by hoarding all the resources it can get. It never feels fast or responsive. I just want a way to share files between my machines.

There are other solutions, I know, but they’re all terrible in their own way.

Oh those poor fellows.

You know, I have a hunch that neofascists and neonazis are not good people.

Seriously though, we’ve had the same discussion in the 80s about the Wehrmacht (“Wehrmachtsausstellung”) and “it wasn’t all bad!” is almost a meme at this point. And we will have the same discussion again very soon. Maybe some of the Jews actually were bad people and totally deserved their fate?

These are fascists. If there is any idea, person, historical period that reinforces their self-victimizing superiority complex, they will take it. And they will do what every conservative thinker does: stop thinking if the current result fits your ideology.

I have to say, patents are my only real concerns regarding GMOs.

Most of the other concerns can be tested/ruled out, but patents could absolutely fuck up entire continents and literally enslave millions of small farmers.

It’s 100% within the realm of possibilities that Monsanto puts a gene drive in their crops so suddenly every plant in a 20km radius produces “patented” seeds.

Thing is, these guys have a very narrow view on “environment”, but the conflict here is emblematic of basically everything regarding protection of nature.

Greenpeace is under the (not completely unfounded) impression, that every new technology is a wedge to slowly push the world towards doom. Just one more lane. Just one more gene changed. And so on. They are completely uncompromising, which is understandable to a certain degree.

However, the result is that perfect is the enemy of the good. Here in Germany we have conflicts between people who want to save the planet by installing wind turbines and people who want to save the local fauna by not installing wind turbines. The latter do have a point if you’re very myopic, but they don’t (want to) see that their actions will likely kill the entire species, not just a few individuals.

That’s what’s really confusing me: why add an expensive feature, that obviously doesn’t work and even in the best case adds only minor improvements?

I mean, it’s not another option like with Bing. It’s the default. Every stupid little search will take up AI resources. For what? Market cap?

We’ve had the same recommendations in Germany for decades. Food and water for several days, ideally two weeks. When these recommendations were renewed a few years ago, people lost their shit, even though nothing changed.

It’s perfectly reasonable for a government to recommend keeping some food and water.

Absolute non-story.

Every sensible government has recommendations like this. Not because of some evil conspiracy or impending doom, but simply because natural disasters sometimes happen.

Sometimes, there’s a flood and supermarkets can’t be stocked. You don’t want food riots just because baked beans or out of stock for a week.

It’s astounding to me how many people (including op) lose their shit, just because their government reminds them, that sometimes bad things happen. A mandatory health insurance doesn’t mean government goons will go around and break your legs.

I could see those as an option for rural areas without much traffic. A full train might not be economical, but a small pod is. It could transport people to the closest proper train station where they can hop off.

But that would mean you’d have to maintain a ton of tracks for a handful of people.

He received bribes in 200€ bills and then complained that it’s really hard to actually pay stuff with it because hardly anyone ever uses anything larger than 100€ bills and it will draw attention (and suspicion).

Yes.

Well…

The other parties in Germany are not less corrupt, they just take money from German lobbyists and are a lot smarter about it.

The real irony is that the self proclaimed patriots are literally traitors.

Because the hurdles for being banned are intentionally very very high.

Oh, and the authority in question (Verfassungsschutz) had a head who’s a bona fide Nazi. So the agency to protect the constitution from (right wing) extremists was led by a right wing extremist.

It’s a serious proposal, but not as a universal conscription. It’s intended to only call everyone in for the health check and use that as a way to get young people interested in the army.

There are different models floating around, the most serious being that everyone (including women) gets called in and you basically choose between civil service and army. The civilian side can ramp up slots rather quickly, the army doesn’t. So the army probably will ramp up over several years.

Also, I wouldn’t call 100 billion € a “modest increase”.

Have you considered something like tailscale?

I’m working in the digitalization of the German bureaucracy, and I can tell you: paper is not the problem.