[Febra33]

The author of this article seems to make some very obscure points here. First and foremost: "You have to work pretty hard to find a bar serving traditional Germanic beverages and food." What does the author define as "Germanic" beverages and food? As a german that has lived for some time in Berlin I'm quite sure that there are more than enough places to grab "Germanic" beverages and food at. They just don't stand out much. [EDIT: For those who don't know, Germanic doesn't mean German. Germanic means something different]

Then he continues to discuss how "fortunately, there seems to be a grassroots pushback against such globalising trends" which I find equally weird. He comments about the existence of burger joints and ramen bars as if these are literally destroying the city's economy. How are german restaurants (which definitely exist in Berlin) and foreign restaurants mutually exclusive?

I also like to mention that many places prefer cash only in Germany for tax evasion reasons, not because of some made-up "grassroots pushback" against the big, scary globalism of.. foreign restaurants. (???)

Another obscure point is that "eager-looking under 18s try to get in [beer breweries], only to be politely turned away without any fracas." which is again, a very stupid point to make, since you are allowed to buy beer at 16 in Germany already.

Then he quotes a person of supposedly Eritrean descent saying “But the people coming now, they don’t learn German and they don’t want to work.” which sounds pretty much like your average alt-right talking point, that has been disproven over and over again.

I'm really sorry, but this person seems to know literally absolutely nothing about Berlin, Germany, or life in Germany in general. This article is mediocre at most and a farce.

[ttepasse]

The Critic is a slightly upmarket alt-right publication for establishing more culture war content and contrarianism in the British media landscape. Co-Founded by a strategist of the „European Research Group“, that far right Brexit group in the Tories, and funded by conservative millionaire donors as part of what some describe as pundit welfare strategy - financing enough weird cranks and their media projects to influence public opinion.

In general whenever such a publication is talking about a foreign locality, the aim is always to influence the local (here British) discourse, not taking something foreign on their own merits, but using it as a mirror for the authors’s pet peeve in their own locality.

[Febra33]

I could definitely feel the propagandistic nature of this piece of "journalism".

[smoldesu]

It's not an article being shared in good faith. Look at OP's (sourpuss) submission history, and it's quickly apparent that their main goal is posting controversial bait. Most of their submissions fall far outside the site's guidelines, and their lack of discussion anywhere on the site basically cements them as a troll. Politics be damned, they seem to have no interest in fostering interesting discussion.

I've been flagging these ungratifying stories for a while now. Hopefully it teaches people to treat HN less like a tabloid...

[spoils19]

The important thing to ask is whether these posts generate _curious_ discussion, as per the guidelines, which I definitely see here. Flagging because you perceive them to be "controversial bait" is a misuse of the privilege of flagging.

[vikingerik]

What Americans think is German is often mostly the Bavarian stereotypes. Pretzels, sausage, lederhosen, Oktoberfest. It's common for Americans to be surprised when they find Berlin or Frankfurt isn't full of that stuff.

The same happens in reverse: some Europeans think America is the land of cowboys and guns and fireworks, but that's really more like just Texas, and when they go to New York they're surprised by seeing none of that.

[whall6]

It’s funny that you say it’s just Texas because even as a Texan that’s not Texas to me.

[Xylakant]

If you’re having trouble finding Bavarian food in Berlin, then you can’t be looking very hard. Hell, there’s even a Hofbräuhaus in Berlin https://www.hofbraeu-wirtshaus.de/en/berlin/

(Not that I’d recommend going there)

[MisterBastahrd]

The article was written by a Londoner for a British audience. The man literally served in the British armed forces and didn't emigrate to the US until the 2010s. Not sure what America has to do with any of this.

[jeltz]

Sure, but Bavarian places certainly must be included in "Germanic".

[w-m]

That's a bit of a harsh tone, but the author didn't leave a good impression by getting their German names wrong. The second mention of Schnauze is missing an e, as is

> Kastanienalle Strasse

It's Kastanienallee. And as it's an Allee (an avenue lined with trees), it can't be a Straße (a street). Even if it were a Straße, it would be one word, or hyphenated. Sigh.

[Febra33]

The author literally starts the article with "The city is struggling to remain itself"

This article seems more like propaganda than actual journalism.

[anonymoose33282]

The article seemed really disjointed to me as well, as a person who's spent plenty of time both living in Berlin and out of Berlin. Jumps to gentrification, dabbles in "centralized currency", covers some social programs, all to wrap it up with immigration, "kids these days" and slips in the surveillance state before signing off.

Berlin's cash-only culture is definitely a shock to most tourists who come there from the EU and US. Whether it's restaurants that don't advertise "cash only" anywhere, only to surprise you when you pull out your card at the end, to späti that have ridiculous card minimums like 15+ euro. A discussion on that, the reasons for it, and the implications of moving away from it would have been interesting. But instead, we got an utterly confused mess from the author.

[polotics]

So lovely to read the word "Späti", as if everyone of course would know it's Berliner lingo for a late-hours convenience store... Any other Berlinism to report?

[PurpleRamen]

> I also like to mention that many places prefer cash only in Germany for tax evasion reasons

Some do, some do it for other reasons. Especially older smaller shops are often do it for cost-reasons, or because the owners are old and don't care much for modern technology, or because they are young and hip and don't care for modern technology, which is especially in the Hipster-Areas of Berlin a real thing, which is a pretty sad thing in its own. I mean we are talking about shops who not just remain with physical cash, but where the whole shop and its vibes are oldschool, analog, without any advanced technology. At that point it's just part of the marketing and sellout-identity.

The general problem is, Cash is still the most reliable, simple and cost-efficient solution for payments. While Cashless still demands contracts and some equipment. Established Shops often have old bad contracts with high fees for cashless transfers, and prior to the pandemia, cashless was not used widely enough for them to gain a solid experience with it. This changed in the last years, but not for everyone, and old habits die hard.

I know from my own family, which is full of old and strange people, some even having smaller shops. Most of them have problem with such stuff, some are not even willing to use something like WhatsApp or a simple calculator-app. And yes, some also just don't care for tax, because this is also hard. Reasons are just manifold with that topic.

[ttctciyf]

Standard fare in "The Critic" - it's just another mouthpiece for excessive wealth and rightwing culture warfare, like "Spiked" and so on, the wealth in this case belonging to Jeremy Hosking, a Tory Party, Vote Leave and Brexit Party supporter to the tune of £millions, who topped off his contribution to the deterioration of UK politics by becoming the "founding donor to the Reclaim Party led by Laurence Fox"[0].

(Fox, in case you're lucky enough not to know, is a minor UK celebrity best known for his provocative behaviour around race, Covid vaccines and gender/sexuality. You can easily guess the sort of thing he gets excited about, I imagine.)

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hosking

[itsyaboi]

What a weak interpretation.

> The author of this article seems to make some very obscure points here. First and foremost: "You have to work pretty hard to find a bar serving traditional Germanic beverages and food." What does the author define as "Germanic" beverages and food? As a german that has lived for some time in Berlin I'm quite sure that there are more than enough places to grab "Germanic" beverages and food at. They just don't stand out much. [EDIT: For those who don't know, Germanic doesn't mean German. Germanic means something different]

You yourself admit that these places "don't stand out much". Does this not support the authors point that he had to work hard to find these places?

> I also like to mention that many places prefer cash only in Germany for tax evasion reasons, not because of some made-up "grassroots pushback" against the big, scary globalism of.. foreign restaurants. (???)

Private payment processors (like MasterCard and Visa) can for any and no reason refuse their services. Ridiculing and dismissing the author's concern by pulling out the "big scary globalism" straw man is disingenuous.

> Another obscure point is that "eager-looking under 18s try to get in [beer breweries], only to be politely turned away without any fracas." which is again, a very stupid point to make, since you are allowed to buy beer at 16 in Germany already.

18 and older for beverages over 1.2% ABV (which is most beers).

> Then he quotes a person of supposedly Eritrean descent saying “But the people coming now, they don’t learn German and they don’t want to work.” which sounds pretty much like your average alt-right talking point, that has been disproven over and over again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy

[Febra33]

https://www.kenn-dein-limit.de/alkoholberatung/informationen...

You can definitely buy beer.

> Does this not support the authors point that he had to work hard to find these places?

Just because a tourist is too ignorant to find these places doesn't mean they don't exist. There are plenty of them. They are mostly old-school and don't have big ads outside. Use google maps. There are plenty.

> Private payment processors (like MasterCard and Visa) can for any and no reason refuse their services. Ridiculing and dismissing the author's concern by pulling out the "big scary globalism" straw man is disingenuous.

If you're pushing for cash-only or card-only other than for tax evasion reasons you're pretty much ideologically tainted.

Otherwise, I'm no longer going to discuss this "journalist outlet" that is just a mouthpiece for alt-right propaganda. Especially one that can't differentiate between germanic and german.

[itsyaboi]

> You can definitely buy beer.

Where did I say that you could not buy beer? Please re-read the original claim.

> Just because a tourist is too ignorant to find these places doesn't mean they don't exist. There are plenty of them. They are mostly old-school and don't have big ads outside. Use google maps. There are plenty.

Again, where did I (or the original article) claim that these places don't exist? You continue responding to imaginary claims, this is no way to communicate.

> If you're pushing for cash-only or card-only other than for tax evasion reasons you're pretty much ideologically tainted. Otherwise, I'm no longer going to discuss this "journalist outlet" that is just a mouthpiece for alt-right propaganda. Especially one that can't differentiate between germanic and german.

What a arrogant and dismissive statement. You seem to have taken offense at the author for not properly differentiating between germanic and german. Why is this so important to you?

[orwin]

Germany is probably the european country i know the less, despite learning german in school and working at a franco-german company for my second internship. So i won't talk about the traditionnal restaurant in germany, but just so you know: In France, Spain and Portugal, traditional restaurants don't stand out much (With the exception of French Bouillons like Chartier maybe?).

So maybe you have some points in your comment, but considering you're obviously totally wrong on the private payment processors (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A...), i'd think your interpretation might be weaker.

[itsyaboi]

Is there a specific section of legalese you meant to link to? If not, it's a bit foolish on your part to expect the average (non-legal expert) to parse this. I let ChatGPT do it for me.

Prompt: Summarize the contents of EU 2015/2366

Response: EU 2015/2366, also known as the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), is a European Union directive that regulates payment services and payment service providers within the EU. It aims to increase competition and innovation in the payments industry, as well as enhance security and consumer protection. The directive requires payment service providers to implement strong customer authentication for electronic payments, and also allows for the use of third-party providers for certain payment-related services, such as account information and payment initiation. Additionally, it also includes provisions for the protection of consumer rights, such as the right to a refund in case of unauthorized payment transactions. Overall, it's a set of rules to increase safety and transparency of online payments and to foster competition between payment service providers, which ultimately should lead to better services and lower prices for consumers.

The only consumer rights mentioned are the right to refunds for unauthorized transactions. To the best of my knowledge, these companies can choose to cease doing business with you for any or no reason at all. Feel free to prove me wrong.