[anthonj]

Germany always surprise me with continuous contradiction in their society.

Largest economy in eu but very unstable and riddled with wierd burocracy.

Strongest worker protection, but very large amount of lobbysm.

Most advanced railway system in eu, transformed into a joke by interdiction from said lobbies.

You have to pay a "radio tax" to help funding press and keep it independent, but then fuck net neutrality.

And I could continue with more point, but I don't want to get too political.

[blkhawk]

Some of these contradictions are fractal - i.e. contradictions all the way down :) For example the independent Radio and TV isn't that independent actually but in practice is. Partially this is because of the insecurities of the times these institutions were setup in making people in power unsure about true independence - so they wanted a control mechanism. The end result is an institution that is deeply coupled into the government but that has at the same time to pretend to be independent to such a degree most people inside it just act that way and its output is sorta neutral except in very slight tonal shift ways and in some individual cases. instances that are very German-culturally local? This is very hard to explain correctly but easy to just explain it wrongly - Let me do that now and translate it to American.

Imagine an institution being dependent and biased in exactly the opposite way that fox news is independent and balanced. Imagine a government-independent institution where you join a controlling organ and after sworn in you are invited to 2 after-meetings at the same time. One invitation comes in a red letter the other in a blue letter. Yet everybody has to be independent because that is what it is supposed to be. Germans can be very very stubborn about that.

this is sorta incomplete and wrong but I think gets you the taste for the setup? If not complain in the replies :)

[cardanome]

It is independent in the sense of not being partial to any specific political party. Still the media is very biased towards the status quo and the state. For example you will not find any serious criticism of Israel in any public or private mainstream media in Germany.

[dgxyz]

The one that always gets me is security and privacy paranoid and lecture me on the Stasi and using Apple phones and how they aren't repairable but then goes and uses unpatched rotten old Android they can't fix anyway and sticks fingers in ears. Nearly every German I know does this and I know a lot of Germans as half my family is German and my ex-partner is German.

[integralid]

I'll bite (I'm not German but I'm close culturally):

* Old Androids are not repairable because they're shit, not because a megacorp works hard to make repair impossible

* Old Androids may be hacked by a pegasus-like software (just like most new smartphones anyway), but at least the operating system does not lock you into its own closed ecosystem.

You may disagree, and correctly, because it's in part irrational, but many Europeans just dislike Apple and consider Android a more open/free ecosystem.

[ahoka]

I have bought an Android phone and I couldn’t even change the font used or use an ad blocker on the browser it comes with. It comes with advertisements on the home screen and if I disable them half of the system functions stop working. Seems it’s not open at all. Sent it back the next week. </rant>

[ThrowawayTestr]

Buy a Samsung not the cheapest possible device from a random Chinese seller

[dgxyz]

I'd believe there was some truth in that if they used any open apps but they just lock themselves into Google's ecosystem instead. All their data is siloed in some US cloud.

If you run like that it doesn't matter what phone you use and your privacy and openness arguments are moot.

[kuschku]

But people don't use the Google cloud offerings that much, because they're far too expensive anyway :P

[heraldgeezer]

>unpatched rotten old Android

Based.

Fsk Apple. Soy aah

[ekianjo]

> Most advanced railway system in eu

France is certainly better

[direwolf20]

I believe Germany's is much more interconnected while France's mostly goes from Paris to other places. Mesh versus star topology.

[hdgvhicv]

That’s be a use Germany economy is far more distributed (5 or so economic centres) across the country where as counties like France and U.K. have one centre, and places like Spain and Italy two (Madrid/Barca and Rome/Milan)

[hermanzegerman]

Certainly not. Nobody wants to book his train 2 weeks in advance to reserve a seat, because otherwise it's "sold out". Also Commuter Rail (TER) is a total Joke outside of Ile-de-France. Sometimes also even with mandatory reservation. I think SNCF confuses itself with an Airline

[SvenL]

Yes, as a German I can agree.

However, I remember the anecdote of how France has two different companies for the trains and trainstations. The first ordered trains which were a little bit to wide for the trainstations, due to a miss communication.

When I read about this, I thought „this could have been Germany too.“

[f1shy]

In fact German ICEs are limited in speed in Germany because of the rails, when they cross to France go faster.

[borlox]

Do you know similarly large, democratic societies without contradictions?

[anthonj]

my impression is that other countries like Italy or France are much more consistent in what they are bad or good at.

But it's possible it's just my personal bias.

[fc417fc802]

I have the same (possibly mistaken) impression of Germany as an outsider. The US is also remarkably contradictory in its supposed values. I think it would be interesting if there were a semi-objective measure of this quality.

[f1shy]

Maybe that is the point. The contradiction about what you expect, and reality. Like in Italy is expected to go and find out this or that is messy. But Germany has a strong image of responsibility, seriousness, efficiency, etc. And when you see closer, is not.

Also, what I'm not sure, I'm trying to find out, if there was a change in the last 1 or 2 decades, or was always like that. Like now, except for things like you here a siren and cars open like Moises opened the water, in many other things, seems to be not more organized that any other country. Hell, sometimes compared with Bangladesh seems to be lagging behind (point example: birth certificates)

[u8080]

>You have to pay a "radio tax" to help funding press

I mean, same as in most countries taxpayers effectively sponsor government propaganda.