[shafyy]

You are right about the issue, but wrong about the action. There are things you can do. Vote for candidates and parties that genuinely want a different future. Become politically active yourself. Run for office. Work with your local community. Every bit of action helps.

[ivan_gammel]

There is no party in German political landscape interested, capable of solving or even understanding the problems that needed to be solved. We have lost political center to groups of special interests and medieval guides. The state sponsored tool for informing about political programs (Wahl-O-Mat) is biased towards political issues of the mainstream. E.g. nobody is talking about the suffocating monopoly of notaries or increasing the property ownership by any significant margin. Running for office is an interesting idea, but in party-dominated politics to achieve anything is a decades-long adventure.

[kuerbel]

The wahl-o-mat is not biased, it's based on the respective election programs. If one party decides to put something "about the suffocating monopoly of notaries" in it, it's not enough to be mentioned. There have to be some parties at least to make it comparable.

Also feel free to peruse election programs yourself. Most parties put out short versions.

You also don't need to run for office to have an effect on party lines. I'm a member of a party. There are congresses on a regional (Bundesland) and national level. In my party the process is voting for proposals before the national congress due to the huge amount of proposals, but usually every proposal on regional level is discussed and voted on. It does not take much time to prepare a proposal, but it shapes the discourse.

[ivan_gammel]

> The wahl-o-mat is not biased, it's based on the respective election programs.

That’s exactly my point. If a problem exists or a solution to a problem is possible about which no party is willing to talk about, it will not show it. The choice of topics is based on party opinions, not on voter surveys. This is called bias.

> Also feel free to peruse election programs yourself.

I read the full programs. This is the main reason why I think German political system is in the state of crisis.

> I'm a member of a party.

You surely know some examples when a party member shaped the discourse and set the course of institutional reforms. How long did it take for that person to achieve such results?

[Bewelge]

> That’s exactly my point. If a problem exists or a solution to a problem is possible about which no party is willing to talk about, it will not show it. The choice of topics is based on party opinions, not on voter surveys. This is called bias.

It's not a bias. I think you're misunderstanding the meaning of the word. We vote for parties and the wahl-o-mat compares the opinion of these parties. It would be biased if it would give an unfair advantage or disadvantage to one or some parties. The parties' opinions not being a good representation of the important challenges we face is not a bias of the wahl-o-mat. You can question its usefulness but calling it biased is calling it dishonest.

And honestly? That sucks. You can question its usefulness but please don't call an initiative that aims to give the populace a better political overview biased for no reason. You're not helping shape political discourse for the better here. I just checked: There weren't any no google results for "wahl-o-mat bias" yet. Now there are.

[ivan_gammel]

It gives unfair advantage to incumbent parties by shaping the political agenda and manipulating public opinion. When you look at the housing crisis in big cities and what Wahl-O-Mat displays as the options on the table based on political programs, it is very easy to think that the selection of options is exhaustive. Public is effectively pushed into discussing only those options, none of which is a good solution. Yet solutions exist, the only problem: political center is dead and they do not fit into populist right or populist green/left platforms. At least half of the items on Wahl-O-Mat is feel-good populism scoring points for one or another party, not least because scoring points, not real change is for most of them the primary objective. And the tool simply reflects that, because German political system is designed to stabilize status quo, not to challenge it.

Edit: the word „Bias“ may not exist in Google search, but this topic is certainly discussed in German language space and it is easy to find:

https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2025-02/peter-mueller-bundesverfa...

[Bewelge]

I did do a German search as well. And bias in that case would be something like "parteiisch" "bevor-/nachteilen". In 2019 a court did say it gives an advantage to incumbents because you had to limit your results to 8 parties. They've changed that since. The article you've linked is talking about its usefulness in general and not that it gives unfair advantages to anyone.

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the thing myself and I agree that most of your proposals would improve the tool. But calling it a tool that compares political parties biased makes it sound deceptive. And I don't believe that it's deceptive. It's just ineffective.

The fact that it gives an "unfair advantage to incumbents" also isn't really a bias of the tool. It really just is the most obvious fair way to structure it. Large parties are large because a large amount of people vote for them. So they obviously have more visibility.

But I also agree that the majority rule of an ageing population in Germany is problematic. With most incumbents seemingly agreeing to not talk about the future.

[shafyy]

That's not true. I just now went through the Wahl-o-Mat for Baden-Württemberg (because there are elections there this Sunday, March 8). From the 38 questions, there are two that directly address the housing crisis:

> Die Mietpreisbremse in baden-württembergischen Städten und Gemeinden soll abgeschafft werden

> Länger leerstehende Mietwohnungen sollen ihren Eigentümerinnen und Eigentümer konsequent entzogen und vermietet werden.

Why do you think those options are not good options to address the housing crisis? Are there other levers? Of course, but Mietpreisbremse (freezing rents) and Leerstand (empty houses) are certainly key levers. And the point of the Wahl-o-Mat is to give you an indication over overlap, not to list and let you decide on single political initiatives.

[shafyy]

For me personally, Die Linke is hitting many spots. Of course, nobody will ever be 100% aligned with a political party's program, but that's ok.

[markbravo0312]

It seems to even get the compass needle pointing in the right direction would require immense personal sacrifice. This brings to mind a line I heard recently: “I burn my life to make a sunrise I will never see.”

[throwway120385]

Or a lot of smaller sacrifices by a large group of people.