[OKRainbowKid]

This seems to be the latest attempt of the conservative CDU to further reduce transparency and accountability of government officials. One could posit the goal is to enable corruption without all that hassle of the media potentially finding out about it.

[pizzao]

A country in decay..

[denvrede]

I'd generally agree, but my follow up question would be: which western country isn't?

[arjie]

Poland is now in the Western sphere of influence and it is not in decay. A weak case can be made for Ireland but it’s harder to extract effects of tax haven status. But Poland certainly. Going to be a higher income populace than the UK soon at this rate.

The US is unusual as a federation. Some parts decline, others rise. I think it’s resilient. And every time something goes wrong, America pulls out a magic new technology. We will see if R&D will carry the day again.

[rightbyte]

> Poland is now in the Western sphere of influence and it is not in decay.

Polands fertility rate in 2025 was 1.1. It is some sort of dystopia allready for people.

[snowpid]

The US is more in decay than Germany. Currently it becomes more and more a broken democracy. Cope is strong here.

[flossly]

Denmark?

The Swiss?

Norway?

And I was in Serbia lately, and while it was not as developed as NW-EU, nobody there described it as decaying (and many said they experiences decay when living in western nations over the past 2 decades).

[petcat]

Denmark is the architect of Chat Control. Even the extreme version that requires all E2E communications be accessible to the government.

Denmark is not just decayed, it is completely rotten.

[Oarch]

I wasn't expecting to find Hamlet in these comments...

[radiator]

> Denmark is not just decayed, it is completely rotten

I don't know about the truthness of this claim, but you are definitely getting the upvote for the humour.

[omnimus]

Controversial proposals like Chat control are often pushed by hard lobby through the current eu presidency state because of their possition. It is likely that if Denmark wasn't heading eu at the time they would have little to do with Chat control. Also likely they were one of the more resilient countries to propose this.

[rvz]

Some people still don't have a clue that it is the almost the entirety of EU member countries in Europe that are rotten and are not doing particularly well.

The only country in Europe that is the exception is Norway which is not part of the EU.

[fransje26]

> And I was in Serbia lately [..]

With OP postulating that it is to enable corruption, and a sub-reply affirming that it is therefore the trait of a country in decay, bringing in Serbia as a counter-example is hilarious.

Serbia ranks 116th in the corruption perception index, Germany 10th. (Lower is better)

[inigyou]

Corruption perception lags actual corruption. Countries that are becoming more corrupt are perceived as less corrupt. Countries that are becoming less corrupt are perceived as more corrupt.

[master-lincoln]

yeah, but decaying means something gets worse. Maybe corruption is getting less in Serbia despite still being bad?

[flossly]

I was replying to the word "decay", not to the corruption situation. Probably they are related, but certainly not the same.

[cucumber3732842]

>And I was in Serbia lately, and while it was not as developed as NW-EU, nobody there described it as decaying (and many said they experiences decay when living in western nations over the past 2 decades)

Yeah, a lot of the western countries that aren't wealthy enough to afford the luxury of indulging in absurd farcical politics and policies over the past 40yr are doing pretty decent.

[tremon]

Why limit yourself to western countries? In fact, why limit it to countries at all? Isn't it the most popular trope of all time to decry the state of today and romanticise yesterday? People have "not been wanting to work anymore" for at least 150 years, things were always better in the olden days, people don't make 'em like they used to, etm.

There's very little value in a statement like yours. It's a truism that has never been correct.

[xienze]

> things were always better in the olden days, people don't make 'em like they used to.

Just because successive generations make the same observations about <X> doesn't mean that <X> hasn't actually been steadily declining, you know.

[Gander5739]

https://xkcd.com/1227/

[xienze]

So are you just repeating the parent's flawed argument? Maybe you should see what that comic looks like extrapolated out to 2026: "yo on god writing be dead, frfr no cap <100 emoji> <fire emoji>"

[greenavocado]

Poland, but its on borrowed time due to the extreme fertility crisis.

[flossly]

Is fertility so important?

Maybe the other western countries are equally infertile, but just allowed many immigrants in (which counts are population expansion) that also have more children on average.

How are Japan and Korea holing out? They are further down the infertility down-spiral.

[BSDobelix]

>How are Japan and Korea holing out?

https://japandaily.jp/why-japanese-elders-choose-prison-over...

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/1-in-3-south-kor...

[snovymgodym]

Yeah, it's pretty important if you are interested in the continued existence of your society

[woodpanel]

Most popular boys name, per place:

- Warsaw: Nikodem

- Oslo: Mohammad

- Berlin and Brandenburg: Mohammed

- England as a whole: Muhammad

Mind you that the names top these lists in spite of usually being present in there in multiple spelling versions. E.g. if all different spelling versions of Muhammad were combined it would top the Dutch statistics as well.

[inigyou]

That's because Muslims have their naming concentrated on a single name so much that anywhere you have a sizable number of Muslims, the most popular name in that place is Mohammed, even though most people aren't named Mohammed.

We should be asking why Muslims avoid Warsaw. That's odd.

[lo_zamoyski]

The very consumerism that has made it materially wealthy has fucked up its citizens' priorities. Indeed, because the wealth differential over the last 30 years is as steep as it is - and because people are generally petty - it actually creates a perverse incentive to prioritize wealth accumulation over family life just to "keep up". You don't want the Joneses to outdo you. You don't want to seem shabbier.

So, maybe rapid growth combined with consumerist impulses is a deadly combination for a society. If only rapid growth were combined with healthy and wise priorities...

[eigenspace]

Lol, what on earth makes you single out Poland as the single western country not in decay right now?

[sam_lowry_]

Its economy has been growing for 30 years non-stop, to the point that it is now compared to Singapore.

[jijijijij]

In context of the article, the economic performance is hardly relevant. The authoritarian forces are still strong in Poland, their institutional damage persistent.

[inigyou]

Economic growth is not the kind that's being referred to. I think Germany is also economically growing? It doesn't matter, they are still decaying in most ways.

[dyauspitr]

It doesn’t have immigrants so the right wing tries extra hard to paint it as rosy.

[maratc]

There are about 1.5 million immigrants from Ukraine alone.

[eigenspace]

Ding Ding Ding

[greenavocado]

Where is the lie?

[dgellow]

That impacts the whole developed world, it’s not a polish issue

[skinfaxi]

That it sucks elsewhere means we can't decry this instance?

[inigyou]

Who said there was one?

[master-lincoln]

yep, it's the populists communication strategies winning over the voters so people in power can screw the populace as they like and the spin doctors (not the band) will make people think it's in their interest.

[throw1234567891]

AfD will come and rescue everyone. /s