I wondered, for the longest time, how this situation came about, but I heard a podcast by a train expert and he pointed out the economic incentives the government idiotically gave Deutsche Bahn:
If they have to replace something with a new version, then the government foots the bill, as that's a New Purchase and an "improvement" and "environmentalism".
If they have to repair or care for something in the maintenance phase, then that is "upkeep" and they are stuck with the bill.
So, they just let everything rot until it was irrepparably damaged, and then had it replaced. So, stuff had to break, before it got fixed. So stuff broke, and broke, and broke...
Throw-away fashion and Vibe-coding, but make it trains.
All of Germany is run like that because we have the most idiotic politicians, who get elected because they promise to steal from the young and rich and spend on the old and poor, which sounds really "social", but just means you end up in a Turd World Country where they have to close down the freeways because the bridges are collapsing.
European countries are shooting themselves in the foot. It is about incentives indeed. If the mayority of the population is old, they are going to vote for people that promises THEM a free lunch.
Parasites invade vulnerable hosts, wealthy European countries are just that. These (and other) parasitic ideas pray on empathy which is in abundance until the host collapses.
It does not mean that Germany is going down for sure, but it will undergo a radical transformation in the not so distant future (see Italy for a reference).
We are witnessing a fatal flaw in democracy. The demographics are so skewed that large segments of society can be completely ignored without consequences.
Then compensate for the dwindling birth rates and shrinking tax base with migration and you will soon find you have lost your nation.
I have been a migrant most of my life and though I love my people I hate our flaws as a culture (namely corruption and violence).
When a few of ME move to a different place, that place will get a little bit of my culture. If a considerable ammount of my people move in, we would recreate our homeland here. It doesn't matter if it is russians, africans, americans or asians, the point is the same.
Weirdly enough, the issue I am highlighting here is less catastrophic than just let the population dwindle and die on its own.
No solutions from me, sorry π
I am not even making a value judgement here on migrants or their culture.
Simply that migration is being used as a cover to hide the collapse and aging of populations. It also provides excellent cover for politicians to blame the failings of the system on. In Australia everyone loves to blame migration for house prices skyrocketing but no one has any idea about the fact that the money supply has also skyrocketed or that people are using their houses as a store of value. And as the population shifts so do the things that win their votes.
yeah, it's a dirty game they are running cover for the wrongdoings of the bankers and gigacorps
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Oh sorry I was the one making the value judgement of migrant culture. And I agree with your point. There is something deeper that is not being addressed and it is causing all of these problems.
Symptomes are easy to point out, the root cause is very difficult to grasp. Faulty money and the incentives it creates have a cascading effect on our culture.
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It's a cause-effect chain. The house price inflation lowers marriage rates and raises the economic burden on couples, which lowers birth rates, which incentivizes mass migration, to replace the missing children.
But economically crushing your local populace and then subsidizing foreigners to replace them, is next-level political perversion, IMO. And a lot of us migrants are now locals, and we're also getting crushed. So, you know, now they have to replace our missing offspring, too... It never ends.
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I'm also a migrant. Most of us in the thread are, actually, in one way or another.
But, it's like you say, a handful of American's moving to your neighborhood makes for better burgers, cooler digital projects, a world-class basketball team, and livelier church music. A million Americans moving to your neighborhood is just an invasion and will turn you into America del Oste. (I mean, Germany is essentially occupied by Americans, so that's not mere conjecture.)
yeah, i'm a migrant too, been wandering around europe for a while, netherlands, serbia, bosnia, bulgaria (mostly)
i make a lot of effort to integrate, i can speak reasonable bulgarian now and i'm working on portuguese now for madeira... i've even started going to the local church, since a christian should go to church, fatima catholic it is
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Italy just got its credit score upgraded because Meloni has been delivering.
italy was one of the worst, so improvements are likely to be shiny, also
italians are for sure fed up, probably more than any other southwest european country, the fascist mafia were running the place into the ground... a former manufacturing and food production powerhouse
they still make a lot of stuff, and it's pretty good, i have a carbon radiative heater by a company Ardes, it's a great little thing, the safety switch and rotating mechanism are kinda shit tho
Northern Italy is especially nice. Love being there. But quality of life is still a bit higher in Bavaria, other than the weather.
Of course, weather is a really big deal, but we can drive to Verona for temporary relief. π
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yeah, it's a red flag for me this kind of mentality, short term oriented, it always leads to a steady decline into shit, this is what Cory Doctorow refers to about "enshittification"
as an engineer and troubleshooter, these are problems that i am always shouting about getting seen to or everyone will regret it. my best customers listen to me, most don't.
because i saw it so much up close it made me curious to know how this mindset tends to proliferate like metastasising cancer. mainly, people tolerate small declines in quality without making enough noise until everything comes to a grinding halt. just another aspect of how scientists and engineers tend to be gloomy and skeptical and generally distrusting of people with power.
and yeah, this is the fruit of socialism. a billion vibe coded apps and nothing works and the wrecks, ruins and landfills pile up with stuff that would still be working if they didn't shave 10% off costs, and end up losing 90% in the end, so the pimps in suits on the teleprompters advertise yet another solution for a problem that is just another road to even deeper ruin.
I would posit that it is merely human nature to reach for short-term gain at long-term loss.
What changed is that we are governed by a lower class of people, who can't be bothered to resist the urge to do popular things, in favor of doing important things.
there are two ways to learn how to do things the right way:
1. do it wrong, and suffer, and then learn
2. be taught by good teachers who use motivational psychology to imprint that learning with less suffering
there is basically no good teachers around anymore, because narcissists have taken over the job of designing the education system. yay prussia and state education. it's been a slow motion trainwreck for about 200 years this one
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Itβs the (archetypical?) incentive of a system that βleaksβ energy by design.
It attracts only those willing to benefit.
Ie. Those with little inherent self-worth. Therefore, why would they invest in the futureβ¦.
Rinse Wash Repeatβ¦β¦Rebellion π΅ π₯
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Libertarians when capitalism sucks: βthis is the fruit of socialismβ
Actual fruits of socialism:
https://youtube.com/shorts/0Xgzq66H6so
https://m.primal.net/QbTy.mp4
i see, and what did they pay for all that with? oh yeah, money, that they got from selling to USA and taxing the shit out of everything america sold to china
They are smart, spending money they earned on infrastructure, unlike some countries that spend all their money on wars and Israel.
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The reason you gave is correct in Australia as well. On the railways repairs and maintenance are paid by private companies but they just let it deteriorate to a sufficient level and then the government is required to fix it.
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