3 ms·

Have you been to Germany? As a non-German who has lived there, I wouldn’t trust government to make good well-founded decisions in the interest of their voters.

by harha 5y ago

riedel 5y ago
It typically is sufficient if German voters trust their government's decision. Sure you can argue for another smart dictator, but the German majority IMHO is backing the anti nuclear course of their government. The question currently is not gas vs nuclear at the moment. Building new reactors does not make any sense, given the current risk/cost/value IMHO: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ Running the remaining reactors that account for a fraction of Germany's energy production longer probably does not solve much. Particularly heating in Germany cannot be switched easily to gas. For power gas particularly addresses peak energy production from what I know. If you do not want to build back renewables that are fluctuating there is a need for gas currently. As it is about coal vs nuclear it is a bit of a different story. Here we might come to the part were we might see politics failing in Germany, but this is very much because coal mining is a very central element to Germans culture. Government really only represents it's citizens. I think this is a good thing. I do not want to live in another country regardless of the political party currently ruling. Looking at countries >80M citizens where are the more trustworthy governments???
- harha 5y ago
  Smart dictator isn't typically a sustainable strategy, there are democracies that do much better, the most typical example being Switzerland. My impression is that this is a typical German reply to criticism, yes there are worse cases, but it's not helpful to find a worse comparison if you want to grow. From my outsider view and having lived in a bunch of places, I don't have the impression that the German government is doing a good service to their citizens (and definitely not to expats in high earning jobs). The policy around nuclear power and coal is making Europe as a whole less stable and prosperous (again, my view). Anyhow, not going to argue with a German, best decision I've made was to leave, worst was to move there in the first place.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    Switzerland has some advantages... being smack in the middle of the alps means nice trade routes, small population, hard to invade. They can afford "neutrality", they can afford taking advantage of their neighbors (by not joining EU but having some similar deals) because they are so small their neighbors can ignore that. Poland tried to stay neutral in WWII, by the way. What Switzerland does is not scaleable. Small countries tend to deviate from the average. Some win, some lose.
ivan_gammel 5y ago
I’m German currently living in Berlin and I think government here isn’t that bad, compared to other countries :)
- fit2rule 5y ago

Have you been to Germany? As a non-German who has lived there, I wouldn’t trust government to make good well-founded decisions in the interest of their voters.

by harha 5y ago

Have you been to Germany? As a non-German who has lived there, I wouldn’t trust government to make good well-founded decisions in the interest of their voters.

riedel 5y ago

It typically is sufficient if German voters trust their government's decision. Sure you can argue for another smart dictator, but the German majority IMHO is backing the anti nuclear course of their government. The question currently is not gas vs nuclear at the moment. Building new reactors does not make any sense, given the current risk/cost/value IMHO: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ Running the remaining reactors that account for a fraction of Germany's energy production longer probably does not solve much. Particularly heating in Germany cannot be switched easily to gas. For power gas particularly addresses peak energy production from what I know. If you do not want to build back renewables that are fluctuating there is a need for gas currently. As it is about coal vs nuclear it is a bit of a different story. Here we might come to the part were we might see politics failing in Germany, but this is very much because coal mining is a very central element to Germans culture. Government really only represents it's citizens. I think this is a good thing. I do not want to live in another country regardless of the political party currently ruling. Looking at countries >80M citizens where are the more trustworthy governments???

harha 5y ago
Smart dictator isn't typically a sustainable strategy, there are democracies that do much better, the most typical example being Switzerland. My impression is that this is a typical German reply to criticism, yes there are worse cases, but it's not helpful to find a worse comparison if you want to grow. From my outsider view and having lived in a bunch of places, I don't have the impression that the German government is doing a good service to their citizens (and definitely not to expats in high earning jobs). The policy around nuclear power and coal is making Europe as a whole less stable and prosperous (again, my view). Anyhow, not going to argue with a German, best decision I've made was to leave, worst was to move there in the first place.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  Switzerland has some advantages... being smack in the middle of the alps means nice trade routes, small population, hard to invade. They can afford "neutrality", they can afford taking advantage of their neighbors (by not joining EU but having some similar deals) because they are so small their neighbors can ignore that. Poland tried to stay neutral in WWII, by the way. What Switzerland does is not scaleable. Small countries tend to deviate from the average. Some win, some lose.

ivan_gammel 5y ago

I’m German currently living in Berlin and I think government here isn’t that bad, compared to other countries :)

fit2rule 5y ago