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Wwize t1_jdvdwz8 wrote

Maybe Germany needs to look at why its population is shrinking. Perhaps wages are too low, hours are too long, and people are just unable or unwilling to start a family due to lack of money and time. Employers need to give people more time and money to live.

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vindictivemonarch t1_jdvzv4w wrote

in germany, they give you money to have children. it's called kindergeld.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_benefit

depends on the number of children: first 2 is 219€/child/month, until they're adults. i knew people in college that were still collecting kindergeld.

maternal leave can be anywhere from several weeks to several years. you keep your job and a paycheck with few limitations.

your employer is also required to give you two paid vacation days per month. that's almost 4 weeks of paid vacation per year at the entry level, before you count national/state holidays.

undergrad is free.

you could have all this too, if you would only tax the rich, but america sucks huge dirty donkey dick and loves it

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WindHero t1_jdxiycq wrote

Yet Germans have fewer children than Americans.

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flukshun t1_jdxk8c3 wrote

America took the opposite approach: people living in poverty tend to have more children

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Comrade_Derpsky t1_jdx26lw wrote

Working hours are fine. People don't work super long hours in Germany. You also get quite a bit of vacation time. The reason people don't have many kids (as is happening all over the developed world) is because the balance of incentives don't favor having kids. Kids are very expensive, both in terms of direct time and money spent on them and indirectly due to things like housing needs for families. And unlike in the old days, you can't just put them to work once they're 12 and have them earn money for the family or perform labor on your farm (because most people don't have a farm these days). Your kids won't realistically be able to produce any economic returns on all the money you've invested into them until they are well into their 20s or later once they're actually stable and have a career. And all the while, the upfront cost is gradually getting steeper and steeper. Housing is gradually becoming prohibitively expensive here in Germany, and even if you can afford what you need comfortably the supply is small relative to the demand. All these costs force young people to think hard about whether they want kids or not and force them to also wait longer before having kids.

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8yr0n t1_jdw9u4f wrote

Germans work some of the lowest hours in the world and also have high incomes. It is without a doubt one of the best places in the world to be a lower or middle class worker.

Pay and free time are not the issue causing low birth rates there.

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Wwize t1_jdwajeb wrote

And even that isn't good enough, obviously. Billionaire executives and shareholders need to stop being so greedy and pay their workers more.

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lemonylol t1_jdx2mpv wrote

Yeah but the statistics also show that the more wealth people have the less kids they tend to have, regardless of background.

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moosknauel t1_jefcqiq wrote

Demographic-economic paradox is something prevalent in sociology. YOu can just google it and find a lot with it.

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WealthyMarmot t1_jdx63qt wrote

Given that income and education are inversely correlated to fertility rates, I'm not sure how that would help. There are deeper issues at play.

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TheGreatPiata t1_jdx8x4h wrote

The problem is requiring 2 incomes to survive. If you want people to have more kids, move to a 3 day work week so someone can always be home tending to the house and family.

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turbo-unicorn t1_jdxouge wrote

Not sure if this applies to Germany, but I suspect it's similar. Here in NL, working 4 days a week is quite common. Of course, lower pay, but it's good enough for most things.

Housing is a huge problem, but I suspect the birth rate has more to do with people just wanting to enjoy life more, as kids are quite the burden on a hedonistic life style.

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liljizbaby t1_jdxsswl wrote

Please cite a single country where this happens.

Rich countries have less children then poorer ones. It has nothing to do with incomes, but rather education.

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TheGreatPiata t1_je02xul wrote

You're missing my point.

Because everyone needs 2 incomes to survive, everyone is focused on work and careers instead of home and family. Having only 1 person in a household work isn't ideal because 2 incomes are more stable and it makes one person have all the homemaker responsibilities (and it will likely usually be the woman).

If you move to a 3 day work week, someone should be home most of the time to take care of children and do household chores, women can continue to work and fathers can be more present.

This isn't happening in any countries because no one is attempting it and likely won't for a long time.

The dearth of children is a multifaceted problem but I think the biggest hurdles outside of finding a spouse is the cost (not just money but loss of career advancement) and available free time everyone has. I have 2 kids and it takes an awful lot to see them through those early years.

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Torugu t1_jdw6p6d wrote

Or maybe educated, responsible people with access to birth control choose to have fewer children later instead of popping out their first baby at 21. Which is great for the educated responsible people, but terrible for the long-term future of the country.

As a matter of fact, Germany has some of the strongest benefits for young parents in the world, to the extend where many people move back to Germany just to have children.

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Eswyft t1_jdx1ene wrote

Educated people more likely to realize there's a good chance anyone born now could have a incredibly worse life given global warming and just don't want to risk that for any potential children

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Metal-Wolf-Enrif t1_jdvku1z wrote

Living in germany: While for some people all of the above might by the reason, others simply don't want children.

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strawberries6 t1_jdxbmz8 wrote

>Maybe Germany needs to look at why its population is shrinking.

In case you truly don't know, birth rates have trended downwards in virtually every country over the past 70 years.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/crude-birth-rate

Generally birth rates go down as the standard of living and education improves (though this does not necessarily mean birth rates will rise again, if livings standards get worse).

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Professional_Class_4 t1_jdxy8qp wrote

From a german who has a child and is thinking about a second one: Its less about the money but more about child care. In general wages in germany are OK. Yes it is extremly hard to get rich through labor but if you have a full time job the wage is OK (underpayed maybe but no comparison to having multiple jobs in the US). The problem is, it is often impossible to find child care. It is more or less for free and thus there are few private kindergardens.

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TheElderCouncil t1_jdw7h7i wrote

Jesus. Wtf do people in USA say then if that’s what’s happening in Germany?

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8yr0n t1_jdwa8bx wrote

I’d say “I would love to move to Germany but really don’t want to learn German!”

Could you just bring your worker protections, time off, and healthcare system here instead please?

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Wwize t1_jdw87ot wrote

I know working conditions are worse in the US. However, we have a lot more immigration to make up for the low birth rate of US citizens.

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Ziddix t1_jdzqa9d wrote

The problem the developed world is running into is that more and more people realise that life can have a better quality without kids. In Germany especially this doesn't have much to do with wages or working hours. Germany is actually pretty good in those areas and the laws and regulations are very accommodating if not outright supportive of starting families.

Young women these days also have much better career prospects than they did a few decades ago so a lot of women chose to focus on their career and staying single because why wouldn't they.

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Cr33py07dGuy t1_je3t3jp wrote

Money and child support etc. here is honestly very good. I think a big issue is the length of time that formal education takes. You are well into your twenties before you can START looking for your first job with a University education, which can delay when you can get married and have children, assuming that educated people prefer to have a house or some kind of stable living situation before starting a family. This also means that your children are likely to be an expense well into their 20s. Also, not just how many children you have but when you have them effects the demographic chart already. It makes a big difference to the country’s population if there are 40 years between generations rather than 20!

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Former_Star1081 t1_je46nfw wrote

I think we are among the lowest working hours in the world. Many people working fulltime jobs under 40 hours/week.

And if it would be about wages why are poor people getting more children? Why is the global south getting more children than rich western societies? It does not add up and your logic is just plain wrong.

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Wwize t1_je53a6g wrote

Lack of sex education and lots of religion and forced marriages are the reason people have more kids in those countries. The lack of education leads people to have kids before they can afford them, and they all end up living in poverty. German couples have sex education so they can plan when to have kids, and they choose not to because they're too expensive and take up too much time.

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Former_Star1081 t1_je53rez wrote

Obviously, but why should they get children when they have more money and freetime? They could just consume more and still get no children, which is mich more likly. You should get significantly less pension when you get no children. That would be a good fix.

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LunarN t1_jdvb7r4 wrote

Combine this info with the current strikes and you will figure out quickly what the german industry wants...

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BigBeerBellyMan t1_jdv57ql wrote

Something I never understood: if the population is shrinking, why do they import workers instead of just scaling back production to accommodate the smaller population size?

For example, suppose you had a population of 100 people, and 25 of them would make 100 ice cream cones a day for everyone to have. Then if for some reason the population dropped to 80, why not just have 20 workers make 80 ice cream cones per day? Why is it necessary to import 20 workers to keep the population at 100?

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valkyrie_kk t1_jdv66kz wrote

because globally integrated economies are a little more complex than that

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nileb t1_jdv8iuy wrote

Are you going to explain how it is “doesn’t work like that” sufficient?

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2020BCray t1_jdv8u0m wrote

I imagine it's due to them trading with other nations, which results in certain amount of profit based on amount goods and service produced. If you reduce the workforce, your productivity drops, as a result you reduce the profit.

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instakill69 t1_jdvc66e wrote

And if it's a trade thing, you're getting back less product which is bad in every case when it's not something that people consume specifically.

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rpgalon t1_jdva5zo wrote

the developed world needs to import people so they can keep their high living standard without suffering from inflation in low paid jobs.

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M3G4MIND t1_jdv8oyz wrote

Because you don't have an even distribution between old and young people. In your example the population decrease from 100 to 80 would mean a drop in ice cream workers from 25 to maybe 15, meaning they wouldn't be able to make enough ice cream cones for the 80 people. It's the general issue that most of the western world is facing. Less young people to carry the work load and more old people requiring resources.

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Wwize t1_jdvdr50 wrote

Because scaling back production would hurt profits, and profits are more important than anything else to business owners.

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turbo-unicorn t1_jdxpl4n wrote

It's not even about profits. Lower production necessarily means higher prices, as inefficiencies increase, and demand per capita has increased in the past decades. Of course, this could be solved by people accepting a lower living standard, but somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

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utep2step t1_jdvjagn wrote

I mean this in a good way, not a righty way, because immigrants pay into and want social services that an 2nd, 3rd gen etc., aging population also demands from. Look at Russia which is facing a major problem: old population that is not getting replaced and with war pushing out the Russian young workforce to Kazakhstan or Europe or getting injured or killed in war, they are F’ed. Russians moms rely on what their son makes. Putin has now made bad to worse.

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lemonylol t1_jdx2vtl wrote

Because the demand for ice cream never changed.

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Vegan_Honk t1_jdvhqj4 wrote

No please everyone try to make global migration easier. Trust me it'll be funny seeing how many labor movements are enabled by workers shifting jobs away from their home countries.

If they're gonna do this shit to get around paying their populations/betterment of everyone's lives to increase generations having kids then we should make sure everyone has a better life anyways.

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turbo-unicorn t1_jdxqsh5 wrote

It's not about "not paying people better". It's a literal workforce shortage. There are more job openings than people available to fill them. I'm going to guess that you are not German, or living there, otherwise you'd know that even on a part time minimum salary, you can live quite well.

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Skurrio t1_jdvckuz wrote

Red Button: Use Immigration to counter the declining Workforce, draining their Home Countries of valuable Workforce

Blue Button: Invest more into Families and Education, so that People are less afraid of getting Children, allowing for a natural Growth of the younger Population.

Our Socialdemocraticgreenliberalgovernment:

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AthiestMessiah t1_jduy70u wrote

Might leave England for Germany, my wife speaks German and has family there. Unfortunately I don’t

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Rhoderick t1_jdv19np wrote

Honestly, if you're looking to learn German, starting from knowing English is pretty much the best position you can be in, short of knowing Dutch or something.

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bonyponyride t1_jdv28oj wrote

Trennbar verbs, reflexive verbs, gendered nouns, and verb cases have entered the chat. It does have quite a few similarities to english, but I've found people who speak Russian and Ukrainian pick it up way faster than others.

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AwfulUsername123 t1_jdv3sve wrote

You mean noun cases. And yeah, English speakers struggle with that. See: whom.

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AmargithHuld t1_jdx4gs4 wrote

The older gen in those countries had german as a second language in school, that helps as well.

But sure, cases throw many for a loop.

I can attest, however, that Russian ‘thinks’ in a very different way than germanic european languages, and they struggle very much with articles, wordplacement (as they have cases for that shit) and the idea of auxiliary verbs.

Source: lived there for a year, and soeak Russian and several germanic languages :)

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bonyponyride t1_jdx9w2f wrote

Ah interesting. Maybe that's the reason. I've been taking German classes in Germany with a few Russians and many Ukrainians, and they've always been at the top of the class. Some of them finished B1 in just 7 months, which is crazy to me. It took me 10 months of full time classes and I still fuck up all the cases and have a smaller vocabulary that I can use off the top of my head.

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Infamous-Werewolf196 t1_jduymhk wrote

Duolingo is good I hear to learn a new language

−1

RandomStuffGenerator t1_jduz3vf wrote

I learned German as an adult (while living in Germany). Duolingo is nice and you should use all the help you can get, but the key to learning the language is first gaining the basic foundations through courses (even the free VHS courses for foreigners are useful) and then talking to people as much as you can. No app can replace that.

It is a difficult language and the learning curve is quite steep, but with focus and dedication anybody can learn it within a reasonable timeframe.

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bonyponyride t1_jdv0kdq wrote

VHS courses aren't free for most people. Each level costs around 200 Euro, and the levels are A1.1, A1.2, A2.1, A2.2, B1.1, B1.2, B2 and so on, so it costs over 1000 Euros. It is still cheaper than other schools, and if you have a special circumstance, like being a German citizen or asylum seeker and registered with the job center, BAMF will pay for the courses in full. If you pay out of pocket and then pass the B1 test, I believe you get refunded 50% of your fees through level B1. If you take classes full time, going from A1.1 to B2 takes about a year.

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ed190 t1_jdwlure wrote

Lol good luck with the Ausländerbehörde and the bureaucracy. How many immigrants are trying to get a job but the migration office cant give permits on time because they are understaffed. And they can’t get a permit because they don’t have jobs.

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Ms_Shetty t1_jdwi78u wrote

Nothing is going to improve till the ABH gets its shit together. It’s been a year since I applied and I’m still waiting for my PR (8.5 years as a legal immigrant in Germany) :/

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MantisGibbon t1_jdz1pzx wrote

What are the job prospects in Germany like for someone who only speaks English? I’m legally able to work there, but I don’t really plan to. (I’m in Canada but have dual citizenship in another EU nation).

Also, I would have no intention of learning to speak German, so I’m guessing that would be a problem.

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Professional_Class_4 t1_jdxxg3k wrote

German here who has dealt with the German immigration nightmare in the past. The government talks big that Germany needs skilled immigrants. They make laws to make it easier to get a visa but don’t think it much further. The immigration offices are overloaded beyond belief. It takes > 6 month to get an appointment. In addition, Germany has a fetish for degrees. You have worked for > 10 years as a plumber in your country? You don’t have a German plumber degree? Well too bad you are not allowed to run a business.

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[deleted] t1_jdxhh8x wrote

Didnt they already do this with all the “refugees” a few years back??

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Red-Pillguy t1_jdxv1ms wrote

How many billionaires does Germany have?

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DeadCatGrinning t1_jdz5r93 wrote

Merkel was right, and now Germany has to do what she said at a later date and with less planning at a higher cost.

Anti immigration antics tickles the balls of idiots every time.

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wheelontour t1_jdv7cne wrote

If only they did actually work. More than half of all the Syrian immigrants who came to Germany in 2015/2016 are still on welfare. "Skilled workers" my ass.

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BurnTrees- t1_jdw3eil wrote

People fleeing a civil war are refugees. People normally moving there are migrants, this is about migrants.

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wheelontour t1_jdw4o6l wrote

What about migrants pretending to be refugees? People who live off welfare in Germany but fly back to their old country twice a year to vacation there and visits friends and relatives?

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BurnTrees- t1_jdwaxex wrote

What about them? Is this a statistical meaningful share?

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wheelontour t1_jdwben7 wrote

About 80% of the "refugees" flooding across the German border in 2015/2016 and ever since claim they "have lost their papers, documents and ID" but strangely none of them have lost their cellphone. Anybody with an IQ above room temperature can see how we are being played for weak, gullible fools.

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BurnTrees- t1_jdwdvh6 wrote

Okay so you don’t have any reference for the first claim, so you just make a second one, the statistic of 80% is a vast exaggeration it’s close to 50% (I’m sure you’re just ignorant though and wouldn’t need to actually lie to support your point).

Btw this article is still about migrants, even if you desperately want to talk about refugee issues, it has very little to do with this law.

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wheelontour t1_jdwllzi wrote

> the statistic of 80% is a vast exaggeration it’s close to 50% (I’m sure you’re just ignorant though and wouldn’t need to

80% was an official figure by the Bundesgrenzschutz at the time. Maybe you should inform yourself before spreading your bullshit. It is you who are ignorant, not I.

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BurnTrees- t1_jdwlyw9 wrote

Source that it was 80% „in 2015/2016 and ever since“?

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GreedySenpai t1_jdyu556 wrote

I would like to know where you have your information from. I live as refugee in Germany, i know a dutzend other refugees here and they all work or, in case of Ukrainian refugees, look for work. Its difficult to find work for them, because many degrees are not accepted and advanced german-language skills are required to get hired. They are simply refused when they apply.

Also I rarely met refugees who think that live of state walfare is a good plan - they became depressed and left Germany, because they underestimated the efforts and overestimated the benefits wildly.

I mostly see people talking about "lazy refugees who live of state walfare" who are pretty previleged themselves, who and can not imagine the amount of paperwork and self-degradation involved, or the laughable low benefits one would get. Don't just listen to clickbait media, go outside and get in touch with people. Reality is more complicated than any media trend.

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[deleted] t1_jdxhrlm wrote

I remember seeing Berlin in 2016 and and ever other street was refugees. Mostly men. Ive been in some of the worst ghettos of the USA and A lot of those streets in Berlin felt unsafe

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wheelontour t1_jdxm116 wrote

They are unsafe. The German BKA (Federal Crime Agency) recently published the latest crime statistics and they are disastrous. Migrants commit several times more felony offences than german citizens.

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alterkakao t1_jdzd0ib wrote

Thats just a blatant lie. Funny how you stretch that statistic to fit your racist narrative.

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TheRickBerman t1_jdvbje9 wrote

How can Germany be taking in millions of refugees every year and still think the problem is population? The issue is clearly incompetence in training millions of, typically, young men in the areas the economy needs.

Start creating free training schemes, pay people for each module they pass, and pay employers to recruit from these schemes.

Or just raid India…

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dtShikhaMahajan t1_jdw5eoa wrote

>just raid India…

Excuse me, WTF?

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AmargithHuld t1_jdx3c2n wrote

He likely means ‘get techies from India’.

..I think.

That said, with India’s overpopulation, that might be a good way to redistribute some population.

We do need to diminish the strain we put on the planet, after all.

Going down in global population is actually very much a goal.

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Crazy_Wasabi1602 t1_jdx2auo wrote

Germany has a long history of immigration, with the first wave of migrants coming from Italy, Greece, and Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s to help rebuild the country after World War II.

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Test19s t1_jdv6r99 wrote

People being able to live where they want should generally be a right with exceptions (criminal record, endangered native language, high levels of religious extremism). Hopefully this works and Germany is able to clean up its bureaucracy and open its housing and supply chains.

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VoidAndOcean t1_jdwlbzn wrote

What do you do with people that don't share your values or culture moving to where you are and then voting?

We all agree that genetically people everywhere are the same. You have then culture which is the differentiating factor between the good places to live and the bad places. If people are allowed to move from the bad places to the good places then change the good places to be like the bad places what have you accomplished?

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Test19s t1_jdwn9u0 wrote

Many of the problems with bad places are due to institutional corruption that’s decades or even centuries old, natural resources (either shortages of them or curses due to fighting over oil and diamonds), or overcrowding. A lot of those problems won’t follow the migrants.

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VoidAndOcean t1_jdwo3yp wrote

Institutional corruption is nothing more than people tolerating and participating in corruption on an individual basis. Its a cultural issue.

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Test19s t1_jdwoj3g wrote

But in many cases it is one that comes from existing power structures and would likely be disrupted by mass emigration. Brain drain has a way of forcing reforms, as can be seen in most Eastern EU members as well as some of the more developed Asian countries.

And I’m glad you are willing to shoot down the argument of genetic impact on culture. That would be unthinkably bad on a finite planet.

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VoidAndOcean t1_jdwppk1 wrote

I'm met reallly smart people that have horrible beliefs based on where they grew up.

Homophobia for starters.

I agree with you that existing power structures enforce cultural norms but that doesnt take away from it.

Eitherway, we will find out soon what will happen.

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Test19s t1_jdwpxc2 wrote

But in a mixed society you wouldn’t get homophobic echo chambers. Native Indians Hindus and Thais and Chinese don’t have religious homophobia. Still there better not be a genetic component to culture. That would be full 1930s.

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VoidAndOcean t1_jdwrzzc wrote

You know how cities have chinatown, or little italy, or just a general district where people from a common background will live together?

The mafia in america is still around a hundred years later. Bad stuff survives. Its just a thing.

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Megawoopi t1_jdx9scx wrote

If it only were Native Indians, Hindus, Thais and Chinese people. It's mostly people from muslim countries and the statistics are quite clear on what a big proportion of them think of our way of living.

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Test19s t1_jdxag4m wrote

In Europe, and only because asylum seekers outnumber labour migrants. That’s a geographic balancing problem, not a problem of mass migration per se. And I acknowledge religious extremism as an exceptional circumstance, at least until the Near East gets out of its Thirty Years War phase.

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Megawoopi t1_jdxaycz wrote

We have those problems with the (descendants of) labour migrants too, although of course I get that they're here on another motivation.

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Test19s t1_jdxccmx wrote

Again, MENA problem only. Geographic balancing and recruiting deeper in Asia and Africa (as well as the Americas) would help unless those regions really are a desert of culturally compatible talent.

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turbo-unicorn t1_jdxrei5 wrote

You absolutely do get echo chambers, as many cultures naturally create enclaves. If you think homophobia is not a thing in Indian or Chinese communities.. ohhhh boy, you should talk to some LGBT Indians or Chinese...

1

Infamous-Werewolf196 t1_jduykjj wrote

Smart.

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ed190 t1_jdwl4a9 wrote

Good luck with the Ausländerbehörde and reaching B2 quickly. Lol

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wheelontour t1_jdv7jtk wrote

LOL nobody with an useful and sought after skill will come to Germany, we have the highest taxes in the world and the country is going to shit so rapidly even foreigners take note.

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Infamous-Werewolf196 t1_jdv7zam wrote

At least you get health care with all your taxes. Unlike here in the US.

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ambadawn t1_jdvhm9m wrote

Only if you don't make that much money and are entitled to it. Most germans still have to get private medical insurance.

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Rebegurumu t1_jdvkn70 wrote

No they dont, its free to choose. Most well off people choose to go private because of the benefits.

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Sajuukthanatoskhar t1_jdxddq3 wrote

Most germans cannot go private. It is literally beyond their income. The required level of income is 60k or something. That is quite high and above the median income of germany iirc

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haleb4r t1_jdz7nbd wrote

What a load of bull. You need to earn beyond a limit to be even allowed to switch to private insurance.

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Sajuukthanatoskhar t1_jdxd3y0 wrote

It hasnt fallen apart like Australia has, where the housing crisis there is like Bermannkiez, but across the entire continent.

Instead of fixing the problem, the fed gov wastes 368 bil on nuke subs. You could spend a 1/10 of that to just restore australian wildlife levels in the north, where most of Australia's terrifying wildlife exist, in order to have protect the borders from China.

It is insanely anti intellectual there, getting a phd torpedoes chances of getting a job outside of academia, which is a giant wankfest.

Berlin is incredibly safe. I feel safe moving around here. Living in Geelong or Traralgon is not really living at all with crime rates/capita there 4+x that of Berlin. I got treatment for a life long condition that threatened my career (ADHD) and fucked all of my relationships. I wouldve sunk easily 10k+ AUD into the psych appointments, if i could get them. In Germany, its absorbed by my insurance.

You have it really good here. Its worth paying taxes here.

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[deleted] t1_jdv2y5c wrote

[deleted]

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Exciting-Flan-1484 t1_jdv46jr wrote

I'll happily volunteer to help those German girls get loaded

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Cheshire1234 t1_jdw6qpy wrote

Too bad we usually kick disgusting creeps like you out of the window :)

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