Germany, the Most Popular Country in the World!

[GhostWriter16]

Careful now. We have to take account of how the poll has been worded, don't we?

Notice that only 19% have views about North Korea which are mostly positive. Many of those won't actually know where, or what North Korea actually is, perhaps. Some of them will think positively about everything. (Including my nan's armpit). And a few will just be saying anything that they think will get them into bed with the interviewer.

At the very least, 10% of all replies to all polls are just plain nonsense.

And "despise" is totally the wrong word in this context.

Personally, I'm more worried by North Korea than I am inclined to despise it.

I assumed it was talking about government, if it was talking about individuals it would be stupid to decide that based on the "country" and not the individual.

Do you actually know anything about Germany? Have you ever actually been there?

The people are decent, the food is good, the girls are pretty, the climate is comfortable, public transportation is readily available and very useful, the country isn't under the iron heel of automobiles, the cities are beautiful for the most part (compared to America's), and so on.

I specified that I meant the German system of government, so all of this crap is irrelevant.

The government at least attempts to give a crap about the common person and help them rather than kowtowing to the rich. It doesn't eagerly invade foreign countries anymore, and is thankfully low on nationalism. The country does not execute hundreds of people a year, does not wage a literal war on drugs, and it has a lower violent crime rate.

All good. And in all seriousness, I actually do agree with literally everything in this part of the post.

And best of all, it doesn't meet your disturbing standards for what constitutes a good country.

On the downside the restaurants sell this absurd and expensive "carbonated water" crap whereas ours will give you free refills of high-quality tap water.

I am comfortable with this tradeoff.

The negatives, essentially, center around its disgusting views on freedom of speech. This may be offset by foreign policy, but that doesn't matter as much when deciding where to live. But their freedom of speech record is terrible, as is their take on free religion and especially the right to bear arms.

I'm not a fan.

How well do you know Germany's system of government?

See above.

I view any place with "Hate speech" laws as being a totalitarian hellhole by default. Same for any country that bans the right to bear arms.

 

[Borachio]

I assumed it was talking about government, if it was talking about individuals it would be stupid to decide that based on the "country" and not the individual.

Yes. I guess. The article talks about "country" rather than government.

I don't know what to make of either the poll or your reply, now.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Oh yeah, total hellhole Dommy . Worse than genocidal policies and almost as bad as INCOME TAX; that's what hate-speech laws are.


Why do you get to dictate what laws other countries have that their citizens want? Why is it that if they don't do everything just as Dommy wants, they are hellholes? The all-too-common 'you'd really like Somalia' quips ring true here.

 

[metatron]

Love Germany. I think since the WC 2006 people have seen the Germans under a new light. Even themselves.

Oh, i hated that.
And by that i mean that my contempt reached a level beyond the usual state of disapproving of oneself, life and everything (i.e. "being German").

It has made it normal to be a flag waving idiot - and it was so nice to live without such nonsense.
Also gave us Harris' stupid song*. Seriously: What's up with that?
Alabama may suck, ok, but why do we have to suffer for it?

*Actually that'd be a different World Cup, but anyway. Same thing. Sort of.

It's almost like they felt bad for what happened in WW2.. That's the sense I got anyway

Nah, that's only a minor part of it. There are two other factors that may easily be bigger: a) Germans have a thing for people fleeing communism (for the obvious reasons) and b) Most Germans either don't know or won't admit it, but between a bunch of monarchies (awkward!), the French (French!), crazy alpine people like the gun nuts (the ones) and the denialists (the others) Poles are essentially the closest thing to brothers we have in this world.

Everybody else, please note that warpus (and i too at that time) lived in one of the two poorest, most lutheran and godforsaken rural circuits in West Germany.
Not a very cosmopolitain place.

God bless valkyries in dirndls serving beer!!

You'd also be ok with tea and pseudo vodka?

This must be the main reason for Germany's popularity:

Didn't we talk about this like seven times?

Look, the thing about humour is that it helps a great deal if you know stuff about the thing you're trying to make fun of. The "German sounds harsh" trope is mostly a result of people not meeting that criterion.

though to be honest, they are culturally and philosophically barbaric still.

Yeah, everybody who ever tried to buy a tampon in Italy probably agrees.

Hmm. I thought the Soviets lost more militarily. Both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of population.

edit: on second thoughts, there's not a lot in it as a proportion. Maybe Germany comes out a bit higher as a proportion. It's hard to say. The figures aren't known with any great precision.

Didn't send you that song for nothing. There's always a benefit to rebuilding stuff from scratch. Applies to both cases to some degree.

But hey, as long as they send their beer here I'm fine with it.
I have a room in my home just for German beer, with 4 fridges full of it.
I'd go to war to protect my right to German beer.

Two things:
1) We generally don't think about it as "German beer". To us it's just "beer". Numerous other people are quite capable of making the stuff. Some surpass us with ease.
And if we happen to be in a place that displays a significant lack of competence in that regard beer only comes up at some point way after we had a nervous breakdown in the supermarket and were rolled into an ambulance - still shouting: "What's wrong with your bread?!".
2) Many Germans don't give much of a damn about beer in the first place. Depending on your regional identity beer is what you drink if circumstances prevent you from drinking either wine of aforementioned pseudo vodka. Bavarians are virtually the only ones who make a fuss about the supposed quality of it (beyond the general idea of not putting stupid stuff in it).

Honestly, I hate Germany too. Not the people, of course, that would be a stupid generalization, but I hate Germany's system of government even more than I hate my own.

Erm, why?
Strong constitutionalism (we actually call stuff that way like the court that supercedes the other highest courts, the "guardians" that completely fail and guarding etc.), an actual coucil of govenors (sort of) instead of the senate where states actually get to make federal law etc.
I would have thought you out of all people would like that stuff.

The negatives, essentially, center around its disgusting views on freedom of speech. This may be offset by foreign policy, but that doesn't matter as much when deciding where to live. But their freedom of speech record is terrible, as is their take on free religion and especially the right to bear arms.

[...]

"Hate speech" laws as being a totalitarian hellhole by default. Same for any country that bans the right to bear arms.

Ah, i see.

Erm, we do have the right to bear arms.
You have to prove that you're responsible with it. Same as with driving a car. *shrug*

And it's harder to get indicted for Volksverhetzung in Germany than you think. It doesn't work like "hate speech" in the Anglosphere. You have to advocate the "abolishment or breach of constitutional order" or advocate "crimes against human dignity".
So if you were to rally people for a lynching, that would qualify (as in being more than plain attampted murder). If you were (like Mr. Beck) mock poisoning national politicians, that would qualify, too.
But i don't think you can be indicted for Volksverhetzung for using racial slurs and things like that, however severe. You may be recieve punishment for plain old "insult" though (you know, like callling someone a butthole).

[...]quite the opposite of the New York's Statue of Liberty[...]
In my personal opinion it is rather ugly,

a) The ugly gate is ugly.
b) Feel free to give us a nice statue.

A lot of the rest of the post is, well, erm, not true. But i think i'm out of giving a damn.

On the downside the restaurants sell this absurd and expensive "carbonated water" crap whereas ours will give you free refills of high-quality tap water.

Mineral water. Almost as sacred as bread. Also: Why Nestle is supposedly the most evil company on the planet.

Let's not cherrypick statements shall we?

I said culturally and philosophically barbaric, which have little to do with freedom and peacefulness.

By EU standards Germany is on the bottom end culturally.
France, Italy, Spain, Greece and UK have more culture buildings, artifacts, papers, paintings, cultural sites, monuments and a ton more tourism.
If we were going for a real life cultural victory, Germany would try a domination victory because they know they can't win by culture (but they would lose to Russia ).

Philosophically Nietzsche is the only thing Germany created for this world.
France / Italy / Greece are the obvious world leader in that regard, I don't think I even need to explain why, unless you want me to write a 20 page essay.

Germany has fantastic beer, great eco, great tech (+100% production of Great Engineers), but that's about it.

Oh, you're really serious about this.

Ok...
Huge gaps, horrible order - i can't be bothered. I also can't be bothered with architecture. We surely have enough of it. I don't care.
Spoilered for size:

Spoiler :

This is funny btw.

















I could be picky with my nobel laureates here (i'm not) - perk of having 9, not 3.



And finally, the nation's most hollowed ground. Others have their Cenotaphs and monuments of "glory". We have this.


(Really: The Republican Square is where people hang out and enjoy the sun, you know, cause it's lawn, so one has to. And the gate is where hobos pee. This's the real deal.)

Just off the top of my head.

France, Italy, Spain, Greece and UK have more

UNESCO cultural world heritage sites (eurocentric bs, but since you are in the business of comparing European nations it might do):
Italy #1. Germany #3. UK #8. Greece #10.

How about, say, Kant?

Or Adorno, Brentano, Engels, Fichte, Habermas, Hamann, Hegel, Herbart, von Humboldt, Jaspers, von Kleist, Lessing, Marcuse, Marx, Mendelssohn, von Mises, Novalis, Schopenhauer, Sloterdijk, Weber, Wundt.

No endorsement!
Though i excluded Steiner on purpose.
Lot's more. But these will do, given that between them they already ammount to roughly 8.3 crazy persons (plus another 2.6 for Nietzsche).

and a ton more tourism.

And people travel to Acapulco for the cultural artifacts.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Ah, i see.

Erm, we do have the right to bear arms.
You have to prove that you're responsible with it. Same as with driving a car. *shrug*

You obviously don't have a clue just how radical my ideology is

And it's harder to get indicted for Volksverhetzung in Germany than you think. It doesn't work like "hate speech" in the Anglosphere. You have to advocate the "abolishment or breach of constitutional order" or advocate "crimes against human dignity".
So if you were to rally people for a lynching, that would qualify (as in being more than plain attampted murder). If you were (like Mr. Beck) mock poisoning national politicians, that would qualify, too.

Well, as a Libertarian, I believe government leaders violate the NAP every day, and so my views on how much protection they should have would differ radically from yours, anyone elses, or probably what I am actually allowed to say on this site.

I'm not a fan of Glenn Beck but do not believe he has done anything worthy of arrest.

But i don't think you can be indicted for Volksverhetzung for using racial slurs and things like that, however severe. You may be recieve punishment for plain old "insult" though (you know, like callling someone a butthole).

And making that illegal would be absolutely idiotic.

I'm also thinking of stuff like the Hitler Salute being punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Yeah, people who do that are sick but they have a right to do it.

 

[Borachio]

You obviously don't have a clue just how radical my ideology is

So, is radicalism a good thing in itself?

(I do believe I misuse the word "so" here. But what the hell, it's an idiom I'm familiar with.)

 

[metatron]

I'm not a fan of Glenn Beck but do not believe he has done anything worthy of arrest.

Arrest? He'd be fined. Most likely. They don't have to arrest you for that.
That's the thing with the national ID: A lot less arresting going on. Cause they know they'll find you anyway.

I'm also thinking of stuff like the Hitler Salute being punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Yeah, people who do that are sick but they have a right to do it.

Erm, to get those 5 years you have to be the Capone of Neo-Nazism (i.e. they had nothing else on you etc.).
Last year i helped apprehend two guys who beat up a friend of mine (for, you know being a punk, in their view), who were like shouting at us calling us foreigners (wtf?) and doing the Hitler Salute - through the whole thing.
They were clearly just, you know, idiots. Bigoted rural idiots.
So we all meet again in court. They were 18. They got two weeks juvenile detention for "dangerous assault" and "usage of anti-constitutional signs" (i.e. Volksverhetzung).
No fine. The judge was like re-he-he-eally fed up with them.
The real punishment is having that sort of stuff on your record.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Look, the thing about humour is that it helps a great deal if you know stuff about the thing you're trying to make fun of. The "German sounds harsh" trope is mostly a result of people not meeting that criterion.

Did you really expect witty humor from someone who uses memefaces?

 

[Dachs]

Or Adorno, Brentano, Engels, Fichte, Habermas, Hamann, Hegel, Herbart, von Humboldt, Jaspers, von Kleist, Lessing, Marcuse, Marx, Mendelssohn, von Mises, Novalis, Schopenhauer, Sloterdijk, Weber, Wundt.

No endorsement!
Though i excluded Steiner on purpose.
Lot's more. But these will do, given that between them they already ammount to roughly 8.3 crazy persons (plus another 2.6 for Nietzsche).

Also, Nietzsche mostly looks crazy because his Pan-German League sister edited his works after his death. And because annoying teenagers who don't understand philosophical commentaries think that they can understand his work by reading it themselves with no context or training.

 

[metatron]

Also, Nietzsche mostly looks crazy because his Pan-German League sister edited his works after his death. And because annoying teenagers who don't understand philosophical commentaries think that they can understand his work by reading it themselves with no context or training.

Mostly...

Also: Do American annoying teenagers really do that? Here some teenagers actually make a point of reading Novalis (Goths and the like) and some others. But i've never heard of people reading Nietzsche. He's just the weird dude, arguably even to people who agree with the stuff to some extent.

 

[Dachs]

Mostly...

Also: Do American annoying teenagers really do that? Here some teenagers actually make a point of reading Novalis (Goths and the like) and some others. But i've never heard of people reading Nietzsche. He's just the weird dude, arguably even to people who agree with the stuff to some extent.

I was mostly thinking of Paul Dano's character in Little Miss Sunshine, but Mouthwash qualifies too.

 

[Phrossack]

I was mostly thinking of Paul Dano's character in Little Miss Sunshine, but Mouthwash qualifies too.

Who reminds me so much of Kevin Kline's character in A Fish Called Wanda.

So yeah, Nietzsche quoting is generally a bad sign.

 

[Crezth]

This must be the main reason for Germany's popularity:

Personally I think the German language sounds lovely. Of course if you imagine an angry lad shouting it, any word in any language will sound harsh.

 

[Takhisis]

Arrest? He'd be fined. Most likely. They don't have to arrest you for that.
That's the thing with the national ID: A lot less arresting going on. Cause they know they'll find you anyway.

Erm, to get those 5 years you have to be the Capone of Neo-Nazism (i.e. they had nothing else on you etc.).
Last year i helped apprehend two guys who beat up a friend of mine (for, you know being a punk, in their view), who were like shouting at us calling us foreigners (wtf?) and doing the Hitler Salute - through the whole thing.
They were clearly just, you know, idiots. Bigoted rural idiots.
So we all meet again in court. They were 18. They got two weeks juvenile detention for "dangerous assault" and "usage of anti-constitutional signs" (i.e. Volksverhetzung).
No fine. The judge was like re-he-he-eally fed up with them.
The real punishment is having that sort of stuff on your record.

Citizen's arrest! Justice by your own hand! Dommy will have to love you now, metto.

I was mostly thinking of Paul Dano's character in Little Miss Sunshine, but Mouthwash qualifies too.

Isn't that Paul Dano's character everywhere?

Personally I think the German language sounds lovely. Of course if you imagine an angry lad shouting it, any word in any language will sound harsh.

I remember the Merovingian saying that, in French, even curses sound elegant.

 

[metatron]

Citizen's arrest! Justice by your own hand! Dommy will have to love you now, metto.

Nah, i just called the cops. Until they arrived we had arguments, a chase, another (rather minor) fight etc, but for the most part the guys were just too drunk and stupid to bolt.

 

[warpus]

@metatron that map is eye opening. I had no idea! .. bruder

 

[Domen]

Personally I think the German language sounds lovely.

Sometimes it does. Like in "O, Tannebaum" song. But more often it doesn't.

 

[metatron]

@metatron that map is eye opening. I had no idea! .. bruder

It's gotten a lot better. Still underperforming the national average on most metrics (except high school graduation possibly), but better still. Mostly because it's the Dakota of wind energy: 20 years ago they/we/whatever pretty much only had tourism and alcoholism (and dysfunctional agriculture). Now it's tourism, alcoholism and a company that gets its patents stolen in India.

It's a fairly leftist place on paper (comes with the religion) but very much not cosmopolitan in practise. It's very loosely comparable to the Upper Mississippi Valley Anomaly in American electoral politics.

 

[Gucumatz]

Depends on the dialect really and taste. I love hearing Southern German, sounds amusing to me - particularly bayerischen and schwabisch dialects

 

[Domen]

Poles are essentially the closest thing to brothers we have in this world.

You are talking from historical perspective?

Poles had the same opinion as long as Germans were not mucling into their internal matters.

So basically until around the 1200s.

According to "Chronica Poloniae Maioris" ("Greater Poland Chronicle") from the first half of the 1200s - a Polish source:

"(...) Germans, knowing neighbouring Slavic states, often consort / commune with Slavs and in the world there are no other so friendly and kind towards each other peoples as Slavs and Germans. (...)"

But just one hundred years later:

"De quodam advocato Cracoviensi Alberto" (first half of the 1300s):

"(...) The concern of Germans, wherever they settle, is to become the most important group and not be subjected to anyone else. (...) At first they behave in a submissive way (...) but all of this is a deceit, because when they already gain enough experience, they start behaving in a different way. (...)"

Our southern neighbours had similar opinion about the Germans at that time:

"Dalimilova Kronika" (early 1300s) - a Czech source:

"(...) Who is wise should see (...) how these greedy and fraudulent people are muscling into the most profitable levels of church hierarchy, into the most important benefices, into the largest estates, into the royal council (...) Dear God, just look how (...) Poles (...) Czechs and native populations of states which are not German, in their own territory are being displaced by Germans from their own offices, benefices, bestowals (...), and their place is being gradually stolen by Germans. Vagabonds have priority, natives are being browbeaten."