My NAS encrypts my Backups and transfers them to some hetzner webspace on a server in Sweden. For email and day to day cloud usage I use mailbox.org. They are from Germany and put a focus on privacy and security, yearly payments are no problem.

I think you are missing the point I’m trying to make. Glorifying a system can never be the answer. It isn’t for the US (as we can all prominently see right now) and it isn’t for China. Or any system, country, whatever. There will always be drawbacks and things you won’t know about. Keeping a critical eye on the status quo is the only way to develop a better future in any system. By just blindly praising it, it will turn sour at some point. The relatives you visited too will tell you about their daily troubles living within their system, if they have the feeling they can do that. Not american by the way. From a country that has a history of quite intense surveillance, if that gives you a hint. Maybe that’s part of what makes me critical after seeing the billion electronic eyes of Shanghai. A system that afraid of it’s own citizens can’t be perfect.

Talk to people that live within the system is all I can tell you. I can absolutely understand the frustrations with the US, but China isn’t perfect either. The culture is less openly confrontational, but money still plays a very important role. Carrot on a stick goes a long way.

Well if you want a first hand account: I went to Shanghai with some friends recently, one has family and friends there, so knows the city. We went to the only lesbian bar in all of this huge metropolis. Note that I’m a guy. But due to being closed down before, the place seemed to be rather glad to have some euro faces in there, as a show for the cop car parked right in front of it the whole night.

My friend also told me, that the amount of beggars was really low this time, because they all got picked up and brought to somewhere else.

So all in all I think it’s an efficiently run country, but you don’t get around pushing some people out if you want efficiency. Humans are all different, if you want to consider everyone’s opinion it takes a lot of time (which China did not have in the last few decades). So some opinions are forced out rather brutally.

But, all in all: Go there, experience it yourself.

Ah man sometimes I miss the keyboard on that thing haha.

Starting to talk in moderate terms about how immigration might be far slower and more discriminating is the only thing that will rob the far right extreme parties of their saviour narrative.

That is what the CDU is doing. Have you taken a look at their program for the upcoming election? It is exactly what they want to do. The discourse has shifted for quite a while now. We are long past the point where you get called a Nazi for asking for slower immigration.

See https://www.politikwechsel.cdu.de/sites/www.politikwechsel.cdu.de/files/docs/politikwechsel-fuer-deutschland-wahlprogramm-von-cdu-csu-kurzfassung.pdf

Does that change anything about the high number of people voting AfD? No. Because they want even simpler answers. They want to hear that brown people are the sole reason for most of their problems because it is always easier to blame one singular group/person/ethnicity, than to understand and change the systemic problems we all face in the times to come. I mean I get it. It’s scary to think about climate change, about unchecked capitalistic exploitation, about Russia, about China. And it is far easier to just blame someone for every hardship one faces. But it’s also fucking stupid.

Trying to pin the success of AfD on missing talk about immigration in other parties is just wrong at this point. It’s one of two major topics in the upcoming election. I’d seriously suggest to update your info. Your arguments might have had a point around 2015-2020, but those days are over.

Oh and also discrimination based on religion should and will never happen as long as democracy in Germany has any life left, as that would go against Article 3 of our constitution. That’s in there for a reason I don’t think I have to repeat here.

who actually is “calling for the explusion of every brown person in germany?”

I’m sorry, but are you serious? That is quite literally what the AfD does! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67948861.amp

“Much discussion allegedly focused on so-called “remigration” - the removal of people with non-German ethnic backgrounds, even if they are citizens of Germany.”

Do you not see how this is a far cry from a civil discussion about who enters the country and pretty fucking close to a pogrom? They want people born here, people with German citizenship out of the country because of their ethnicity. And it’s not like this is secret information. People know about it when they vote for AfD. Three regional AfD chapters in the states of Thuringia, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt have already been reclassified as proven right-wing extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).

I would also argue that democracy in Germany did indeed not survive the first half of the 20th century, in part due to populism and media propaganda.

I can see your problems with Islam. But feel free to ask the majority of AfD-Voters what they think of homosexuals and start to wonder they wouldn’t match with the views of Grey Wolfs just fine…

I myself dislike conservative Islam, same as all religions and ideologies that want to govern other peoples private lives. So fair enough. I’m not acting like people have no right to worry about immigration as it is, those are words that you putting in my mouth. But there has to be a difference between worrying about who comes to this country and calls to expell every brown person from Germany.

In the world of today, don’t you worry about democracy, when you look at how easy it has become to influence people based on the vast amount of data collected on every single person, by companies headed by people like Elon Musk? Are you not afraid of the accuracy of algorithms, that can form and modify the opinion of people without them noticing? Are the bullshit detectors really that good? Do you think most people have an accurate idea of what huge amounts of information they generate just by browsing the web and using a smartphone? I think the goal should be to help more people to make informed decisions, as free of external influences as possible. If you think that’s patronizing and that we should let things just run their course, I’m pretty sure you’d have to also accept the possibility of the end of democracy in a not too distant future.

IF(!) people were voting AfD while acknowledging that it will result in less money, general quality of life etc. for them: fair enough. If they made an informed decision to live a shittier life by voting against immigration because that’s their priority: all right (he he). But we both know that this is not the case. They fall for the dumb and blatant lies of the populists, telling them they will have more money, better social security, better infrastructure, a better life in general.

Obviously the way Merkel and CDU did immigration and the way it is still done is far from ideal. Germany needs to change the way it looks at immigrants in general. But I doubt Fritzl sees it that way so yeah, tough times to hope for a better future…

Don’t politician have to serve their country? In Germany’s case that means promoting immigration, to have any chance at keeping up the pension and welfare system as it is, because Germans don’t get anywhere near enough kids. Being against immigration right now means being for less pension, higher medical costs, worse infrastructure etc. Merkel realized that (more than) ten years ago. The average afd dumbo is still too fucking thick to think further than from wall to wallpaper. There would be other options, of course. Consuming less, getting rid of the thought of eternal growth, but not even worth a thought as long as sexy Christian is still alive and foamy.