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Comment by weinzierl | Hacker News Reader

> The article did a great job highlighting three interesting situations and their challenges/opportunities.

Yes it did and I agree with all you said. As a German I just wanted to point out one thing that might not be clear to many readers not familiar with the situation in Germany:

And as you said the article was "highlighting the interesting situations". These life stories are highly atypical.

Mr. Huber was an Engineer at Siemens. Even if he didn't make quite a career there, he had certainly one of the better paying jobs in Germany. He inherited a house at Tegernsee, which is wealthy area. In contrast to most other Germans he had all the chances he could have, but somehow (the article doesn't say) he lost everything.

The Ehlers' trouble started with the birth of their forth child. Only 3.5% of all families with children in Germany have four or more kids [1].

Mrs. Kramer is seriously ill. She is a single parent but has (apparently) otherwise no family to support her. She lives in her own apartment and has a good education. Her case is certainly the most typical of all three.

What does typical poverty in Germany really look like?

15.4% of the German population is considered poor[2][3].

    - Single Parent 41.9% 
    - Family with three or more children 24.6%
    - Unemployed 57.6%
    - Low level of education 30.8%
    - Foreign national 32.5% 
    - Migration background 26.7%

[1] https://www.destatis.de/DE/PresseService/Presse/Pressekonfer...

[2] http://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2016-02/armut-deutschland-2016...

[3] http://www.der-paritaetische.de/index.php?eID=tx_nawsecuredl...

View on HN

Germany has the lowest birthrate in the world. It seems like the German government should create policies that encourage men and women to have more children like free/heavily subsidized daycare, tax incentives, and maybe even payments.

Here in the US I can see how the Ehler's financial problems would became significant with a 4th child. But given the low birthrate in Germany it seems like Germans could be more generous to those who are willing to have more babies.

[source:] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32929962

Why make more babies when you can just take immigrants?

Because if you have an interest in Germany continuing to exist in the future, you need German people.

A country filled with Arabs, Africans, and Afghans isn't Germany, peoples aren't fungible in that way.

Yes. I'm sure all of the Germans of Turkish familial origin would agree... They aren't Germans. Even though they were born in Germany and speak German.

You can be non-Caucasian and still be German. That is what you were getting at right?

Many of the Germans of Turkish familial origin still self-identify as Turks, not as German, or as both Turkish and German, in the second or third generation.

You certainly can be German and non-caucasian, but you actually have to believe yourself to be German and be part of German culture.

Fairly sure that most Americans of Japanese ancestry consider themselves both Japanese and American. Same goes for most other ethnicity. Does that make them any LESS American?

Many Puerto Ricans consider themselves both Puerto Rican AND American. This is especially interesting given Puerto Rico is an American territory yet it is considered a different cultural group.

Germans of Turkish descent are in fact still Turkish regardless of generation. Similarly Germans of Chinese descent are still Chinese while also being German.

Your final sentence is the nut. The rest of it is just discrimination (small d) of people into cultural groups.

(Edit: As an aside... Is Doner German culture? Or is it Turkish?)

Döner is a traditional Turkish meal. It is sold as a dish on rice, on a bread, or in a wrap. However, the Döner Kebab as it is known in Germany today originated with immigrants in Berlin.

I don't think it's easy to say what culture it is. The German Döner is still very similar to the traditional meal, but "Eating a Döner" has engrained itself deeply into German culture.

Normally, when eating foreign food, you'd call it by the country it comes from. If you order a burrito, you're "Eating Mexican", if you order a Pasta you're "eating Italian" and if you are having sushi you are "eating Asian". But you don't "eat Turkish" when eating a Döner.

I don't have an Answer, I just thought I'd share my thoughts.

Döner in Germany is like Curry in Britain.

Ie they are both enthusiastically adopted and adapted to local mores. Some of the changes even make it back to Turkey and India.

Hamburger are about as American as it gets. Of course, the name gives the origin away.

Yeah I thought it was ham burger as burger with ham

Alas, there's no ham on them burgers.

I find the attitude of "if you consider yourself both Turkish & German you're not really German" disappointing.

My wife & I are immigrants in Germany (and pay a lot more taxes than the median German family, draw far fewer benefits, speak German and have plenty of German friends and acquaintances) and our son was born in Germany.

I would expect him to believe himself to be German when he grows up, but would also see it as unfortunate if he doesn't also see himself as Israeli & Austrian at the same time.

The native populations of Germany and Austria are the same genetically, and assuming Ashkenazi, then also pretty similar.

So why would you like your son to see himself as "Austrian" and "Israeli" just because his parents lived there, instead of simply as having a genetic heritage in the region that goes back millennia before the modern conception of the German and Austrian State?

This is admittingly more topical with the Israeli and Jewish side than the Austrian.

I would like him to know and acknowledge his cultural background, the same as I would like him to be able to speak Hebrew (at the very least so he could speak to his grandparents and extended family). And I don't see anything negative in that, there is no limit of having only a single identity.

I also don't see what genetics have to with it. Indeed my grandparents had to flee Europe for similarly phrased reasons (being ashkenazi didn't help them at the time) and I find them just as distasteful now as then.

And I don't see anything negative in that Of course there's nothing wrong with that.

What I found strange was that you thought he would want to identify with a neighboring political entity(Austria) instead of just as Germanic-European and Ashkenazi-European.

Also what I saw occuring was this symptomatic absurdity that occurs from our genuine desire to not want to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Which is acting like a migrant from Afghanistan or Syria is the same thing as an immigrant from Austria(!) or even Israel, Askenazim are mostly European.

In our fervor to not repeat past mistakes, we are willfully blinding ourselves to the fact that not all people are the same. And the kinds of societies that result when different peoples form societies are very different.

Thinking all these muslim migrants are going to somehow become model germans is madness.

The sad irony is, who do you think the biggest anti-semites in Europe are today? Muslim migrants and the Muslims already in Europe...

> [...] the same as I would like him to be able to speak Hebrew (at the very least so he could speak to his grandparents and extended family).

It's a shame Yiddish couldn't take that place that Hebrew got.

Where is your dividing line here?

You say "[a] country filled with Arabs, Africans, and Afghans isn't Germany" and then question someone who wants to preserve their child's Israeli and Austrian heritage.

Trying to use genetic heritage to determine nationality is an unproductive use of one's time. You would be right in saying that the native populations of South Germany and Austria are similar genetically, but native North Germans are more similar genetically to the Dutch, Danish, and Swedish. Perhaps you also argue for those nationalities to identify as German?

I wrote the preceding sentences before checking your comment history (and remembering the neo-Nazi reference of your username). Now that I have, I can see why you would have a problem with non-Caucasians identifying as German and German parents wanting their children to remember their non-German heritage.

Germany and Austria are similar genetically, but native North Germans are more similar genetically to the Dutch, Danish, and Swedish.

Differences among all those groups can be teased out when comparing them among themselves, but when comparing to Arabs, Africans, or Afghans, the differences among Europeans effectively vanish.

That was the point.

For Europe as we know it to continue to exist it's population must be Europeans.

Consider the types of societies one finds across the Arab world and Africa to the societies one finds in Europe.

neo-Nazi reference

I didn't even know about the "neo-Nazi reference" thing until someone pointed it out before(you?).

The truth is there are a series of account that were made when the number of saved stories was limited. i.e. cb1 ... 18

I just happened to stop on 18.

It's really absurd if every time you see the number 18 you shriek and go Nazi!!!

Do you watch sports where they wear numbers? Do you ever see prices in stores that say 18? There must be nazis hiding everywhere huh?

"Consider the types of societies one finds across the Arab world and Africa to the societies one finds in Europe"

Let's do that:

European societies are nationalist (with distinct nations) and also functional.

African and Middle Eastern societies are pan-Arabic/pan-Islamic and dysfunctional.

I'm not claiming it's casuation not a mere correlation, but we should probably not fix what's not broken. Call when pan-Islamic Caliphate or pan-Arab Federation happens and is a success.

'cb18' = combat / Kampf Adolf Hitler.

That's a well known code for Nazis.

Nazis happened ~70 years ago, it's minuscule now and the world changed. I'd suggest you put your attention to more contemporary issues.

- e.g. the, lamentable sub par state of most muslim countries. Many of those countries have so much (oil) money but look what stupid things their regimes are doing with it. Certainly not building a modern society. It's oppression almost everywhere - stop the population explosion would be another subject. Contrary to 50 years ago we have now the medical means to stop it. No wonder everybody gets poorer 'when a small farm has to be shared between 10 children'...

(But of course you (all) know this - and a cure is difficult)

> I'd suggest you put your attention to more contemporary issues.

Like the rise of xenophobic, populistic, nationalistic, fascist groups in Europe - where I live.

> lamentable sub par state of most muslim countries.

I suggest you take care of that. It's not my business. I have nothing to do with muslim countries.

> stop the population explosion

Where I live, there is no such thing.

This is the same guy who was going on about /r/European being a misunderstood place that is definitely not a neonazi/white supremacist forum.

The truth is there are a series of accounts that were made when the number of saved stories was limited. i.e. cb1 ... 18

It's true that creating series of 18 accounts just to make a concealed Nazi reference is pretty extreme, so maybe it's just a coincidence this time. False alarm guys, put away the pitchforks.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb18 2227 days ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb17 2253 days ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb16 2257 days ago

...

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb3 2668 days ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb2 2787 days ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb1 No such user.

But wait, there is no cb1! We've caught him in his crafty lies. Since there are actually only 17 accounts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_SS_Panzergrenadier_Divisi...) his cover is blown. Unless he can immediately clear his name by somehow proving the existence a cb1 account created 8 years ago, we've (essentially) _proved_ that he is a Nazi who is not worthy of refutation!

For Europe as we know it to continue to exist it's population must be Europeans.

Less sarcastically, I think it would be better to debate the points he makes rather than dismissing him by shrieking "Nazi". Is Europe defined by its genetic heritage or its culture? Which is more important? Do the two go hand-in-hand? At what cost is it worth preserving either?

It's really absurd if every time you see the number 18 you shriek and go Nazi!!!

You tried to slip that last reference in at the end where no one would notice, but I saw it. Nazi!!!

> Is Europe defined by its genetic heritage or its culture? Which is more important? Do the two go hand-in-hand? At what cost is it worth preserving either?

Just define it by geography, problem solved?

What are you talking about? Germany over the thousands of years has seen many immigration waves - as many as Germans were all over Europe.

You have zero knowledge of European history.

Carl Zuckmayer:

Vom Rhein - noch dazu. Vom Rhein. Von der großen Völkermühle. Von der Kelter Europas! Ruhiger Und jetzt stellen Sie sich doch mal Ihre Ahnenreihe vor - seit Christi Geburt. Da war ein römischer Feldhauptmann, ein schwarzer Kerl, braun wie ne reife Olive, der hat einem blonden Mädchen Latein beigebracht. Und dann kam ein jüdischer Gewürzhändler in die Familie, das war ein ernster Mensch, der ist noch vor der Heirat Christ geworden und hat die katholische Haustradition begründet. Und dann kam ein griechischer Arzt dazu, oder ein keltischer Legionär, ein Graubündner Landsknecht, ein schwedischer Reiter, ein Soldat Napoleons, ein desertierter Kosak, ein Schwarzwälder Flözer, ein wandernder Müllerbursch vom Elsaß, ein dicker Schiffer aus Holland, ein Magyar, ein Pandur, ein Offizier aus Wien, ein französischer Schauspieler, ein böhmischer Musikant - das hat alles am Rhein gelebt, gerauft, gesoffen und gesungen und Kinder gezeugt - und - und der der Goethe, der kam aus demselben Topf, und der Beethoven und der Gutenberg, und der Matthias Grünewald und - ach was, schau im Lexikon nach. Es waren die Besten, mein Lieber! Die Besten der Welt! Und warum? Weil sich die Völker dort vermischt haben. Vermischt - wie die Wasser aus Quellen und Bächen und Flüssen, damit sie zu einem großen, lebendigen Strom zusammenrinnen. Vom Rhein - das heißt: vom Abendland. Das ist natürlicher Adel. Das ist Rasse. Seien Sie stolz darauf, Hartmann - und hängen Sie die Papiere Ihrer Großmutter in den Abtritt. Prost.

I can see how is it disappointing.

However you can also see how broad inclusion can be disappointing for "German Germans". You see, as an Israeli you have more flexibility and perhaps specific community support and, being a minority, additional lobbying power.

Whereas "German German", while being exactly same German as you (or your son), lacks all that and therefore at a disadvantage. They become "just Germans". These incentives lead to fragmentation of core German identity: everybody gains from declaring them as "German and Somebody Else". But fragmented society is a liability how we saw in Syria or Bosnia or many other troubled countries.

Therefore, while "German Germans" and "non-German Germans" should be equal almost everywhere, the former should have distinct weight at shaping society culture and policy. It's just more natural that way.

Disclaimer: I'm not a German but from a country that have similar issues.

That's no different from 2nd and 3rd generation Asian-Americans identifying their race as Asian and their nationality as American. I don't think they're any less American than Caucasians who've been there for 2 or 3 generations more.

To your specific example, I'd say football is a pretty big part of German culture and there are footballers who identify with the country they came from but feel more comfortable in a German shirt. They choose to represent Germany for that reason, becoming a massive part of that culture. Now would you say that Mesut Özil or Sami Khedira or Emre Can or Jerome Boateng aren't that German just because they remember where their family came from?

If you do, its interesting because others in Germany share that opinion. For example, one leader of a political party said a couple of days ago that Boateng remained "alien" despite his popularity and that people would not want "someone like Boateng as a neighbor." [1]

[1] - http://www.dw.com/en/afd-provokes-anger-with-racist-comments...

The issue is rather that others identify them as Turks and so it gets part of their identity.

If an Icelandic couple moves to Africa, learns a Bantu language, and has a child who then also learns the language, is the child then a Bantu?

You can be non-Caucasian and still be German.

A country is the spirit and character of a people. That's what makes a country what it is. Not political boundaries on a map. And groups of people don't just take on a new spirit and character if they move into new political boundaries en masse.

The spirit and character of a people comes from their DNA. And their DNA comes from their environment over many thousands of years.

If the majority of the population in Germany were to be African or Arab, do you really think Germany would retain it's particular character that makes it European and German? No of course not! You would have to be insane to think that it would.

Were that to come to pass, Germany would look a lot more like countries in Africa or the Middle East than a European country.

With the recent migrant madness we are already seeing troubling signs of this, with loads of horrendous crimes hitherto unknown in Europe.

It's not just the excess of crime that doesn't bode well, but that these foreign populations, even into 2nd 3rd generation receive welfare at much higher rates than the general population.

Why would it ever be a good idea to take in loads of immigrants who are a net drain on the economy in multiple ways? Europe can't babysit the world in this way. Not only does make it make no sense, but it is unsustainable, the time at which our welfare states have become totally dismantled from this looting is rapidly approaching.

Many resources are finite. Why should grandparents who spent a life time contributing to the system have their benefits cut, so politicians can try to import future voters in order to extend their reign? It's madness. It is destroying the western world.

So, that's a long-winded way of saying, no a "non-caucasian" or anything else but an ethnic European, ethnic German cannot be a "german." Maybe someone else is a citizen of the Bundesrepublik. But that is just a piece of paper symbolizing an abstract system of agreements. The biological reality of what makes the German people what they are and by extent what Germany is, is another thing entirely.

---

I'm sure all of the Germans of Turkish familial origin

Funny you picked the Turks, who are notoriously unintegrated in Germany. Just like all the muslims across Europe of course, but some of the Turks have been here since the 1970s. So it makes people take notice and say, "uh oh!" In fact, this was more or less the reason for Angela Merkel's dictum years back saying "Multiculturalism has failed."

I won't go into too much detail, but this is just flat-out wrong. "German-ness" is emphatically not genetic. "spirit and character" are not either.

You're just trying to have a "filthy migrants are all criminals" whine dressed up as something other than bigotry.

You are trying to dress up your genocidal thoughts of the German people as something politically correct and inclusive.

Try to make the same exercise with the Aboriginal Australians: It doesn't matter if they don't reproduce; there's plenty of whites around to take their place.

Why do you hate diversity?

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines.

I'm confused about your reference to Australian Aboriginals. The majority of them were decimated by disease and out right violent attack from whites... how are either of those scenarios relevant here?

It's really a shame that it has become so difficult to be have important conversations because people have become so trained to insult people they perceive as uncouth, all the while ignoring all the important substantive matters raised.

"German-ness" is emphatically not genetic.

German-ness comes from ethnic Germans which are a genetic subgroup.

"spirit and character" are not either.

Then where else would it come from? Spirit and character come from people, people are genetic.

---

Just answer this, you don't need to go into too much detail.

If an Icelandic couple moves to Africa, learns a Bantu language, and has a child who then also learns the language, is the child then a Bantu?

I'd argue what's far more problematic is the desire to portray oneself as the target of attacks as a method of evading argument, while posing reductio-ad-absurdium trick questions, but we digress…

German-ness comes from ethnic Germans which are a genetic subgroup.

I don't agree that this is the definition of nationality. It seems obviously false, given that at some point fairly recently in evolutionary terms there was no such thing as an "ethnic German" - so where did they come from? Following your argument, the only thing that can produce an "ethnic German" is the process of other "ethnic Germans" having children. I'm sure you see why that's not possible.

Isn't it far more likely that nationality is defined by shared cultural and social context? One becomes "German" by participating in and sharing the experience of other Germans? By its nature, this is going to be a fuzzy concept. One could certainly be forgiven for arguing that a first-generation immigrant who makes no effort to learn the German language or participate in German civil society isn't "German", but even then it's not clear.

Then where else would it come from? Spirit and character come from people, people are genetic.

People are far more cultural and social than they are genetic - that is, social and cultural differences between people are far greater than genetic differences. It would seem ludicrous for example to suggest that a child born in Germany, who speaks German and is an active participant in that society is somehow not German because of both of their parents were from, say, Turkey.

If an Icelandic couple moves to Africa, learns a Bantu language, and has a child who then also learns the language, is the child then a Bantu?

Isn't this exactly an example of where nationality and ethnicity is fuzzy?

If said child grows up in Africa, and the cultural experience of that upbringing is Bantu (the culture rather than the ethnicity) then why would that child not be Bantu? Simply because their genetic history took a detour via Scandinavia? That seems silly to me.

I'll just leave this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMQkV5cTuoY

> The spirit and character of a people comes from their DNA.

Would you then suggest that a country of mixed-nationality immigrants, like Canada, can never have a national identity? Do you believe that the patriotic affinity between Canadians is somehow lesser than that between Germans, because we don't share a well-defined genetic heritage?

You're right, Turks have integrated poorly in Germany. Temporary foreign workers were brought over en masse and ghettoized to fuel the economic rejuvenation of the nation; unsurprisingly, many chose to stay. Too many to integrate properly. The result is a huge chasm between German-born Turks and Germans, with resentment on both sides. But this was the result of a poorly-executed policy, albeit one that may have been necessary at the time; either way, it's not the normal way that immigration happens in Germany or other countries.

>Do you believe that the patriotic affinity between Canadians is somehow lesser than that between Germans, because we don't share a well-defined genetic heritage?

Lesser patriotic affinity for minorities? Absolutely. (I am Canadian)

There's even a study[1] showing that with increasing diversity, you get:

Lower confidence in local government, local leaders and the local news media.

Lower political efficacy – that is, confidence in one's own influence.

Lower frequency of registering to vote, but more interest and knowledge about politics and more participation in protest marches and social reform groups.

Higher political advocacy, but lower expectations that it will bring about a desirable result.

Less expectation that others will cooperate to solve dilemmas of collective action (e.g., voluntary conservation to ease a water or energy shortage).

Less likelihood of working on a community project.

Less likelihood of giving to charity or volunteering.

Fewer close friends and confidants.

Less happiness and lower perceived quality of life.

More time spent watching television and more agreement that "television is my most important form of entertainment".

[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007....

The US would seem to counterpoint that, esp. with tons of people participating in voluntary work and civic engagement (compared to other countries).

It would be instructive to compare Switzerland here. They are famously made up of German, French and Italian speaking parts. (And a fourth language that nobody cares about. And lots of immigrants these days from all over Europe.)

I think you're shadow-banned. Your two most recent posts are dead.

> Would you then suggest that a country of mixed-nationality immigrants, like Canada, can never have a national identity?

Switzerland is a better example---since they don't have big groups that want to split the country.

I'm not an expert on Canada, I know there was a little bit of tension between the Quebecois and the rest.

because we don't share a well-defined genetic heritage

This is not true. The genetic heritage of both Canada and the USA is European. It is only in recent decades that there has been non-European immigration of any significance.

Therefore the national identity of Canada and the USA is European. After all, they are part of the western world, they have the characteristics that are common to the European/western world.

When I have to explain this stuff, I feel like the world is going crazy. I mean it is so obvious. But it if helps someone, great.

Nah, lots of people who are bona-fide Germans these days had ancestors that were considered eg Polish a generation or two ago.

But you are right, Germany does a pretty bad job at integrating newcomers.

We are all Prussians!

Come to think of it, the old Prussia probably did a better job. Eg when they welcomed the Huguenots after the French kicked 'em out.

"Preußen und die Marktwirtschaft" (whttps://www.amazon.de/Preu%C3%9Fen-die-Marktwirtschaft-Erhar...) is a fun read, if you don't mind taking it with a pinch of salt or two.

The author argues how much more efficient the Prussian state was compared to modern Germany. Eg 200 years ago they were devastated from the defeat by Napoleon but managed to invent and establish the modern university that everyone copied---and all that with less public servants for the whole of Prussia than a medium sized town these days.

The genetic distance between a German and an African is many, many multiples of the genetic distance between a German and a Pole.

It's almost as if the basis of racism is completely arbitrary and unfounded!

You don't say.

There is vastly more generic similarity than difference... racism is never about genetics, it's always about shared (or not) culture.

The genetic arguement is completely bogus, shouldn't you be removing all the dogs first before you start splitting difference between humans?

To steelman your argument, you should be talking about some kind of `cultural distance'.

Still, doesn't make too much sense.

Seemed to work for the US.

It is probably about time to get rid of nations within the EU and just call the place Europe. Soon after we can get rid of the other nations and call this place Earth.

>...free/heavily subsidized daycare, tax incentives, and maybe even payments.

We have all of this in Germany.

Child care is not free but heavily subsidized, even more there is a right to child care for children from age one to six [1].

Tax reductions are more complicated, broadly speaking the tax exempt amount for every child is around 7000 EUR - not too bad [2 (in German, look for the table in the section "Höhe des Kinderfreibetrages")] .

Payments "Child benefit" are [3]:

    1 Child	        184 EUR/month
    2 Children          386 EUR/month
    3 Children	        558 EUR/month
    additional child    215 EUR/month

The source has a comparison with other countries and while difficult to compare I think Germany is in the top.

[1] https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/germany-europe/...

[2] http://www.kindergeld.org/kinderfreibetrag.html

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_benefit

You can also add 14 months of ma/paternity leave (67% of income replaced, max €1800/mo)

Child benefit (Kindergeld) goes until the age of 18

> You can also add 14 months of ma/paternity leave (67% of income replaced, max €1800/mo)

Yes, and it's a right, your employer can't refuse it. If I remember correctly the 14 months is only if both parents take part, 12 months otherwise. 12 months for the wife, 2 months for the husband is typical.

> Child benefit (Kindergeld) goes until the age of 18

Even until 25 if your children have no income of their own, e.g. when they are go to college.

There is a confusing but splendid program called elterngeld-plus. You take half time (25-30 std/wo) and get half money but for twice as long.

If both partners take it at the same time for 4 parallel months then you receive a bonus 4 months (which you can also take as half time which means 8 months). You could theoretically get 28 months of half-money/half-time.

Tax reductions are set against the payments though, so only really well earning parents actually benefit from them.

I suspect the reasons are more social ones. Examples:

Having children is not being valued highly, having a career is. Imagine a woman proudly announcing to some gala aquaintances that she has 4 children. In a lot of countries, this would be the norm. In Germany, the woman would be deemed low-class.

Lack of family cohesion, thus as a parent, you are on your own. Compare this to the luxury of letting the grandparents take care of the kids multiple times a week/month.

Consumerism. A German thinks he has to have it all. Kids are percieved as a threat to that. We are very good at making our own lives miserable by not valuing family and friends over having the newest car/stereo/boat.

Perfectionsm. Parents think they have to get everything right and only the best things for their kids (again, THINGS). And the society thinks the same - a mother should be perfectly dressed, handling her two perfectly dressed kids with ease and loving devotion 24/7, never just let them play on their own but instead already teaching them latin. AND of course, having a stellar career AND a slender waist at the same time.

I agree to some extend, but I don't think this explains the low birth rate compared to other very similar countries like France, the UK or the US, where many of the things you describe apply equally or in greater measure.

An aspect that seems more uniquely German is looking down on mothers that give their child to daycare "too early", meaning, before it's 3 years old.

Anecdotally from conversations with friends in their mid late twenties, early thirties, the idea that you have to justify yourself as a woman, or somehow fail as a mother, if you start working again too soon is still very prominent.

Yes, thats one aspect of the perfectionism I was talking about.

This is definitely true (not German, but with a German SO and a German sister-in-law ...)

> Having children is not being valued highly, having a career is. Imagine a woman proudly announcing to some gala aquaintances that she has 4 children. In a lot of countries, this would be the norm. In Germany, the woman would be deemed low-class.

i was amazed reading this. there are nations where the natives are proud of beeing breeders?

while its not something to be ashamed of, it most certainly not something you should be proud of either...

Well, you cannot reduce motherhood to the simple fact that a birth has taken place. That is why it would be pretty offensive to characterize a mother as such.

A woman that has given birth almost certainly has also taken care of the child(ren) for many years, which shows, at least, the ability to:

- master a high responsibility job

- take on a huge workload

- constantly juggle multiple tasks at once

- typically work overtime

- keeping team morale up despite competing needs

- setting goals for the further development of each team member, and keeping a steady eye on the progress that is being made

Sounds like a management job, does it not?

Not to mention the extreme commitment towards everything that accompanies the pregnancy and delivery itself, including, amongst others:

- pain and nausea

- heavy reconfiguration of the body

- strech marks and/or genital wounds

- risk of losing the child

- risk of having a ill or impaired child

- risk of dying

- risk of losing the man and being on your own with all the aforementioned tasks

Yes, a woman with decent kids can most certainly be proud of herself.

>There are nations where the natives are proud of beeing breeders?

In Israel the average woman has 3 children, and having 3-4 children is expected as the norm in the middle class.

Why do you have to incentivise an increase in the birth rate? Why does it always seem when there is a discussion of birthrate, it's somehow automatically assumed that low-birthrate == "bad", with the obvious next point being that it has to be fixed.

Honestly, from my point of view as a free-minded individual, this is exactly the sort of thing that is quite frankly disturbing about government intervention. Society is seen as some sort of grand-experiment that needs to be tweaked and prodded in order to optimize X or reduce the risk of Y, in endless different contexts.

> Why do you have to incentivise an increase in the birth rate?

The pension system needs a next generation that will pay when the current generation is in old-age pension. Feel free to call it an obligatory pyramid scheme.

Germany doesn't have the lowest birth rate of Europe, let alone the world.

The article gives a brief sketch of Huber's downfall:

But at the beginning of the 1990s, his life came crashing down around him. One of his main customers stopped paying. He fought for years to get the unpaid money and restructured his debt to get seed capital for his new business plan. He fought desperately -- and ultimately in vain. In 1997, he was forced to capitulate. By that point, he had already been unable to work for two years and was on welfare. He lost his family home in a foreclosure and his pension and retirement insurance plan was seized. His landlord evicted him. Manfred Huber was ruined.

He's a college-educated electrical engineer with IT consulting experience. Why can't he find a job somewhere?

Worth noting that Germany was considered "the sick man of Europe" due to its poor growth and high unemployment from the middle of the nineties to a bit into the 2000s. Not sure that is the entire explanation of his problems, but is probably related.

The "recovery" out of that sickness is a bit fake, it's just because 18 other countries agreed to use German currency (a.k.a. the Euro) that Germany now is looking better than the rest of the continent: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/22/greece-...

And Hartz IV is a neo-liberal's wet dream.

It was more like "other countries (aka France) demanded the Germanies to join the Euro in order for them to reunite". No Euro, no reunification. The German people were really scared of joining weak currencies like the Lira and others, having gone through multiple hyperinflations historically and finally having a super solid and strong Mark. That is also why the ECB is a) independent of the member state goverments and b) in Frankfurt and not somewhere in France or Belgium like the other EU buildings are.

> [...] having gone through multiple hyperinflations historically [...]

In the 20s and at the end of WWII? Any other one I missed?

Not to my knowledge. Maybe I should have written "two" instead.

Thanks.

> And Hartz IV is a neo-liberal's wet dream.

Not really. UBI would be. The effective marginal tax rate for poor people is pretty high. (The conventional taxes are low, but each extra Euro earned pre-tax cuts into welfare a lot. That incentive ain't great---especially since welfare is a very stable income once you have all the bureaucracy sorted, but the kinds of jobs poor people get are often less stable. Especially jarring if getting a job involves sunk costs like buying a car or moving to a different city.)

Funny enough, the Euro was a quid pro quo in return for French approval of unification. (The French were basically forced to copy the Bundesbank's monetary policy. Their politicians had hoped to meddle more with the ECB.)

See eg http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-price-of-uni... (lots more to be found with some searching).

His particular skillset might not be quite up to date anymore.

Which is just another way of saying he 's probably out of touch and his knowledge/experience is not worth much.

I'm not in the Bay Area but in Amsterdam, NL, which also has a sizeable startup culture, and I'm in that age group as well. I think both things are true, yes many older programmers have trouble keeping up (hell, even youngsters are complaining about Javascript fatigue), and I see them struggle, but on the other hand ageism is real, and many people in my age group are hit by it. Unwarranted in many cases.

It's a real shame, because if you learned about fundamentals like compilers, data structures and operating systems eg in the 80s and then slept for 30 years, you would still pass a Google interview today.

It's not even that you had to be lucky to guess right. The fundamentals are easy to identify.

But of course, lots of people chased and are still chasing the latest superficial thing; and complain that they can't keep up.

> It's a real shame, because if you learned about fundamentals like compilers, data structures and operating systems eg in the 80s and then slept for 30 years, you would still pass a Google interview today.

LOL, on my own Google recruiting track, it turned sour after I admitted I am significantly older than my LinkedIn profile shows. I believe I was reasonably good on fundamentals during the phone interview as you say ;-)

We have a bunch of self-described old farts working here in the Google office in Sydney without any problem.

They do however seem to expect more seniority out of the senior candidates.

Even if you know all the fundamentals, you're not going to be able to just jump into current programming languages, frameworks, tooling and development processes.

If you're young and looking for a junior position, employers will have no problems teaching you some of these things but there are limits.

Eg Google is a huge black hole, they don't expect anyone from the outside to be familiar with their internal-only tools.

Current programming languages: just stick to the ones that will be around for a while. (Simple heuristic: pick the ones that already have been around for a while. In the 80s, that would have been C for example.)

Incidentally I do hiring and I can tell you that in Munich there is an abundance of ex-Siemens people most of them in their late fifties and early sixties. It is difficult for them to get a job. It's sad, sad, sad.

The more interesting question is why his customers stopped paying, but the article doesn't say. In the end I think many things had to happen for such a fall to take place.

Right. Leaving out obvious questions like "What exactly happened to this guy?" does a lot of damage to the credibility of the article as a whole.

I disagree. Unless you live in a world where ordinary failures are punished by a lifetime of penury, it doesn't really make any difference. We've all failed projects; we all expect to be able to get up afterwards and try something else.

Personally, I find this talk of age discrimination super scary, and I do my best to ignore it, just because I've spent most of what I should have spent on retirement savings on my business ventures, so I myself plan on working through his age. I already seem to be "not a cultural fit" even in my mid-30s, though I suspect for reasons other than age, but certainly, the social expectations for technical people have... changed, even within my own career.

I hear what you're saying, but if you read between the lines in the article, this guy has left behind a trail of failures of the sort we'd normally give hurricane names to. He had a lot of advantages in life and wasted them all, one by one.

It seems likely he has mental issues, which suggests the system is failing him in ways that have nothing to do with poverty or conventional welfare support. His life situation probably shouldn't be used as fodder for a generic cri de coeur article on those topics. But we can't be sure because the journalist couldn't be bothered to elaborate.

hmm? I didn't see anything that suggested mental issues beyond what most people employed in the industry before the last boom had.

He left a job to work on his own business, and failed, and handled the failure badly. If that's "a trail of failures of the sort we'd normally give hurricane names to." - then I am in serious trouble.

Of course, as you said, there wasn't much detail, but very likely that was because the person in question didn't want to revisit those things.

Again, I'm reading between the lines because the author left no other option. Things like, "A customer (his only one?) stopped paying (why?)"

I don't think you're wrong to be concerned about age discrimination, of course. But maybe this is an example of it, and maybe it's not.

> Again, I'm reading between the lines because the author left no other option.

Sure, there was no information indicating the guy didn't have serious mental issues... but there was also no information indicating that he did. Your "reading between the lines" I think blames the old guy... when there's really no evidence presented, one way or the other.

>Things like, "A customer (his only one?) stopped paying (why?)"

The vast majority of small computer businesses (corp to corp contractors) that I know only have one customer at a time, because they only have one worker to rent out; themselves. It's really common. It's less common for those customers to stop paying after work is rendered, but it has happened to people I trust to not bullshit me on the matter. (It's kind of common for some of these small contractors to get pissed when the "contract" ends early, and to demand compensation for that... One of those mistakes a lot of people make before they learn how things actually work, at least in my jurisdiction, the length of the contract has no bearing on anything at all. You usually get paid for hours worked; really there's no further guarantees.)

>I don't think you're wrong to be concerned about age discrimination, of course. But maybe this is an example of it, and maybe it's not.

I agree. Well, I'm not 100% certain I need to be concerned about age discrimination; it's in my "might be an irrational fear, but I'm not certain either way" bucket right now, but I agree about the article.

He's a college-educated electrical engineer with IT consulting experience. Why can't he find a job somewhere?

Because ageism is real. I finally got hired to a good job, with a boss who appreciates what I do, but before that happened, I got (rather snidely) accused of "googling the answer," had people blow off my phone appointment, was basically called a "fake programmer," and had people angry at me or look at me like I'm a piece of crap during interviews.

I have never, ever, been treated like this in my professional life, except in the Bay Area. Knowing what you don't know is generally best learned by getting some bruises in the process. Really, the lesson is that not knowing what you don't know can be very extremely painful. It's one thing to know that abstractly, another to know it from direct experience. There are some people who just knee-jerk say you can't do this or that. There are other folks who have enough experience to have a good feeling for how to navigate what they don't know, in such a way that the team can see it coming.

I'm sorry, but that is just not an acceptable excuse in this case. I acknowledge that ageism is real, but I've also worked in companies where we went out of our way to hire older engineers.

That said, the article makes it sound like this guy has been out of work for close to a decade or more. Maybe he can't get a cutting-edge IT or engineering job, but he could do tech-support, an entry-level job, or even drive for Uber or a taxi.

Don't forget that people do not want to work after reaching 60-70...

Careful. There are many people over 60 that would like to work though maybe not full time. Personally I know my father would love to work but really can/should not as he has dementia. My mother wouldn't but volunteers as a dance instructor 10-20 hrs/wk and loves doing it in her retirement.

Yeah, I empathise with you. Once the crystal embedded in your palm starts flashing red(1), nobody in the industry even wants to acknowledge your existence, let alone your experience. I have a youthful voice and went to university for CompSci long after graduating from a technical high school, so when I show up for the in-person interview, the atmosphere often gets sucked out of the room.

The absolute worst experience was a technical phone interview that was going very well, I thought I connected with the interviewer(2). So I was shocked after being complimented on the breadth and depth of knowledge I had, near the end of a 45 minute conversation, there was a pause and he asked "so, when did you graduate from high school?" Needless to say, the tone changed somewhat and I didn't get the in-person interview for the position that "wasn't really a good fit for me," and he, "wasn't really sure [we're] going to actually fill this position," forgetting that he earlier said he wanted someone as soon as possible.

(1) See Logan's Run -- it's a documentary about the Bay area companies' solution for aging software engineers. /s (2) And I knew him, but only in the sense I knew him from several mailing lists stretching back to the days of USENET as a knowledgeable, respectable guy with a good reputation.

TL;DR ageism is a thing everywhere.

A friend of mine, aged 46, recently graduated with an IT degree.

He has had many interviews, and in about half of them he tells me he was rejected by the interviewers at the end because they're "looking for someone 'fresher'." One interview he had started out with a phone interview, and they loved him and his experience. He turned up for the interview, and the first question it was some time before the first question was asked because of all the awkward ways the interviewer tried to broach the topic of my friend's age.

I'm 41, with a Computer Science degree, and I don't even get half the number of interviews he has. He previously worked for an educational institution, I worked for what turned out to be one of the least reputable employers in town. That guy's business practices destroyed any hope of finding work that I've had. (In my country, if you're unemployed and signed up with the government support agency, whether receiving financial support or not, you agree to accept any reasonable job offer.)

Aside: in the last eight years, I've had three interviews. The first one found out that I have a disability, and much like your interview, he forgot that he'd told me I was well suited to the role due to my knowledge and skills. He turned bright red and started screaming at me, literally screaming. He was threatening me with legal action and bills, for wasting his time because I didn't have enough experience, threatening to lay a formal complaint with the referring agency.

Please tell your friend that most engineers have no business interviewing anyone. They may be intelligent in some ways but my experience in interviewing 100+ candidates for various positions is that most of my fellow engineers should stick to computers.

Perhaps you should too..

@tamana

I'm a great interviewer because I have a bit more empathy and interest in understanding other people.

You can downvote me if you like but my words still ring true.

>Aside: in the last eight years, I've had three interviews. The first one found out that I have a disability, and much like your interview, he forgot that he'd told me I was well suited to the role due to my knowledge and skills. He turned bright red and started screaming at me, literally screaming. [...]

wat. I presume this was after you called him out on his contradiction?

I'm sure unemployment is worse than paid employment , but it sounds like people who do work with that hiring manager would also have a pretty bad time of it. Hateful ill-tempered people rarely compartmentalize it (except when sucking up to power)

FWIW my company does embedded development and we take in many older engineers because of our skill base working with low level hardware and unmanaged code that much of the younger crowd is lacking.

I suspect that the trouble is that, while work like yours does favor the pre-Ruby/JavaScript generation, there just isn't a whole lot of it. It is probably growing in absolute numbers though, while the supply of low-level near-metal experience is not.

Yeah, I can imagine. About half the kids (adults, really -- it was a grad course) in a systems programming course I took had that deer in the headlights look in the computer lab sitting at a Unix prompt. Not that they couldn't figure it out, but there was a definite learning curve.

Wow, that's bizarre. I am not aware of such a culture existing here in Seattle. I hope it doesn't spread, because that sounds just... obviously maladaptive.

Apparently he was out of work in 95. At that time in Europe, IT was not that hot. It was starting but he probably didn't have the proper profile. Germany was not great at the time either anyway.

Then the hiring mentality in continental Europe is not as openminded as in the UK or the US. Being out of work alone is a big red flag on your resume. Moving from independent to employee is another one.

The cardinal sin is being over 50. When I was a kid, losing your job when you were in your 40s was the nightmare of all families - the event you do not recover from like the family terminal cancer. It is getting a lot better, but even 20 years later finding a job when you are over 50 is ridiculously hard. In my home country we even have the concept of pre-pension (i.e. unemployment payment with an extra added by the company) to get rid of older workers easily.

> Moving from independent to employee is another one.

I've heard/feared this as well, but in light of the statistics on startup infant mortality it seems crazy to stigmatise.

Thank you for sharing context, details, and links! Very helpful.

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