In Germany, 27 are in 'preventive detention' b/c they might do climate protests | Hacker News Reader

In Germany, 27 are in 'preventive detention' b/c they might do climate protests

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273 pointsraybb365 comments

This is is a state law, not a federal one. As far as I understand it is limited to 2 months. Just a clarification, not a justification. It was a somewhat controversial law, and I think those cases clearly show why. Those laws always get justified with terrorism, and now they're jailing people that block traffic.

I don't think such laws should exist, and we should do better there. Unfortunately I don't expect that with the Bavarian politic landscape this will happen on the legislative way.

Also might be worth mentioning that the Bavarian state police law that these arrests are based on is actively challenged in court and there arrests could become part of that case.

I expect that this law is going to either be restricted by german courts, or ECHR/CJEU.

Hasn't Germany ratified the European Convention on Human Rights? Those are definitely breaching the above and could easily be considered as fascist laws. This should be a fairly easy trial.

I can't be alone in thinking that jailing people who obstruct traffic and jailing people who we believe intend to obstruct traffic are two totally different matters.

Usually that believe stems from the fact that those people explicitly announced they would do it again. And again. After being sentenced. In front of a judge.

https://www.merkur.de/deutschland/kleber-aktivisten-letzte-g...

I would still rather have them sentenced for the crimes they’ve committed - even if sentenced harshly due to their unrepentant disposition - than for the crimes they may commit in the future.

We are all hypothetical criminals and I would prefer that the state not have that freedom to lock people up.

I don't think most people have claimed they will commit a crime in the future. Not necessarily for climate protests, but in many cases in the US we do this same thing too.

https://www.bostoncriminaldefenselawyers.com/threat-to-commi...

https://ravellawfirm.com/blog/can-someone-go-to-jail-for-thr...

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/373

I do believe it is reasonable to hold repeat offenders. And I hope this law will be upheld when tried. These people do not understand democratic dialogue and so I have no pity for them.

You don't sound very democratic either.

It's kinda funny to me when I see the police drag protesters away from these industrial sights that they occupy. Because if we are to believe climate research then some of these industries are literally damaging the living space for all humans. In some cases the police should be hauling the exeutives away, not the protestors.

But the regular police can't be expected to do such deep investigations based on scientific data, so instead they end up protecting the interests of large corporations by hauling regular concerned citizens away. It's quite a bizarre state of events.

The police exists to protect capital, not regular folks like us.

Yep, most people forget this fact. Police is explicitly there to protect property.

Sometimes they do protect people, but that is typically an exception

I think sweeping statements like this might seem fair in the context of this article, but are actually harmful to democracy.

A fundamental right in liberal societies, for better or worse, is that of property rights. Yes, some people have a large amount of property so police will try to protect that large amount of property, but the police will also protect your property. More generally, police will protect you if you someone tries to physically attack you. We shouldn’t take this for granted since autocratic regimes care much less about these principles and will take away your property or physically harm you if they feel like it.

To say that the police will protect you is not accurate. The police are a preventative institution. They try to maintain order and reduce the incidence of crimes and act as a deterrent for those who would otherwise commit a crime. But they aren't a condom around violence. If somebody wants to hurt you, they can, and you're mostly on your own. They will only be brought in to investigate the case later, and maybe catch the perpetrator. It is kind of funny how we Europeans are brought up with this illusion of safety, believing that the police are some kind of superhero characters that will spring to action the second before we get knifed or shot.

In the US there are tens of thousands of violent criminals in prison. The police were integral to many of those investigations or arrests.

Please look at the proportion of Americans in prison compared to the rest of the world, then realize that the rest of the world manages to maintain law and order without holding 25% of the entire world's prison population

Stupid comparison. To dramatically reduce our prison population would mean releasing tens of thousands of very violent black men into poor black communities. Europe has tons of low level violence and intimidation that they punish with EXTREMELY short sentences. They would be much better off with a lot larger number of people in prison.

> how we Europeans are brought up with this illusion of safety

That's not exclusive to Europeans. But also - many Europeans aren't particularly fond of this delusion.

The illusion of safety prevents people getting armed to their teeth and as such participate to their safety.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY

Yeah, well life is not so simple. Everyone would like to see a green energy transition, but we still need energy to power our everyday life and we need it also at a reasonable price. Protesting without providing alternatives is futile and counter-productive.

>Protesting without providing alternatives is futile and counter-productive.

I hear what you're saying, but please don't say that. The alternative is to just accept unchecked capitalism destroying our environment. So no, protesting is not futile and counter-productive. It's absolutely necessary to ensure that people remember what we're trying to change, while we change it.

> Protesting without providing alternatives is futile and counter-productive.

Alternatives are suggested but they are largely ignored, postponed to the next legislation, criticized (with no scientific evidence) and finally hijacked by fake environmentalist who are just creating disinformation for their own interest/agenda

Last I checked a car industry expo is not against the law. Disrupting or legitimately threatening a lawful activity is. These people are properly in custody and serving their cause by generating less CO2 in the process.

Seems like a win-win.

I wonder if police acts in same way if, for example, traffic is blocked by protesting tractors or trucks.

Or slashing tires in the name of protecting the world from ICE?

Seems you're missing the point of the comment you're replying to. You are focused on it presently being legal when the question is, "Should it be legal?"

Yup I should have quoted.. Police generally haul away those who are breaking the law. I interpreted the comment as Police should be making a determination outside the law on who to arrest.

>> In some cases the police should be hauling the executives away, not the protestors.

That's their job. Police exist as armed enforcement of the status quo, and the status quo is that rich people make the rules and everybody else suffers the consequences.

It doesn't really make sense, because in a democrazy the rich people are not the majority. But it pretty much looks like it none the less^^

Then it seems it is not really a true democracy.

That’s very concerning. This bill came to life to prevent terrorist attacks like 9/11 but is now being abused in bavaria to jail climate protesters who could disturb the biggest automotive fair in the world.

Honestly insanity because everyone warned this would happen.

What is the value of everyone here wrt to voters? It makes you wonder what other policies the politicians who championed the "jail you for any reason under the guise of terrorism" policy also advocated for to get people to vote for them.

It's a party running on regional identity, policy isn't really involved in voter decisions. They are in (regional) power almost as long as the CCP.

The law is garbage and needs to go. I'm not defending it in the slightest.

Tangentially, saying "everyone warned this would happen" as a criticism of something is almost always hindsight bias or survivorship bias. There are plenty of things that "everyone" says will happen that never happen and for the ones that do happen, "everyone" tends to overstate how certain they were about it being the only possible outcome.

Not really. This was clear.

I’m not going to listen to Joe down the street saying Obama is gonna start putting people into FEMA camps.

I will however listen to civil right experts that explicitly warned against state overreach.

Reminds me of this: Dozens face RICO charges over Atlanta police center protests

https://www.reuters.com/legal/dozens-face-rico-charges-over-...

Hardly relevant. Antifa shot at police, threw Molotovs and cut arborist ropes endangering the workers.

https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-over-60-stop-cop-city...

Specifically: in Bavaria. Which is, of course, in Germany, but also a bit of a "state within a state", ruled by one party (the CSU) since the beginning of time, er, of the Federal Republic of Germany, and where things like this, which would cause much more outrage elsewhere, can and do happen.

Bavaria has really insane police overreach

EDIT: I'm being downvoted for this? They literally have total police surveillance, all the Germans here in Hamburg talk about it all the time

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Wouldn't it depend on the context though? If someone's being downvoted for something correct but unpopular, is that okay as per site guidelines?

My own practice is to largely ignore instances. They're not hurting my Imaginary Internet Points much at all.

Very occasionally I'll ask if someone could clarify or substantiate concerns with a comment. But that's about as far as any notice should go.

This is the place which famously required wind turbines to be 10H the distance from a settlement for a height H.

That sounds sane to me, honestly.

For other countries, maybe. But Germany doesn't really have any spot devoid of any settlement

So then use nuclear power. Oh wait, you can't because there was an tsunami in Japan.

Germany: "oh well, we'll increase burning clean coal, but create some crazy roadmap that we'll be carbon free in a few decades or so"

Germany needs to get its shit together, energy-wise. You are a disgrace in the union, honestly. With your economical development and technical know-how levels you should be at the forefront.

We had technical know-how. Past tense. Then technology became evil incarnate.

Nowadays we are scared of everything, ignorant of any kind of science. All policy and all public outrage is purely based on ideology and wishful thinking. If one kind of wishful thinking fails, we do not reconsider, we double down or replace by another, even weirder kind of wishful thinking.

Basically, we are back to a pre-renaissance way of thinking. We are back in the dark ages.

And I'm honestly scared of that.

I think its based on the fact, that if you start arguing with moral, logic doesnt matter anymore.

I can tell you that this really tilts me as a german.

Our politics is all wishfull thinking and ideology, but arguing with the laws of thermodynamics isnt really working...

And I'm defenitely neither right wing, old, nor climate sceptic

The Danish Church is allowed to veto buildings of wind turbines if they were within the 28x the height of the turbine. This is quite a long distance if you consider the 160m tall 14MW Siemens (though I think that may be offshore only).

There are more than 2000 churches in Denmark. Only the minister of the interior could override that veto.

Research "gustl mollath" of you wanna know what scary things can happen in bavaria.

On the face of it, this sounds very bad. I can't find confirmation that this is happening outside of the statements of the "letzte generation" group itself [1], and the article states as much.

The statement from the Munich police [2] says that protesters were taken into custody for their acts, namely blockading traffic. The length of the detention was apparently extended by the district court, but the statement does not give a reason for it. Presumably it's connected to the belief that they will continue to carry out similar acts if released.

I'm a bit conflicted here; if someone is being detained pre-trial for a crime, then "they are going to crime again" is a totally valid reason to hold them without bail pending trial. But it's not clear whether that is what is happening here.

Although I am writing from a US perspective, I don't think I'm saying anything that is really specific to US law; this is more my general feelings around the limitations of police authority and how it intersects with civil liberties.

I don't know if my understanding is correct, but I can't find direct evidence that the "preventative detention" law is actually being applied here -- I don't see any evidence of stormtroopers raiding people's houses and taking them into custody; just people who have already committed (minor) crimes being detained past the point of what some people would consider reasonable.

[1] https://letztegeneration.org/blog/2023/09/liebe-und-wut-brie...

[2] https://www.polizei.bayern.de/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/0...

> I'm a bit conflicted here; if someone is being detained pre-trial for a crime, then "they are going to crime again" is a totally valid reason to hold them without bail pending trial. But it's not clear whether that is what is happening here.

Not a lawyer, but doesn't this depend on whether or not it is a violent crime? Someone who may murder again should be treated differently than someone who may shoplift again.

Legally, this depends on jurisdiction. From the standpoint of what's better for society, I agree with you.

Not speaking to law, but in principle this seems like a case-by-case decision that (in the US) I would expect a judge to make. I would expect a competent judge to weigh the societal cost of the crime vs the probability of re-committing it vs the rights of the accused to a presumption of innocence.

For violent crimes it swings pretty hard on the societal cost of the crime (but maybe be mitigated if the crime was one of passion or if the motive was clear and not likely to result in a re-commission).

For jaywalking it swings pretty hard in the other direction.

For crimes where there is a victim but no violence, it would depend on the specifics of the case in question.

> The length of the detention was apparently extended by the district court, but the statement does not give a reason for it.

I don't think that that's what happened. The newspiece states quite clearly that the suspects were kept in jail as a preventative measure, in complete accordance with Germany's regional law.

The controversial part was that arguably the length of the preventive jail stay contrasts with the jail terms that the suspects are facing, and other regional courts determined shorter preventive jail terms.

I think that this is an issue where the court had to draw a line in the sand within the boundaries specified by the law. The court had a group of people known for conducting criminal acts and determined that the likelihood that they would continue their criminal activity if they would be released was almost certain. The court had to make a call, and had to choose between being responsible for allowing criminals to repeat their crimes, or ensure they wouldn't by keeping them in preventive jail.

From news article :

> Diese Form des Freiheitsentzuges ist umso problematischer, da den Protestierenden, sollten sie für eine Blockade verurteilt werden, keine Haft droht. Die entsprechenden Verfahren enden regelmäßig lediglich mit Geldstrafen.

The crime they might have committed usually doesn't even result in jail time, only fines. Hence why such long detention seems especially unjustified.

The article lays out a factual description of the detention law, and lays out the description of the so-far detained members of the group, but fails to connect the two. Nothing in the police report indicates that the law was applied, just a reference to the district court extending the detention period, but no link or reference to the specifics of whether the district court applied the law.

I don't know if the German press is held to different standards than the US press, but in the US this would set off red flags for me because it makes a very strong implication without explicitly stating it and provides no evidence for the implied connection.

> Die entsprechenden Verfahren enden regelmäßig lediglich mit Geldstrafen.

This is plain wrong. Repeat offenders in this matter have been sentenced to jail time, in excess of the two months of possible preventative arrest: https://www.merkur.de/deutschland/kleber-aktivisten-letzte-g...

I find it less clear what exactly the article is alleging.

It refers to a police practice, and says that a judge can extend it further, but the press release says that the police did not apply this practice. And no information is given about what the substance of the district court's decision was.

But all that said, my initial read on the article, "put a total of 27 supporters of the group in prison" is that the police are grabbing innocent people and putting them in preventative detention, but that does not appear to be supported by the article. Rather they are being held for minor crimes (which I don't think anyone is contesting that they committed) and being kept there (the article says "prison" but I don't know whether Germany has the same distinction at the US between prison and jail/pre-trial detention).

Asking because my context as an American may not apply: If an American were jailed for the maximum 60 days, then they would almost certainly be fired from their job for non-attendance and become 30+ days late on all of their bills since you cannot pay bills from jail. This includes car payments and/or rent, which can result in repossession/eviction proceedings being filed.

Is the situation for short-term prisoners similar in Germany?

> maximum 60 days

In the US, political prisoners have been jailed for years without trial. 60 days would be a major respite.

I'm referring to the maximum length of detention under the German law being used (if I'm reading things right). I am aware that the US has some pretty serious problems that are at least somewhat related, but I'm trying not to digress into that.

> I'm referring to the maximum length of detention under the German law being used (if I'm reading things right).

It's not a German law but a state law. Some states only allow 4 days, Berlin only 2 days: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterbindungsgewahrsam

Of course it's Baravia which allows the (by far) longest detention with two months.

This is outside criminal procedure, which is a federal matter. Since it's not a criminal proceeding, criminal courts don't have jurisdiction, and the rights you have in criminal proceedings do not apply. This is a state administrative matter instead. Legally speaking, this solitary detention is not even a punishment.

We have a constitutional right to a speedy trial.

That right can be waived to give the defense time to prepare, and it isn't always enforced for non-citizens detained abroad (e.g. Guantanamo), but I'm unaware of anything similar to the article happening in the US.

See: January 6th. There are still many people in jail who haven't been to trial.

A person who is in jail awaiting trial for attempting to overthrow the government of the United States is not a "political prisoner".

In many cases they would be if they subscribed to a political ideology and committed acts because of them.

In this case overthrowing is actual a protest that went out of control because of lax security. A real overthrow attempt would need to involve heavy weapons. Protesters didn't even have butter knives.

> In this case overthrowing is actual a protest

Only for some of the people involved. However, there were certainly people there attempting an actual overthrow[1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/14/oath-keepers...

They are not political prisoners. They committed federal crimes while live-streaming it and the government has presented the evidence. It just so happens that the amount of evidence they generated while committing crimes overloaded the DOJ’s capacity to collect and organize it (both prerequisites for discovery by the defendants before they can build their defense).

There have been a few defendants who have successfully challenged the speed of the trial and courts have let them off. It’s far more likely that the DOJ attorneys are simply overwhelmed with the prosecution than they are purposefully persecuting the arrested.

> According to the George Washington Program on Extremism, the FBI has arrested 940 people in connection to January 6. Of those, 43 were convicted, 481 pleaded guilty, and 382 are still waiting for trial. Most of the people waiting are out on bail. [1]

It so happens that the defendants all committed crimes on the same day, causing a backlog in prosecution work. It also happens that DC is a strange jurisdiction that requires coordination between federal officers of different departments (Capitol Police, Parks Police, Secret Service, etc) in a town that must get all funding passed through Congress, which is functionally broken most of the year.

Terrible example of time-to-trial problems in the US, which is actually a significant issue, even in well funded jurisdictions.

[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/170991/cpac-january-6-riot-p...

Those aren't "political prisoners", they're merely normal criminals, but there's so many of them that the justice system is having a hard time dealing with it. There are only so many federal judges and prosecutors.

https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/8/17/23310771/why-some-spend-ye...

Pretrial detention can often happen for years, it's one of the issues that makes guilty pleas so insidious. Even if you are innocent, wanting to get your day in court can require you to spend months in jail, so a guilty plea can actually be the more economical outcome.

I appreciate the context link.

It's worth noting that one of the examples was someone changing his lawyer repeatedly. I don't believe the right to a speedy trial is violated if you're the one that causes your own delay.

In theory we have that right.

In practice, 98% of criminal cases in the federal courts end with a plea bargain.

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158356619/plea-bargains-crim...

We have the right to a speedy trial and a the right to accept a plea bargain. You can decline a plea bargain and demand a speedy trial; the limits are defined by law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedy_Trial_Act

(As with other rights, these rights sometimes require active defense by civil rights organizations, nor are they completely absolute.)

Note this only applies to federal trials, not state trials (where the vast majority of crimes are prosecuted).

It's often defined at the state level, too. Here in NY, prosecutors are required to be ready to go within six months (felony) or 90 days (misdemeanor): https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CPL/30.30

The right exists whether or not your state has legislation defining a timeframe, too.

Yeah, absolutely the constitutional right exists, but it's often less well defined than the federal version, which is very clear and well followed.

Few people choose this because of the "trail penalty".

If you're found guilty in a trial, you get a 2-4 times longer sentence than the plea deal would have given.

So the theoretical right to a trial remains, but exercising that right is heavily penalized. To me that means the right is for practical purposes no longer exists.

Sure, that's why it's a deal. You say penalty, they say bargain. Both are true. For folks who've genuinely committed big-boy crimes, a plea bargain is great; for falsely accused innocents it presents an unpleasant dilemma at times.

My being able to opt to voluntarily testify doesn't mean the right to remain silent doesn't exist. We'd have no rights by your definition.

You can think of it that way if you want, sure.

Another angle is that plead bargains are necessary to put as many people in jail as we do.

The judicial system would completely break down if it needed to have 50x as many trials.

> The judicial system would completely break down if it needed to have 50x as many trials.

Yes. I'd argue that's not universally or even mostly a good thing.

I’m not following what that has to do with a speedy trial.

We still have that right.

The nuance is the US court system allows additional punishment if a defendant chooses to go to trial. Also, plea bargaining usually involves lots of prosecutor bluffing before they have to show discovery which is the same time they can “throw the book at the defendant” (overload the charges beyond what they can actually prove to a jury).

It’s also worth mentioning that the speedy trial can sometimes come with strings attached (as Georgia’s statute which has been recently discussed ad nauseum in the cases of 2 of the 19 2020-electoral-college-RICO defendants)

It seems that GP has deleted their comment before anyone else could reply.

I'll report it here, verbatim, as i still have it open in another tab:

-----

Are you talking about US citizens?

I'm unaware of that in any recent decades, and I assume you're talking about recent history.

More complicated cases take longer to prepare for trial, but can you point to a single example of a US citizen jailed for political purposes where their trial has clearly been delayed for political reasons?

-----

and here is what i wanted to reply:

> I'm unaware of that in any recent decades

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuAAPsiD768 - " The secret US prisons you've never heard of before | Will Potter"

Jails and prison are different.

No idea, just wanted to chime in with "you may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride!"

It's complicated, and the law leaves a lot of wiggle room. In principle, it can be a valid reason to end an employment relationship from the employer side if someone is unable to perform their work due to being in jail. However there's a lot of hoops to jump through for the employer - the absence has to be of "significant length", the employer has to be able to show they deeply looked into it when they came to this conclusion, they need to consult with the employee on it, they may have to look into alternative solutions to fill the gap, etc. As a guideline, if the absence is expected to be two years or longer, much of this is no longer expected by the employer.

I think most employers would not get away with firing someone in this case.

Your employer is not allowed to fire you if are in jail for less than 2 years. You also can't evict someone from their home because of jail. And the government might be paying your landlord for your time in jail as well (depending on the time etc.). It's complicated, but basically, Up to 6 months, all fine on all ends.

Germans don't have car payments usually. They pay for the car in cash, if they don't have enough, they buy a smaller car :)

> Germans don't have car payments usually.

There's a lot of leasing.

Yes but most of the time your company pays and then they deduct from your salary.

1% of the purchase value is taxed, regardless of usage (company car could be used only for private purposes). That way the same cost for the employer leads to a bigger car (than if bought with taxed income) for the employee and less money for the government.

And a happy car industry, of course, being able to sell bigger cars.

That's corporate, mostly. But this is changing a bit, there are more private lease constructs but they are quite expensive compared to just owning the car.

> That's corporate, mostly.

Stats would be nice.

You do know that stats are the easiest way to lie, yes?

No, the easiest way to lie is “just trust me bro”

https://bdl.leasingverband.de/en/newsroom/press-releases/sin...

https://www.ibisworld.com/germany/industry/car-rental-leasin...

And many other industry publications. Private lease is a very small fraction, but it is growing. Same picture in most of Western Europe, in Eastern Europe it is very variable from one country to another.

47% of new cars are financed in Germany [1]

[1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1065113/umfra....

That's new cars. Which is mostly what employers buy for their employees. It's 35% alltogether.

Just wanted to highlight the different mindset. I am a German living in Canada with my family. The mindset is very different. Based on feeling, 70% of Canadians I know have car debt, whereas I know one person in my German friend circle who took out a loan. It's just not very common to take on debt for cars.

My impression of Germany is people are generally very anti-debt. Credit cards were barely used when I visited back in 2019 (although that changed by the time I went back in 2022)

The primary reason credit cards were rarely used is because Germany already had an electronic payment system (Maestro, formerly eurocheque), so there was no need and credit cards often came with a fee. Online shopping and a huge push by Visa/Mastercard to replace maestro changed this to some extend.

I have noticed that in the US people have much more tolerance for debt. Even relatively poor people in the US are much more likely to buy a new car (or even multiple of them!) than in most of the Europe.

For example, the proportion of financed new cars to all new cars sold is 84% in US vs 47% in Germany.

But that does not say anything how expensive are the cars, how expensive compared to income, how long they are being used or what is the proportion of new cars sold to used cars sold.

In Europe people tend to use the cars for longer after they buy them new and then the cars tend to be used for longer after they are sold used.

Also, in Europe people tend to buy smaller cars. And, historically, we preferred cars that use less fuel which means a lot of older cars are still very viable compared to older US cars.

In the US at least it has often (although not at present) been true that the interest rate on a new car loan with good credit is less than one could return from relatively safe investments. Thus the financially smart thing to do was often to finance the car, even if you could buy it outright.

Too much debt is a bad thing, but so is being excessively debt averse.

I would also say, historically, a dollar now is worth a lot more than a dollar 50 years from now, and your quality of life is probably better, too.

I see lots of people from my parents generation who saved their whole life… and now they have money but nothing to do as their health doesn’t permit the sort of travel (or outdoor activity, or whatever) they wanted while a 20 or 30-something.

> Thus the financially smart thing to do was often to finance the car, even if you could buy it outright

I think the financially smart thing is to avoid debt as much as possible.

Also, if you absolutely need to take on debt and decided to buy a car, the financially smart thing to do would be to buy as cheap a car as possible. But that's not what really is happening, isn't it?

The reality is that taking debt changes how you think and make decisions and has far more reaching consequences than just the financial cost of the debt.

Taking on debt at 3% so you can stick the money into a index fund reliably returning 5%... is what is smart.

This sort of knee-jerk debt avoidance on principle is not smart.

First of all, buying a car so that you can drive your ass around is very different from sticking those borrowed money into an index.

Second, there exists no index fund that can reliably return 5%. Borrowing money to put it in a financial instrument is called leverage and is a quick way to get poor, not rich (and I know a bit about it because I work with financial risk for a pretty large, well known bank).

Third, for some reason (and, do explain this if you can), people are not storming banks to borrow at 3% to then go to a brokerage house to buy a supposedly reliable index. Please, show me ONE person who got rich this way... I guess not. You see, this is not how people get rich... people get rich mostly by earning a bunch of money and then not losing it. You know, not losing it is kinda important part of getting rich.

In fact, there is lots of people interested in how people actually get rich. And funny thing, nobody gets rich by repeatedly borrowing money and buying index funds. BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK.

Fourth, the act of taking debt changes how people think. I also know something about it because for large part of my life I had a lot of debt. Wonderful things happened to me after I paid it all. And while most of it might be in your head, the results are very real.

The avoidance of as much debt as possible is an irrational, emotional attachment to avoiding debt. Excessive amounts of debt is also financially unsound to collect, but the financially prudent thing is some debt, after which you end up with money, or equivalent, than if you not had taken on that debt.

> Germans don't have car payments usually.

They do actually :-)

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/...

"In Germany, while customers purchase 50 percent of stock cars through financing, they buy 35 percent via lease-based products and additional services."

Well that just sounds like taking a relaxing 6-month vacation from work while the law-abiding taxpayers pay your rent. Meanwhile, your employer and landlord are forced by the government to accept the employment and housing of someone with a criminal history?

I'm usually all for protecting the little guy over the corporate entity, but that sounds like n awful deal for everyone involved except the criminal.

Well you prefer punishment, Germany prefers reintegration. Destroying a persons life is a pretty good way to keep a criminal criminal.

> become 30+ days late on all of their bills since you cannot pay bills from jail

can't americans bind the utilities to their checking account? i (european) can do that. the bills are paid automatically from my balance (the same where i receive my salary). the web portal from my bank can lists all the entities allowed to pay bills from my balance, and i can revoke any of them unilaterally (in that case i'd have to go back to pay the bills one by one, manually).

They can but that's generally not the problem. You aren't getting paid while you're in jail, so those payments are likely to bounce (Americans often live paycheck to paycheck).

Why not bind them to their credit cards then?

All my bills go to credit cards and I even get 2% cash back on them all that way too.

I guess you will run into your credit limit that way eventually too if you are behind on payments for it.

It is almost impossible to fire long term employees in Germany. But getting proper employment is very difficult for this reason. Most people are on yearly contracts, part time jobs etc...

"Most people" is seriously wrong, statistically, but it's a significant number.

Most new employees and new job openings, would be correct formulation. German job market is very static.

Please provide a citation. In 2022, about 30% of new hires had a term limit. The peak was in 2004, with about 54% at a time when very few positions were available.

https://doku.iab.de/arbeitsmarktdaten/Befristungen_bei_Neuei...

I already cited the share of term limited contracts above.

It’s not surprising that term limited contracts are a significant chunk of the Job offerings, even if they are a small share of the total contracts - a job posting that must be renewed annually will appear every year for the same position, while an unlimited contract only opens up when a replacement must be found or a new position is created. Another cause is that a lot of companies use a limited contract as a trial period and later convert to an unlimited contract at renewal time.

It is absolutely true that some sectors suffer from having a huge chunk of limited contracts (academia for example) and that there’s abuse (auxiliary teachers only being employed during the term and made redundant during vacations), but generalizing this to the entire German job market is neither warranted nor helpful.

This is a good demonstration of how much more work it is to refute bogus statements than it is to make them.

This is just false, plain and simple. I’ll just take one of your statements and refute it, because the other parts are so broad and generalizing that you’ll just come around and make other shit up:

The share of part-time employment in Germany was 7.4% of all employment contracts in 2021. Nothing significant changed since then. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/Qualit...

Absolutely untrue. Source: was fired from indefinite employment contract in Germany. If they hate you and start throwing at you Abmahnung, Aufhebung, and Kundigung, you need a lawyer immediately and the pile of papers and letters starts growing exponentially.

"and become 30+ days late on all of their bills since you cannot pay bills from jail"

Do Americans have to authorize all their recurring payments every month again and again? I certainly never paid such bills "one by one"; I set up a regular monthly payment and it would be done automatically on the Nth day of a month.

I lived in America for two years and everything was automated

Some bills can't be autopaid either easily or at all, particularly utility bills. For those that can be autopaid, many people don't have them on autopay because of potential disruptions when living paycheck-to-paycheck. If you have to choose between food and rent, you better not have the rent on autopay, or you've accidentally made your choice.

60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, so this wouldn't matter. If they're not making money in jail they can't pay their rent, even if they have autopay set up.

https://ir.lendingclub.com/news/news-details/2023/60-of-Amer...

Some people choose not to set up automatic payments, and the percentage of people who are living paycheck to paycheck or nearly so is high enough that, even among those who do, probably a significant percentage would see the second month's payments fail if they were set up using a bank draft or debit card rather than a credit card.

Most payments are done using SEPA mandates. The money automatically leaves your account, but you still get a piece of paper with the details.

I don’t remember paying a single bill manually for the past 3 years at least. Credit card is paid in full at the end of the month as well automatically.

Which all comes grinding to a halt pretty quickly when you stop getting paid because you're in jail.

I'm not sure about Germany specifically, but in the US the vast majority of people live paycheck-to-paycheck regardless of income bracket. Most are 2 weeks away from starting to have failing bill payments.

The rules about not paying employees for absences are a bit more difficult in Germany. Voluntary unannounced absence or unpaid vacation would be the simple cases, but involuntary absences don’t entitle the employer immediately to withhold payment, at least not for most employees on a fixed term contract. Things get more involved for workers that get paid by the piece. Freelancers would probably be the most hard hit here.

This would pretty clearly be an involuntary absence - these folks are not even accused of committing a crime.

Absence is reason to withhold payment in Germany, you can only expect continued payment if you are absent because you are ill (and then only for a certain period). There are some provisions like having to pay out leftover holidays and overtime before stopping payments altogether, but payment is contingent on really working in general.

Note that this is different from ending employment: If you are in jail, only an extended length of absence (usually 2 years) or a work-related crime is reason for dismissal. If you are in jail for 23 months you'll keep your job usually, you are just not getting paid.

BGB 616: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__616.html

> Der zur Dienstleistung Verpflichtete wird des Anspruchs auf die Vergütung nicht dadurch verlustig, dass er für eine verhältnismäßig nicht erhebliche Zeit durch einen in seiner Person liegenden Grund ohne sein Verschulden an der Dienstleistung verhindert wird.

The key terms here are “verhältnismäßig nicht erhebliche Zeit” and “ohne Verschulden”. That means that if you’re absent a relatively short time (usually compared to the duration of the employment and the notice period) and without being at fault for the absence, you get paid.

There’s a lot of interpretation here: for example if your bus is late, you’re responsible (you could have taken an earlier bus), if there’s an announced strike, you’re still at fault - you knew before etc. The cause must also lie in your person specifically - if you’re stuck in traffic with hundreds of other employees due to an accident, the paragraph does not apply. If you’re missing out on work because you were involved in that accident, it does.

But being imprisoned without having committed a crime is very unlikely to be considered a fault of the employee.

Your work contract or collective bargaining agreement may modify or specify where this paragraph is applicable. No legal advice, not a lawyer,…

> But being imprisoned without having committed a crime is very unlikely to be considered a fault of the employee.

I would (without being a lawyer and without having a case to cite) suspect that in those cases it would be considered to be the fault of the employee. In many, if not all cases, they had prior arrests, indictments and some were even found guilty, yet announced further blockades. I guess to a judge, that should make it their fault.

> Your work contract or collective bargaining agreement may modify or specify where this paragraph is applicable.

That might very well be the case, since actually many protesters are being employed as protesters: https://www.stern.de/gesellschaft/letzte-generation--so-viel...

You have to be very careful with the word suspect here. No crime has been committed, not even alleged. The allegations are that the arrested may in the future cause disruptions - it’s currently even unclear whether these acts are crimes, misdemeanors or even public demonstrations and as such protected by law and the constitution. Legal opinions and court decisions are all over the place.

The jail time is even more problematic given that the acts that the imprisoned may commit in the future are not punishable by prison time in practically all cases.

(As a side note: I would also be extraordinarily careful citing an article in the Stern, which cites allegations that the Welt published, without having at least a second source that confirms it)

Most reasons in §14PAG for preventative arrest include a crime or misdemeanor that has been committed and will likely be repeated, or the proven announcement or planning of such an offense. So most will be suspects in the literal sense, otherwise they wouldn't be in preventative arrest: http://www.lexsoft.de/cgi-bin/lexsoft/justizportal_nrw.cgi?x...

Road blockades are very often judged to be coercion, "Nötigung", a crime according to §240 StGB. Repeat offenders in this matter have been sentenced to some jail time: https://www.merkur.de/deutschland/kleber-aktivisten-letzte-g...

Further sources for your side note: https://www.merkur.de/welt/verdienst-klima-krise-kleber-geha... https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/letzte-generation-... https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/letzte-generation-akt... https://www.magdeburger-news.de/?c=20221228093058

Oh, and the best source, their own wiki: https://wiki.letztegeneration.org/de/%C3%B6ffentlich/allgeme...

> Is the situation for short-term prisoners similar in Germany?

Probably none of those kids have a Job, so no worries.

Do you really pay you bills manually each month? When regular payments (like rent) are not debited directly from my account, I set up an auto transfer that sends out rent to my landlord at the 1st day of each month.

How does this work in the US?

It... depends.

Personally, I have everything automated. Including one incredibly dumb thing: I have to pay my homeowners' association dues (I live in a small condo building, so we have shared expenses) by check, so I have my bank mail a check to their bank. It's incredibly dumb that I can't easily set up an automated electronic bank transfer, but at least I can automate mailing a paper check.

US government agencies can also be annoying about this. For example, the city/county of San Francisco does not offer a way to automatically pay property taxes, which are billed twice a year. (My mortgage lender pays mine for me via an escrow account that gets funded along with my automatic monthly mortgage payment.)

But a lot of people in the US are un- or under-banked, and don't always have access to automation, if the people/orgs they have to pay support any kind of automation at all. Many landlords (especially those who cater to lower-income folks) will only accept cash or check. Many people who have to pay them don't have an online bill-pay system. And even many who could automate things, don't, because their finances are precarious enough that they will sometimes choose to skip a credit card payment, or pay their rent late, etc., and they'll make these decisions month-to-month.

If many people in the US were in jail for two months, after the first month (of not working, thus not getting paid) they wouldn't have enough money in their bank account to cover all their monthly bills. An unfortunate amount of people here live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Also consider that there's a lot of overlap between people who have unstable finances and people who are more likely to get caught up in the justice system, regardless of their innocence or guilt.

The people glueing themselves to the street don’t have any other job. They get payed to do exactly this.

Protest or vandalism? I don't think destroying property especially art, businesses is a good way to get people on your side.

If anyone LSO/LG have earned the "reputation" for destructive or disrupting stunts

I actually do think they're indirectly being financed by the oil industry (LSO head figures go around in private jets) to antagonize and create a bad (but not unrealistic) caricature of the climate protestors. And of course there's plenty of people willing to play the roles

Greta looks like the serious grownup compared to LSO

What is LSO/LG ?

Let's Stop Oil

Letzte Generation

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Neither, "preventative detention" means this is not a response to any specific action.

I want to believe that there was a "specific action". An explicit announcement to block a road / airport / whatever.

Unfortunately, it is cheaper for the gonvernment to detain people than to send police to prevent it shortly before it is going to happen.

Also, the ruling party in Bavaria is mainly controlled by the opinions people exchange in pubs over a couple of beers (one beer being a quarter gallon), and there common sense isn't considered that much.

It may be a response to specific circumstances like carrying blockade gear, announcements made by the people in question or past crimes: https://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/BayPAG-17

No art has been destroyed, it all sits behind glass so it's just a matter of cleaning/replacing the frame for the painting. And much as I love art, I think throwing food or paint at it is a good reminder that while you can make more art you can't bring back lost species or ecosystems.

I’m somewhat in disbelief that there’s actually a state within the German federation that hasn‘t forgotten the terror of the RAF, which the „Letzte Generation“ ticks all the boxes of becoming too, for they are of the same ilk: pampered upper class kids in an astroturfed cult.

https://www.eugyppius.com/p/activism-agency-and-the-escape-f...?

Good. These idiots are a net harm to the climate change cause. The only thing they have managed is accelerated resentment towards pro climate activities.

It is fully possible I have a naive interpretation of their goals and perhaps they're just looking for an excuse to be the biggest twats possible.

> The only thing they have managed is accelerated resentment towards pro climate activities.

I'm not so sure about that. I see a fair number of people who got woken up to how serious things are by these protests as well. Before they saw this kind of thing on the news, it didn't strike them as particularly real. It's a "sign of the times" for them.

How have they expressed that? How has it changed their minds?

I'd be genuinely amazed at the personality of a person who goes "Wow! They must be disrupting my day for a very important reason. Let me look up and better research their cause," versus "Oh f**, I'm going to be late to my appointment. What's going on? Oh, these idiots are blocking the street."

If you're going to interrupt my life based on some future, uncertain scientific reasoning, especially the lives of everyday working-class people who can't afford to spend their day blocking streets instead of working, it would turn me off to your cause, and that's the only sentiment I've heard from my friends.

Maybe we're wrong for that, but I'm curious how others would respond.

I think there's plenty of people who are surprised that some people take the climate situation as seriously enough that they would organize and do this, especially when others chime in with "you should expect more of this, the coming decades will see a lot of things destabilize". I've not encountered much anti-activism sentiment, at most a "they have a point, but it's the wrong way to do it".

I've not seen anyone leave their gasoline engine on idle on their behalf to spite them.

It definitely would be better digested by the general population if their actions avoided targeting the working class, like they did recently with blocking private jets.

In Italy they threw paint at statues, damaging them because they thought "washable" paint would be easily cleaned with water. Whereas it's the kind that most thoroughly repels it. That's not the way to get random people's sympathy.

So you’re happy that the state can arrest anyone for months because they dont like your speech?

Wild

Speech is not the same as blocking traffic. You have every right to your speech, but you don't have a right to force me to stay and listen to it.

So arrest them when they do that?

These people haven’t been charged with anything. It’s “preventative”.

Taking preventative action against known bad operators is morally the right option.

Charge them with the conspiracy to do a crime then?

But wait you can’t, cause that won’t actually hold up in any actual court.

“Bad operators” - they’re doing more for the climate than the rest of us are.

They're literally the "thoughts and prayers" of climate change except they're also disturbing the public and destroying property.

I don’t expect you to agree with their methods. I expect you to defend people’s right to freedom and a proper trial and judicial system.

See, thats the difference between you and me - you worship inflexible ideals even when they might destroy and corrupt the very thing they are supposed to protect, whilst I'm capable of seeing when something isn't working as intended and amendments are needed.

Even if their methods are counterproductive, no one deserves to be jailed for things the state thinks they might do.

Thoughtcrime and Minority Report-style policing is unjust and contrary to the principles of a free society.

It’s not exactly that. This group (as a whole, maybe not the specific people) committed to continue their actions and people from it released in the past were participating in blockades again. It’s definitely not a Minority Report-style prediction of what they could do based on affiliation, personality etc.

Besides, it’s not just blocking highways or streets. They blocked runways in airports too - imagine what could happen if a plane with failed engine could not land because of them.

Obnoxious people have rights too.

This state will jail people for potential terror acts. yet won’t do anything about the actual terror brought upon by the O&G and auto industry through their dangerous products and by products (in the case of cars, micro plastics in the form of tire wear particles, brake dust, and of course car emissions if ICE).

Millions die every year due to man made climate change yet governments jail these people.

This world is fucked m8

Millions??? Also the people who release the co2 from those products are consumers. Consumers(i.e. everyone) is not gonna vote to convict themselves of doing a yearly holocaust.

Consumers also bought and leaded fuel and arsenic insolation. Many of us are capable of updating our assessment of the dangers around us.

Germany is currently bankrupting itself and possibly destroying its economy to go forward with the green transition. You need a reality check. I actually don't believe that we could do more than we are already doing.

I’m unsure about your claim of millions of annual deaths.

What are the main causes of these deaths?

Deaths attributed to air pollution by fossil fuel alone are in the millions.

Is that per year?

If so, what is the actual cause? Suffocation? Cancer?

Why is this on HN? This violates a lot of the guidelines.

- Not the original source - It’s on national news, one of the biggest newspapers - Off topic

Covid-19 lockdown proved what is deemed to be an uncomfortable truth: the one and only source of negative climate effects is us. 8 billion people is too much for that planet to handle. In 1900 there was around 1,000,000,000 and it was already too much.

We are among the most populous mammals on earth.

Sorry for those romantic individuals who think they can fight with a “protest”.

There is very little sympathy with them by the common people. They have really overdone it with sabotaging common people's everyday life and calling it a "peacful protest". By that logic locking them away for a few days can also be described as peaceful.

Is the real crime here something about upsetting BMW? The German car lobby remains strong I see

I think the main reason they Bavarian government is doing this is because we have an election this fall. They government parties would otherwise lose a lot of votes as the majority of the population disagrees with those „protesters“.

They don't do climate protests. They harass people and destroy property.

Next time I break the law I'll just say I did it in the name of human rights and then complain when I don't get to do whatever I want.

I don't know much German, so I can't read the original article.

It would be helpful to know if by "they might otherwise engage in climate protests," the people in question had planned to just say things but otherwise stay out of the way, or if rather the people in question had made public their plans to break laws (like blocking traffic, which many climate protesters have been doing lately). In the one case there is no crime, and governments shouldn't be detaining people just in case they commit a crime later. In the other case, even if someone isn't a terrorist, planning on breaking the law is itself a crime, and it's not "preventative detention."

They haven't been convicted of anything, they're being detained anyway. This is not the same as pre-trial detention, if Google Translate is a remotely accurate rendering of the linked article:

"Legally, this police approach is called preventive detention because it is not detention for a crime that has been committed. The police laws of the different states allow this for different lengths of time. In Bavaria, up to one month in prison is permitted, which may be extended by a judge for a maximum of another month.

The so-called preventive or preventive detention is very controversial. The relevant laws were originally created to prevent terrorists from carrying out attacks. However, this form of detention is now also permitted in the case of the “imminent commission or continuation of an administrative offense of considerable importance for the general public,” as the Bavarian police law states. Lawsuits against this have so far been rejected in Bavaria. However, a final clarification about the legality of this approach is still pending."

"Might do" ?

Is it not the case, that they have declared their intent to commit crimes and it is perfectly plausible that they would?

In a situation where a person in continually causing a disruption to the lives of others - in some cases infringing on their rights - then preventive detention may be the only remedy.

Is there an English language article about this?

The linked site in the toot almost certainly violates the GDPR since it requires either payment or tracking consent to access. Requiring payment is fine, but forced consent is not.

I don't think so, the GDPR requires to ask for consent but nobody is being forced to press the "I consent" button. Additionally I'd guess the website of a German newspaper of record is not breaking the law.

It most probably is. See a similar case recently in Germany: https://www.iubenda.com/blog/understanding-consent-and-cooki...

And there is absolutely a great number of major European news and media companies willingly ignoring the GDPR. Most people even remotely interested know this.

Seems appropriate on 9/11 to read about anti-terrorism laws being used to impinge on regular people's civil liberties.

Can’t read the source article, we’re anti terror laws used for these arrests? Or have German police long had these sort of powers?

I guess their activities fall under some weak definition of terrorism, intimidation against civilians in pursuit of political aims.

I don't have the article open anymore, but yes it did say they were being detained under laws originally written to target terrorists.

German here. In the article it says the law is there to prevent terrorism. But 9/11 isn't such a big deal here in Germany (except maybe for traveling). The problem is that those people can be detained for "bevorstehenden Begehung oder Fortsetzung einer Ordnungswidrigkeit von erheblicher Bedeutung für die Allgemeinheit" - "imminent commission or continuation of a misdemeanor of substantial public concern." So they are arrested to prevent misdemeanors which only come with a fine or a super short jail time.

IMO the real reason for this is to protect the automotive industry which is a large part of the German economy

The cherry on top of this concerning totalitarian overreach is that even if the imprisoned would be found guilty of what they are accused of intending, it would not be punishable by prison, but fines only (!!). (Source: linked article)

Philip K. Dick guesses right again. Pre-crime.

And look just how many people support it.

How can Europe call itself the bastion of liberty if you can detain someone because they participated in a protest, no strike that, because you feel they may participate in a protest. The bar has been lowered. Where does the rest of the world look up to now for the benchmark for fundamental rights?

This is a very particular place within Europe called "Bavaria", a quasi-kingdom ruled by the same political party since time immortal. A bit like North Korea, but inhabited mostly by rich Catholics ;)

(e.g. don't mix up "Bavaria" with "Europe", Bavaria's political situation is even atypical for Germany)

Some candidates: Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Taiwan (esp. considering the circumstances), New Zealand.

Don't conflate "Europe" with "a single state in Germany".

> How can Europe call itself the bastion of liberty

They are very much a nanny state/set of states. Not sure how anyone could take them saying that seriously.

Anything to keep the auto industry from admitting how badly they screwed up by sticking with ICE cars.

I'm sure protesting nuclear so they can keep ripping up towns for coal is fine, though.

I’m with you on the first paragraph, but in the second paragraph you may not be aware that Germany has a clear and legally binding roadmap to end coal mining. Could it be quicker? Sure. Would it have helped if nuclear power stations would have remained on the grid in Germany? marginally at best.

It would have completely replaced coal this year.

Hard coal maybe, but not lignite:

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...

How? Coal accounted for 33.3% of electricity production in 2022. Nuclear power accounted for 13.3% of German electricity supply in 2021.

I haven't done the numbers, but there's also Russia's invasion of Ukraine to consider, and the shift from natural gas to coal triggered by that.

Germany's shutdown of their nuclear generating capacity, and their dependence on Russian natural gas was a major factor in the invasion, and hence Germany's necessity to shift back to coal.

Nuclear was being phased out for a little longer than 2 years now.

It was a stupid move, considering that Germany also pushed to classify gas power as "clean" in the EU.

So the plan is to ship coal from Poland or somewhere farther away to keep burning it in Germany’s coal-powered power plants?

Germany is mining ~10% (10 megaton/years) more coal than Poland, but is much less reliant on it for electricity and is significantly ahead at switching to renewables.

Current law is that Germany has to stop burning (not just mining) coal by 2038.

The current government wants to push this date up to 2030 and is evaluating if and how that's even possible (https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/vorgezogener-k...).

The notion of having a "clear and legally binding roadmap to end coal mining" in 2038 is a total joke. The politicians got to issue some nice press releases but most of the hard choices were foisted onto their successors. I guarantee that the deadline will be extended and exceptions will be made. Germans will still be mining and burning coal in 2039.

This comment betrays complete ignorance over the legal framework that these agreements are situated in, Germany’s political economy, the future and present cost structure of coal mining and comparable precedents in Germany’s recent history (including the abolishment of both hard coal and nuclear power).

Screwed up by...making the cars customers wanted.

That'll show 'em!

The climate of the entire world is changing for the worse. ICE cars do not consider negative externalities.

Not to mention that EVs are enormously popular! They are only being produced now because Tesla is making them. EVs are far more reliable and cheaper to maintain than ICE cars, which is bad if you're a car manufacturer because people buy EVs less frequently than unreliable ICE cars.

"ICE only exists because customers only want them" has no basis in fact.

ICE cars can be made reliable and cheap to maintain. Toyota, old GM products, ect.

They don't make them reliable.. I wonder why?.

ICE cars are incredibly reliable. I buy a new car, drive it a decade, and outside of things like brakes, tires, which wear by their nature, often have no repairs to deal with. Typically I do 25000km per year.

You're definitely an outlier, or you only buy reliable cars.

Trick #1: car models are refreshed. Never buy the first 2 or 3 years after this happens.

Trick #2: many car platforms share engines. Try to buy a car with an engine that has been used for a few years.

These two things alone, will ensure you aren't a beta tester

NOTE: car manufacturers pay through the nose for warranty repair work. They quickly fix all things which can impact that bottom line, which is why later years in a car refresh are much more stable.

Which is why:

Trick #3: never buy any car without a bumper to bumper warranty, and never if 2 years. Be wary of anything less than 4.

Why? Someone with a 4 year warranty, will fix problems with a model generation of a car, to save issues even 4 years out. And this means that stability is ensured for years beyond that, typically.

Yes it does. Until apartment buildings have charging stations EV isn't even something a lot of people would ever consider.

Modern electric cars have 300+ mile ranges and charge about 80% of that in 20 minutes or less. For city dwellers without access to a charging point at home, it would be completely feasible to spend about as much time at public charging stations as they would have at the gas station every week or so. There is a lot of "range anxiety" (as reflected by your comment) going around, but in many cases that is not justified even today, let alone a few years in the future when more charging infrastructure has been built out.

ICE only exists because customers only want them" has no basis in fact.

You can only say this, if you stop your ears, and explain away anyone as wanting one.

For example, no EV has the range I require. There are many in my boat. No, I'm not wrong, and you can never be right, telling me I'm wrong in what I need. Ever.

As well, trying to claim EVs are more reliable is an amazing assertion, many buy ICE cars, put 250000km on them with only brake and tire changes, and drove them a decade. I know I do.

In fact, it's literally impossible to determine which takes more maintenance, because the majority of EVs aren't a decade old. And the ones that are, are very early models, and not indicatively comparable to the volume of ICE cars, even now.

I wonder, how.many decades of car ownership do you speak from? Do you have reliably studies going back decades for EVs, with large production runs?

You're just saying what you hope is true. That's not how reality works.

If no EV has the range you require you are a tiny minority of car users. Current Tesla models can have a 300+ miles/500+ km range. I've driven a Tesla Model 3 on long road trips and the range is more or less limitless in praxis: every few hours I stop to visit the restroom, grab a bite to eat or a coffee and in the time that takes me the Tesla loads for another few hours on the road.

So yes, you may have very specific needs that limit your choice of vehicles. But the needs of the vast majority of car owners can be served by current EV technology perfectly well.

Apart from that: EVs have less moving parts by an order of magnitude compared to ICE cars. Of course they are more reliable, especially when you take into account that many (most?) drivers do not adhere to the very stringent service/fluid change intervals on their cars. Again, you might be different, but most people abuse their cars. My parent's VW T5 for example just crossed 350.000 miles and already had several minor engine issues in addition to a costly particle filter swap.

If no EV has the range you require you are a tiny minority of car users.

All supposition, much as your assertions about reliability. Reliability doesn't come from the amount of moving parts alone.

You're just theorizing, which is fine in of itself, but not when you present it as fact.

The average car in Germany is making two trips per day, 15km each: https://umwelt-fragen.de/durchschnittliche-autostrecke-in-de...

So more or less a very typical commute. My 2016 Nissan Leaf could do this daily drive for 5 days without recharging, today's model's can do half a month of this before the battery is empty. Again: your needs might be on the extreme end and not suited to an EV (currently) but you are the absolute exception. This is not theorizing, it has been well studied and established.

This is not theorizing, it has been well studied and established.

For a densely populated country such as Germany, you have provided one study which speaks of averages.

Of course, this doesn't show the spread of that average. And of course, it is ridiculous to presume this is normal, as we all know how densely packed Germany is.

You are trying to claim that one of the outliers, that is, German driving habits, is an average!

In 2017, the average US household made 5.1 daily vehicle trips with a length of 9.6 miles: https://www.bts.gov/content/average-annual-pmt-vmt-person-tr...

This is more than the average German car drives daily, but still perfectly manageable for modern (or even 5 year old) EVs. Even assuming an EV can't be charged anywhere, it could still handle 6 days worth of these trips. Even if you commute 300+ miles daily, you could probably spend 20 minutes per trip at a public charger.

Again, maybe this isn't for you. That is fine. But EVs are perfectly suitable for the vast majority of car users and it would be up to you at this point to disprove that statement.

There are people who drive their car once a week, to get groceries. There are people who live 100km from work.

As I said prior, what is the spread?

And beyond that, if someone drives very little for 8 months, then drives a lot for 4 months, which happens a lot (kids, summer, vacations, cabins in the summer)...

Many people have range anxiety. People keep saying it's silly, and keep explaining why.

How about you just realise, instead, people with range anxiety aren't morons, and 100% have made a valid assessment?

How about you provide some data instead of anecdotes. You requested the same from me and I provided.

Of course people aren't "morons" and I never said as much. But people generally do what they are used to and what trusted authorities (and I use that term deliberately loosely) tell them what is ok. Nobody has time to research every little aspect of their lives in-depth to make a completely informed decision. So if people like you are telling everyone who will listen "many/most people will not be served well by an EV," that has consequences, the same way as if I would tell people "there is no justification whatsoever to drive an ICE" (which I'm explicitly not doing).

I've looked into this quite a bit and all data I can find points to EVs being a smart choice for most people if they intend to buy a new car or if they can find a suitable used one (the market availability for the latter is still small). It should be the natural choice if there is not some special circumstance in your life (as seems to be in yours).

> My parent's VW T5 for example just crossed 350.000 miles and already had several minor engine issues in addition to a costly particle filter swap.

It's funny, because my $70k Tesla Model Y will have to have it's whole battery pack replaced by the time it reaches 155k Miles.

Can you guess which part of any Tesla is the most expensive one? The damn battery pack...

Now compare replacing the whole car(yes, you can't just replace the battery pack) to VW having just "several minor engine issues in addition to a costly particle filter swap".

I like EVs and will switch my Chevy Colorado to an EV as soon as possible(they're always sold out). But your example is quite literally proof, that an ICE will outlast an EV.

If that's your experience with an EV it's most likely a warranty issue. Happens with ICE cars as well. So far, battery degradation for EV batteries (Tesla's to be exact) has been much less severe as has been feared: https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-dat...

(also: I mistyped in my above comment. I meant to say 250.000km not 350.000 miles. Sorry about that)

While you're at it you might as well go straight to Megameters which is much more fun.

So far most Teslas aren't exactly old enough to even consider using this data.

We know ICEs can last for decades. We don't know how long Li-ion based EVs will last, practically. Theoretically they will not last as much as ICE.

While we don't have conclusive data - let's not pretend that anything about EV's longevity is a fact.

The only fact about EVs - they haven't been out long enough to make a statement based on empirical evidence.

(Take it from an EV advocate in general and someone heavily invested in Tesla stock)

The Tesla Model S has been out for more than a decade by now. Nissan Leafs, Renault Zoes and a couple of others have been available as production cars in decent numbers for a similar length of time. Tesla says that Model S and X cars experience a 12% degradation after 200.000 miles on average. My 2016 Nissan Leaf fares slightly worse than that but it is built on considerably less advanced battery technology as Tesla's of the same era.

Yes, batteries degrade to a certain extend. But especially with higher range cars, this seems to be an issue of limited severity and it certainly does not seem to impact i.e. resale values of EVs.

> The Tesla Model S has been out for more than a decade by now.

Which is hardly enough data, to make a claim that "people buy EVs less often". We will only be able to make that claim, after a while of EV usage - which should also include recycling of the batteries.

> resale values of EVs

Battery degradation definitely has little impact on EVs, it's also the case with ICE - the runtime of an engine doesn't affect the resale value. Mileage would be the primary objective number that impacts the resale value.

My 2020 Tesla's resale value is up and down, regardless of the battery pack. It's very clear, that it has very little to do with the batteries.

"negative externalities" as described by the people who handily have a solution to sell you; or instruction to give you on how you can Be Better, according to them.

There are about 500,000 electric cars registered in CA, out of about 15,000,000 registrations total. So, ~3.5%. When one factors out the owners who have an ICE vehicle in addition, the % probably goes to less than 1.

That's CA; the best-case scenario. This is also after CAFE tax credits have gone to subsidize electric vehicle production, as well as subsidies and tax credits to electric vehicle purchasers. The original CARB ZEV goal was to have 10% of California's fleet electrified. This goal was set in...1990, and was expected to happen by 2000.

I'm sure it was a hard choice to make. The manufacturers could ask for government support for their business until such a time that government ZEV goals could be achieved with a profitable product, or...they could build the cars that people would pay for.

I think there's a lot more nuance here than you're admitting.

Any major displacement to something as foundational as cars isn't going to happen overnight. Tesla made EV's cool, and that has driven the traditional carmakers to offer more and better EVs, but we're still far from parity when it comes to what you can buy. All the traditional carmakers have a relatively small number of EV options, and they're not available at all trim levels. Like carmaker XYZ but don't want to drive a hatchback? ICE car it is. Like carmaker ABC but don't like the single trim level sedan they chose to base their EV on? ICE car it is.

I would be surprised beyond belief if these manufacturers were not getting pressure from the oil industry to only do the minimum when offering EV models.

Regarding negative externalities: if the price tag of a new car included the cost of all the pollution you're going to be spewing into the air while driving it, EV pricing would look even more attractive, even if we did the same for EVs and included the externality costs of battery manufacture and disposal/recycling.

I was in the market for a new car a year and a half ago. I really wanted to buy an EV, but none of the available models were what I was looking for in a car. Unfortunately, I bought another ICE car. I'm very much hoping that, in 10 years, when I start thinking about another new car, the EV options will be much more varied. I expect there are a lot of people like me, who want to buy an EV, but the product they want isn't on the market (despite equivalent ICE options being available).

>I expect there are a lot of people like me, who want to buy an EV, but the product they want isn't on the market (despite equivalent ICE options being available).

If there was a suitably compelling electric vehicle for everyone, would the ICE market go to zero? Sure-very little of the market wants cars that burn gas for the sake of burning gas. But, that's not a useful observation.

>Regarding negative externalities: if the price tag of a new car included the cost of all the pollution you're going to be spewing into the air while driving it

Other than CO2, what pollution?

>I would be surprised beyond belief if these manufacturers were not getting pressure from the oil industry to only do the minimum when offering EV models.

The oil industry also produces the feedstock for generating the electricity used to charge the electric cars. "Journalist discovers Tesla charging station with a discretely-hidden diesel genset nearby" is practically a meme at this point.

> people buy EVs less frequently than unreliable ICE cars

Huh? The irony of you saying "no basis in fact"...

Design life for a typical ICE car is typically 10 years of service... but not limited to that, as many cars live way past 10 years.

The most expensive part of an EV are batteries, that have a few hundred cycles(the polymer batteries are yet to get to Tesla packs). Let's pretend that everyone gets a 310mile/500km ranges(which is one of the most expensive EVs).

That means that an EV will trash the battery(a critical, 100% unconditional, limit) within 155K miles/250K Km.

We're literally don't have statistics for how often an EV must be fully replaced yet. EV production boom is way less than 10 years.

So maybe you should consider the saying "Pot, meet kettle"

"people buy EVs less frequently than unreliable ICE cars" means EVs are totaled by mechanical issues (Something wears/breaks from normal usage, and the repair bill is greater than the vehicle's post-repair value), and then replaced at lower rates than ICE cars.

And EV batteries last 1,500+ cycles, not 300.

The current production Li-ion cells have a few hundred cycles. Once we actually get to that 1500 - we can talk.

But again - a claim that "people buy EVs less" isn't grounded in any fact at all. You know, because people replace cars far more often than "engine failure" or "battery pack is bust"

To be rigorous battery life is a function of depth of discharge, the discharge rate, and temperature.

The sort of shallow charge and discharge cycles you see with EV's aren't the same as spec 80% high rate discharges.

You could grossly estimate battery life by multiplying the spec battery life in cycles times the EV's max range.

I'm not arguing with an estimate.

My argument is simply to refute the claim that "people don't buy EVs as often"... Which is based on estimates and and gut feeling, not exactly backed by any statistics at this point.

Right now - we know for a fact that ICE vehicles can run for decades, we have only very limited data on Li-ion road use EVs. And even then, we will only have only a decade of a smaller number of older generation battery pack EVs.

There are plenty of decades old EVs that are specialized, but they aren't anywhere close to what a Tesla is. We can't compare electric golf carts and Tesla Model 3.

If customers had to pay the actual full cost of an ICE car, including the cost to clean up all the pollution the car will generate over its lifetime, I think it's safe to say customers wouldn't want them.

But yes, from a strictly capitalist point of view, the car companies did not screw up, at least in the short term. They sold their cars at prices that customers were ok with, and made a bundle of money.

So what? Capitalism successfully lined the carmakers pockets' with profits, but our world is becoming less and less habitable for humans every year. Great outcome.

I’d like to add to this that a negative externality that is not priced in is a classical example of market failure in economical thinking. It’s an example of capitalism failing. I’m all for free markets, they are an extremely effective way of getting some things done.but not always.

I've been told that an ancestor of mine was escorted to jail when our king was passing by his city and sent back home when the king was gone. That was the 19th century.

I'm pretty sure these "activists" are sponsored by oil and car companies. The idea is to provoke aggression towards climate activism, which would lead to increase in ICE car usage.

It seems far-fetched to me. Most people agree with the need for change. They disagree with the way they protest. I also don't see why many people would use a car more frequently just because there are protests against it.

Additionally, many members come from Fridays for Future. They are frustrated as years of peaceful protest have led to no change. I see no connection to oil or car sponsorship in this.

Why only 27

I don't speak German, could someone clarify this for me: did they publicly admit to that they were planning to commit crimes, or aid others in committing crimes? If they were publicly planning criminal acts I don't see much, if any, issue of physically removing them from the ability to commit the crime, but I would need more context to make a personal judgement.

No, as far as I know, they did not specifically post time & day & intent of any crimes. They were known activists, and using a very controversial law, were preventatively taken into custody in the lead up of Germany's largest automotive expo.

The bar you must jump to be able to do this to some one is state law, and differs by state. The bar in Bavara is, arguably, lower than in some other states by my (uneducated in the laws, so not very relevant) reading.

For example in many German states, it requires a crime to be imminent. In Bavaria this is not the case.

Thank you for the information. One follow up question:

> They were known activists

Does "activist" hear mean they'd previously engaged in illegal activity, i.e. blocking roadways or similar "protests"?

That is exactly what it means, yes

I assume so, yeah. The "Last Generation" is a loosely organized activist group that has been making headlines in the country for the past months, and by my understanding these were known associates/members of the org. One of their things to do is to glue themselves down in places to hinder others, think at events, on streets, tracks, airfields, etc.

I don't know if there was concrete evidence of past crimes/actions for them. By my reading, Bavarian state law does not require this. In some other States, it is listed as one of the conditions to meet or "likely to repeat" is somehow baked into the lingo.

> One of their things to do is to glue themselves down in places to hinder others, think at events, on streets, tracks, airfields, etc.

One would think that people gluing themselves to things is a self limiting problem.

I don't know why you put that in quotes, I don't believe there has been a single successful activist movement in history that never had to break the law. That doesn't mean that all illegal protest is justified, but it does mean that the legality of an action is not useful in determining whether it's justified and effective.

As far as the linked article says, at least some, if not all, of them were already found at similar blockades, some were also already judged guilty and fined:

https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2023-09/letzt...

> Zehn von ihnen waren laut Münchner Polizei während einer Blockade am Freitag in Gewahrsam genommen worden.

Also, courts seem to perform some checks, there are reported cases where even repeat offenders were let go:

https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/vorbeugender-freiheitse...

> So entschied zum Beispiel das Landgericht Landshut, dass ein rund sechstägiger Präventiv-Freiheitsentzug für Klima-Aktivisten unzulässig sei, die sich 2021 auf Autobahnbrücken rund um die Internationale Automobilausstellung (IAA) in München ein paar Meter abgeseilt hatten, worauf die Polizei den Verkehr stoppte. Kernargument: Eine Wiederholungsgefahr sei nicht hinreichend erkennbar.

And there are several records of perpetrators announcing followup crimes right after having been judged. Some were even committing their next crime within a few hours: https://www.merkur.de/deutschland/kleber-aktivisten-letzte-g...

State attorneys in Germany are not independent from the Ministry of Justice (because of that, Germany is currently not allowed to issue European Arrest Warrants). Also courts tend to confirm the status quo.

Planning to do a crime is illegal too, so you could jail someone for that, if they are admitting to planning to do something criminal enough. However, the article states that there is no due process or actual accusation of a crime.

The activists have been arrested for participating in similar protests before and a court has deemed that they were likely to participate in similar protests again, and cause significant public disturbances. Others have pointed out that the state police law that these arrests are based on are very controversial and are currently challenged in court. I might add that the judiciary in Bavaria has a very pro-prosecution reputation in cases against progressive activists.

In America, several protestors and advocates have been mysteriously disappeared by the justice system as well. Of course, we know what happened with the Black Panther Party but similar tactics are still happening in current day.

This is a pretty big accusation without any kind of sources or links or whatsoever, you could at least name them or their cases so one can research on their own...

More topically, police in Georgia are filing RICO charges against 61 activists who are protesting a police training center down there. They've also filed money laundering charges against a group who tried to organize a bail fund: https://apnews.com/article/atlanta-cop-city-protests-rico-ch...

It’s the beginning of the climate revolution.

It’s going to be real ugly I can tell you that for sure.

The children have no future. The old have accumulated ownership of pretty much everything.

A generation with nothing to lose.

EDIT no climate future

The interesting thing about old people is they tend to die, and bequeath their properties to their children.

True, but what of those who do not have wealthy parents?

Now you’re catching on

We replaced expansionist policy with children inheriting wealth.

It's not a soothing platitude for the next generation, that the most they can work towards is inheriting their father's achievements.

Let's be honest, if we've come this far down the 'argument heirarchy' for growth and expansion, we know things are bad.

But their children tend to think and act as the parents did, especially when they are insulated from reality by wealth.

There's a good chance Brexit would not have happened if the vote was done today, simply because of old people dying off (most over 65 voted for, most under 35 voted against).

It does look like a lot of climate legislation is facing similar situations, where the boomer generation is voting opposite to younger generations.

In both cases it's frustrating because the younger generations are the ones that will have to deal with the consequences of laws they did not agree with.

Property and politics.

Property tends to go to descendants, but politics affect all.

… to their children who won’t have much use for said property because of how fucked up their situation has become as a direct consequence of how that property was earned in the first place …

You are either extremely misinformed about climate change, or are intentionally being melodramatic.

That’s exactly how many in that generation feel, let down & angry, which makes their actions easy to understand.

The wealth is skipping a generation. That would be a very strange age/role reversal.

> The children have no future. The old have accumulated ownership of pretty much everything.

This is in general a myth. If you look at millennials or gen-z, ownership at their age isn't any different from the boomer generation. And it's still the best time to be born in.

We can all agree that climate change is a problem to be solved, but "the old" can remember plenty of doomsday scenarios that never happened, including past predictions that global warming would destroy the world by year 2000.

In the meantime, activists that prevent people from going to work, or that destroy property, are just jerks IMO.

Yeah this is what I believe, I'm very young and I imagine that the parent post is talking about my generation but I cannot really stand with these people, they, for example, rally against nuclear energy, it just show how performative these protests are in reality, and how they do more harm than good. Also of course vandalizing properties has given them a certain reputation.

past predictions that global warming would destroy the world by year 2000

This is a bullshit conservative trope. I'm 53 and no such prediction was ever advanced as a basis for policymaking. Just because someone might have made such a hyperbolic prediction in a TV show or magazine doesn't mean it ever had widespread currency in the scientific or policy community.

Please stop poisoning the well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

The world has a long history of bad predictions. Search for example for the predictions made with the advent of the first Earth Day, 1970.

Some predictions were more accurate than others, which led to effective policies, so for example, thankfully, we still have an ozone layer and we haven't started a nuclear war yet.

Not sure what "poisoning the well" is supposed to mean here. I was replying to someone that predicts some sort of violent revolution. For what, I can only guess.

We have to walk away from the old ways, no doubt.

The fact that the old own much, much more than the young isn’t a bad thing—it’s evidence that the economy is a wealth-creation machine which works quite well. A 60 year old has been working 4x years longer than a 30 year old. The average dollar a 30 year old saved between 20-30 has, by the time they’re 30, grown for five years to ~$1.30 (assuming historical S&P returns), while the average dollar a 60 year old saved from 20-30 has grown for 35 years to ~$7.20. Any system where the old didn’t own much more than the young would be a nightmare.

> A generation with nothing to lose.

That’s what they said about millennials. Now the average millennial is 34, has kids and owns their home. Isn’t it just the pits when the system turns your would-be revolutionaries into homeowning parents with a stake in the success and stability of the system? Maybe it’s oppressing them through prosperity?

> Now the average millennial [...] owns their home

I found this suspect, and looked up some stats[0]. It's hard to tell exactly, since the age groups don't fall on generational boundaries. But it does seem like ~50% of millennials own a home.

However, the more concerning trend is that rates of home ownership have declined across all age groups since 2009[1]. In particular, the age of the average homeowner increased by 10 years between 2001 and 2019.

[0] https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/homeownership-rate-...

[1] https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/homeownership-rate-...

The homeownership rate was high in ‘09 because of the real estate bubble. Homeownership rates are fine from a historical perspective[0] and are trending up.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

For all the dissing on the Germans, let me point out that many countries use preventative detention in one form or another. This includes the USA. According to a book from Cambridge Press: "The federal government has the power to detain Americans and foreigners alike as suspected terrorists and the state and federal governments regularly use preventive detention against criminals."

If you have reliable evidence that someone intends to commit a crime, should you not act to prevent it?

In the case of climate protests: people blocking streets have caused a lot of disruption. They have provably prevented ambulances from reaching victims. More generally, they have impinged thousands of other people's lives in a variety of ways, sometimes seriously.

The protesters also haven't yet grasped the fact that their actions are counterproductive. Since these protests have become more frequent, support for the related causes has dropped significantly. The protester are idiots. All the more so when some of them are spotted in airports, hypocritically taking international flights to go on vacation.

Honestly, we've all had quite enough of them. If the police have evidence that they were planning further disruptions, support for preventative detention to avoid said disruptions is likely to be rather high...

> If you have reliable evidence that someone intends to commit a crime, should you not act to prevent it?

Define reliable. Define crime. Misdemeanors? Felonies? Violent felonies?

> The protesters also haven't yet grasped the fact that their actions are counterproductive.

"fact"

Well, that is a fact. According to polls Germans do not support their actions.

https://www.ndr.de/ndrfragt/Umfrage-Letzte-Generation-geht-M...

This has nothing to do with their protests being counter productive. Neither MLK nor the suffragettes had broad support when they protested either, still they had a lot of success

so, no it isn't a fact

How do you see them being productive? It’s not increased awareness of the public, because we hear now about climate change from every corner. It’s not the sense of urgency, as can be seen from the heated discussion about Heizungsgesetz. It is certainly neither any climate action, nor growing ratings of the Greens. So what exactly did they achieve besides alienating a significant part of German population and making our society more polarized on the climate change topic?

> How do you see them being productive?

What does it matter in this context? You claimed it being counter productive would be a fact. It's not on me to proof this in order to disprove your claim.

Anyways, there exists a study that shows a radical flank effect for the activists group. They also increased media attention to the climate emergency, whether or not it includes their form of protest (which is inherently linked to the climate emergency)

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