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Comment by throwbadubadu | Hacker News Reader

> I never understood how the idea of HOAs became acceptable.

I do.. it is the canonization and highest wish of all the what we call a https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spie%C3%9Fb%C3%BCrger in Germany :D

"A Spießbürger is a derogatory term for a narrow-minded person who is characterized by mental immobility, pronounced conformity to social norms and aversion to changes in the usual living environment."

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To be fair, the Germans have a word for everything

Look, a man with a duck on his head

We Germans have a word for that: Quacksalberaufdekopfmann

To be fair, German form such words just by writing the whole sentence without any spaces or hyphens, like "Amanwithaduckonhishead"

Get the point, but no, actually not, we join nouns, not sentences ;) (but english does, too, just with spaces between?)

Further especially that word few germans could tell you why it is called like that:

Spieß is spear, so Spießbürger/Spießer is just a spear citizen, or a speary?! ;)

(One explanation is the medieval simple citizen that could not afford a better weapon than a simple spear. Not even sure if the only explanation attempt though..)

the funny thing is that a Spießbürger is someone who in english could be described as having a stick up their rear.

Yeah, but do not forget how we are even codifying quite narrow-minded views about how someone should build their house in Bauordnungen (building code). My parents had to sue to build their house with a pitched roof, even though one neighboring house already had the same. And do not get me started on Denkmalschutz (monument protection?) ...

Yea here the government removed a mural from a hostel facade because it 'disturbed' the monument protected building adjacent to it.

https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2024/04/berlin-hostel-...

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