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Comment by nearlyepic | Hacker News Reader

> this reflects an aspect of American culture that you can’t just erase.

Yeah, and that’s the problem. A whole country full of people belligerent enough to say “fuck you” to anyone who tells them “hey you probably shouldn’t blow your hand off”. What a wonderful place.

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But this is none of your business. I live in Germany, where everything is regulated by well meaning people. Going so far to regulate what you ought to say or to watch.

It is hellish. I don't recognize the country any more in which I was born and raised.

> But this is none of your business.

The culture described extends far into things that are my business, like being able to walk around without being shot.

I was referring to"hey you probably shouldn’t blow your hand off”. I am not against regulations per se, I am German after all.

But a sane discussion should be had how far this should go. Regulating things which are dangerous to the person taking a risk knowingly is over the top in my book.

> Going so far to regulate what you ought to say or to watch.

Native born German. Calling BS on that crap.

I recommend reading up on "freedom from" vs. "freedom to". Explains quite a lot of differences between the European tradition of ensuring people are "free from" an potentially oppressive state vs. the US tradition of "freedom to".

In each "freedom of speech" index I know, Germany fares better than the US, or Britain, or Australia. Or quite a lot of different countries tbh.

RSF World Press (lower is better): - Germany 14/180 - Britain 18/180 - Australia 33/180 - USA 64/180

Freedom House (higher is better): - Germany 95/100 - Britain 92/100 - Australia 95/100 - USA 84/100

Edit: Typo

No one actually believes their BS and I doubt you actually do either.

They use so many bullshit and mental gymnastics to "score" Germany well despite their appalling "free speech" laws. I think it's very fair to say anyone appealing to either of these index's isn't even attempting to argue in good faith.

How did that work out for Alex Pretti, the protesting nurse that was murdered by the Feds recently?

In Germany you will get arrested if you publicly talk about Gaza and Israel

Having had that exact discussion with someone in Alexanderplatz right in front of the police building, nope.

This is just BS. I had and saw many public discussion also on German Marktätze on this topic, some quite heated. Nobody was arrested or removed from their job or otherwise sanctioned. But of course people were disagreeing. The right to free speech is not the right to freedom from contradiction!

Can you cite that please? Theres more going on with a lot pf the Gaza/Israel stuff (that im not unsympathetic to) that can blur the lines somewhat

https://www.the-berliner.com/oyoun-cultural-centre-to-close-...

This article does not say someone was arrested because of a public talk about Gaza and Israel. A local government has cut funding to a local org because of a disagreement. Nobody was arrested.

One of the problems I have with the right wing is they literally just decry anything and everything that doesnt only benefit themselves and when they get in office they do exactly the same thing with the subtext being "Tough shit, now I get to wear the Boot"

What does that have to do with people being arrested?

To be fair, that'll happen in New York if you protest the internationally-illegal sale of real estate in Palestine taking place in a synagogue. Here's the event, a law was passed protecting religious institutions from protest (but was really for this).

https://theintercept.com/2026/05/11/real-estate-expo-israel-...

German here. The law as written actually permits most of the speech: As long as you avoid a number of banned phrases and don't voice explicit support for groups classified as terrorist organizations, your speech is protected - in theory.

In practice, wondrous things may start to happen already long before you reach that threshold, such as police forgetting their own laws, your venue, backup venue and second backup venue suddenly all deciding they cannot host you, politicians trying to fire you - or you suddenly realizing that you're unable to access any kind of bank account or credit card because the EU put you on a sanctions list (behind closed doors, without telling you, with no option to appeal).

But none of that has to do with overregulation - on the contrary, those measures are often in violation of the law and courts have frequently decided in favor of pro-palestinian activists and axed them.

I can't take these indexes seriously when Germany is about to outright ban an entire political party. The US takes the first amendment very seriously.

That "political party" is the modern-day Nazis.

Like, actual Nazis.

If you think Nazis should be given a seat at the political table, especially in Germany, then I don't think I can take you seriously.

Faring better than some other country doesn't mean its good.

Try calling up rt.com via a German phone network.

And calling our chancellor a liar will get your house searched.

If you are in the same insurance pool as me (state funded or otherwise) it is at least some of my business, yes?

I don't know when you were born but I'm pretty sure Germany was regulation capital of the world already back then and this is just your nostalgia bias speaking (also I agree with you Germany is currently way way overregulated but also outsiders have no way to really understand the degree of overregulation).

But also the US pretty much care too much when you for example try to blow your head off with drugs instead of a gun or explosives so the grass is not that green on the other side either.

The regulation from Europe is worse. They literally use satellite pictures to check and fine farmers..

No the regulation "from Europe" whatever that means is not worse, that's just the usual dumb anti-EU propaganda. If by that you perhaps mean checking EU agro subsidies against the actual size and use of declared fields, then that is not regulation, it's just checking the subsidies are not defrauded, which is a huge issue. Every farmer is free not to ask for the subsidies. But for most of the EU regs, the member country can choose how to implement them. Usually countries manage to not overburden their people with that. The German problem is homegrown.

HN is flooded with anti-Europe sentiment recently. I don't know how much of it is Americans genuinely believing or, or if it's astroturfing.

It's truly amazing how far the propaganda against the EU (for all its legitimate faults) has gone.

I wish you would have to life one with that bureaucratic nightmare / crony employment program that you put on your fellow human. I have no stronger curse.. The eu had one job - to protect europe, from war, from statesized companies like china and get it competitive again before the innovators take itall. It has failed in all fields.

...What?

I live in the EU. There is no war in the EU, that's surely a success by your own count. And it's cute to mention several "jobs" as one job. Perhaps you would like to narrow down your argument, if there is one.

Ukrainewar is a direct result of the change by trade policies. Libya, syria and algeria are barely stable. major industries are dying or migrating away, and the solution to this is firesales of smaller industries to incentivize "partners" to lower trade barriers and sell for a limited timemore from major industries.

The solution of choice in tech seems to be rent-seeking by institutions. The eu is dying and good riddance. Maybe its successor can be better.

Reality be the absolute and not a social construct at all. Either deal with it or become another USSR that tries to wing it while lying to itself to the bitter end.

You are completely wrong in everything you just wrote.

Well, it's a 60 day old account. Totally legit.

Fine farmers for what? Without context I have no idea whether this is a reasonable use of satellite pictures or not.

Depends which side of the wall you were born on…

Apparently, West...

Edit: before 1989.

> But this is none of your business. I live in Germany, where everything is regulated by well meaning people.

Assuming you haven't lived in the US I think you're severely underestimating some of the stupidity going on.

So let's say your house has a thatched roof in California where it's bone dry and hot. At that point, the person lighting the fireworks will still say it's none of your business. Even if it's illegal and every year houses burn down as a result.

I don't think you get how much of an 'I don't care about anyone else, because FREEDOM... Murica' mindset exists unless you've lived there

You wouldn't be allowed to have a thatched roof house in California specifically because of the fire risk.

And if someone wanted to and had a bunch of reasons why it was a good thing you would turn around and be all "but the law" and point to the fire risk.

Fine, bad example. The point being, people light fireworks in places with extreme fire risk. And don't you dare tell them they cannot. None of your business is the kind response

Let's say you don't live in a California. Say you live near the East coast somewhere, as 2/3rds of the country does.

Sure, but our economy stomps most East Coast states (hello, New York!) and we aren't neighbors of the confederacy.

A thatched roof?

Thatched roofs don't exist in CA.

Oh no we cannot allow plebs to do anything that has the possibility no matter how small of a bad outcome.

> So let's say your house has a thatched roof in California

You mean like a temporary shelter in woods or maybe it’s a translation issue?

> Assuming you haven't lived in the US I think you're severely underestimating some of the stupidity going on

Speaking of, having a thatched roof in a dry fire prone area would sort of fall in the same category.

Have you experienced Silvesterabend (New Year's Eve) in a major German city? It feels like a warzone. In the context of fireworks specifically, this image of Germany as an over-regulated nanny state feels particularly at odds with my experience of Germany.

I am sure they had all their permits and contingencies required perfectly done and everything was executed in perfect compliance.

Best fireworks show I’ve ever seen in my life was in the middle of the German ruhrgebiet, on a small hill overlooking a shallow valley full of villages, each one setting off a seemingly-infinite round of colour and sound for the hour or so, New Year’s Eve, early 2000’s…

It was a panoramic display of unregulation.

I'm fine with idiots blowing their own hands off, I just worry about wildfires.

It's still bad for emergency services if everyone does it on the same day.

They’ll just run triage and tend to people who are easier to fix first and leave the more suicidal ones for later.

that is until you can't have a hospital bed due to those idiots.

That has more to do with hospitals hyper-optimizing for profit. And a regular demand actually improves the situation here.

Is that the line for regulations you're okay with holding on to? If so you better start regulating how many beds each hospital has as well, if bed demand is the bar you must control bed supply.

of course in Germany hospital bed supplies are regulated by the local states via LKHG law

As is any rationally run state.

Is your point that the only rational model includes the government having fill control over healthcare and the medical industry?

Yes. I am.

Government is democratically elected by the people, therefore, they are the ones that can make decisions for the people.

Why healthcare specifically, and where so you draw the line? Are you okay with democratically elected officials making any decision for the people as they see fit?

Don’t they do that when they make laws?

Well that's effectively my point? Are you okay with elected officials having the power to write whatever law they wish simply because they were democratically elected?

Surely there must be a line and you aren't granted the elected body control to do literally whatever they want.

the line is the constitution

We were talking about the US here though. Its very different when the government already effectively controls healthcare as a whole, of course they would control or have a large say in hospital bed numbers, for example.

For better or worse the US healthcare system is largely private. If the government isn't running the hospitals or directly paying for all care they shouldn't be stipulating quotas for access to various kinds of care.

We couldn't get people to wear masks to reduce the spread and help keep beds open for all the other typical needs, why would they let harm from fireworks impede them?

It's funny because I read the parent comment and thought that was actually kinda cool.

Lots of things we do are really stupid from a purely productivity, health or safety perspective.

American's were probably wrong to oppose alcohol prohibition. They probably should ban motorbikes. Fireworks should be largely banned to members of the public. Pizza should be illegal. Etc..

Part of what makes a country a place you'd want to live is the fact they don't create an excess of rules and regulations to optimise for what's best on paper, but allow people to do stupid things and allow them to live the life they want to live and take the risks they want to take where risks are not too excessive.

Commercial fireworks are dangerous, but not that dangerous. It's inadvisable that someone would use them without proper safety training, and it probably makes sense to have some rules around selling them to try to limit use, but in reality this just isn't a big problem.

Obviously people who live on flight paths should be more careful.

Rules come from lawsuits.

When you can get sued, safety fences get put up, quite quickly.

America has very aggressive lawyers. We live in a country, where being stupid, can be financially rewarding.

The threat of getting sued only motivates people with something to lose. If we let lawsuits largely drive what the rules are, how do you govern people who are so poor they are "judgement-proof."

True, but this is how it actually works, in the US.

Lots of stuff is not anywhere close to ideal, but it is what it is.

people refusing to understand that, doesn't help. Change usually comes from people who first, understand and accept, then they know what to do, to actually make change, as opposed to tilting at windmills.

Beats the pants off "please sir, may I have some more" as seen in many other places

Nah, I’d rather beg for money than be run over by some dipshit driving a truck on swampers that’s 3 times as big as they’ll ever need. Oh, wait, in other countries you don’t have to beg and plead to receive healthcare.

Comes in handy when the government agents are rounding up your neighbors. Except when they direct that energy at the neighbors instead of the government agents.

In my experience, the cycling and native-plant gardening types of Minneapolis are the ones ready to throw the tear gas cans back, and the fireworks-loving Texans are salivating over the boots.

No it doesn’t. The reactionary people are the ones cheering on the people doing the rounding, as long as it’s against people they don’t like.

That’s the problem with the mindset - if it was genuinely anarchistic it would be better. Instead, it’s just privileged and focused on creating an out group.

It is, yes it is. You should leave immediately if you dislike what you found.

Americans are always funny,... being proud they can have one day a year where they can breath a highly toxic air created by others or are forced not to ventilate their house and spend their day with a >2000ppm CO2 headache/drowsiness (or from the other PoV, proud they can inflict this on fellow Americans, even better).

"And if you don't like this, you can just git out!"

All the while they're stripped of dignity in the eyes of people abroad, by their aggressive/genocidal government's foreign policy actions.

Aren’t people on this website supposed to be like, smart? If I wanted someone to tell me “if you don’t like it leave it” as if it’s an actual position worth arguing I could just go to the bar.

No, the issue is migrants.

Now vs 80s and the 90s.

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