Are you making a technical point of contention on a specific case, or broadly disagreeing? Germany’s social services are as expansive as they are expensive.

Things are pretty good here in Denmark. We rank higher than the U.S. in ease of doing business, and our economy is strong. This means good wages and low rates of poverty. Americans are surprised to learn that we don’t even have a minimum wage. It’s also very easy to fire people, unlike most of our European neighbours. On the other hand, we have strong social safety nets to catch people if they are fired, and give them enough time to find a new job. We also have universal healthcare, meaning no one is desperate to remain in a bad workplace to keep their health insurance. This levels the bargaining power between employers and employees, and results in much fairer workplaces and wages.

I think the best combination for prosperity is pretty clear: a strong, dynamic economy with low regulations and a strong work ethic; and an expansive social safety net paid for by high taxes. For the record, other nations I think are doing pretty well right now include Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, and Singapore. This is not to say those nations have no problems. Of course they do. I mean that in aggregate, when we look at the many factors which produce prosperous societies, these countries are doing well right now, and have positioned themselves to continue doing well into the future. I will also add that I think many places in the U.S. continue to be great places to live with excellent economic prospects. Say what you will about the president, but the U.S. is a huge and diverse place. It’s full of bright entrepreneurs.

The contention is that people want to leave in part because of high immigration. Germany is not like America. Everyone is entitled to generous social benefits. After many years of high rates of refugee admissions (especially following the Syrian Refugee Crisis), the national budget is becoming very difficult to balance. Taxes continue to rise for everyone, and services are harder to get. Even visiting the doctor can be very difficult now in many cities. Many GPs aren’t taking any new patients. Many young Germans argue that the social contract is broken. The state prioritises the welfare of new arrivals and the elderly, and ignores the needs of the young.

Of course there are also many other factors. Germany’s decision to prematurely shut down its nuclear reactors will go down in history as one of the worst political and strategic decisions in history. It caused electricity prices to skyrocket and has decimated Germany’s previously impressive manufacturing sectors. They also have cultural issues embracing technological efficiency improvements. Most government departments still run by fax machine (by law). Most paperwork must be handled physically. Most Germans still prefer cash. Etc.

Ultimately I agree with you directionally - provided Germany liberalises its immigration only for high earners. This has been the major contention. A very high number of immigrants are low or no skill, and cost the state an enormous amount. This is causing massive economic and social issues. If Germany halted all low/no skilled immigration, sentiment would improve for high skilled immigration. Young people might feel like the social contract were not being torn up.

Edit: the level of discussion here is worse than anything I have ever experienced on Reddit. All replies are some variation of “nuh uh.”

Today anon learned that men like to look at attractive women. What wonders will he learn tomorrow? Tune in next time… for… Dragon… Ball… Z!

By most accounts he spends most of his days living in a reinforced bunker surrounded by a very close group of trusted security. He is deeply paranoid after a lifetime of KGB work. He knows exactly how to get to someone like him, and he appears exceedingly good at anticipating potential attacks. His brutality and cunning appear to have worked so far. This is why you see people occasionally being murdered in very public fashion. It doesn’t matter if they actually crossed him. Suspicion is sufficient. He keeps everyone in a constant state of fear that every conversation they have is being recorded, because it is.

The only way things might get bette in Russia is when he dies, but the truth is, the Russian people accept this kind of authoritarianism. Russia has always had monarchs and dictators, and the Russian people practise an infamous brand of stoicism and nationalism. It’s very likely that they simply accept a new dictator after Putin. Russians are not revolutionaries at heart. They won’t fight civil wars to overthrow dictators. They don’t value freedom like we do.

Yes this is why democracy is messy. Everyone has a different preference for the pros and cons of policies.

A lot of Westerners look at dictatorships and authoritarian states and cannot comprehend why the citizens would accept such a fate. The answer is: food, safety, housing, and cultural and religious homogeneity. People don’t really care that much what the people in charge are doing as long as their life is good.

Hot take in 2026.

This really shouldn’t turn me on but here we are. What the fuck am I supposed to do with this boner, anon?

We lost the cultural appreciation for selflessness and duty. Caring for loved ones is hard work at times. Stressful. Maybe even thankless at times. But it’s incredibly fulfilling. That meaning is often worth more than the fleeting feeling of happiness we primarily seek out in the modern world. Giving to others is important for our psyche. Not in the abstract, like donating to a far-away charity, but in helping someone in your life. Children are a timeless way to find meaning in life. Yes it’s hard work, but damn do they put everything into perspective. If you don’t want kids, volunteer. Meet your neighbours and see if you can help them somehow. Pick up trash in your community. Run for local office.

Anon seeks meaning in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.

I’ve never been into his content but I really enjoyed his journey to build a better local LLM. Way more technical than I thought he was capable of. I identified with his downward spiral into madness on his journey to do something completely useless but super interesting.

Yes, but do not log out. If you do, you can’t log back in, and you can’t export. I’m paranoid so I still back up my encrypted db to cloud on a schedule.

Vaultwarden is FOSS (GPL).

It’s true re adding passwords while the server is offline, but my server runs 24x7 and it’s never down for more than a few minutes. If it goes down, I fix it. I also backup the encrypted DB regularly to cloud, so there is little risk of data loss. I am a very satisfied Vaultwarden user. Especially because it allows password sharing with my family. Everyone has an account.

Yeah I never got death threats on Reddit but I’ve had several on Lemmy. The last time I admitted this someone asked, “well what did you say?” As though death threats are okay if you hold the wrong political opinion.

For internet access Plex is by far the easiest. You can use Jellyfin but it can be a lot more effort and can be brittle. Tailscale might be a solution but if you want to share with friends it would mean giving them access to your Tailscale network. Then you’ve got reverse proxies like Nginx Reverse Proxy. This would require buying a domain and configuring something like Cloudflare too, plus port forwarding on your router. Tailscale offers a publically accessible domain now which is similar but you cannot configure the TLD. Still, you’re opening an internet accessible port for a FOSS application and this is far less secure unless you know what you’re doing.

I think this is the last hurdle with the arr setup: discoverability. Plex has tried to jam in something, but it’s far from good. They’re never going to produce a pirate watchlist, so it would have to fall to Jellyfin. What people are seeking is the Netflix experience of “curated” content, spoonfed, and instantly watchable.

For the record I do the same as you. I think the intentionality is a healthy barrier to mindless browsing and consumption, but once people are hooked, it’s hard to wean them off.

The alternative is gas, so I hope we can make nuclear cheaper. Projects are completed far faster in Asia, so perhaps we could learn from them. This is the issue which climate activists don’t seem to understand. There is no 100% renewable scenario right now. We’re decades away cost effective grid scale storage technology to smooth volatility. In the mean time we need something to keep the lights on and (with some rare exceptions like locations suitable for hydro) it’s going to be coal, gas, or nuclear. Nuclear is the cleanest of those, but I agree, there are challenges.

If people keep fighting against reducing energy bills, political sentiment is going to keep turning against green energy, and once we reach an inflection point in the EU (and we’re surprisingly close), there is going to be a wave of new coal and LNG projects all over Europe. Either we make electricity much cheaper RIGHT NOW, or we lose this political battle for a generation.

Rosatom controls about 14 % of global uranium mining output and they don’t hold any trade secrets on enrichment or fabrication. They are a non-issue, and if they ever became an issue, they could quickly be made a non-issue.

Most of the comments here do not understand how democracies work. The green transition has cost Europe hundreds of billions to date in just direct subsidies and investments. Hundreds of billions more in indirect costs. Voters were told it would result in lower energy bills, but bills continue to skyrocket all over Europe. So they feel lied to now. Unless politicians make energy prices considerably cheaper, fast, voters are going to vote for cheaper production methods: gas and nuclear. Nuclear is better for the environment so it would behoove us to get ahead of this. If activists somehow prevent nations from building nuclear, the victory will be entirely pyrrhic. Voters will kill any more green transition investment and go right back to what they know is cheaper.

For posterity, with more costs imputed (volatility, futures pricing, grid restructuring, storage, etc.), LNG is much cheaper than either solar or wind. Also no particulate pollution. In fact, if we were to go 100% renewables (solar and wind) or 100% nuclear, nuclear would be 4-5 times cheaper, and LNG would be up to 14 times cheaper.

Just google where nuclear fuel comes from and then think again, spoilers it’s russia.

Below are the 15 countries that exported the highest dollar value worth of natural uranium during 2024.

Kazakhstan: US$4.5 billion (48.8% of natural uranium exports)

Canada: $3.3 billion (35.6%)

United States: $963.2 million (10.4%)

Niger: $239.5 million (2.6%)

Ukraine: $78.3 million (0.8%)

South Africa: $58.6 million (0.63%)

France: $58.3 million (0.63%)

Russian Federation: $44.8 million (0.5%)

Germany: $4.4 million (0.05%)

Netherlands: $2.4 million (0.03%)

United Kingdom: $188,000 (0.002%)

Indonesia: $164,000 (0.002%)

Switzerland: $56,000 (0.0006%)

Israel: $44,000 (0.0005%)

Belgium: $5,000 (0.0001%)

Canada is a solid partner. Australia also produces a lot, but doesn’t export much (right now). The EU is Kazakhstan’s largest trading partner, and we have great trade relations with them.

Sourcing uranium is not now, nor will it ever be, a problem.