That’s the neat thing about this: Since establishing the command structure requires everyone to agree, the bad actors can simply block everything until they get what they want. There’s no way that they would agree to such a command structure which avoids them

Ich frage mich ja echt, wie das weitergehen soll. Merz ist furchtbar unbeliebt und das zu Recht. Die CDU kackt in den Wahlumfragen weiter ab, die SPD ebenfalls. Beides leider sehr wohl verdient. Aber was ist dann spätestens 2029? Geht die CDU dann mit einem nochmal drei Jahre älteren Merz als Kanzlerkandidat in den Wahlkampf und er will bis 78 machen? Gibt es überhaupt irgendeine jüngere Nachwuchshoffnung in der CDU, die den Job als Kanzler machen könnte? Würde ein Friedrich Merz das überhaupt abgeben?

The USA used up a lot of their stockpiles in Iran. Bundeswehr wants to buy 400 missles which is more than the US produces in a year and the US did fire over 850 tomahawks on Iran:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_missile#Tactical_Tomahawk_(TACTOM)

Which means: There is no way that Trump will sell a yearly production run of Tomahawks to Germany before the US stockpiles are refilled. And that means that the Bundeswehr will not be getting their tomahawks in the next 5 years.

I like the idea, but if you think about it, it would take a major EU reform to work. In the current state with every country having its own veto an European army will not be able to be deployed anywhere. We had this one with Hungary being a Russian puppet under Orban. We didn’t manage to provide normal aid to Ukraine due to Orbans veto. An European army would face the same problems.

Achtung! Steuervermeidung ist nochmal etwas anderes als Steuerhinterziehung. Denn wenn wir über den Schaden von Steuerhinterziehung reden, geht es wirklich nur um Leute, die auf strafbarer Art und Weise ihre Steuern nicht bezahlen. Das ganze Thema Steuervermeidung ist nochmal eine ganze Runde krasser. Und gehört natürlich ebenfalls diskutiert. Es ist nicht in Ordnung, dass alle Großkonzerne irgendwo in Luxemburg sitzen und dort ihre Steuerlast drücken.

That’s actually quite a strange location to find a ukrainian naval drone. Lefkada is on the west coast of Greece:

Zum Glück ist das Wetter wieder schlechter geworden!

We have to be honest: Many people shouldn’t own dogs. Dogs shouldn’t be in small apartments while their owner is away at work. Dogs are social animals, they need company. Dogs shouldn’t be in an crowded environment where they have to pee in doorways, on cars or benches. Dogs need an environment where they can run freely and not only on a leash. If you can’t provide your dog with that, you shouldn’t buy one.

And if you buy one, you need to train it to ensure that the dog is not a danger to other people and will not annoy them by barking at everything everytime.

(the same applies to cats…)

It totally makes sense. If we want to steer our society to reduce CO2 emissions, we can’t afford companies doing multibillion dollar ad campaigns for CO2 emissions.

I would be so pissed if those football billionaires would destroy my internet everytime there is a game going on. And there is a game going on the whole weekend

The worst about this: It is not a response. The CDU government was planning this way before the iran war and is still doing this despite the oil price hike and the new geopolitical situation.

Ask the World Economic Forum or the Stockholm Environment Institute:

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/05/climate-change-economic-impact-incomes/

(and if you are honest, it totally makes sense that rich people produce an overproportional amount of CO2. They have the money. They are flying. They are consuming more. They have bigger houses and all those fancy Saunas, Whirlpools and second homes. Why are you questioning that?)

Let me ask a question: do you really think that changing the behaviour of the 1% richest people would change anything on the pollution problem ?

Yes, I really do think that changing the behaviour of those people who are producing 15% of global emissions will have an effect on global emissions.

There are two things: The amount of CO2 produced by private jets is not “near nothing”, it is quite significant and produced only by a small number of people. We need to get to net zero in order to save the planet and therefore we can’t afford a “it’s only a small amount” way of thinking. And we can already see how this behaviour of the super rich is tipping opinions against environmental protections. I’m sure you have seen this whole “Taylor Swift is flying everyday and we have to drink out of paper straws”-meme

Make your own? It’s really simple

I’ve started to see those cheaply made things in stores and at flea markets in the recent months. People have started selling them everywhere, so you are not safe when buying locally

The problem is that we are trying to solve climate change by putting a price on carbon emissions regardless of who is causing them and why. That is leading to a world where some rich asshole in his private jet is flying to Monaco to watch the Formula One, and other people can’t afford to heat their homes. That doesn’t work and the current backlash is exactly caused by that. You are forced into the office by those rich CEOs and their private jets and the gov is telling you to drive less and is increasing the taxes for your petrol.

What I wanted to say is that there are totally fine reasons to fly or move around, and reasons that are not so great and should maybe be avoided. Our current setup is not reflecting that because it’s simply based on your ability to pay.

That is a problem that is hard to solve. Many people do not need to move but want to move for reasons. You do not need to fly to Mallorca in order to get wasted on cheap beer. You do not need to fly to Paris in order to start a shopping spree. You do not need to fly to Barcelona to watch a soccer game or fly into Vienna to catch a Taylor Swift concert. People are doing that. They like it, but it’s totally okay if they are not able to use airplanes for that. It’s also okay if the business class is going back to relying on online calls and meetings like they did during COVID. There’s no reason for someone to fly to London just to present a power point.

But there are also reasons why people might want or need to fly, for example to visit their family in a far away country. And that is really hard to balance in our current setup because rich people will be able to fly to Mallorca to get wasted on champagne, while your poor migrant will not be able to afford to fly to Turkey to visit their grandma for the last time.

And this is so problematic. First of all, there’s really a chilling effect going on with putting your real identity to your online posts. I’m not sure if I would be posting on here if everybody could link my profile here to my real name. There is a reason why people are not discussing depression, drug use, or marital problems with their work colleagues or neighbors. And people really would not like if prospective employers could see everything they are writing online.

There’s also a chilling effect on political debate. You really do not want your home address being available to violent Neo-Nazis, Hamas supporters, Covid-deniers and other idiots. That will lead to harassment and this will lead to people stopping discussing certain topics.

I’ve seen a lot of people in my social circle switching over to Signal. Some groups have moved and some of my private chats have switched, too. That might depend on your social circle, but I see it in mine