Wir üben keinen Druck auf unsere Mieter aus. Kein Mieter wird bei uns verdrängt. Das würde gegen unsere Werte verstoßen.
A quote by Ralf Spann the boss of Akelius, a private housing corporation in Berlin, who are known to intentionally shut down hot water and other amenities to get people to vacate their apartments.
Akelius is one of the corporations that is on the chopping block to be expropriated.
Berlin is finally thinking of fixing its totally and utterly broken website. That’s good news but a shame that we have had to use this monstrosity for the past ten years.
We were represented at PM Camp last week and here’s a blog post (in German) by Alicia, one of my team members about the way we work.
Berlin is instituting a rent cap which honestly is the only way the city will remain liveable for the majority of its inhabitants.
Whenever our kids are dismayed by somebody else, they come to us and say that there was either a human (ein Mensch!) or a kid (ein Kind!). No genders, no nothing.
Just like almost every public service in Berlin the pediatrician situation is absolute squalor. It’s impossible to find one who picks up the phone or takes on new patients.
We’ve had some bad incidents in the past with sketchy doctors because of this and now I’m trying to figure out why this is the way it is.
Every instance says “Dafür sind wir nicht zuständig.” and sends me on until I’ve closed the loop.
It’s not the first time that this happens. I’ve previously spent half an hour being sent in a loop between Polizei and Ordnungsamt. This is the way that Germany functions: nobody is responsible for anything and everybody in between can get fucked.
Corollary: if it is impossible to figure out why something is the way it is, it is also impossible to fix it.
I was arguing against Systems Theory today (a necessary evil when you live in Germany) which prompted the thought of searching for the conjunction of Bruno Latour and Niklas Luhmann. That led me to this gem.
It turns out that they met each other for a debate in 1996 in Bielefeld and Latour DESTROYED his opponent (full article).
Luhmann, as expected, failed to engage with the theme of the conference, Science and Technology Studies and didn’t come out of his bubble. The same bubble that he has managed to trap most of the German humanities in.
[Luhmann] only managed to address the theme of the conference—science and its sociological study—with half a sentence where he curtly asserted that science is an autopoietic subsystem of modern society.
An autopoietic subsystem, my ass. Latour quickly riposted into a frontal assault at the entirety of Luhmann-ism.
No, according to Latour, this theory didn’t have anything to offer to him and neither he concluded any of those gathered there. A quick perusal of the conference program should have sufficed to ascertain that the empirically obsessed STSers could not recover their objects in this theory. This may be bemoaned from the high vantage point of the Theory of Society as poor, theoretically “flat” sociology, nonetheless, Latour replied, this empirical Zoology of STS gives an account of this society as it is and not how it may appear from the distance of the chilling heights of systems theory.
Latour clarified that fundamentally, systems theory represents everything that he and his colleagues in science studies have been battling for 20 years—yes, really battle and not just criticize. The purification of science, the simplification of the social by a demarcation with its environment, Luhmann’s work as the embodiment of the “cognitive turn” in epistemology—for Latour these were the old buzzwords that had to miss what’s special about science: its materiality. And in doing so of course also what’s specific for modern society, the large technological networks.
Latour battling ‘the purification of science [and] the simplification of the social’, a true hero of science and society.
From a thread about whether it is possible or not to live in Berlin without a car (gasp!). This is what a normal odd day of mine looks like.
The car isn’t the problem or more like: having a car would be a problem. During those rush hours, doing the same journeys by car would take at least twice as long.
- 07:00 aufstehen, Kinder anziehen, KiTa brot machen
- 07:45 Lastenrad holen, noch was anziehen usw., Kinder überzeugen einzusteigen
- 08:10 Abfahrt zum Kita (andere Seite von Kreuzberg, 2.8km)
- 08:25 Kita Ankunft
- 08:40 Idealfall Abfahrt Kita zur Arbeit (Schöneberg, 7.7km)
- 09:10 Sitze auf dem Arbeitsplatz
- 16:30 Abfahrt Arbeit (weil ich sie gebracht habe muss ich sie jetzt nicht abholen, kann auch 16:00 sein oder 17:00)
- 16:45 Biomarkt wenn wir noch einkaufen brauchen
- 17:10 Abfahrt Biomarkt
- 17:25 spätestens wieder zu Hause
Den nächsten Tag tue ich das gleiche andersrum mit dem Zwilingsrad und hole die um 15:30 ab beim Kita. Ich fahre ungefähr 15km Rad pro Tag.
Ich arbeite 30 Stunden aber das ist nicht wegen des Autos oder so sondern weil ich meine Kinder auch ab und zu noch sehen möchte.
Mit Auto wären wir nicht schneller (eher viel langsamer weil Stau + Parkplatzsuche usw.) also das macht für unsere Stunden gar keinen Unterschied.
Set aside all of the obvious outcry, I haven’t seen a single argument yet that explains how encrypted communications are compatible with state power.
I listened to this and didn’t hear that explanation nor did I find many of the arguments against very convincing.
https://logbuch-netzpolitik.de/lnp302-wir-wollen-euch-nur-ein-bisschen-abkuehlen
A collective of the largest German YouTubers have just before the European elections launched a campaign against the CDU and it’s a joy to see.
The CDU which is usually fully ignorant when it comes to digital issues has taken this broadside seriously. That by itself was a huge mistake. Most serious institutions would and should brush off something coming from new media.
Whether this will have an effect is hugely unclear. The core CDU audience is disconnected and apathetic but they do get a lot of votes from other segments as well and there they could be slightly vulnerable. In any case, the series of fumbles that the CDU has embarked upon while trying to address this has only served to give the boycott movement wings.
What’s interesting about the YouTubers is that they break with the German institutional consensus which is white, male and old. That group of people has a certain set of opinions and interests which has made sure that Germany has become increasingly backward. The YouTubers are young, (judging by their names and handles) diverse and not all male. And most importantly they have reach and fewer entrenched interests.