Comment by TMWNN
1 year ago
>Heaving lived and worked in Germany for a few years, I realized that's the reason behind all the excessive bureaucracy and processes for everything: extensive ass covering. If something goes to shit under your watch then it's not your fault because you did everything by the book and you have the extensive paper trail to prove it.
I've heard it said that the idea that Germans are efficient is a myth. (The new Berlin airport is one example.)
Germans are, rather, *rule followers*.
How about we merge the two definitions: efficient rule followers. Which is great when the rules are okayish (see older German cars, highways, handicraft...) and abysmal when they're random (bureaucracy, forced optimizations solely for the yearly bonus...).
You are missing the cause for this: liability attaching to people. Germany is very good with looking for individuals to be liable.
>Germans are, rather, rule followers.
Which is very good when the rules are sane and up to date, and very bad when otherwise.
There are whole regions of the world where nobody follows any law,besides the absolute minimum for society to exist.no institutions, no state, no laws, no companys..it all merges into "family" which is a little bit of everything. Not ideal, not very german.
not arguing but .. in systems theory, "good" and "bad" are too simple to be useful. Systems with many parts, have balance, efficiency, productivity .. and also the opposite of those.. in large amounts across many interactions.. from a physics point of view "stability" is also very real. Changes in system characteristics come from the actions and interactions of many individual parts, each one can change, or each class can change.
All of this is important in describing and understanding complex systems. The "rule following" is not simply "good" or "bad" using this analysis framework.