Patrick Klinik (he/him)

I don't know why so many Americans have this idea that Germans all feel guilty about WWII. I don't know anyone my generation or even my parents' generation who feels this way. I think this is a story that Americans are telling themselves. What is true is that at least the Germans I know feel a responsibility to make sure what happened in Nazi Germany doesn't happen again, not here, and not anywhere else. I certainly do. This is why we are scared by what we see happening in the United States. The concentration of power, the streamlining of opinions, the normalization of evil, and the populism to excuse it. These are all warning signs we were taught to recognize. Americans have this idea that the Holocaust happened in Germany because something is especially wrong with Germans. We're just somehow especially evil. This is why the bad guys in Hollywood movies are always Germans. This is why they make jokes about our supposedly military sounding language. I strongly disagree. What happened in Germany could have happened anywhere. It's just that Hitler was the first to exploit this weakness. He was a master of mass manipulation (probably strongly influenced by Le Bon's "The Crowd" -- worth a read if you don't know it). Now we have new masters of mass manipulation. And of course Germans worry about it. Don't confuse what we feel is our responsibility with guilt. Yes, ugh, "responsibility". That sounds terribly German, doesn't it. I'm sure you read this wiz a Schermen eksent. No, I'm not proud to be German. Why would I? I didn't do anything for it, I just happen to have been born to two Germans. But I am glad I am German because all things considered it's a good country. But if it was possible to just identify as Earthling and not belong to any country, that's what I'd want to be.

@slurpdurp9 @jasonhickel The argument isn’t about personal expertise—it’s about ecology’s connection to physics. If you can argue how ecology is independent of it, I’m happy to hear it. Dismissing my point without engagement doesn’t strengthen your case.

There is a strange idea in some environmentalist circles that human population is the main cause of ecological breakdown, and that humans have an *intrinsically* negative impact on ecosystems. Both claims are incorrect. First, human ecological impact is entirely a function of the system of production and provisioning. It depends on what is being produced, under what conditions, and how the yields of production are distributed. For instance, an economy that uses mostly public transit, renewable energy, multi-unit housing and plant-based protein can meet human needs with a fraction of the impact of an economy that produces a lot of SUVs, fossil fuels, mansions and industrial beef, and which allocates a bunch of totally unnecessary production to service the fantasies of overconsuming elites. Remember, we know it is possible to provide decent living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people with 30% of current global energy and material use, by ensuring efficient technologies and focusing production on socially necessary goods and services. That much is fairly straightforward. But one might say that, even so, every person will always have some negative impact. This too is incorrect. Again, it depends entirely on the production system, and specifically, what people are mobilized to do. Under capitalism, labour is mobilized overwhelmingly to produce things that are profitable to capital. But labour could just as easily be mobilized instead for regeneration. Using straightforward public finance mechanisms, we can fund massive programmes to reforest barren lands, regenerate degraded ecosystems, restore biodiversity, advance agroecological methods, etc. Under these conditions, it is possible for societies to not only have minimal negative impact on ecology, but to have a net-positive impact, actively improving ecological indicators. People buy into the myth of the intrinsic destructiveness of humans because we have come to take capitalism for granted. But it is 100% possible to organize production and labour differently. Under capitalism, we are compelled to produce whatever is most profitable to capital, even if it is destructive to humans and nature. Under conditions of economic democracy, we can produce what we know is necessary for well-being and ecology.

@elonmusk Assuming that half “democrats” and half “republicans” constitute a balance

𝕏 is the most balanced platform in the world!

@MaralSalmassi Don’t see how the “leaked” tweets and chats you present give credence to your claims (although I could not read one of them since it is only in Arabic without translation).

Despite claims made by the German press, Taleb Al Abdulmohsen is not an ex-Muslim atheist, nor is he a fan of the AfD or Elon Musk. While he may have spread this misinformation himself, it aligns with the practice of Taqqiye, an Islamic doctrine that permits lying and deception to advance Islamic objectives. In reality, he is a radical Shia Muslim, as evidenced by his name and numerous tweets and chat leaks circulating on Arabic-speaking platforms like X. Disturbingly, his plans to carry out mass killings of Germans were brought to the attention of German authorities by a Saudi woman. Tragically, the police ignored her warnings. The links are added in the thread. #magdeburg #Maagdenburg

@sciencewtg @skdh “Do ideas and rhetoric foundational to many DEI trainings foster pluralistic inclusiveness, or […]”: Das Ziel von DEI ist nicht “pluralistic inclusiveness”, sondern Gerechtigkeit. Macht soll aktiv ausgeglichen werden. Klar, dass das für viele konfrontierend ist.

DEI Rapidly Loses Popularity Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have been one of the most divisive agendas of the Biden administration and almost certainly contributed to Trump winning the election. These initiatives, which spread in both public and private U.S. institutions, included practices such as training supposed to alleviate racial biases (though probably doing the exact opposite) and dedicated programs for hiring people of minorities, not to mention a lot of virtue-signalling about all that. DEI has been faltering in academia since some U.S. states, like Utah, passed laws that required scaling these initiatives back, and other universities followed voluntarily, like the University of Missouri at Columbia, which dissolved its DEI center in the summer. Private industry has now seen the tide turning: Ford, Lowes, and Walmart all recently announced they will roll back their DEI efforts. Meanwhile, investors close to incoming president Trump are creating an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that excludes companies deemed to have reduced value because they choose DEI over meritocracy. The new fund which some have dubbed “anti-woke” most prominently excludes Starbucks. Does DEI alleviate racial biases?: networkcontagion.us/wp-content/upl… Utah law: sltrib.com/news/education… University of Missouri DEI center: insidehighered.com/news/diversity…

@NJ_ElT @YourAnonTV It’s not either or

@YourAnonTV So do guns kill people? Or is it sick people that kill people? - asking for a friend

🚨BREAKING: A car has struck a christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany. Dozens of casualties reported ❗️WARNING: Graphic footage❗️

@ziontree Part of the transition is for people to adapt their demands to availability.

“No willpower in the world can override the basic rules of physics, not even Dr. Robert Habeck.” - Ebba Busch, Swedish Deputy PM & Minister for Energy

@Anonymous00708 Landesverräter?

DUGINS WILLIGE VOLLSTRECKER‼️ #Chrupalla will raus aus der #NATO + verkündet Ruzzlands Sieg über die 🇺🇦 #Ukraine #Höcke will raus aus der EU + träumt von einer "Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft von Lissabon bis Wladiwostok" wie Faschist Dugin LANDESVERRÄTER AfD! EKELHAFT! #fckafd #OpAfD

@JohnStossel @Greenpeace Some of the people in this video are so cynical I almost feel sorry for them

Plastic recycling is a “dead-end street." That quote…unbelievably…is from @Greenpeace. In my new video, we debunk the recycling religion.

@Schuldensuehner That’s barely news then

Good Morning from #Germany, where electricity prices are spiking again. Cloudy weather is limiting solar power generation, and a lack of wind is reducing output from wind turbines.

🧵The reason the talks on plastics collapsed is the same reason there was strong push back on transitioning away from fossil fuels at the latest climate COP. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/… @suspol @fossiltreaty

@RealTadzioM @JCNiklas Ah, ich habe von den Streiks bisher nichts mitbekommen. Super Beispiel, danke! Ich hatte vor ein paar Wochen ein Gespräch mit meiner Familie und konnte sie zum Nachdenken bringen, dass Fabriken um jeden Preis zu erhalten im Gesamtzusammenhang vllt nicht das Allerwichtigste ist.

@KlinikPatrick @JCNiklas die streiks kämpfen ja am ende für das recht, weiter produzieren zu dürfen, und hängen am wachstum von vw. trotzdem feiern alle linke diese kämpfe jetzt hart ab.

Vorwärts nimmer, rückwärts immer: die räumliche Logik des #Kollaps "Strategischer Rückzug", oder: Was passiert mit einer Gesellschaft, deren "Richtung" sich ändert - nicht mehr "upwards and onwards", sondern "back to basics"? #Verdrängungsgesellschaft steadyhq.com/de/friedliches…

@RealTadzioM @JCNiklas VW?

@KlinikPatrick @JCNiklas Dito bei #VW

@NewHorizonCH Danke für den Link, diesen Rat kannte ich nicht. Etwas über wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit habe ich nicht gesehen.

@KlinikPatrick Das stimmt so nicht. Russland wurde eine enge zusammenarbeit angeboten. de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO-Russ…

„Heute geht es nicht mehr um Sicherheit mit Russland, sondern vor Russland und das geht nur gegen Russland“ ( General a.D. Klaus Naumann, Generalinspekteur der Bundeswehr 1991-1996 und Chairman NATO Military Committee 1996 - 1999)

@CarloMasala1 @AuswaertigesAmt @BMVg_Bundeswehr Insgesamt teile ich diese Interpretation überhaupt nicht. Russland wurde lediglich die Teilnahme am Kapitalismus angeboten. Viele der durch den Kapitalismus benachteiligten Länder des globalen Südens würden uns ähnlich aggressiv begegnen, wenn sie dieselbe (Atom)Macht hätten.

Sinngemäß. Es war immer die Politik des @AuswaertigesAmt und des @BMVg_Bundeswehr Russland eng einzubinden. Deshalb haben wir den Russen immer und zum Teil überflüssige Zugeständnisse gemacht.

@RealTadzioM @99blackbaloons Maybe read some William Rees? I can recommend his book chapter “Why Large Cities Won’t Survive the Twenty-First Century”. The earth’s carrying capacity is limited. Ecological footprint per individual is always >0. Hence, there’s a number of ppl that constitutes overpopulation.

I'm a big fan of @99blackbaloons's work on #collapse. But on the question of "overpopulation", he's way off: "The usual argument is that the problem is not all humans, but only the rich humans. As a biologist I can tell you this argument is invalid." 1/x tsakraklides.com/2024/11/27/why…