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Eike Pierstorff

@eikepierstorff.bsky.social
86 followers 75 following 541 posts

I do not know how to make a cogent argument in 300 characters and don't really like tit-for-tat, so I am not sure what I am doing here. Also I am a lefty who likes dogs and science and home cooked food.

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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
No, it is not because we shut down nuclear power. Our minister of the economy is a fossil fuel lobbyist, our chancellor a former (?) Blackrock employee, and Germany economy depends on a car industry that has proven incapable of building a competitive electric car. Broadly, that is why.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Darf ich das mit Geld bezahlen, das nicht wirklich Geld ist, sondern von mir gedruckt? Erstmals?
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Every 20th of July, Germany honours, as examples of "the better Germany", the guys who literally planted a bomb for the head of state, so opposition to political violence does not have to be absolute but can be measured in degrees of separation to Adolf Hitler. Still, better don't shoot people.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
German writer Kurt Tucholsky observed the same about 100 years ago. In his view the leading "no" serves to dismiss whatever has been said previously, so one get can their own opinion in without having to engage with the opinion of others. Humans probably haven't changed much in the last 100 years.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
This seems to be missing an Avi Loeb joke.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
I thought the ending was when we discovered we are but the germs in the giant Universe-shark, and the sea sharks are the antibodies that are out to get us.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Nothing new under the sun. Or under the sea, as it were.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
A big shark that is made from a lot of tiny sharks for more heads (but then that might just be piranhas). Or you do "The Return of Joseph Heiter - The Sharkoid Centipede" (although technically no "pede" w/o legs, but who is counting).
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Social security will help with that, but only after close relatives have exhausted their funds. General healthcare offers a lot more democratic access, though - not as good as high end private healthcare in the US, but at a decent level accessible for everyone. Comparing systems is difficult.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
I'm not in disbelief and I am German. German healthcare only still works because long term care was separated out into a different system that pays completely insufficient lump sums. Copay for a nursing home is around 3000 Euro per month, which is more than the median net salary.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
I do (barely) remember there were protests when the paper id was replaced with plastic that embedded the contained information in machine readable form, but I think that is as far as opposition to id cards in Germany ever got.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
the discussion about voter id in the US, where the idea is to make an id mandatory without making it easy or at all possible to obtain one, which is a measure to exclude people). Since I have to identify myself on many occasions anyway, it's more a timesaver than anything else.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Germany has the "Personalausweis", mandatory (the Nazis made it so which is not great advertising) to own, but (mostly) not to carry. Does not look like an instrument of oppression, but then I am so used to it I wouldn't know. If you mandate an id card you should make it easy to get one (that's
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
There is no mystery here. Per conservative ideology, the world is created via an act of will by a person with a penis. Contradicting this by claiming that there are things such as facts or science or objective reality makes you in their eyes automatically a left wing radical.
Screenshot of a NYT article stating that researcher struggle to explain an alleged left wing bias in AI chatbots.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
I am pretty sure my dog's autobiography will be titled "I wanted food and all they gave me was love".
Picture of a mid sized blonde dog staring upwards in expectation of some food that may or may not come.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
That's the thing, it is not particularly MCU-ish. And while it's not particularly subtle, as someone who is in treatment himself there was something cathartic in the way the movie explained depression by way of metaphor (even if the metaphor was sometimes dished out with a ladle).
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
Lest you think you are the only ones, the German "Grundgesetz" has literally no requirements for the office of chancellor (head of government), not even minimum age or citizenship. It just says they have to be elected (by the parliament; we do not get to vote on our executive).
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
Wenn ich einen Tipp geben müsste würde ich vermuten, dass Dobrindt den Georg Maaßen vorschlägt.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
Zum Thema KTF vermute ich, dass die Regierung EU-Strafzahlungen mittelfristig nicht für ein Problem hält, weil sie (wohl mit Recht) darauf setzt, dass die Rechtsaußen-Fraktionen Klimaschutz auch auf EU-Ebene abschaffen werden und eventuelle Haushaltsfolgen sich damit erledigen.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Per the article, "Letters and personal gifts under US$100 will still technically be exempt from tariffs after Friday but some services have suspended all US postage of goods and others have suspended postage to the US entirely", so the exemption may not always help.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Ein Projekt zur Beschimpfung von Hans-Georg Maaßen finde ich gut. Haben die noch Kapazitäten, um andere Rechtsextreme zu beschimpfen? Ich hätte Vorschläge.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
I talk to tech support of various companies a lot, so going by experience I'd say there is a decent chance that a random relative knows more about their technology than the help desk (not even joking, first line support usually is not tech savy but reads from a script). So maybe they're just honest.
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Reposted by Eike Pierstorff
Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 27/08/2025
Noem and Trump's actions are a recipe for disaster🚨 Join us in standing up against Noem and Trump in the name of the Katrina Declaration dissenters — add your name to our Statement of Solidarity and Support ⬇️ www.standupforscience.net/katrina-decl...
Graphic highlighting the suspension of FEMA staff who criticized Trump, featuring DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in 'Make America Great Again' hat with 'America' crossed out to say 'Disasters'.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
president routinely brags about passing a dementia test (which by itself puts the test result into question). If that is what DEI previously managed to prevent, then it is a very powerful concept indeed.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Looking at this from the outside, your defense secretary is an abusive alcoholic who was fired from a previous job of destroying health insurance for vets for passing out in a strip club, health secretary is a carrion eating addict who cited brain damage as reason not to pay alimony and your
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
and that (denouncing the very idea instead of just granting yourself an exception) is new IMO.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
Until recently, I would have agreed with you and Zach. If the stuff in the treaties/laws would go without saying, we would not need them in the first place, so some violations are to be expected. But now major backers of the system pull out and go for "let might (not laws) make right"
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Not a general solution, but for your own relief you should be able to build a browser extension for a user style sheet that lowercases elements on a given page.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
I am really triggered by the fact that this is neither alphabetical nor chronological. It looks like word salad made from names.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
expressed goal of provoking other EU countries into doing the same. That at the same time they respect the Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods by Sea or whatever is not as such a sign of respect for international law, that's just a law that hasn't been in their way yet.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
But surely "there is so much of it that they haven't gotten around to violate all of it" is not a useful definition of "working", is it? The point of law would be that it prevails when being tested. My government is currently breaking European treaties in an act of performative racism with the
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Did somebody coax you into this?
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
Actually what is throwing me off is e.g. that the head of government in my country celebrates violations of international law and advocates it should be replaced by transactional relationships. Insisting that international law will persist when nobody defends it is also not an interesting take.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
Hitler evaded taxes for many years, until Ludwig Mirre (the president of the Munich tax authority) removed him from the tax register in 1934 on account of being the Führer, which also settled the outstanding debt (Mirre got a promotion and a bonus payment in return).
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
"Hitler paid church taxes and Stalin went to a seminary, therefore god is a bad person and we need to be atheists". Decades later this still annoys me. Being an atheist is saying god does not exist and meaning it, that is all (also Hitler did not pay taxes at all).
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Reposted by Eike Pierstorff
Jan-Werner Mueller @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
"The sabotaging of what normally is a consensual procedure is a test-run for prying away ever more members of the center-right from what remains of Angela Merkel’s legacy through US-style culture war."
project-syndicate.org
Right-Wing Culture Warfare Comes to Germany
Jan-Werner Mueller worries that the governing Christian Democrats is beginning to engage in opportunistic norm-breaking.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
Und das auch noch in einer Umgebung, in der man kaum von Dingen wie einer funktionierenden Internetverbindung abgelenkt wird.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
If you want to go to a deeper circle of hell, look at assistive devices designed by able bodied people. Whenever a tech bro says "this would be great for disabled access" they are looking to offload something that has no real life use case.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
I know that one - 1) Wir werden alle sterben, 2) leben, so gut es geht, 3) auf einen friedlichen Tod, 4) nicht wirklich.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
For some reason I expected a pasta shape to be named after Fermi, and now I wonder what that would look like (probably something really short?).
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
If that already bothers you, don't discuss movie adaptations of comic books, because the second or third sentence will invariably be somebody from the school of Marvel hermeneutics declaring "In reality (sic) [character xyz] is a white guy!"
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Nicht so schlimm für uns, aber Leute die sowas nicht mit eigenen Mitteln überbrücken können, sind bei sowas aufgeschmissen. Und das bei Beträgen, die selbst im besten Fall nicht ausreichen.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Nicht nur Studierende. Menschen die auf die Pflegeversicherung angewiesen sind werden zunächst "nach Aktenlage" eingestuft. Nach einer Hirnblutung die sie gelähmt zurück liess, hatte es bei meiner Frau sechs Monate bis zu einer Begutachtung gedauert, bis dahin war sie Pflegegrad 3.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
Ah yes, the first Matrix, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. I must say though, the current version feels like an overcorrection.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
I agree at least that raising kids with little social media access makes healthier kids, especially if the alternatives involve social interaction and sports, because that stops the kids being raised on really weird conspiracies (that late stage capitalism is out to get you is at least not crazy).
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
My acquaintances are more prone to left wing conspiracy theories, but child care was always a big part of this. Many of them moved to other countries where the state is less involved in education (because capitalist education is evil and all of that). And while much of it is silly,
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Reposted by Eike Pierstorff
Homo heidelbergensis @staudner.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
Bluesky do your magic. I found this chain on 8.8.25 on the ascent to the Col de la Bonnette in the Alps. A pet name is engraved on the side. Anyone who knows it will get it back.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
"Wenn man Demokraten vor Faschisten beschützt werden Faschisten zu Terroristen, aber nicht umgekehrt, deswegen darf man das nicht". Die Unverschämtheit dieses Arguments ist atemberaubend.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
That's probably why The Eagle is such a great poem, because he removed everything from it except for the eagle.
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Eike Pierstorff @eikepierstorff.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
summarisch abkanzeln und beschimpfen zu können (QED). Konservative bekämpften die Postmoderne wegen der Befürchtung von Frauenrechten, und Feministinnen an der HUB waren eher marxistisch und hatten Angst, dass das von wirtschaftlicher Gleichstellung ablenke die als Hauptziel gesehen wurde.
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