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Coronavirus

Merkel’s Husband Calls German No-Vaxxers “Lazy” And “Irrational”

The unusual public remarks by Germany's First Husband comes as the country faces a new wave of COVID-19 infections and trails European neighbors in vaccination rates.

A sheet at a protest that says VAXXED

An anti-Vaxx protest in Munich

Irene Caselli

TURIN — As Germany faces a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Angela Merkel has warned of a "highly dramatic" situation "that will surpass anything we have had before."

The sense of urgency of the German leader, who remains the country's Chancellor for a few more weeks, is apparently shared at home: In highly unusual public remarks, Merkel's husband, the acclaimed scientist Joachim Sauer, has lashed out at his fellow Germans who have refused to get vaccinated.

"It disturbs me greatly, more than anything else, that one-third of the German population are not open to the successes of science," he said in an interview published Tuesday in Italian daily La Stampa.


Having avoided the limelight for the past 15 years — he watched his wife's inauguration in 2005 on TV — Sauer has continued his work as a professor of physical and theoretical chemistry; and was in Italy for his appointment to the prestigious Turin Academy of Sciences.

Joachim Sauer, Merkel's husband, is a renowned chemist

Medium cose up of Joachim Sauer in a suit

Joachim Sauer, 72, has been married to Merkel since 1998

es.m.wikipedia.org

An imaginary "dictatorship"

When asked why he thought that Germans didn't want to get vaccinated, he said: "A small portion are lazy and indolent, too comfortable. Then there are those who don't do it because of ideology, for irrational reasons: as if a dictatorship were trying to demolish our free will."

Sauer also praised Italy's performance vis-a-vis the pandemic, saying that the stark images of death from the first wave may have motivated people. "In the United States there were governors of states that have denied COVID. This did not happen with us, we did not have a Bolsonaro, and yet we are in the same situation."

Germany is behind other EU states in the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines, with only 67% of the total population now fully vaccinated, compared to 81% in Portugal, 74% in Spain and 72% in Italy. It is still ahead of the average EU vaccine rate thanks also to countries with very low rates such as Bulgaria (24%) and Romania (35%).

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Ideas

Look At This Crap! The "Enshittification" Theory Of Why The Internet Is Broken

The term was coined by journalist Cory Doctorow to explain the fatal drift of major Internet platforms: if they were ever useful and user-friendly, they will inevitably end up being odious.

A photo of hands holding onto a smartphone

A person holding their smartphone

Gilles Lambert/ZUMA
Manuel Ligero

-Analysis-

The universe tends toward chaos. Ultimately, everything degenerates. These immutable laws are even more true of the Internet.

In the case of media platforms, everything you once thought was a good service will, sooner or later, disgust you. This trend has been given a name: enshittification. The term was coined by Canadian blogger and journalist Cory Doctorow to explain the inevitable drift of technological giants toward... well.

The explanation is in line with the most basic tenets of Marxism. All digital companies have investors (essentially the bourgeoisie, people who don't perform any work and take the lion's share of the profits), and these investors want to see the percentage of their gains grow year after year. This pushes companies to make decisions that affect the service they provide to their customers. Although they don't do it unwillingly, quite the opposite.

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Annoying customers is just another part of the business plan. Look at Netflix, for example. The streaming giant has long been riddling how to monetize shared Netflix accounts. Option 1: adding a premium option to its regular price. Next, it asked for verification through text messages. After that, it considered raising the total subscription price. It also mulled adding advertising to the mix, and so on. These endless maneuvers irritated its audience, even as the company has been unable to decide which way it wants to go. So, slowly but surely, we see it drifting toward enshittification.

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