Germany's Freefall

Evaluating the System

How did I come up with the idea for writing this book? It will probably not sell well because people love positive news. A popular saying is: “The bearer of bad news will be shot!” The author must “somehow” be able to evaluate the systems around him and simultaneously be sure of the truth of these claims. That’s arrogance, too, isn’t it?

I evaluate the facts here using the laws of nature (see chapter Physics, Technology and Math) When you try to violate these laws, things will go wrong. It’s therefore not arrogant, but pragmatic to use these. Natural laws, to be specific, don’t care about politics. They hold true for all social systems, democracy and dictatorship alike. Incidentally, many laws, rules and regulations are based on the very laws of nature.

Using electric scooters as an example, which have since been approved for road use, I would like to demonstrate the manner used to evaluate systems: First, these must be examined carefully. The center of gravity of a scooter is high and its wheelbase short. Furthermore, systems should be transferable as well: We know from bicycles that when you pull the front brake – which is most effective – you’ll roll over. This is where geometry and physics play an important role. A concrete evaluation is possible when you calculate things to make them analogous: deceleration is at 3.9 m/s2. A bicycle brakes almost twice as well at 6-7 m/s2. The conclusion is that e-scooters are unsuitable to current traffic conditions.

So it’s of little use that these scooters are regarded as “innovative” and that you want to save the world with them. They were approved for road use despite that fact that they brake much worse than other means of transport and, therefore, do not correspond to the state of the art. By the way, motor-driven scooters existed 100 years ago already. But that’s no argument: Back then the brakes in all means of transport were miserable by today’s standards. Bicycles had “stamp brakes”. Today they have disc brakes, which are partially as good as motorcycle brakes.

In order to evaluate systems (We do this all the time: Is it good? Is it bad?), the ability or art of drawing a plausible conclusion with only limited available information and time is important. It’s called “heuristics”.

All arguments are essential when making an evaluation, especially those that are unpleasant – those are the most important.

They require you to consider how to refute them.²

Even texts without information (these do exist) provide clues: Years ago I stumbled across a newspaper article in which a millionaire reported on an airport and its importance. If you looked for any supporting evidence in the article, you would not discover a single argument on the entire half page. That made me wonder: half a page of text without facts and only assertions. That was an indication of his personal stake in the matter, otherwise he wouldn’t have written the article in the first place. If you did your research, you would’ve discovered how the wind was actually blowing: The author was a pilot and owned a small airline with business jets stationed at a different airport that was scheduled to be closed because Russian oligarchs didn’t want another airport in their vicinity in order to be able to fly more convenient to them.

Many things (unfortunately) you “just” have to know. But if you have to know something, you can’t know that you have to know it: If you don’t know, for example, that things like “pyrophytes” exist and that they are particularly commonplace in Australia, you can’t get the idea of finding out about them on the Internet. More on this later.

If someone tries to make knee pads from carbon-fiber reinforced plastic, you have to know that this material is “impact sensitive”. You also have to know that the argument stating that carbon fibers are “stable” is a nonsensical argument because the colloquial word “stable” is unknown in the world of technology. Definitions like “tensile strength”, “pressure resistance” or “impact resistance” exist, but not “stable”. If someone uses it in an argument, you can thus conclude that this person knows next to nothing about technology.

Millions are being invested in “innovative” aircraft having tiny engines, but the engines in commercial aircraft are becoming bigger and bigger. “Propulsion efficiency” is describing the physics behind it. You don’t need to understand that because to do so you must’ve studied the subject. Stated more simply: Everyone (Boeing and Airbus) has been building larger and larger engines for decades now. Suddenly, someone comes along who uses mini engines and wants to power these electrically. Is somebody smarter than the rest of the world?

Statements made by people have to be seen in context: A German chancellor once declared “one does not spy among friends” when accusing the NSA of espionage. But you have to know: Twenty-three years earlier, they had bought a new (French) telephone system which recorded all the telephone conversations of the German government and the State Department (using a so-called “backdoor”). Chancellor Helmut Kohl freaked out in that meeting on a friday afternoon. The consequence to be drawn from this is that statements like Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “wir schaffen das” (“we can do it”) cause bellyaches because one apparently just wants to sit out the problems and never get to their root cause.

Sometimes one comparison suffices: If two things must look the same but don’t, then an error must be involved.

Nowadays, making assessments is more difficult because everything is international. One of the most difficult questions in this regard is how much sense does it make to do something when all your neighbors don’t do it.

One indication of the validity of arguments is also given by examining how things were done in the past and why things were done this way. Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Waldorf Schools, was consistently against the spraying of pesticides. During his lifetime, selective toxic agents did not exist. Heavy metals were used, which contaminated the soil, as they cannot be broken down chemically. At the same time, vegetables had themselves contained many more natural stomach poisons (cf. Toxins in Food), which have been bred out long since then. Thus, 100 years ago he was correct in rejecting the use of pesticides. The question is to what extent this can be transferred to the present day.

One therefore needs a neutral comparison to evaluate

whether and how progress or even any regression looks like.

The situation is similar when it comes to technical systems: A hydrogen car is good if liquid hydrogen is available. Hydrogen propulsion was propagated 35 years ago. At the time, energy seemed to be readily available in unlimited quantities through nuclear power. But times have changed. Japan is taking the path of nuclear power and is therefore promoting electric propulsion.

Electric cars are a wonderful means of transport in Sweden and Norway. There, traffic is almost CO2-free because plenty of nuclear and hydroelectric power is available. Now the question arises whether these conditions can be transferred onto a German context.

Last but not least, it’s worth examining the sense of reality people apply to cope with their tasks: Someone who is neither able to make frigates swim, airplanes fly nor guns shoot is certainly not suited to master any future challenges.

Opinion versus Facts

Freedom of expression is a fundamental right in any democracy. So, you may be of the opinion that when you drink two beers and then two more that this totals three. Opinions thus have nothing to do with facts. Nevertheless, when it comes to technical matters, people often argue: “That's your opinion, mine’s different!” This is a confusion of terms: Most of the time physics is at fault: If you can demonstrate (usually with mathematics) that something does not work, you can have as many opinions as you want: They are irrelevant.

The Other Point of View

Germany is considered a “high-tech-country”. Everyone has their own view of things, even the author because he is an engineer, and every profession has its own particular point of view. When a non-engineer “stumbles” over a press release reporting that something was not working or that the matter is 13 years behind schedule, then he will simply accept it. In particular, he can’t evaluate it – how could he anyway?

Then there are those people who want to know what contributed to the failure or the exploding costs because the advantage of mistakes normally is that you can learn from them – both your own and other’s. Nothing is more stupid than repeating a mistake. Unfortunately, it is not possible to learn anything nowadays most of the time because college taught you how you would have done it the right way; or you learned it during the course of your career. The fact is: high-tech is being touted everywhere, but grave mistakes are being made when it comes to the fundamentals. This is a cause for concern because mistakes in the fundamentals are, above all, one thing: extremely expensive.

That took its toll on my former employer: wherever your looked, all you heard about were the losses running into the millions. A lot of money had been spent on advertising. Top-level positions were filled by people who distinguished themselves with their incompetence and who had fallen for “pied pipers” who had sold them their visions. Slogans had been bantered about on how great the company was doing and how great its products were. Critics were sidelined: “We have the Bavarian state as guarantor – nothing can happen to us”, they declared. In hindsight, the company failed because of the sum of all the little things. A few days before the insolvency, the company wanted to rivet 0.8 mm sheet steel to the (aluminum) wings, as the torsional stiffness³ of these wings had proven to be insufficient. Problems were known long beforehand, but had been swept under the carpet over the years, and none had been solved at the root. People had just “tinkered” with the symptoms. In the end, everything converged upon itself.

German politics is nothing more than a “flashback”.

Statistics

“Don't believe any statistics you haven't faked yourself” – is the consensus of many people who don’t have a high opinion of statistics. This isn’t surprising since statistics is a branch of mathematics and not very much appreciated. You are more likely to reject what you do not understand. This is human nature. At the same time, you search for arguments in favor of this attitude in order to confirm your own personal prejudices. That, too, is human, but not effective.

However, this doesn’t make any sense because statistics create facts that can be used as evidence. On the contrary, in today’s society you are surrounded by statistics for any items because these are made of materials backed by statistics used to determine their material properties.

The validity of DNA expert opinions is pure statistics. Although a match between two DNA samples can thus never be 100%, it is on the order of 99.999995%, depending on the case; or a probability of 1 in 20 million. When you reject statistical evidence and wish to “argue” polemically, as at the beginning of this chapter, you then become inevitably in favor of abolishing DNA evidence and releasing sex offenders in particular. Does anyone really want that?

All scientific studies must be evaluated statistically. This is necessary to demonstrate to what extent the results of the study yield any valid results. When a study reveals a statistically significant result, this means that the result is not random but can instead be taken as “evidence”.

In the introduction to one of his books, the biostatistician, Bruce Weir, shows that the statistics of the discoverer of the basic principles of heredity, Gregor Mendel, are too good: The latter had let some “inappropriate” results fall by the wayside. It's indeed possible to validate statistics with statistics.

Statistical Errors and Statistical Abuse

Statistics only provide valid results when they don’t include systematic errors or false basic assumptions. This, in turn, refers to “statistics one has faked oneself” (cf. previous chapter).

Statistics thus open the door to manipulation: If you assume a minor thing to be false, then the statistic is false. If you deliberately assume it to be false, you can then “generate” almost any result using statistics.

An article was published about seven years ago on the drastic increase in the proportion of “grave defects” found in motor vehicles after car inspections performed by TÜV (German technical inspection agency). An outcry rippled across the automotive world. You should sit up and take notice to press reports like this because if 1/4 of the inspected cars had exhibited "grave defects” over decades, and 1/3 of these cars exhibited the same in the following year (these are theorized figures), then this would mean a sudden increase of 32%. That alone is statistically unlikely. The “cause” was to be found elsewhere: TÜV had hitherto distinguished between a “defect” and a “grave defect”. A new regulation had categorized all defects detected by TÜV as “grave defects”.

German Railways (Deutsche Bahn) has issued instructions to prioritize its express trains over its commuter trains. Doing this would make its ICE (Intercity Express) trains statistically more on time. Commuter trains are not covered by the press. This is something you need to know. You find out about it from the “petty” railway official. Presumably, the salary of the Deutsche Bahn CEO is linked to the punctuality of its ICE trains: His contract, for example, would then contain the clause that every percent the ICE is not on time would cost ½ million annually in salary or bonuses.

How about a more current event [76]? In mid-April, the “Tagesschau” evening news had reported on an “above-average number of deaths in Germany” in its “Corona Live Blog”. They compared the average from the past five years with the average from the year 2020. To prove this, they evaluated data between March 23rd and April 12th. Correct: The mortality rate during this period is higher than the average of the past five years. Does this necessarily mean that the mortality rate in Germany is higher due to Corona? Conversely: Is manipulation possible using correct statistics? Of course. You just have to choose the right period: The 2020 mortality rate was lower prior to March 23rd. If you examine this figure between January 1st and April 12th (January 1st is, of course, arbitrary as well!), then 8,300 fewer people (!) had died by 12 April than the average of the previous years.⁴ Almost exactly 1 million people die in Germany in any average year, meaning 2,750 per day. Early June saw less than 9,000 deaths caused from or with Corona, thus less than 1%, or less than those who normally die in two days. These figures cannot be used to make a valid statistical statement.

The press is reporting on a high share of electrical consumption covered by renewable energies in June of 2020. Electricity consumption has decreased during Corona. So, it is of no surprise that the share of renewable energies is on the rise.

Reports circulated about “particularly sensitive” medical detection methods with a “high hit rate”. The problem is the “false positives” since these are “particularly sensitive”. These had also recorded hits in many where they should not’ve done so at all. To put it oversubtly: Had the detection method identified all examined people as “positive”, then it would have resulted in a 100% hit rate. But this is of little use, since it would have identified nobody as negative in this case.

Another example are the aforementioned unemployment statistics. How exactly this is being accomplished is shown in the chapter “Manipulated Unemployment Figures”.

No positive proof is possible in principle in individual cases. For example, the television talk show rounds introduced young people who never went to school but still managed to get by in life. We can hence conclude that this kind of lifestyle can work. Nothing more. If one were to invite those 100 people who had never attended school and who are now hooked on the needle or struggling through life as petty criminals, for example, it would immediately become clear that the statistics are being manipulated here. School students like these kinds of TV broadcasts. Their obvious interpretation is: “School is redundant”. But they would need the education of a school to realize that they are being badly manipulated now.

It’s obvious that a “school system” cannot be ideal for every student. It's supposed to help most students receive a good education. A compromise. This, too, is statistics.

Unfortunately, statistical manipulation is increasingly common in scientific publications, where results can be evaluated only partially and which continues to depict what is en vogue or, in particular, contradict political correctness: Nutritional science is to be mentioned here, but publications on environmental toxins and gender studies are affected by this as well. Sometimes the analyses are even “sound”, but the results are formulated in a way that is “officially desired”. Otherwise, funds are cut off from the institutes. Research at universities is no longer free of charge because they are more and more forced to finance themselves. Due to their dependence on companies, they have to provide “appropriate” results. Politically incorrect results are sometimes not published at all because the journal reviewers either don’t approve or otherwise prevent their publication. Various indirect or direct methods are available in such cases.

Imagination

The human imagination is interesting when it comes to evaluating facts: Much can be imagined, much not. One can imagine traveling to the nearest star in a spaceship. Star Trek provided a taste of this. But this is not possible. The same applies when it comes to exceeding the speed of light.

In contrast, one cannot imagine the distance of one light year, although the entire solar system is only one light day in diameter. Even one light day (25,900,000,000 km) is unimaginable. This order of magnitude is completely normal to an astronomer. This does not mean, however, that an astronomer can imagine these distances.

Nobody can imagine a war either, especially since most Germans have never held a weapon in their hands that would provide an indication of the destructive power of a single projectile. To them, war and the terrible suffering it causes is something abstract and not imaginable: A few years ago, a journalist on a TV panel discussion “demanded” a “military intervention” (the positive “framing” term for “war” (see chapter Framing)) in Russia. Mrs. Krohne-Schmalz (a Moscow correspondent) had made this comment with a frozen demeanor. Refusing military service, it seems, makes it easier to call for war. Paradoxical, isn’t it?

When the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) was sent on a mission to Afghanistan, one could not “imagine” that mines would be used there. It's certainly traumatic to see the consequences of this lack of imagination, and frustrating to know that it could have been avoided.

The same applies to power blackouts. If these were to happen, even electric garage doors wouldn’t function, making it difficult to leave your house by car. First, your telephone would fail (the Internet is dead), and, after two to four hours, cell phone masts would then start to fail. Failing traffic lights would lead to a series of accidents, but no ambulance could be called. Production lines would stand still and machines stop producing expensive parts. Milking machines would not work, cattle would die, and oil heaters would need electricity to pump heating oil. If the power were to fail any longer, these same heaters would burst. This is because a blackout would first occur when it’s cold, as more electricity is needed then. This was the case in South America in June 2019 because it was winter there then and many people heat only with electricity. Hospitals are only able to operate using emergency generators (their real problem is the lack of pure water caused by the lack of electricity). Lifts and cable cars would get stuck. However, no rescue helicopters could be refueled anymore because the kerosene pumps are electric. Since the radio has failed, they wouldn’t be allowed to take off anyway. Therefore, one must assume that people would lose their lives indirectly.

“DER SPIEGEL Online History” reported on the 1977 [41] blackout in New York, where looters and arsonists had roamed the city. This can be expected in social hotspots.⁵

The above depicts a few of the consequences involved, not to stir up fear, but to get a practical idea of the consequences. A risk exists and one should consider whether or not to take it. In case of a nuclear accident, this (sensibly) goes without saying, but (senselessly) not in the case of a blackout.

This chapter argues that things should be evaluated completely regardless whether they can be imagined or not since people tend to evaluate things as “wrong” or “not possible” because they cannot imagine them.

One should abandon this approach because

it leaves no room for a neutral discussion.