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Germany as a nation has concluded that its destiny lies not within its national borders (which have historically hopscotched around the map) but in a multinational organization called the European Union. Just because a nation has come to this conclusion doesn't mean necessarily that is a vision shared by the people. Many people in Germany have simply stuck their head in the sand, defeated by a barrage of guilt for Germany's role in the Holocaust. Any manifestation of national spirit directed toward anything other than the soccer team is verboten.

If political correctness forbids the open support of the nation as a nation state and permits only support of human values generally crystallized in organizations like the European Union, the United Nations, the world court, the European Court of human rights etc., the nationstate is going to wither.

The Germans also concluded individually that their personal destiny does not lie in extended families. This is a choice that comes with feminism and with the pill. As a nation Germany is willing to accept foreign workers, even Muslim foreign workers who are difficult if not impossible to assimilate, in order to keep the economic engine going. Japan, in many ways similar to Germany, has embarked in the opposite direction. I happen to think in the long run Japan is right. The quality of life of the nation, often expressed as the economic vitality of the nation, will in the future not be dependent on the number of people but on the productive power of the nation created by technology. It is not how many people on welfare a nation has but how many robots it has producing wealth.

The question is, how do you distribute that wealth produced by machines rather than people without succumbing to socialist solutions of redistribution?

The quality of life of the nation, often expressed as the economic vitality of the nation, will in the future not be dependent on the number of people but on the productive power of the nation created by technology. It is not how many people on welfare a nation has but how many robots it has producing wealth.

The question is, how do you distribute that wealth produced by machines rather than people without succumbing to socialist solutions of redistribution?

No jobs, no cash. No cash, no customers. No customers, no revenue to offset production. I have been struggling with this. Without consumers of machine productivity, the production is rather pointless. When the machines require only a few, and ever shrinking pool, of humans to design and maintain them, the ranks of the jobless swell, even as demand for production remains. Perhaps human society will find a free market solution in a revaluation of those things which require human handiwork and craftsmanship. after all it is already very much the case that bespoke shoes are worth far more than those which are mass produced.

The magic of the interweb has the potential to match whatever tailored wares we create, whether it be crankshafts, leather holsters, poems, heirloom tomatoes, cake recipes, etc., to the exact needs of the precise customer.

I fear however, that some socialized scheme for the distribution of that which is mass produced by crony industries is almost inevitable, and that personal enterprise will be outlawed or overregulated (at the request of said crony monopolies) to such an extent that it might as well be prohibited.

The question is, how do you distribute that wealth produced by machines rather than people without succumbing to socialist solutions of redistribution?

It'll be an easy problem for the Japanese to solve ...and for the United States - but contentious for Germans.

The real goal of wealth is happiness and comfort... something Germans with their shortsightedness have traded away for short term exploitative cheap labor (in the now) from incompatible third world cultures.

That's gonna bite 'em...

Guilt may be part of the choice - but the larger part is wanting something for nothing. Germans might deserve their fate... it's another selfish unethical decission on their part... and it will end badly.