Berlin 2024
What is Stopping You From Moving to Europe’s DeSci Capital?
This October-November, I spent six weeks (Oct 5 - Nov 17) at Zelar City, a pop-up village in Berlin dedicated to biotech, health, and radical life extension. I will post a podcast about Zelar City and its place within the exciting new world of DeSci biotech and network societies later. For now, though, I am returning to my more traditional rubric of travel blogging. These reports were quite popular in the old days of my blogging (see my website’s Travel section), so hopefully we can resurrect some of that.
Background: My only other trip to Germany was in the distant past in 2003 (road trip through Aachen, Cologne, Worms, and Heidelberg), and I know some very basic German (one year at school). I did not come to Germany with extremely high expectations, and to be fair, I am still skeptical that I would enjoy living there semi-permanently; though one can admire elements of Germanness, such as its high function and deadpan humor, in many respects, it still strikes me as a more authoritarian culture than Angloworld (esp. the US). Nonetheless, Berlin performed to the upside, at least relative to the major Euro metropolises like London: Cheap, less crowded, nicer climate (I hate cold/humid most), more convenient airport connections, and comparable startup/DeSci density despite a 3x lower population.
All else equal, I would probably rank Berlin (8/10) above London (8/10) or Paris (7/10), though below San Francisco (9/10) and (prewar) Moscow (10/10).
Berlin Impressions
(1) Border control took 10 seconds, not 5 minutes as in Sweden a month earlier. Solid start.
(2) Let’s start with the built environment. Nobody would accuse Berlin of being a beautiful city - WW2, and then modernism, made sure of that. It is a jungle of steel, concrete, and glass amidst black streams of asphalt; an interlocutor called the style “angular” and come to think of it, she was squarely right (e.g. see the old Luftwaffe HQ). Gas pipelines snake around overground - the city government is apparently too cheap to bury them, as in the rest of Eastern Europe. Aggressive leftist graffiti is omnipresent; this can be aesthetically endearing in the Latin states, but feels out of place in Northern Europe to me.
For all that, despite underwhelming first impressions, Berlin grew on me over my time there. I am not just talking of the nice historic areas, such as Charlottenburg. Even in the former GDR, many of the “commieblocks” have undergone very extensive and even performatively artistic uplifts. There has been some of that in Eastern Europe - extensively in Poland, and in the nicer parts of rich Russian cities - but not to the extent of redoing facades in historical or pseudo-historical styles, and affixing ornamentation like statues and pilasters on them. The older S-Bahn platforms struck me as strangely reminiscent of Chicago’s, but I suppose that makes sense, since they were built at about the same time. Even as regards the unaesthetic elements, one cannot deny there is a certain charm to seeing imposing brutalist concrete representing authority defaced by counter-culture Antifa slogans.
(3) The climate is near ideal for me without it being Mediterranean or alpine - much drier than London, much less cold than Moscow in winter.
(4) Wandering through the wide boulevards and overgrown museums of Saint-Petersburg or Vienna always invokes a melancholic feeling of lost imperial fates and squandered alternatives. There were cities seemingly destined to be the centers of 25M and 10M imperial capitals, as opposed to their real populations of 5M and 2M, respectively. There is a sense of this in Berlin as well - its population peaked at 4.5M in 1943 and never recovered, and now sits at 3.8M, though the metro area is around 5M. In a better timeline, it would be at 10M, and the co-equal of its natural peers, London and Paris. However, in this feeling is less acute in Berlin than in Vienna - it is still a very big city, and rapidly growing besides, reasserting its status as a political center and gravitational attractor after half a century of bisected stagnation.
(5) Berliners are heavily politicized. The obvious expression of this is the Antifa presence: In my area, there was a literal “Antifa cafe” - vegan, of course - along with endless graffiti championing solidarity with Palestine, exhortations to fight against homophobia, misogyny, etc., to open the borders, to go on Klimastreik, and to “FCK ISRL”. The density of rainbow flags is second only to Amsterdam. The prestigious Yuval Noah Harari is incredibly popular both in English and translation; I saw him featured in every bookshop (these things can be telling; Jordan B. Peterson played that role when I visited Romania in 2018, and now their next potential President questions the Moon landings). Berlin is obviously in the lower-left quadrant of the political compass, and votes correspondingly.
That said, to paint Berlin as a militantly Antifa city would be simplistic, the mirror version of right-wing grifter expats who wax about Orbanland as an anti-Woke trad paradise. For every two pro-Palestine messages, there was one in support of Israel (the “Free Palestine” and “Bring Them Home” slogans often competing against each other). In the Festival of Lights performance, the Brandenburg Gate was wreathed in the Israeli flag, with the Hava Nagila playing in the background. At various points I ran into a Falun Gong protest, a gathering of German “constitutional purists”, and an Iranian procession in support of “Women, Life, Freedom” from the top of Berlin Cathedral.
Nor is this to say that heavy politicization is necessarily bad. Some aspects of it might go into unproductive directions, but one thing I have come to realize these past two years is that it is better to have a high level of civic engagement in politics, as opposed to disinterest. That is how you get “stability” and 70% support for senile gerontocratic dictators.
(6) The anarchic-leftist vibes and relatively low cost of living also make Berlin into an attractive locale for all sorts of hipsters, bohemians, and aspiring artists and writers. The location where Zelar City made its temporary home was occupied by Moos, a cooperative mostly composed of that demographic. Incidentally, despite Moos’ vibes being leftist-anarchic, they were actively discussing the idea of setting up a DAO to manage their operations and finances during our time there. This was curious in light of traditional leftist hostility to crypto, but is also of course very encouraging. One of the major selling points of crypto culture - the real thing, not the scammers and grifters who are much more visible - and the network states concept that grew out of it is that it is politically agnostic; it offers the cryptographic tools to optimize governance, but the implementation details are up to its practitioners. A world in which traditional sources of political authority lose legitimacy to decentralized communities of interest freely associating with each other or NOT as the case might be will be a freer and better world. In our own case, there is no hard reason why life extension should be exclusively right-libertarian coded.
(7) Belying its schizopolitics, Berlin is a surprisingly dynamic city economically. Few know this, but it is usually joint-second with Paris as Europe’s VC funding center, though London dominates. However, possibly because America/Silicon Valley simply sucks away almost all of the “respectable” VC stuff in general, Europe has a relatively stronger position in crypto-adjacent spheres, and probably nowhere is this disparity more maxed out than in Berlin, which vies with London - a city that is 3x bigger - as the biggest DeSci hub in Europe and dominates biotech DeSci in particular (i.e. the specific sector I am personally most involved in).
(8) Berlin is about 80-85% European, 10% Turkish/MENA, smattering of Indians, Asians, and Africans. If Moscow is the world’s largest “White” city by far, then Berlin is probably the second one. I don’t care about this, but some Germans at least probably do, and this might additionally explain why it such a strong influx of migrants (and why Potsdam is growing even faster).
There is a certain type of East German visage that is very Slavic in appearance and can be identified in about 10% of the population (both male and female). I assume these are throwbacks from the original admixture between Germans and the Slavic Wends (the latter’s “pure” descendants are the Sorbians).
The mall near where I lived had a large, new, shiny immigration center for Ukrainian immigrants. I heard from a resident journalist somewhat famous in Russia watching circles that they get 2,000 Euros per month in benefits. This validates my intuition that almost none of the one million Ukrainian war refugees in Germany will return to Ukraine, and that instead they will be joined by their menfolk after the war. In addition to Ukrainians and Volga Germans, there are also newer Russian immigrants. They tend to be richer and reside in prestigious areas such as Charlottenburg. My impression is that Berlin has become competitive with London as a central hub for the Russian opposition since 2022.
(9) Costs of living are cheap by Anglo-American standards: Beer and cappuccino - 3 Euros; museums are typically 5-10 Euros or free; 42 Euros got us an eight seat taxi to the other side of town. A trip to Leipzig (150 km) cost 40 Euros, and 10 Euros for return on a Flixbus; these are amazing prices by UK standards. Obviously, there are plenty of much cheaper places elsewhere in the world, but it’s refreshing seeing this in a fully developed country. Rents have risen sharply, as everywhere else, but are vastly lower than in the prestigious US cities. This is obviously another reason for Berlin’s popularity with the bohemian/downshifting crowd.
(10) Food. The only classic German dish I had was a beef roulade with dumplings at the Mephisto Bar in Leipzig, which I liked.
German SLOP review:
I was initially unimpressed by the local doner, but I think I just didn’t have luck with the local one; the Döner PLUS by the Jewish Museum was very good.
Currywurst is bad and gross. Sausages and ketchup doesn't go together - Chicagoans can tell you that - adding curry powder on top makes it even worse.
The McRib at McDonald’s: Edible, but nothing to write home about; only saved by the onions and pickles. (I don’t eat pork, but make an exception for novelties).
I also tried a Reuben sandwich and matzo soup for (IIRC) the first time at Masha's Bagels & Delicatessen (great cafe).
Drinking:
Sparkling water is the standard water. I prefer sparkling but this annoys many foreigners.
Mulled wine (Glühwein) is often available at cafes. Very considerate of them during the chilly months.
Their version of Cola Zero is something called Cola Freeway, a Lidl supermarket brand, and costs 40 cents instead of 1 Euro. Almost as good as the real thing.
You’re allowed to drink in the streets.
(11) Bad Berlin waiters are a meme (excellent YouTube channel BTW) but I can’t confirm, wasn’t frequenting any fancy places. I suspect it’s overdone. Zoomers around the world (including the US) couldn’t care less.
(12) Another meme is that German stores close really early. This isn’t really true in Berlin; the typical time is 9 pm. There are also (mostly Turkish-owned) Spätis that offer booze to the early hours.
(13) Coffee shampoo is oddly prominent. Everywhere else you have to order it off Amazon.
(14) The meme about garbage having to be sorted into the correct bins is correct.
(15) I got offered weed by an African man at Gorlitzer Park on my first day in Berlin.
(16) There is much more smoking. There are even certain cafes and train carriages where smoking is explicitly permitted.
(17) Obesity is rare. Tons of cyclists (it’s Europe). Fashion sense is non-existent; the slovenly look is chic.
(18) Anglos talk about “body positivity”; Germans practice it. The saunas, including at my local gym, were nude and mixed sex. (Usually, it’s one or the other: Covered and mixed sex in Angloworld, or naked and sex-segregated in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia). This wasn’t a surprise to me, since I was aware that this is the norm in Germany and Austria. It was an interesting experience that helped alleviate some long-standing issues I have had with my own body image, though I can see how this would make foreigners with more conservative worldviews uncomfortable.
(19) Time Travel. Being in Berlin is a lot like going back in time by a decade. Smoking (see above). Cheap and cheapish looking department stores. Slot machines are often present in bars and even doner shops (!?). Railway tickets need to be stamped to be valid, and the ticketing machines don’t always accept cards. (There are apps but they are buggy and clunky).
I was intellectually aware of this, but it was nonetheless slightly jarring to come to a place where you still need cash. Some Berlin restaurants and even gyms don’t take cards. As of 2024, even Hungary (at least Budapest) is fully digitized, while paying cash in UK and Sweden has become “weird”.
I’m not a fan of this and don’t really understand why the Germans are so backwards on digitization. I think much of this has to do with the misplaced German obsession with privacy. Look, if a modern state wants to find you for posting a racism to Facebook or whatever - Germany has no First Amendment, which is an actually meaningful protection - it will find you; your privacy “protections” like not allowing Google Street View only inconveniences people and creates problems for your already beleaguered tech industry.
(20) I’m uninterested in nightlife. The one time I went to a rave at a shabby, rundown place that is supposedly prestigious in “hip” Berlin circles, half our group got denied entrance. From what I gather the face control is based on your vibes, connections, and the whims of the club owners more than how rich and stylish you look, as would be the case in Russia. Something to bear in mind if you’re of a mind to get into the “scene”.
(21) “When you tell a German to do something, he does it; when you tell an Austrian to do something, he does it too, but then asks why,” - Karl Kraus on the difference between Viennese and Berliners. Stereotypes about Prussian authoritarianism abound. So how to explain Berlin’s current status as a slovenly Antifa city? I think it’s something fundamental that the practical-minded Anglos don’t get about Teutonic culture. It’s not about authoritarianism per se, but about being the best at whatever ideology pops into their heads next. Germans were the best fascists under the Nazis - the best Communists under the GDR - they are the best and most consummate shitlibs under the current political culture. Learn the difference, it could save your life.
Berlin Places
My favorite museums were the DDR Museum, the Deutsches Technikmuseum, and the Jewish Museum.
Major lacunae include Potsdam (it’s better to visit Sanssouci during summer) and Pergamum (closed for restoration). I also didn’t find time for ascending the iconic TV Tower on Alexanderplatz. Next time.
Berlin Cathedral
Relatively new building; beautiful. Often has live performances.
The views from the top of Berlin Cathedral are just as stunning and can be savored from the open air.
Soviet War Memorial (Treptower)
Berlin has the world’s largest Soviet war memorial outside the former USSR. Harmonic and lovely for walking - just 5 minutes from where I lived.
DDR Museum
Information and exhibits about the lost civilization that is GDR - the world’s most advanced and consummate socialist state. Some observations:
The single strongest and most important impression I got is that the East Germans were genuinely more enthusiastic about the socialist project than the rest of Eastern Europe outside the USSR, and specifically its core Russian territories at that. It wasn’t something “unnatural” to them as it was to the Poles; I think they really drank the Kool-Aid. The GDR resisted the USSR on reform after 1985, and I suspect it would have otherwise survived and eventually undergone ethnogenesis as a separate German nation much as say Taiwan did in the 2000s.
The percentage of irreligious people went from 8% in 1950 to 64% by 1989. In the GDR, scientific socialism won.
The GDR crafted the illusion of democratic competition through a thicket of nominally independent parties that were subservient to the ruling SED in practice under the aegis of the SED-controlled National Front of the GDR. (Amusingly, the only time in the history of the GDR that a block party registered a dissenting vote was by the CDU against a law regulating abortion in 1972). I suspect this influenced Putin and the idea of a “systemic opposition” to United Russia that in reality are subservient to the Presidential Administration.
Large-scale doping program centered in Leipzig. I suspect this also influenced Putin; can’t be a coincidence.
Forest of “sports associations” for everything from miners and steel workers to writers and athletes. One of these was Domowina, an association for Sorbians - an indigenous Slavic group closely related to Poles. The East Germans took Lenin’s pronouncements on national autonomies seriously, as in the USSR, and very much unlike the petty social nationalists in all but name that otherwise predominated in most of the other East European Communist parties. Sorbian culture and literature was subsidized and flowered as never before or since in the GDR.
The usual story with elite privileges and foreign travel as a rare boon only granted in exceptional cases. Worker pilfering was common - the enterprises were nationally owned anyway, or so the logic went. Progressive collapse in innovation and new products (there’s a display of a microchip that couldn’t be put into mass production because it was 2 years older and 100x as expensive to produce as the leading-edge Intel product).
Heavy, increasing militarization of society, including schools, throughout the 1970-80s (as in the USSR). Analogous increase in Stasi informants, whose numbers reached 200,000 by 1975 or more than 1% of the population. “House books” in every apartment building. As I said, the most consummate and well organized socialist state.
One difference from the USSR: The GDR had extensive naturism (nudity the only freedom East Germans could enjoy was a popular joke). It also tolerated erotic media. In the USSR, of course, there was “no sex”.
German Historical Museum
The present exhibition is called “Paths not Taken” and explores inflection points in German history where things could have gone otherwise. Some examples:
Could the GDR have survived?
What if the Americans had finished the atomic bomb before Germany was defeated? (TIL the first American atomic bomb to be have been dropped on Germany was to have targeted the IG Farben mega-factory in Ludwigshafen). I have an old post about this scenario.
What if the July Plot had succeeded?
What if the anti-war protests in July 1914 succeeded? Most histories just focus on the prewar jingoism. But apparently, the antiwar protests were far larger - e.g. 100,000 protested at Treptower alone - than I had been aware of.
What if constitutional monarchy and democracy had succeeded in 1848?
Altes Museum
The first public museum in Berlin (1831) hosts a standard exposition on Ancient Greece, the Etruscans, and Rome. Observations:
Has the world’s tallest (surviving) glass amphora at 60 cm.
Etruscan women had more rights than Greek or Roman women. Interesting question what would have happened if they won.
One room features ancient erotic art. Amusingly, it was only displayed to the public from 2010. Uncharacteristically strait-laced?
Bode Museum
Specializes in Byzantine art and numismatics (this section was closed).
The most amusing exhibit was a Roman equivalent of the slot machine called a ksilinos hippikos (above), a contraption in which people would release four colored balls and bet on which one would reach the bottom first.
Jewish Museum
Every sufficiently prestigious Euro-American city has an expansive Jewish museum (e.g. Moscow’s Jewish Museum and Center of Tolerance, Warsaw’s POLIN Museum). As can be expected from a very high IQ group, these Jewish museums are impeccably organized and furnished with objects to inform visitors about Jewish history and invoke sympathy and understanding for their values and interests. (Just to be clear I admire this approach and consider it a template for all other ethno-religious groups to follow, if they are smart enough).
The Jewish Museum in Berlin - the epicenter of Judaism’s greatest tragedy, now again a growing hub for Jewish culture - is obviously no exception. Some observations:
TIL men and women only became segregated in European synagogues in 13C.
One of the corridors features ribbons of quotes about Jews, positive/progressive ones from the front; negative/anti-Semitic ones looking back. Cool approach.
The Nazi period culminating in we know what was the usual sad but predictable affair. One point I rather liked was an attempt to explore the divided loyalties that Jews felt in the 1930s when weighing on whether to play it safe and emigrate, or make a bet on eventual Nazi moderation:
“Even if our Fatherland disowns us, we remain in a state of readiness for Germany.” - Journal of a Loyal Following of German Jews, 1933
“What a hell Germany has become.” - Werner Kraft, 1933.
The correct answer was clear in retrospect, and it was the more idealistic/patriotic Jews who got it wrong and paid for it. There’s probably a lesson there.
The story of Julius Levy, a refugee from Nazi Germany to the US, who in 1950 got a letter from his German classmates nonchalantly inviting to attend a class reunion - and a request to send them coffee - as if nothing had happened in the intervening decade.
The museum doubles as a thematic modern art exhibition. There is an outdoor space with a glum forest of concrete pillars on uneven ground with a more optimistic forest of olive trees on top. In another part, there is a spacious dark room with just a tiny opening to the outside at the top. Visitors are meant to ponder on the Jewish experience and perhaps more general questions about the meaning of life in these places.
Deutsches Technikmuseum
The territories of the HRE have the world’s longest precision manufacturing tradition. The modern state of Germany was the world’s second manufacturing Power between about 1900 and 1944. Consequently, there’s a ton of stuff from the era when Germany produced interesting new things and technical ideas, instead of just whining about Americans doing it along with the rest of Europe.
Huge, very impressive museum - the two most extensive exhibits focus on trains and aircraft.
There is a vast collection of trains stretching from the first Prussian attempt at a steam engine on rails in 1816 - based on an English design obtained through early industrial espionage - through the heyday of German railway construction to the late Nazi era, and one modern example. The only bigger - much bigger - train arsenal I have visited is the Russian Railway Museum in Saint-Petersburg.
There is also a big and representative collection of civilian and military aircraft to the end of the Nazi era, including some rare and exotic Wunderwaffen (see above).
There is an original of the Z1, the world’s first fully programmable computer (1938) which Konrad Zuse built in his living room. There was a copy of Zuse’s Rechnender Raum (1969), which basically kicked off digital physics (leading to Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis, Tegmark’s mathematical universe, and my own speculations about the Katechon Hypothesis). I was really not aware how impressive and prolific an inventor Zuse was. Sadly for him, post-war Germany was just never going to make it in computers. In retrospect, he should have emigrated to California after the war and tried to make his career there - I suspect he’d now be a household name if he’d done so.
Sewing machines in museums: For once, they are NOT all Singer ones, as is the case in most of the world. In fact, I saw just one Singer machine. Indigenous sewing machines must be an artifact of Germany’s own expansive manufacturing in late 19C/early 20C.
Futurium Museum
Dull, insipid “futurism”-themed museum that really just pays homage to the German state’s degrowth and bioconservative ideology. The section on human genetic augmentation features a stern-faced bioethicist woman demanding more global regulations to prevent people like He Jiankui working outside institutions. Lots of stuff on diversity, recycling, Open Borders, etc. - which is fine, but I fail to see its relevance to futurism or technology.
Leipzig Impressions
During my time in Berlin I made a day trip to Leipzig, the GDR’s second city, with a companion who is considering moving there.
(1) Its railway station is the biggest in Europe - it’s absolutely gargantuan. The feeling of relative emptiness and lost opportunities is as acute here as it is in Vienna; it is a city that was “meant” to be much bigger than it actually is. A century ago, it vied with Munich for the #3 spot after Berlin and Hamburg; it is now #8, which is still much better than its 1990s trough, when it collapsed into the mid-teens.
That said, it surprised me to the upside. I was expecting GDR cities outside Berlin to be dreary and depopulated. It did feel empty for its size, but wasn't at all dreary. Certainly it was a favorable impression relative to English NW cities like Manchester. No graffiti and the locals aren’t fat, drunk, and slobby. (You apparently need to go into the smaller former GDR cities to really experience the post-socialist collapse and depopulation).
(2) Locals vote for the AfD, not Greens and Die Linke as in Berlin.
Visual expression:
In Leipzig: “Real Life: A Guide. You Should/Not: Burn your Passport, Reject Citizenship, Reject borders, Abolish Nations, etc.”
Meanwhile, back in Berlin: “NO BORDERS” from Migrantifa.
Whichever is your preferred cup of tea!
(3) Leipzig is 90-95% “White”. Zero graffiti, unlike Berlin. Suspect these are the main reasons it is seeing the influx it is, impolitic as this is to venture. It’s also a more architecturally coherent and beautiful city than Berlin. So I can see its attraction. But the problem is that Berlin is where all the other interesting people congregate and where the most interesting events and conferences happen. So if that is important to you, Berlin is really the only choice within the German world.
(4) Leipzig University is huge. There is a bust of Wilhelm Wundt, the father of experimental psychology and mentor to Charles Spearman, he of the g factor.
(5) It has beautiful malls: The one in the railway station itself, the historic Mädlerpassage, and the modernistic steel and glass Höfe am Brühl.
St. Thomas Church
Mostly unremarkable Lutheran church, other than for Johann Sebastian Bach having worked there as its choirmaster for the last 27 years of his life. It has a small museum.
Speaking of composers, the city also hosted Richard Wagner and Felix Mendelssohn.
Leipzig City History Museum
Germans are predictably good with local history museums. This is a classical example in its genre, tracing Leipzig’s journey from prehistory origins to the present day. Some observations:
Prehistory: Whereas Berliners admixed with Wends, the local Slavs in the Leipzig (Libzi) area were Bohemians.
There’s many exemplars of the work of Leipzig guilds. Interestingly, people whose parents had “dishonorable” professions - gravediggers, night watchmen, executioners - were barred from joining a guild. They were only abolished in favor of free trade in 1861.
The modern exhibition was quite standard: Industrialization; the feminist movement; the Weimar era and its anti-Semitism; the Nazi horror; the GDR smog; the modern day.
“Deep Roots”: The most interesting thing I took away from it though was that there is probably a connection between Leipzig hosting Bach, Wagner, and Schiller, and its relative precocity in literacy achievements. In economic development maps before Communism - from the spread of the printing press to industrialization - Saxony is usually in the lead alongside the Rhineland and (in the former) the south. As mentioned above, Leipzig University is Germany’s second oldest. The Sachsenspiegel - the first law book and work of prose in German - was written in 1220-1235. I was particularly impressed by the registry book of the Leipzig Shooters Association; a volunteer militia was keeping detailed records about its training rules, its members, and disbursements in 1632. The Einkommende Zeitungen, the world’s first daily newspaper - published six times a week - appeared here in 1650. Subsequently, Leipzig became a major center of the German Enlightenment, and was the capital of the German publishing industry until Germany’s division.
This is based on the principle that Elite Human Capital is a magnet for Elite Human Capital. But then they fucked up.
One key thing visitors often fail to notice is how difficult this city can be on an interpersonal level. Berliners, and Germans in general, are more petty, rude, condescending, pushy, cold and joyless than almost any other people on earth. It's a big reason many who move here don't stay more than a few years.
On the positive side, Berlin is surrounded by beautiful lakes and forests, which are easily accessible by public transportation or bike. It's a nice antidote to the bleakness of the city's built environment, as you see it.
I liked this essay. You should do more travel writing!