Vote # 93 - Vaccination, plastic ban, meat renouncement: Do we need the Nanny state?

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A strong state, with many rules and regulations designed to give us citizens a better life. Is that desirable or patronizing? The current debate about compulsory vaccination shows how much protest government interventions cause for some. Why is that? Where do new prohibitions and laws make sense?

Spiegel editor Alexander Neubacher wrote the book "Totally Restricted" on this subject and explains in this podcast episode of "Stimmenfang" where the state should stay out of harm's way and when it should restrict the freedom of the individual.

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Sandra Sperber: [00:00:02] Welcome to "Stimmenfang", the political podcast of SPIEGEL ONLINE. I am Sandra Sperber.

Sandra Sperber: [00:00:10] AD: "Stimmenfang" is presented again today by Audi, because from now on there is a new episode of the Audi podcast "The future is electric". In the podcast, Audi focuses on the experience of electromobility and talks with experts and users about aspects of e-mobility that are worth knowing. In the current episode "Immer weiter", a spectacular test drive will be accompanied by the e-tron. He has a recuperation system that converts some kinetic energy into usable electrical energy. In addition, Audi speaks in this episode with Twaice, a Munich startup that wants to extend the reach of electric batteries by artificial intelligence. Listening is well worth it! The podcast "The future is electric" can be found on all popular podcatchers.

Sandra Sperber: [00:00:57] In this episode of "voice casting", it's about what some mockingly call Nanny states - a strong state with many rules and regulations that will allow us citizens to live better lives or us just - patronize depending on your point of view. I recently had the idea to the doctor. As a school doctor has actually accused me that my daughter is vaccinated. I told my colleague Yasemin about it the next day and recorded our conversation by the way.

Sandra Sperber: [00:01:26] So ENT doctor, school doctor. I with a child under my arm go into the treatment room and the first thing the doctor asks me - I have barely sat down: "Is she vaccinated?" I say, "Well, a two-year-old kindergarten child stops what they have, yes, sure." "Yes, that's the first problem."

Yasemin Yüksel: [00:01:41] Oh, oh, she said that.

Sandra Sperber: [00:01:43] School doctor!

Yasemin Yüksel: [00:01:45] What does vaccination have to do with the snootiness?

Sandra Sperber: [00:01:48] If even a school doctor questions such demonstrably useful things as vaccination, does not the state have to intervene and ensure clear rules? For example, with a duty of vaccination, as it wishes Minister of Health Jens Spahn.

Jens Spahn: [00:02:01] Too many parents and unfortunately some doctors take these infections too lightly. That is why I expressly welcome the debate on compulsory vaccination.

Sandra Sperber: [00:02:12] On the one hand compulsory vaccination, but also speed limit, plastic bag ban. These are all examples, it is probably clear to most of us, which would be reasonable, but as long as there are no state regulations and rules, we voluntarily just not go the most sensible way. And my colleague Alexander Neubacher from SPIEGEL wrote a book about this topic a few years ago and is now in my studio. Hello.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:02:36] Hello.

Sandra Sperber: [00:02:36] Before we talk about individual examples, how do we actually stand in Germany? Are we under-regulated or are we closer to the nanny state?

Alexander Neubacher: [00:02:44] I think the German, he simply loves it, if he can abide by regulations. It is very noticeable when talking to people who were not born in Germany and then live here for a while, who sometime like Germany. At least that's my feeling. They always say how great the beer tastes here and how well some things work, but what everyone is always saying is "unbelievable how many rules you have, unbelievable how orderly you are" and then usually something comes with waste separation and then Actually, all foreigners are always laughing. So it does not really matter if they are American or Italian or French. Since we seem somehow to have a special tick as a German.

Sandra Sperber: [00:03:20] Let's talk about my introductory example, ie the vaccination. That just determines the headlines.

Newscaster : [00:03:25] Measles, measles, measles, measles. In view of the high number of measles diseases, the coalition advises on child vaccination. Vaccination yes or no? Since an accumulation of measles cases recently here in Hildesheim the vaccine divides once again the Republic.

Sandra Sperber: [00:03:40] With regard to measles, Germany does not achieve the necessary vaccination rate of 95 percent in order to achieve so-called herd immunity. That would be the odds that enough people are vaccinated to prevent the spread of measles. Alexander, should not the state force people to vaccinate, for example, to protect newborns who are not yet vaccinated?

Alexander Neubacher: [00:04:00] I think you can solve all the problems along a very simple question. By asking yourself: "Is it about protecting the individual from himself or is it about protecting others from the misconduct of the individual?" That is a very, very good policy question to consider whether or not a ban or strong regulation is allowed. Anyway, I think that's a plausible principle for me. And vaccination is not just about protecting yourself from a particular disease or your own child, but it's just as you said, to protect a herd, a larger group. And if parents decide not to have their children vaccinated, then they also have children who can not be vaccinated or have a health problem with the vaccine. And that is why in this case, because it is also about the protection of other innocent, innocent third parties, a regulatory intervention of the state is permissible for everyone. Now you can ask, in what sharpness? Does it have to be a ban, or is there more of an obligation to inform or to do other things, but basically yes, in that case it is about the protection of the others and you can do something about it.

Sandra Sperber: [00:05:06] Even though it might sound reasonable to us, there was still a lot of screaming from a lot of parents. That does not necessarily have to be all regressive vaccine opponents. There are also many people who are just insecure. In your opinion, is there an explanation why people sometimes react so hysterically to regulations, to interventions, even if they are actually totally sensible from the outside?

Alexander Neubacher: [00:05:26] In this specific case, one can say that there are actually two opposing positions or two schools of thought that are against this compulsory vaccination. On the one hand, this freedom argument is that one says: "I do not want to be told what I have to do and what I have to leave." That is, if you will, a liberal or libertarian argument and you can refute that by saying, for example, "Well, it's about protecting others." And the second argument that is always presented is: "That's terribly dangerous with vaccination." Well, and I think, against this argument, because it just helps medical evidence, because all this chattering because of autism and so on is indeed not proven by studies. On the contrary, this is medical nonsense and that can be cleared out of the way on scientific way well.

Sandra Sperber: [00:06:04] And you have mentioned an important example, which is repeatedly mentioned in the debate about more state interventions and rules: the freedom of the individual. And there is a nice example from the past, which has shown quite well exemplarily, how such debates in Germany run, namely the introduction of the seat belt.

Einspieler: [00:06:19] Better strapped than crazy. This is no longer a recommendation from January 1976, but required by law. - Do not you think of seat belts? - In the city, I would say, it is futile, on the highway, at higher speeds. - Why did not you wear your belt? - I forgot. I have to get used to it. - Because I do not like it, but I'll do it in the future.

Sandra Sperber: [00:06:44] That reminds me a bit of the debate that we are having over the speed limit today, but it does not show it quite well, that sometimes we citizens are just too stupid, too stubborn, whatever they are and not sensible enough to choose the right path for themselves and that rules have to come from?

Alexander Neubacher: [00:06:59] I think that in the example with the seat belt obligation it would probably have also worked, if one had appealed to the reason of the people. So, if you had worked with studies, with enlightenment, with arguments. And that too actually happened then. There was not simply a prohibition: "You have to do that now, otherwise there's a punishment", but it was accompanied by persuasion. And in doubt, that's always the better way, if people understand a change in behavior because they're convinced that it's the right one, then it's much, much better, than when it's forced. Because so must the one who wants to have the things so regulated, who has just come up with an argument and prove it once. And this argumentative persuasive power, that eventually worked. Crazy way, there was still an opposite effect. And that is then first after the introduction of the seat belt in Germany, but that happened in many other countries too, the number of traffic injured and killed not sunk, but erroneously increased. Yes, there is a really interesting phenomenon. The psychologists call this risk compensation. So if people feel that there is an extra security mechanism, they go a bit farther than they would have done without it. Psychology makes you drive a bit faster because you think: "Yes, now I have the belt on, now I can risk more." And then it was just that the protection of the goods then just not so great, first and secondly, it was above all pointless, when people then faster, for example, drove through the city, for the poor pedestrians, which were then caught or the cyclists.

Sandra Sperber: [00:08:32] But that is a temporary effect, because otherwise we could say: "Okay, we do not use belts, airbags, all sorts of other security systems that are in there now, helmets on the Bicycle, helmets while skiing, because that gives us a deceptive feeling. ".

Alexander Neubacher: [00:08:44] For example, when it comes to bicycle helmets, it's quite clear that all of the research we know about today says that the introduction of a bicycle helmet is ultimately counterproductive for cyclists. For a variety of reasons, including risk compensation. The people obviously drove faster, maybe even over red and have thought more than they could, firstly. Second, you could measure that motorists did not seem to regard a helmeted cyclist as vulnerable as someone who wears no helmet. There was an amazingly interesting experiment in Australia. The biggest protection one can have is not to wear a helmet, but to put on a blonde, long-haired wig. This is the moment when the motorist keeps the greatest distance.

Sandra Sperber: [00:09:27] Maybe I'll hang my wig over my cycling helmet over it in the future.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:09:30] Yes, but that is indeed the case and that is one of the reasons why, for example, the bicycle lobby in Germany, the bicycle association, says: "It is not a good idea to introduce a helmet and still to argue again and again why wearing a helmet is good for the individual.

Sandra Sperber: [00:09:44] So the plea is more in the direction of careful education, convincing people by reason rather than forcing them to commit. An attempt in the direction of "educate people carefully" was also the Veggie Day a few years ago.

One- player: [00:10:00] The Greens recommend a vegetarian day once a week in public canteens, public service canteens. Recommend! - Because that's good for health, animal welfare and climate. - The proposal is not well received in the center of the Thuringian Rostbratwurst. - I eat my sausage. - I do not want to have any prohibitions. "Today I can not have meat" I do not want, I want to decide for myself.

Sandra Sperber: [00:10:22] So a meatless day in public canteens, that was in the election campaign in 2013 at that time a proposal in a more than 300 pages thick election program of the Greens and has them but sustained the call of the prohibition party and introduced them then madly hailed the election campaign. It is actually a consensus that too much meat is not exactly healthy every day and always and constantly and in large quantities. Why do people still react so sensitively when the state wants to educate them to do the sensible thing?

Alexander Neubacher: [00:10:54] The Greens like to educate, I think.

Sandra Sperber: [00:10:57] But they would not have forbidden anyone to eat a sausage privately.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:11:00] Well, the regulation or the proposal provided that in all canteens, which are somehow public, so not publicly accessible, but in the public sector, that there is a clear rule makes. And there people are - unless they find the Greens really good - then the other people are very, very quickly a bit rebellious and say: "I do not let me dictate."

Sandra Sperber: [00:11:21] But it's totally reasonable.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:11:22] Yes, but here we are with the question, which human image do we actually have. So, a higher authority is there to guarantee a life for us and, if necessary, to force us to be always healthy, always virtuous, always morally sound, always ecologically sound. Or is it not ultimately an anti-individual, anti-freedom position that we do not want in our society, because where does it end?

Sandra Sperber: [00:11:48] It would not be forbidden, it would be an offer, so to speak. You can still bring your wiener in the break box and eat in the canteen.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:11:57] One should always be quite, very careful with historical comparisons, but imagine that there would be a state impulse, so to speak, to say that in all state-provided museums only art is shown The state believes that this art is morally sound. "Anyone can still exhibit a private gallery," one would say, "is not really a constraint." Would we like that or would we say: "Wait a minute, so what images I would like to look at, I would not like to make it dependent on who decides in the green party or elsewhere, which is beneficial for me or endurable . " In that case, I thought it was really good that the majority of people got up and said, "Well, what I eat and when and on what day, you can leave that to me, that's not your thing."

Sandra Sperber: [00:12:37] But the state really does not care what we eat or does not cost us that anymore if we live so completely unhealthily. So from meat started to smoking. Does not he have to get involved if I cause public expenses with my unhealthy lifestyle, because then I get sick?

Alexander Neubacher: [00:12:53] Yeah, that's the argument "the unhealthily living human being, so to speak, as a health insurance pest, as one who burdens the social community, and of course we can not afford that at all." This is always argued anyway. First, of course, this is a terrible doctrine that dictates to the individual that he must behave socially and socially at all times, as if we were here in the ant state. Luckily we are not. There is a right to irrationality and that's a good thing. Sometimes we can simply avoid the obligation to always want and do the best for the general public. We can also be unreasonable. But also very specific to the case. Behind this is the argument, who feeds extremely bad or who drinks too much alcohol or possibly smokes, even terrible, which ultimately harms the general public, because it produces medical expenses and the medical expenses are paid by all and because in the long run not tolerate, the state may go by this logic and for example prohibit the smoker from smoking and the overweight the sugar ...

Sandra Sperber: [00:13:54] ... so we do not all pay for it.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:13:57] Right. Then the argument is brought in: we protect people not only from themselves, but we also protect the public from the costs. And that's wrong, if you look at it cynically. Because crazy way it is so that the hard smoker actually causes no additional social costs, if you look at the whole life, but even in terms of cost relieves the general public. After all, smoking is demonstrably so unhealthy that you have a lower life expectancy and the lower life expectancy is reflected in the pension, in the care and health costs actually so low that the smoker purely statistically relieved the social community and not loaded. But of course this is just a cynical reasoning, which one may actually use only if someone conversely comes with the cynical reasoning and says: "The smokers are still social pests." No they are not. The smokers even relieve the social funds considerably.

Sandra Sperber: [00:14:52] In your argument here and in your book, you are generally speaking of a person who is very, very knowledgeable, smart, and very sensible. But should the state not really care about the weak, those who are not so informed?

Alexander Neubacher: [00:15:09] For example, the state has to look after children. For the apply in any case own rules. That's very clear.

Sandra Sperber: [00:15:14] But I would say there are still people who think that kidney chocolate is somehow healthier than regular chocolate, because it looks like there's a lot of milk, calcium, whatever.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:15:24] Yeah, fine. So now I'm talking more of the fact that the state regulates, for example, who is allowed to smoke and who is not and there is simply a ban on sales of people who have not reached a certain age and that's just fine, I think, because For children simply special rules must apply. For adults now to differentiate and say: "We do not even assume that it is enlightened people who live in this country, but tend to need care, a bit too stupid." This immediately raises the question, how did all these stupid people actually have the wisdom to never deselect these politicians. So that's a point, as it bites the cat in the tail, so to speak. And there is a very, very crazy effect here: If you think in philosophical categories, then of course we always go out of the mature enlightened citizen that this is our goal anyway. Because now it tends to be naturally comfortable, so it is already in Kant, to have someone who makes decisions for you and pre-sorted things and so on. But what is the effect? The moment we begin to outsource the decisions to another entity, to a state agency; Does that make us smarter? Does it make us more mature? According to Kant, exactly the opposite is the case.

Sandra Sperber: [00:16:29] So you think we're dumbfounded if the state takes us too much.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:16:31] A colleague once put it this way: "Where there are many restrictions, there will be many restrictions at some point." There is such a structural dumbing down, a structural disorientation through an excess of regulation, an excess of prohibition. We outsource thinking as it were and give it to thinking itself and that is quite dangerous. Maybe there is a really, really crazy example: There was a very early, very early idea in the USA, that you have to make drug packages child safe. One said: "Okay, the parents are obviously too stupid to protect their children from these medicines." What does the state do? He has prescribed that you screw child-safe closures on these pill bottles on the assumption that now the children are protected. What happened? The odds are that the number of children who have had drug poisoning has not fallen, but increased. Because the parents had stopped their self-reflection and thought: "Well, now the state has taken care of the beautiful Kappl Now I do not have to worry myself anymore."

Sandra Sperber: [00:17:29] And now the child can play with it too.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:17:30] And then the children could suddenly play with the things or they were lying around somewhere and not in the medicine cupboard, as they had done before. And so sure then this child-safe closure was not and sometimes it was not completely turned off. I'm not saying that it was wrong to introduce this child-resistant closure. On the contrary, that made sense, but it shows that it has a counterproductive effect when you tell people, "Let's think, we'll do it for you from now on."

Sandra Sperber: [00:17:54] Currently we are discussing about the so-called nutritional light. For example, consumer advocates like Foodwatch are calling for that.

Einspieler: [00:18:00] Take a familiar and easy-to-understand symbol and represent the contents of the most important nutritional values. With the traffic light labeling consumers should be informed right at the front of the packs - reliable and understandable.

Sandra Sperber: [00:18:15] The traffic light goes from A, green, to E, not recommended to eat. For example, Foodwatch gives two examples of strawberry yoghurt. The one gets a "B", the other only a "D", because it contains twice as much sugar. That's one thing you do not see on the label right away. You have to turn over the two yogurts, you have to calculate, you have to compare. That requires a lot of work. Actually, I think it's completely obvious that there's a clear message on the front: this is the healthier one.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:18:41] Absolutely. First of all, the consumer is also in a position to decide afterwards whether he might still want to take the other one, perhaps with a worse rating, but he will be informed. But that is exactly the difference to a prohibition policy that says: "Certain yogurts should not exist anymore in the trade."

Sandra Sperber: [00:18:56] We have a nutrition minister, Julia Klöckner from the CDU and she refuses this traffic light and says that she is not the taste nanny.

Julia Klöckner: [00:19:04] The state does not make the taste and I'm not the nation's taste nanny either. As Germany tastes, the policy does not dictate.

Sandra Sperber: [00:19:15] As I said, it's not about banning sweet yogurt, just about labeling. Why is politics doing so hard anyway - the suggestion has been around for a long time in the world - to just introduce it?

Alexander Neubacher: [00:19:25] I think there are several aspects to play with it. Taste nanny, that really does not need to be anyone at all and politics should not do that either. Committing oneself to good, truthful enlightenment is certainly the task of politics. We have a concrete problem with the food traffic light, which has already been discussed under other circumstances, we have a few technical problems that should be solved, because it is about truthful information, with which consumers can start what. But if now this food traffic light, as it was once conceived, causes the orange juice always red, because it contains too much sugar ...

Sandra Sperber: [00:20:01] ... that the juice naturally contains ..

Alexander Neubacher: [00:20:03] ... that the juice naturally has, then we are very quickly in an area where this supposed enlightenment becomes a disinformation. And then you just have to ask yourself: "If this instrument is the traffic light, then it was planned at that time with" green "for" good "," yellow "for" well, goes so "and" red "for" finger away "is But actually, in principle, I find good, truthful information, the labeling of food is something the enlightened consumer desperately wants and that has nothing to do with Nanny.

Sandra Sperber: [00:20:32] Let's not just look at the individual, our personal diet, but sometimes the big picture, the world, the environment, the climate. There are also a lot of topics where the state intervenes, educative or with prohibitions. The most recent example is the plastic ban of the EU.

Newscaster : [00:20:46] Many disposable plastic products are expected to disappear from the supermarket shelves by 2021. - plastic plates, drinking straws and other plastic disposable products will therefore be completely banned from 2021 onwards. Especially the Germans produce more plastic waste than the average European. 37.5 kg per person per year.

Sandra Sperber: [00:21:09] Does it make sense to intervene and put a stop to that?

Alexander Neubacher: [00:21:12] Yes, definitely. And first and foremost, Jürgen Trittin would have to take a look at his nose, who triggered all this plastic waste. That was, among other things, Jürgen Trittin, DJ Dosenpfand, as he called himself, when he played records somewhere.

Sandra Sperber: [00:21:25] For the younger ones among us: Environment Minister of the Greens, who in 2003 introduced the so-called can deposit, the bottle deposit system, as we know it today.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:21:36] Of course, with the intention of strengthening the reusable system and pushing the plastic bottles out of the market. What happened? Exactly the opposite. It is in any case the case, the deposit and disposable / reusable have nothing to do with each other and that is the fundamental problem that many people apparently do not get along right now. And now you always think, "Yeah, it's totally okay if I put those wobbly 1.5-liter plastic bottles around the discounter in the 6-pack ...

Sandra Sperber: [00:22:00] ... these six packs of water, yes ...

Alexander Neubacher: [00:22:02] They've practically doubled their market share since Jürgen Trittin. What happens to this stuff, when you throw it in this slot, you can tell well, if you stop for a moment and then hear what happens on the other side. This is such a ratchet and such a crunch and such a rumble. Of course, this bottle will not be refilled, but that is exactly the plastic waste that drives up our balance. Because what happens to it? This will be recycled if it works well, but it will probably be shipped to China first. It is pressed to bales, sometimes it is simply burned. This is one of the many problems that have arisen, although we actually thought we were solving a problem. Instead, you have created one.

Sandra Sperber: [00:22:43] So through this 2003 can deposit, the number of bottles that have really been refilled, the solid plastic bottles you've used again, or the beer bottles, has declined and there are more - like that as you call them - they made vesicles, which are returned but then thrown away.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:23:00] So the word 'crash' in the reusable quota actually does the job well. A dramatic development has happened. Not with beer, beer, people are apparently still not ready to drink from plastic bottles. There are still the glass bottles, but go to a normal supermarket, go to the discounter and see how many shelves are now filled with this Wabbelplastezeug that is used exactly once and then it's at the end of the life cycle '. And all in the name of environmental protection. Thank you, Jürgen Trittin.

Sandra Sperber: [00:23:30] You also mentioned the ex-Minister of the Environment for a SPIEGEL TV documentary on this fact. We'll listen again.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:23:36] What about the returnable bottles? They are almost gone from the supermarket. When they look around, those wobbly Plastedinger are everywhere.

Jürgen Trittin: [00:23:42] That's right for beer.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:23:45] Achso, you only drink beer and no water?

Jürgen Trittin: [00:23:46] No, I'm just saying that there are different types of drinks, this does not apply to beer, which hardly applies to sugar-containing soft drinks. It applies in the water area. There it is.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:23:56] And that's actually, that's sad, is not it?

Jürgen Trittin: [00:23:59] But you see, we still ensure by the pledge that this packaging is not. Land in the garbage, but be recycled.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:24:07] But in the old days they were filled up anyway, so right now and now ...

Jürgen Trittin: [00:24:12] I agree with you that reusable is better than disposable, but without the pledge the disposable would end up in the garbage. That's too bad.

Sandra Sperber: [00:24:20] I agree with Jürgen Trittin that, at least according to my felt count, less crushed cans and bottle garbage are somehow in the bushes. So the garbage on the street, the bottle-can garbage that may have reduced, but where has the policy made the crucial mistake? Why was it meant well but poorly implemented?

Alexander Neubacher: [00:24:42] It was just a regulation that made the first step with good intentions and the second one did not think about it. And that is a special problem perhaps also the regulation in the environmental area. Often we see that, of course, regulation is always carried out with good intentions, and this good intention is not called into question by anyone who, in any case, thinks clearly, because of course we want to protect the environment. Of course we want to produce less waste. We want to conserve resources and so on. But because this whole issue is so morally charged, it is incredibly difficult for the dispute, which is sometimes necessary, to build a counter-position on the right instruments, without being immediately pillaged as environmental sloppiness, because who then argues against it: " Well, what is he up to? " Does he really really want to protect the environment or is he not in fact a disguised lobbyist in any industry and, in fact, sometimes things get mixed up? And this is one of the big problems One must believe in all these regulatory issues, even if one goes with very, very good intentions, one must try that with cool rationality and then not in the emotional exuberance make any regulations, which then in the end to do exactly the opposite.

Sandra Sperber: [00:25:52] The Greens have recently, or at least a Green politician I think it was, again in a similar outcry trap set with the proposal, I believe more than three air travel a year, so much more frequent flyer to ask for a supplement. Actually, it makes perfect sense to reduce air travel, to divert the people straight into train driving in Germany. How can you meaningfully intervene? Get people to reason without forcing them to trigger such a backlash? Because it would be reasonable not to fly, to fly less.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:26:25] I am an economist and for me it is very important that there are honest prices in the products and if we can fly for 29 euros from Berlin to Frankfurt, then this is a price in which does not include certain costs. For example, environmental damage is not included in this price. Who pays for these environmental damages? Yes, not the one who makes this flight for the money and not the airline, but the general public. And that is wrong. So you have to try to develop honest prices. And how does it work? The economist would then always say: Well, we just have to calculate all the costs and turn around to the users that are there. And there is now quite concrete in the field of climate protection, there is for me a very very strong instrument, namely to price CO2 emissions and the costs that then arise, to the respective product prices.

Sandra Sperber: [00:27:11] So a careful regulation in the background, instead of symbolic prohibitions. We will learn from this now.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:27:18] A smart regulation that actually always considers what I do with things. Accidentally, or maybe by the way, when I'm doing something.

Sandra Sperber: [00:27:26] Thank you.

Alexander Neubacher: [00:27:26] With pleasure.

Sandra Sperber: [00:27:26] That was "Stimmenfang", the political podcast of SPIEGEL ONLINE. The next episode of "Stimmenfang" you will hear as always next Thursday on SPIEGEL ONLINE, Spotify and in all major podcast apps. If you have any feedback so far, just write us an email to stimmfang@spiegel.de or use our "voice catch" mailbox on 040 38080400. You can also send us a WhatsApp voice message to the same number. 040 38080400.

This episode was produced by Yasemin Yüksel and me, Sandra Sperber. Thanks for the support to Jelena Berner, Johannes Kückens, Wiebke Rasmussen, Thorsten Rejzek, Matthias Streitz and Philipp Wittrock. The "Stimmenfang" music comes from Davide Russo.

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