Society

Artificial intelligence is now an integral part of our everyday lives. It makes our smartphones smarter and can diagnose disease and write screenplays. Are there any limits, and might it soon surpass us in creativity and empathy – and perhaps even help us achieve immortality one day?

The “Deutschland spricht” (Germany Talks) project brings people with opposing political convictions to the table. Can discussion unite a society? For Zeit Online editor-in-chief and project co-initiator Jochen Wegner, the campaign was an experiment that garnered a great response.

At the beginning of 2019, population registers in Germany were amended to include a third gender category. The option box is headed ‘divers’, which translates as ‘miscellaneous’ or ‘other’, and it was introduced for a dual purpose: to remove the burden from parents faced with deciding an intersex child’s future and to show that being different can also be normal.

How can and should reality be defined in these days of virtual and alternative realities, of VR goggles and fake news?

Politics has always played out on stages: from the popular assemblies of antiquity and to the live-feed public parliamentary debates of today, politicians have performed for their voters. Social media have both expanded and fundamentally changed this political stage.

German cities are full of memorial sites. However, memorial culture has undergone fundamental changes in western Germany since the Second World War, and even more since the reunification.

Many Syrian refugees are trying to find a new home in Berlin. Meanwhile, they are discovering places that remind them of their city, and allow them to map Berlin in a new way.

80 years on, Germany is looking back at 1938, a year marked by National Socialist persecution and violence against the Jews and the failed Evian Conference on refugees. Historian Stefanie Schüler-Springorum explains the current significance of these events.

Futuristic worlds are often shaped by Western visions of humankind’s destiny. Afrofuturism offers an alternative that emphasizes how entrenched mainstream science fiction genre has become. This African-inspired vision is gathering ground in film, literature and music, and is about so much more than just launching Black protagonists into space.

While many European countries struggle with high youth unemployment, Germany is experiencing lower rates than seldom before. There is more to these promising figures than just the country’s strong economy.

Germany is an affluent country, and yet there are more and more young people without permanent residence or living on the street. Many are stranded in Berlin.

Germany is celebrating 100 years of women’s suffrage, but political power is still unevenly distributed. In terms of numbers, women have never been equally represented in any German Bundestag. Initiatives like the Helene Weber Kolleg are pushing for change. 

More and more people are choosing sustainable options when they travel. Germany is ideal for the environmentally conscious holiday.

To present themselves as an attractive place to live, Germany’s urban centres are embracing innovative concepts for tomorrow's world of work.

More and more start-up founders are creating companies that combine earning money with working towards social and ecological goals. Social start-ups are also gaining ground in Germany.

Multilingual skills provide pervasive opportunities, particularly as successful careers require international communication, which is essential for our children to compete in the workplace.

Is the online Airbnb flat sharing platform making Berlin’s housing shortage worse? Three students analysed the data to help answer this question. And reached some surprising conclusions.

For minorities, multilingualism and a multicultural identity can provide a wealth of resources and point the way forward. Videos from the Schaufenster Enkelgeneration project highlight the benefits that young adults in Germany’s ethnic minorities believe that their multilingualism gives them.
 

The German rent control law known as the “Mietpreisbremse” or literally the “rent brake” was designed to slow rising housing costs, but has not really solved the problem. In an interview, economic researcher Claus Michelsen talks about some other approaches that might rein in soaring rents.