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Tomas Pueyo Profile picture
@tomaspueyo
Feb 14 • 6 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
East/West Germany's phantom borders
More below
Slower now, to give you time to capture the details:
I'm gearing up for a huge series on Germany, with this and much more: Why it's so rich, what are its main priorities, why it's so federal, what's special about each region...

Subscribe for free here:
unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/subscribe
DM me your gmail-compatible email if you are German / expert on Germany and its history / geography and want to have a look and fact-check me
Was what’s the best title for that gif?
I will also make some Twitter threads on Germany here so follow me if you don’t already

Next up: Why Germany is so rich. And it’s probably not what you think.

• • •

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More from @tomaspueyo

Tomas Pueyo Profile picture
Feb 16
Why is Berlin the capital of Germany? It's much less straightforward than you might expect!

The story involves kings, emperors, imperial roads, rivers, seas, plains, trade, and a crucial 200 m hill

Here it is: thread
First, Berlin is not central. Most capitals try to be, but Berlin is in the northeastern corner of the country Image
Also, most European capitals are on the biggest regional river:
London➡️Thames
Paris➡️Seine
Rome➡️Tiber
Vienna/Budapest/Belgrade➡️Danube
Warsaw➡️Vistula
Kiev➡️Dnieper

Not Berlin! Image
Read 20 tweets
Tomas Pueyo Profile picture
Feb 12
Governments should be freaking out about the fertility crisis. Eg:
🇫🇷France initially lost WW1 & WW2 because of fertility
🇺🇸The US' power comes more from population than economy
🇰🇷South Korea might disappear this century
🇮🇱Israel actively fights this
Thread 🧵:
1. FRANCE
It used to be the most populous & powerful country in Europe

Just as Germany became more populous than 🇫🇷 (1870), it won its 1st war against it Image
That was the Franco-Prussian War
Then came the world wars as Germany's population kept growing and growing

🇫🇷 was not poorer than 🇩🇪. In fact 🇫🇷and🇩🇪 had nearly the same GDP/capita for centuries until the early 2000s! Image
Read 26 tweets
Tomas Pueyo Profile picture
Feb 6
German used to be spoken very widely across Europe, but within years of WWII, it collapsed

What happened to the ppl who spoke it?
How did German get to be spoken so widely to begin with?
How does this help understand WWII?
For most languages, you have first a conquest, and then little by little the locals start adopting the official language of the conquerors. Happened with Greek, Roman, Arabic, English, now Mandarin...

But not German. The language predates Germany!
Why?
"German" is pretty recent. Go back a few hundred years and there were dozens of German languages

It comes from a group of Indo-European languages (like Latin, Greek, Arabic, Russian, Persian, or Hindi)

As ppl spread, their languages diverged Image
Read 23 tweets
Tomas Pueyo Profile picture
Jan 31
Why is Madrid the capital of Spain?

Madrid is quite unique:
• No river
• Very recent
• Tiny when it became a capital
So why? Image
These are the rivers of other big European cities & capitals: huge and calm. Why?

Because rivers allowed:
• Drinking
• Irrigation ➡️ food ➡️ population
• Trade: Transport is much cheaper than on roads, so much more trade and wealth Image
You can see the importance of rivers by the population density in France: it follows the course of rivers! You can tell the confluence of big rivers because they host the biggest population centers—natural markets to trade across the meeting rivers
Read 23 tweets
Tomas Pueyo Profile picture
Jan 12
Nuclear is the best energy there is today:
• Best safety
• Best for the environment
• Most reliable
• Most sustainable
• Politically ideal
• Can be best economically

This thread will explain why, with details: Image
1. SAFETY
Nuclear kills the least per TWh of electricity generated

Why?
• Burning stuff creates pollution that kills (coal, oil, gas, biomass)
• Plenty of accidents in most other sources of energy (coal, hydro...)
• Nuclear accidents barely kill. Uh? Image
63 energy accidents have killed more ppl than Chernobyl, where <400ppl died

Most deaths were because of mismanagement—kids weren't evacuated fast enough

1 person died in Fukushima
50 in the poor & unnecessary evacuation
2k over years as ppl were prevented from returning home
Read 33 tweets
Tomas Pueyo Profile picture
Jan 2
We could easily stop climate change right now if we wanted to

For example, we could pause global warming with 100x less money than countries pledged in the recent UN's COP28

If we don't do it, it's just because we don't really want to

Here's how to do it in 3 steps 🧵: Image
1. STOP ADDING CO2
CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels, and it's mostly used for
• electricity
• heat
• transportation.

We must stop all 3 Image
Electricity:
It's a matter of time before electricity comes from renewables, especially solar. If we want to accelerate that, we should add nuclear. Image
Read 26 tweets

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