I think it's ok to define "survive" as an addict who needs (<-also loosely defined) a fix.

You don't generally commit serious white collar crime, tax fraud or do crypto grifts to survive. For petty street crime, I don't really see any other motivation.

I'm not sure why the distinction matters, the Navy and Coast Guard also need to recruit. I could imagine at least an occasional sailor is troubled by shooting drowning seamen, even if they are suspected smugglers.

Perhaps even a few civilians are troubled by the lack of regard for human life of the psychos running the show, eliminating any moral standing the world pretended the US had.

As anyone who's ever tried to split a days worth of work apart with `git add -p` is well aware.

It may be feasible with a million agents, but they could remember what they typed three hours ago anyhow.

But the "Prussian elites lost power" because of the rise of the National Socialists who are universally not considered pacifist.

It might be a "major cultural change" but it was not affected by people staying at home and changing things for the better.

While I neither claimed "nothing can change" corruption nor that fighting corruption is more difficult than fighting European colonization, here are some arguments to your straw man:

Corruption is very insidious to combat because you don't have a clearly demarcated enemy to unite against. Corruption spreads through all layers of society and most people in deeply corrupt societies will be both victims and beneficiaries of corruption: you want your house built and saved up enough dough? Sure you grease the wheels a bit so you can start building right away. Also, your brother who's helping you finance the house is a civil servant and a good chunk of his income is a result of taking bribes. The government itself sees it as "tips" that justify lower wages, and you sure as shit don't want taxes to go up with all the baksheesh you need to hand out...

At best you're in a "glass house" scenarios, it's very difficult to break out of without a general amnesty and serious external pressure, because all the parties that are actually qualified to run a government (or similar corrupt organization) are implicated.

But is this not more of an example of you wanting to do things the Brazillian way rather than German's unwillingness for you to integrate? At any rate, the Nackensteak guy is a total dick!

Also don't forget, a lot of those Italian, Turk, Greek, Spanish and Polish coworkers may well be Germans...

I seem to recall that this was not the result of Germans staying put and changing things for the better, but rather due to external forces reducing the majority of their country to rumble and and spending 2 decades reeducating them.

Not sure what "your country" is, but here in Germany that's the general consensus of Germany's progression to a "rather" pacifist society. You might want to take pacifist with a grain of salt though, considering how excited many Germans were about being able to deploy the Army for non defensive reasons in the Balkans, Afghanistan, etc. and how giddy everyone was that we were once again allowed to export arms to Ukraine. Not to mention the current rise of far right, xenophobic parties.

Fighting corruption is very difficult. A good way to go about it is to sent some of your young people to countries that don't have massive problems in order come back home viscerally convinced it's not a necessary evil you need to put up with.

I can only imagine you are a troll, but in case you're not, I'm very sad you are not mature enough to realize the extreme privilege you received in the lottery of life by no effort of your own. Maybe it's time to move out of your parents' house, provide for yourself and change things for the better in your community, maybe travel a bit and generally learn to have some compassion and empathy for those less fortunate than yourself.

This is, of course, ridiculous, and Dr. Ambergris is just an amalagam of Muammar al-Gaddafi and some 2nd rate wannabe strongmen not worth mentioning that I made up for fun.

There are lots of reasons it could be preferable to centralize. OTOH their mission is limited and some competition is healthy, if only to explore alternative ways to do things.