Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 186 posts

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#161

Post by romanovcode »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #142
romanovcode wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I hear this argument a lot - "There is a reason why FB, Twitter, etc. is not invented in EU". Well, TBH I don't give two about those companies. Also, what did average American citizen got from those companies succeeding? Probably nothing. Thanks, but no thanks. I'd rather have good work-life balance then unicorns that do not even change my life.

> what did average American citizen got from those companies succeeding? Probably nothing. How did you calculate that? I wouldn't even know where to start measuring the total effects of Twitter on average Americans. I imagine they are wide reaching.

Let me put it this way: Would you rather work more and have twitter or work less and have no twitter?

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#162

Post by gumaflux »

gvd wrote: post #156
nine_k wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you run a democracy for nearly 850 years, it sort of looks a bit conservative. Progressivism != democracy. Athens as of 500AD were technically utterly democratic, and had slavery, let alone no voting rights for women. Progress can also be quite un-democratic. E.g. Soviet Union in 1920-30s progressed quickly to afford universal education, equal rights for women, let alone science and industry (especially military i…

Let me also point out that conservative in this case does not mean US conservative. US conservatism is slowly creeping towards theological conservatism.

Isn't US "C"onservatism more or less just a prolonged arm for "Corporatism", not so much theological values there is it?

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#163

Post by Bartweiss »

zigzigzag wrote: post #113
Bartweiss wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I think the claim being made is "scale in size only works with a larger scaling somewhere else". Pointing to growth in Switzerland doesn't do much to argue with the idea that this model only works when you have massive regions with less wealth to absorb exports and services. To simplify absurdly, average global global wealth per person is ~$24,000. If everyone in China had median Swiss wealth, that would be half…

But we aren't talking about the short term, or are we? 50 years in the grand scheme of things seems quite short term when discussing such extreme cases as a communist country that was starving only decades ago and Switzerland: they are two polar opposites. But fundamentally wealth is not a zero sum game. Countries have internal markets too. The idea that China can only grow if the rest of the world gets richer too is…

I agree with all of this, but that 50 year case was ludicrously generous - I gave China every penny of economic growth in the entire world. What I'm saying is that "China could be like Switzerland by implementing Swiss policies" is implausible, because there simply isn't enough money to be like Switzerland. Even if you think it would work, which I don't, the timeframes involved are up there with "dawn of industrialization to now".

I'm not mistaking the global economy for a zero sum game, but I'm saying that growth is bounded for any merely-strategic change. And, I'm saying that Switzerland's strategy is largely a zero-sum one of providing luxury goods and services to transfer foreign wealth in. China could reach Swiss wealth with a breakthrough in graphene superconduction (not zero sum, increases rate of global wealth growth), but it's not realistic by becoming a banking and luxury goods hub (near-zero sum, doesn't alter existing ~2% global growth rates).

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#164

Post by jacobush »

lacampbell wrote: post #99
marktucker wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, all you have to do is (passably) speak swiss german to be accepted by the locals. A lot of Germans live here 10+ years without speaking swiss german and I notice some distaste from the Swiss since a Swiss guy will feel like it's rude if he doesn't speak high german with a German, and many really don't like speaking high german. There's definitely other forms of xenophobia here, though. There are a l…

> and many Swiss I talk to dislike the idea of refugees coming to Switzerland and choosing not to work I'm sorry, but who actually likes that idea?

I think many jumps to the conclusion "will not work" from "does not work". Finding a job isn't always easy.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#165

Post by coldtea »

dgfgfdagasdfgfa wrote: post #153
coldtea wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends if they do it on your dime and in your country -- the one you're supposed to take care of because you live in it.

It's all one damn earth. People already take advantage of each other. Why worry about the person next door? At least they aren't trying to kill you.

>At least they aren't trying to kill you.

Depends. Most are not, but in some cases, they are (e.g. islamic terrorism in France and Germany).

But the main reason is that some peoples/places have developed their own culture over centuries, and don't particularly appreciate some large rush of newcomers bringing their own stuff and messing the nice thing they have got going.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#166

Post by jacobush »

gregmac wrote: post #137
sleavey wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't it come down to the argument about whether a private company can run a service (on behalf of society) more efficiently than the government itself? The article makes this pretty clear - $3,000 for giving birth in a Swiss hospital plus much better care, or $30,000 for bare minimum care in the US. I very much doubt it costs more to run hospitals in the US - even with the liberal lawsuit culture. It's more likely…

> $3,000 for giving birth in a Swiss hospital plus much better care, or $30,000 for bare minimum care in the US I still find both of these numbers insane. In Canada, I paid $40 to upgrade to a private room because we had to stay overnight. To be fair though, my benefits from work already paid $60 to go from the free 'ward' (4 people) room to semi-private (2 people). Had we not stayed it would have cost $0 -- that inc…

Scandinavian countries. And the UK, for now.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#167

Post by jacobush »

JackFr wrote: post #58
arjie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of the world can do a lot of things when America develops drugs for them, protects them from harm, and designs new technology so humanity can progress. The peace that America has wrought across the world is unprecedented and, in doing so, she has made the world a safer place to trade than ever before. And trade greatly benefits nations like Switzerland. I'm not claiming they're freeloaders. This benefits us…

I'm sympathetic to your point, in general, but Switzerland is hardly a good example: > when America develops drugs for them, "Switzerland is home to many pharmaceutical companies, including very large groups, such as Novartis and Hoffmann-La Roche. In 2013, 41 life science companies had their international headquarters (and 29 more their regional headquarters) in Switzerland. The pharmaceutical industry in Switzerlan…

Lovely. Sounds like Sweden 20 years ago :-/

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#168

Post by jacobush »

jerven wrote: post #108
valuearb wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those drugs were developed with stolen money, their banking system is the worlds harbor for frauds, thieves and dictators funds, and gets to lend all that money out at cheap rates. Mining tunnels is cheap compared to a real military. Pax Americana means they, like all european countries, don't spend a fraction of what we spend on defense.

Offence! the US army has an unequaled capacity for actually running an offence war (or 2) anywhere in the world. No other military has even a fraction of that capacity. Basically the US really needs defence from Canada and Mexico, no one else can attack the US in any sensible way. Even if european countries spend 3% of their GDP on defence like in the cold war all that money would be spend on soldiers that can defend…

Too bad the US uses this ability a bit to liberally.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#169

Post by gvd »

gumaflux wrote: post #162
gvd wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me also point out that conservative in this case does not mean US conservative. US conservatism is slowly creeping towards theological conservatism.

Isn't US "C"onservatism more or less just a prolonged arm for "Corporatism", not so much theological values there is it?

It is, but their audiance are often fundamental Christians who gobble up anything that matches their conservative ideas (which usually involves limiting other people's freedoms). Look at Trump right now, total scumbag if you look at the evidence, but somehow the represents their "values".

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#170

Post by jeffdavis »

bdavisx wrote: post #112
jeffdavis wrote: post #31

Comparisons between the US and European countries are often useless. Either they pick a rich European country that has restricted immigration for a long time, or they say "Western Europe" while ignoring many of the countries in Western Europe that have some real challenges (like unemployment). Germany or the UK might be reasonable comparison points. Not perfect, of course (still huge differences), but it's much more…

>they pick a rich European country Aren't we (U.S.) the richest country in the world?

US per capita GDP US$53K

Swiss per capita GDP US$84K

Post reply on HN