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The Swiss reject key climate change measures

bbc.com

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Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#111

Post by _nalply »

dblock wrote: post #13

(I’m Swiss) This was a question of money. The Swiss were asked to be taxed (even more than they already are). They voted against the costs.

The answer is more complicated. The same day there were two more referendums about agriculture, one about pandemic measures and one about giving police more tools for antiterrorism measures. The agriculture referendums were very controversial and were strongly rejected and perhaps there was some spill-over. Imagine someone German speaking from a rural canton writing «Nein», then again «Nein». And the pandemic measures also generated a lot of scorn against government. We will never know whether this was enough of an influence.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#112

Post by qalmakka »

noxer wrote: post #105
qalmakka wrote: post #103

This isn't that weird. People will always prefer avoiding short-term money losses than a danger they perceive as being "in the future". No one will ever win a referendum about levying taxes, no matter how important or just those are. That's why countries like Italy explicitly forbid referenda on economic matters.

This directly contradicts the fact that they voted against an additional mandatory week of holidays back in 2012. The consensus was that people did not want the short term benefit of more holidays for log term harm to small business who cant afford to give people more paid holidays. I think you are grossly underestimating the voting population. They are supposed to vote for whats best for the country not for themself…

It's not about people being selfish, at all. It's about basic human behaviour. People don't like when something is taken from them, while they do not feel the same amount of pain when they are forced give up on something they never had. It's much more pleasant to learn you can save 20 Euros on your bills than finding 20 Euros on the ground, because we value losing what we already have more.

That's the reason why the idea of taxing wealth always stirs more chaos than taxing income. Income is money you didn't have before, while wealth is stuff you own already.

Giving up something you never had for "the greater good" is much easier than giving up privileges or wealth you already possess.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#113

Post by gshixman »

tzs wrote: post #72
gshixman wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's downvoted because it is obviously ageist... Depersoning people by age is no different than depersoning by race or gender.

> Depersoning people by age is no different than depersoning by race or gender. Those aren't really comparable. If I have a "no black people" rule or a "no men" rule, some people are permanently excluded and some people are permanently included. Those rules each filter everybody into two permanent classes each that they can never leave. A "no people under age X" or "no people over age X" rule does not do this. Yes, i…

>If I have a "no black people" rule or a "no men" rule, some people are permanently excluded and some people are permanently included.

The problem is bigotry is usually based on an immutable feature. While gender is becoming changeable to certain degrees, age and race are not, one can't de-age a person or change their race on a whim. Additionally, claiming that because someone's older disqualifies them from having a full vote in society opens the floodgate every other manner of depersoning seen in human history over the last 200-500 years.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#114

Post by alkonaut »

Glavnokoman wrote: post #109
alkonaut wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You vote them out once in a while maybe if the herd does not forget being fooled. And their place is taken by the same sort. Again, referendums doesn't magically make politics and politicians disappear. It's a rather terrible instrument for governingf. > why do you think the same people would vote differently for some crazy idea directly or via the party promoting that same thing? The crazy idea isn't "Tax X". The…

We are not talking about eliminating politicians. You said the direct democracy is worse than some other, perhaps representative. I asked why and you keep repeating because it is bad. Sorry I just stop here.

The above message was the “why”: because it forces consistent (e.g budget neutral) ideas to be voted on.

Direct democracy doesn’t do that so isn’t viable for all decisions. Personally I think it’s useful in so few situations that it’s best left alone.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#115

Post by noxer »

qalmakka wrote: post #112
noxer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This directly contradicts the fact that they voted against an additional mandatory week of holidays back in 2012. The consensus was that people did not want the short term benefit of more holidays for log term harm to small business who cant afford to give people more paid holidays. I think you are grossly underestimating the voting population. They are supposed to vote for whats best for the country not for themself…

It's not about people being selfish, at all. It's about basic human behaviour. People don't like when something is taken from them, while they do not feel the same amount of pain when they are forced give up on something they never had. It's much more pleasant to learn you can save 20 Euros on your bills than finding 20 Euros on the ground, because we value losing what we already have more. That's the reason why the…

Taxing wealth is "wrong" because you already paid taxes when you earned that wealth. So yes, you own it already and you already paid the taxes for it. + you would get "fined" for saving money if your wealth grows because you save. Obviously people dont want to pay more taxes because they spend less.

But this all has absolutely nothing to do with the parent post. It was about short-term/long-term and the assumption that people wont vote for long-term "benefits" if it has short-term disadvantages.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#116

Post by KoenDG »

version_five wrote: post #19

The Swiss rejected some taxes. I think this is an important distinction compared to "climate change measures". The (very slim) majority may feel that such taxes are not the best way to deal with climate change, and support other ideas instead. There are a lot of politicians presenting the false choice of wealth redistribution or climate change apathy. There are other ways of looking at this, which I don't think are c…

Nah, I think they're just saying no to any and all taxes.

The "we think there are better ways" spiel is just that, a spiel, meant to placate the international audience until people stop watching.

And then do nothing.

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