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Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

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Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#431

Post by philipallstar »

tpholland wrote: post #389
philipallstar wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you list the statistics that demonstrate the exceptionally diverse population?

Absolutely! Although I would have thought it was common knowledge. 62% of the Swiss population have German as their main language, 22.7% French, 8% Italian, and 0.5% Romansch. This is an extraordinary level of diversity for a European country, and as other commentators have noted it isn't like there's a lingua franca: a large proportion of Swiss do not speak the languages used by other groups fluently--for example, 8…

I wouldn't call that extraordinary diversity - these are all Western European. I note you've added a new caveat "for a European country" as a get out of jail free card, but this "diversity" is extremely long-standing and, still, exists within Western Europe, the cradle of a hilariously disproportionate percentage of all of the social, civic, scientific, and technological advances the world has ever seen.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#432

Post by deepsun »

xenonite wrote: post #408
jansport123 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems to be a common concern amongst the local population everywhere "X identity is hiring only X identity"

Yes, we have a really well recognized Spanish team lead here, yet he’s mostly hiring Spanish people (in Switzerland), oh yes and one Italian is the exception. Also we had a German team lead hiring Germans, well surprise it is easier being with similar ones. Diversity back in the day meant Physics, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering working together…

Yes, and that's normal (except for maybe eastern European cultures who better hire an American/west European).

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#433

Post by like_any_other »

flexagoon wrote: post #414
like_any_other wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a lovely place. Why wouldn't you want to pass a law to keep it that way?

Why would you want less people to live in a lovely place?

[flagged]

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#434

Post by vasco »

xenonite wrote: post #408
jansport123 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems to be a common concern amongst the local population everywhere "X identity is hiring only X identity"

Yes, we have a really well recognized Spanish team lead here, yet he’s mostly hiring Spanish people (in Switzerland), oh yes and one Italian is the exception. Also we had a German team lead hiring Germans, well surprise it is easier being with similar ones. Diversity back in the day meant Physics, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering working together…

> well surprise it is easier being with similar ones.

It's not easier dealing with people from your own country but it is biased. From someone who has hired hundred+ remote developers in europe for 10 years to lead them and out of those hired a total of 2 people from my country. Wouldn't have been hard either.

At the same time I see some managers doing this, currently in another fully remote company have a manager colleague that has hired 3 brazillians back to back. Go figure. Just shows you that it's a biased person in other respects (we all are) and that they make zero efforts to keep it in check (this is a decision you make).

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#435

Post by 0xWTF »

kuerbel wrote: post #348
bapo wrote: post #146

Swiss here and able to vote. In fact, just posted my voting letter today, before taking a 1h bike ride through the biggest city in Switzerland, having lots of space and freedom biking around in our beautiful city. When taking the train to my parents house, I pass several farms and landly smaller cities. Alot of free space in between those, train mostly has spare seats, depending on rush hour timings. There usually ar…

Also swiss here. So many people seem to think that this is about refugees. Wrong. It's about Europeans. Mostly Germans. They are educated and highly skilled and for some swiss, that's a problem. They blame them for not finding a job or an appartement. Just read the comments on inside paradeplatz, you can translate with any llm, on a post about the referendum. A subset of the swiss Middle class has decided that they d…

Swiss as racists. Amazing. People know Americans harbor racist feelings because they are surrounded by people of many races. But it's trivial to demonstrate racism among any population as soon as you introduce an "other" of virtually any type.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#436

Post by philipallstar »

bojan wrote: post #257
philipallstar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were so many things that I saw growing up as relatively solid but I just happened to grow up in an era of European unity and American primacy European unity works well in a world of mostly-stable populations. Having mass migrations from large, relatively empty countries, to pretty full ones, is going to make the full ones increasingly expensive to make housing for, to power, and to water.

[flagged]

The Netherlands is completely tiny compared to many of the countries people are coming from, and the land is allocated. You can't replace the farms with suburbs throughout the country, and even if you did, then what? Is it allowed to be full then? Or should people still leave their much more land-rich origins to come anyway?

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#437

Post by tpholland »

philipallstar wrote: post #404
tpholland wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you mean when you said homogenous, given the reality of Switzerland, its history, its civil structure, its languages, and its culture?

I don't know what the exact word is - I wouldn't quite say "culture", as there are clearly different cultural backgrounds at work, but just as with Canada mixing French and Anglo traditions, there is a generally homogenous Western European metaculture at work, premised on the Enlightenment, classical liberalism, the rule of law (and equality of opportunity under the law), freedom of religion, the importance of educat…

Ah, a generally homogenous Western European metaculture then, like that Canada! Thanks for engaging with the specifics of the Swiss Enlightenment you can keep the change

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#438

Post by xenonite »

epolanski wrote: post #289
philipallstar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were so many things that I saw growing up as relatively solid but I just happened to grow up in an era of European unity and American primacy European unity works well in a world of mostly-stable populations. Having mass migrations from large, relatively empty countries, to pretty full ones, is going to make the full ones increasingly expensive to make housing for, to power, and to water.

Where are the full ones? Working age population is decreasing in Europe. It's only really major cities that suffer under development, and even among them it's just some, not the majority. And despite all the bitching, even extra-EU immigrants are a huge resource for most European countries. In Italy e.g. extra-EU immigrants contribute to 14% of taxes and receive less than 2% of benefits, as many of them come here as…

> In Germany extra-EU immigrants are on average net contributors to welfare state too.

Interesting. By what cost does this measure loss of freedom due to increased surveillance, decreased freedom of movement especially for women. Also increased cost and decreasing quality of police, law, education, or even street cleaning…

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#439

Post by mrtksn »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #340
idiotsecant wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is the idea of economic destruction akin to what the UK has suffered abhorrent to you? In your excitement about the one you might consider the other.

How exactly are the Swiss in any position that would mean economic destruction?

They are in a position of having no seas and only EU on every side, which means things are getting more bureaucratic the more EU-Swiss relationship sours. Think border checks on the ground and flight restrictions in the air and the less than 10M rich people in the mountains can now trade only among themselves.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#440

Post by [deleted] »

kuerbel wrote: post #348
bapo wrote: post #146

Swiss here and able to vote. In fact, just posted my voting letter today, before taking a 1h bike ride through the biggest city in Switzerland, having lots of space and freedom biking around in our beautiful city. When taking the train to my parents house, I pass several farms and landly smaller cities. Alot of free space in between those, train mostly has spare seats, depending on rush hour timings. There usually ar…

Also swiss here. So many people seem to think that this is about refugees. Wrong. It's about Europeans. Mostly Germans. They are educated and highly skilled and for some swiss, that's a problem. They blame them for not finding a job or an appartement. Just read the comments on inside paradeplatz, you can translate with any llm, on a post about the referendum. A subset of the swiss Middle class has decided that they d…

[deleted]
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