Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by sltkr » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 1:17 AM UTC

noncoml wrote: post #504

sltkr wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News admins: can we please ban illiterate morons like this who think they are contributing anything of value by responding directly to the post title alone, while obviously not having read the actual posted article?

[flagged]

Where is the joke? What is funny about hundreds of thousand of Swiss people being unemployed and housing costs increasing every year?

And clearly you still haven't bothered to read the initiative, which doesn't kick out anyone, but demands the government revises immigration laws if the population hits 9.5 million before 2050.

But you _have_ found time to dig through my comments to find dirt on me to ridicule me. Clearly you're a hateful and despicable person.

> Better focus your efforts on finding a job that the foreigners stole from you

I never said a foreigner stole anything from me; I merely objected to the idea that Switzerland needs _more_ foreigners to work jobs, while hundreds of thousands of residents are looking for work. I'm clearly a terrible human being for wanting to... checks notes work a job for a living.

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

#512

Post by autoexec » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 1:18 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #405

rayiner wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it a population cap for something that seems to be about stricter border controls is a wild marketing choice.

It's actually kind of genius. It implicitly reframes a debate about immigration, to a debate about ecology/sustainability. Like I'm not defending it or saying it's honest. But as a marketing jiujitsu move, it's actually impressively creative.

I think that immigration actually is an ecology/sustainability issue. There are economic and cultural effects to immigration as well, and that's what people tend to focus on, but they aren't the only issues to consider. I think every country that has their shit together should be giving serious thought to immigration and sustainability, especially knowing that a massive number of climate refugees are coming in the near future. Preparing for that now would go a long way to keeping quality of life up while still helping out.

This specific policy may not be well intentioned, it may even be a means to avoid taking in those refugees when the time comes, but this is the kind of thing that nations should be thinking about right now.

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

#513

Post by marcus_holmes » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 1:18 AM UTC

philipallstar wrote: post #128

arjie wrote: post #31

This is such a fascinating referendum. The population is at 9.1m, and at 9.5m it appears they'll stall asylum and family reunification, and at 10m they'll execute a Swexit - Switzerland isn't in the EU but it allows freedom of movement to EU nationals. Boy it is interesting to see what's going on in the world right now. There were so many things that I saw growing up as relatively solid but I just happened to grow up…

> 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.

Makes me wonder about what's happening in those large, empty, countries and how cheap land would be there...

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

#514

Post by autoexec » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 1:19 AM UTC

themanmaran wrote: post #371

rayiner wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think people who support border controls are simply prejudiced based on skin color? Like, their problem with Little Mogadishu or Little Bangladesh is that people in those places don't need sunscreen? Do you think that, if Ilhan Omar was Albanian, people would love her?

That's literally not what he said. He's saying the majority of people supporting border controls are not racist, but the vocal minority are the ones who "boast about arrests" / "make up stories about crime or eating cats and dogs"

Exactly. This is one of those "not everyone who cares about border controls are racist, but most racists care a lot about border controls" situations

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

#515

Post by like_any_other » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 1:20 AM UTC

eqvinox wrote: post #509

like_any_other wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> take away the EU Is not accepting infinity immigration "taking away the EU"? And the population density is even more part of the conditions it has grown in. But much much harder to fix if it increases too much - shouldn't they take a precautionary approach? Regardless, that's not the question I asked. I asked why the poster was pretending they don't know population number affects the quality of a place.

> Is not accepting infinity immigration "taking away the EU"? Have you read the page? Yes it is. > Regardless, that's not the question I asked. I asked why the poster was pretending they don't know population number affects the quality of a place. In that case: why are you pretending to not understand rhetorical questions after asking one yourself?

A rhetorical question is supposed to make you think, not state the obvious. Especially since the obvious has already been stated - it is the premise of the referendum!

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

#516

Post by selimthegrim » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 1:21 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #446

selimthegrim wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you think that, if Ilhan Omar was Albanian, people would love her? You do realize who a great deal of the "southern Italians" in certain parts of New York and New Orleans actually are, right? Or is your point solely about religion?

They’re Albanians?

Yes, by extraction (Arbëreshë), although they are Catholic and speak Italian.

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

#517

Post by Schiendelman » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 1:21 AM UTC

throw-the-towel wrote: post #182

Schiendelman wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's almost laughably infrequent - you can use single level trains with more doors to triple that without even going to automation.

Has any railway network managed to get less than 15 minute headways? Metros don't count, they're isolated and often enclosed.

The Tokaido shinkansen has as low as 3 minute headways at peak times.

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

#518

Post by CGMthrowaway » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

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…

>Middle class has decided that they don't like competition, they want them gone. Of course they themselves are never the problem

Yeah, screw the middle class. What do they know anyway?

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

#519

Post by Helloworldboy » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

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]

[dead]

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

#520

Post by autoexec » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 1:26 AM UTC

cromka wrote: post #490

rayiner wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it a population cap for something that seems to be about stricter border controls is a wild marketing choice.

Need to hold them liable to one child per household policy if, for some reason, Swiss start having a little bit more sex and bit more children.

You don't have to jump right to one child per household (which is a bad idea anyway) but maintaining sustainable population levels should extend beyond just border control. It should include things like building out infrastructure in underdeveloped areas and encouraging (or perhaps even requiring) people to move in the new spaces, enabling and encouraging remote work to free up unnecessary office space and concentration of workers to city centers, and the promotion of sex ed, family planning, and birth control so that the children being born are going to parents who want and are ready for them.