Live data from Hacker News

Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

admin.ch

521–530 of 891 posts

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

#521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you’re part of the majority group, you really don’t see how cliquish people in minority groups are. Every time I get into a cab with another “brown” person, there is a Q&A. When they find out I’m from a muslim country, it’s all “my brother,” etc. I’ve always found it distasteful.

People in general tend to be very tribal -- it's in our DNA. When it's about "yay community!" its kinda nice but most the time it's "other tribe bad". I think this is a core to a lot of legislation.

Not having a tribe to belong to I find the whole thing simultaneously amusing and horrifying looking in from the outside.

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

#523
post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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. Clea…

[dead]

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

#524
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the people supposed to eat rocks? Agriculture takes a lot of land but people need to eat. If anything agriculture is going to require more land in order to be sustainable.

People do need to eat, but over 80% of the Dutch agricultural produce is being exported. Also, good portion of it isn't even meant for human consumption. Think flowers or cattle feed. This is not about feeding the population or about sustainability. It's simply about profit.

If they're exporting crops that's about feeding somebody. People who would have to try to get their food elsewhere and have to worry about the standards/quality of those new sources. It's even perfectly fine for people to grow and sell flowers. There may be ways to make it more efficient, and maybe the government should be encouraging that so they can buy up some of the saved land, but I'd bet there are ecological consequences to paving over flower farms too.

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

#525
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Border control is not equivalent to racism. The people pushing for it loudly just tend to be doing it for blatantly racist reasons. Unsurprisingly, those people tend to abuse any ounce of power given to them. When they're granted extraordinary government powers, they make up official sounding reason to achieve their racist agenda. Hence the general consensus that any talk of border control is racism. The non-racist-d…

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?

Why do you continually put words in people's mouths? The rhetorical style you use could use some improvement.

Why are so many of your comments about race or religion?

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

#526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re part of the majority group, you really don’t see how cliquish people in minority groups are. Every time I get into a cab with another “brown” person, there is a Q&A. When they find out I’m from a muslim country, it’s all “my brother,” etc. I’ve always found it distasteful.

People in general tend to be very tribal -- it's in our DNA. When it's about "yay community!" its kinda nice but most the time it's "other tribe bad". I think this is a core to a lot of legislation. Not having a tribe to belong to I find the whole thing simultaneously amusing and horrifying looking in from the outside.

I still can't believe we have hundreds of years of documented history to learn from, yet human intelligence is still blinded by bigotry.

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

#527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

I can see the intended purpose isn't being achieved, time to let things be.

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

#528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re part of the majority group, you really don’t see how cliquish people in minority groups are. Every time I get into a cab with another “brown” person, there is a Q&A. When they find out I’m from a muslim country, it’s all “my brother,” etc. I’ve always found it distasteful.

People in general tend to be very tribal -- it's in our DNA. When it's about "yay community!" its kinda nice but most the time it's "other tribe bad". I think this is a core to a lot of legislation. Not having a tribe to belong to I find the whole thing simultaneously amusing and horrifying looking in from the outside.

> When it's about "yay community! its kinda nice

I don’t find it nice. I’ve gotten free stuff on multiple occasions from co-ethnics (lots of Bangladeshis working in hotels in the New York area). It doesn’t sit right with me, because at the same time we tell white people that ethnic favoritism is one of the worst social crimes. We would be very upset if they displayed the same kind of favoritism within their own group.

For rules to have legitimacy, they must apply equally to everyone. So either “yay community” sentiment is acceptable, or it’s not. It’s in my interest for such sentiment to not be acceptable for white Americans, so it follows that it must be unacceptable for me as well.

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

#529
post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m an American and I just had the thought - if I was working in Japan at a Japanese company and I had the opportunity to hire, would I have a bias to hire other Americans? Honestly probably, since I understand them the best.

I’d disagree. I’m not American or British but and in my experience Americans or British are the least ethnically biased people on the planet. Any other group, I could believe that they are biased but not Americans, or British. Something in their particular culture right now.

It isn’t just a lack of ethnic bias, it’s a belief in capitalism or professionalism or “enlightened self-interest”: hire the best person for the job, and everyone will be better off.

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

#530
post #60

As a voting member of the population all I can say is - good luck winning it… We have silly initiatives once in a while, that’s because you don’t need that much to start one.

Don’t be so quick. You know full well that the polls are 52% no. It will be a razor thin rejection and the SVP will try again until they find one that passes.

Pretty much. Many people ignored Brexit because they basically thought it would never get through until it crawled through with a tiny margin.

Do not get complacent, once that happens this stuff can quietly grow very fast and suddenly happen in what feels like a total blind side.

Post reply on HN