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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

#611

Post by ab5tract »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #475
diath wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These jobs are unpopular because the pay is shit, not because people don't want to do them, the government could simply have grants/bonus program for people employed in these positions so that the taxpayer money directly funds the bettering of the society and environment around them. Besides, Japan is a good real world example that you do not need to lean on immigrant labor to stop your country from becoming "dirty";…

> Japan is a good real world example that you do not need to lean on immigrant labor to stop your country from becoming "dirty"; it's one of the most ethically homogeneous countries and also one of the cleanest places you can visit. It's also one of the worst developed nation economies and has a massive old, shrinking population problem and is well associated with people having no kids, having no prospects for a bett…

You would think that such a terrible, untenable, broken economy as I hear the Japanese economy described (oh no, it’s not growing fast! The horrors of checks notes equilibrium) would precipitate a very dirty landscape, vast swathes of nature torn down, civility breakdowns, mass homelessness, and a high murder rate, bridges collapsing out of nowhere, etc.

I’ve just described some famously “excellent economy” countries, but I certainly didn’t describe Japan.

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

#612

Post by wqaatwt »

einpoklum wrote: post #393
kuerbel wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The text of the proposal disagrees with your claim. Or - are there lots of Europeans seeking asylum in Switzerland?

Maybe its a bit like Brexit, i.e. not rational immigration being one of the major issues when it did nothing to reduce the immigration of (non-white) people from third countries and EU migration was rapidly decreasing anyway.

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

#613

Post by wqaatwt »

api wrote: post #505
xenonite wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn’t racism as Germans had the same skin color. Keep in mind that Germans aren’t stereotypical anymore. In Switzerland live over 41% migrants and children of migrants (just 8.4%). So the native Swiss are not just “surrounded” but greatly diminished.

It wasn’t that long ago that American racists debated whether Italians and even Irish were truly “white.” The definition of white had expanded considerably over the years. Eastern Europeans, Jews (of course), and Russians were also at times not “white.” Maybe we should just keep expanding it. Declare everyone white. Black people are just white people with more melanin. Then we can be racist about aliens from outer sp…

There is a distinction between racism and xenophobia, no need to assign the same label to everything. i.e. the thing about Italians was cultural an educated immigrant from Northern Italy would have been considered as white as a French (not that there a significant number of those in the US) at least.

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

#615

Post by jason-johnson »

_trampeltier wrote: post #201

The question is not wrong, but the answer is. Here in Switzerlands middle land, the streets and trains are very crowded, not just during peek hours. On the other hand, it's already now hard to find people for almost any kind of work.

When ever anyone says they can't find workers, at the end of the sentence there is always an implicit "for the compensation I'm offering".

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

#616

Post by TomBogus »

autoexec wrote: post #506
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…

It seems like a good idea to start worrying about population long before it feels overcrowded and there's no room left on the trains. The issue isn't about how much open space there is to stuff people into, but about how many people an area can sustainably support. I'm not sure that 10 million is a good target to aim for, but you sure don't want to wait until your quality of life declines before you start making plan…

The economy is strong because of immigration, particularly white collar immigration from EU countries. Without them businesses cannot grow in the same rate. Immigration leads to net job creation, meaning also more jobs to fill for locals. It's not zero sum. Public finances would be in a much more dire state without immigration and the locals will have to bear the public debt burden, maybe not immediately but eventually. Granted, housing and infrastructure do have to be built to keep up with population growth indeed, but it's a better problem to have than a depressed economy with decaying infrastructure and housing stock.

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

#617

Post by Gud »

mahkeiro wrote: post #302
throw-the-towel wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany's passenger rail is notoriously failing. China is big and empty compared to Switzerland so there's lots of room to build. Japan's population is stagnant, and so train use might be stagnant too. (No idea about Taiwan.)

What does it have to do with they way they have to manage way higher population density? Singapore is 2/3 Swiss population on 1/3 of the Canton of Vaud.. They are 18 Chinese cities with a population over 10 million.

Good for them I guess?

Not everyone wants to live in a Chinese style mega city.

Fwiw I am a foreigner in Switzerland (I live in Zürich) and I can definitely understand why the people of Switzerland don’t want it more crowded.

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

#618

Post by wqaatwt »

throwaway85825 wrote: post #306
bojan wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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.

Economically it would make more sense to import food from France, Spain etc. it would reduce the cost of living for the overwhelming majority of people with limited negative economic impact.

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

#619

Post by wqaatwt »

autoexec wrote: post #524
bojan wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Well Switzerland is effectively in the EU (economically if not politically) so same standard mostly apply anyway.

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

#620

Post by wqaatwt »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #326
throwaway85825 wrote: post #306

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.

well duh let's just import food from elsewhere (and completely ignore that foreign politic squabbles might crash this system)

There is hardly any need to import food from anywhere besides the EU, though. Which would be rather low risk.
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