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Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

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Re: Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

#101

Post by claudeganon »

fsloth wrote: post #54
Angostura wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always found Switzerland pretty authoritarian. Try hang out your washing on the wrong day of the week/in the wrong place.

That's not authoritarianism. "Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms. " I'm sure you could create a political movement to make it by law easier to hang out your washing where you like.

Authoritarianism:

Characterized by or favoring absolute obedience to authority, as against individual freedom.

...which is entirely compatible with enforcement of high-pressure, in-group norms. Shunning is an authoritarian practice, even if it’s done by a collective. See also the Cultural Revolution in China.

Re: Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

#102

Post by occamrazor »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #26
greatpatton wrote: post #19

I'm wondering currently we have 40-60 cases in other EU countries all originating in Italy, but there are only 650 official cases in Italy. Based on this, it seems that the infection is widely widespread in Italy and the number of "undetected case" should be important (maybe for instance with a lot of asymptomatic carriers) Is there any model to predict this type of dispersion? Any interesting article on this subject…

I've been wondering for a while why countries do not test people randomly like in phone surveys, i.e.randomly pick several thousand persons from a region and test them. Like in phone surveys you need to compensate for biases created from people declining to be tested, of course. It would be expensive, but it seems to me that it would yield a good picture of what is going on. Maybe I'm missing something obvious and th…

The area affected by the virus in Italy contains 20-30m people. If there are 10000 infected, they are only 0.05% of the population. A country would need to test tens of thousands of people to get any meaningful results.

Re: Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

#103

Post by lolc »

tobltobs wrote: post #60
philshem wrote: post #2

As a Swiss resident, I'm happy to see a federal-level decision that is effective immediately and made despite economic pressure to keep the status quo. Cancelled are the Geneva Auto Show (600k+ guests), Basel Fasnacht (carnival), and many other popular events (concerts and sporting events) with more than 1000 people.

Last time when the Basler Fasnacht was cancelled was 1920, during the Spanish flu ...

Interesting nugget! I looked it up and from what I read in 1920 the carnival was not cancelled but just postponed by four weeks.

Obligatory commonplace: History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes!

Re: Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

#104

Post by rasz »

greatpatton wrote: post #19

I'm wondering currently we have 40-60 cases in other EU countries all originating in Italy, but there are only 650 official cases in Italy. Based on this, it seems that the infection is widely widespread in Italy and the number of "undetected case" should be important (maybe for instance with a lot of asymptomatic carriers) Is there any model to predict this type of dispersion? Any interesting article on this subject…

No, what we have is Italy being the most efficient at testing. Other countries simply limit testing, either not testing at all or only some people directly returning from China. For example we had UK nurse complaining on twitter two days ago about NHS telling her no tests for Italian tourists! plenty of similar stories https://twitter.com/PedroiasFace/status/1233284022089940992

Google translate news from Poland: https://polskatimes.pl/nie-wykonano-testow-na-koronawirusa-u...

Central regional infectious diseases hospital didnt test a single person to this date! Government send 400 tests today, for the whole region ;-)

Re: Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

#105

Post by lolc »

_trampeltier wrote: post #72

As I read it, you even would have to ask, if you would allowed to do a Poker evening with friends at home. https://www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/60470.p... Art. 2 Veranstaltungsverbot 1 Es ist verboten, öffentliche oder private Veranstaltungen bei der sich gleichzeitig mehr als 1000 Personen aufhalten, in der Schweiz durchzuführen. 2 Bei öffentlichen oder privaten Veranstaltungen, bei denen weniger als…

I am puzzling over that! Because we're having a party tomorrow :-) It's fifty people tops so it falls under #2. I don't think we're going to care about the ban since the party is private and not registered.

We do have a public party registered with the authorities for end of March. So if they extend the ban that may become a problem. But until then I hope we'll know whether the disease is reasonably contained. If not contained we probably don't want to be there anyway!

Re: Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

#106

Post by lolc »

nickik wrote: post #100
mikl wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, are you one of those people who’ve _chosen_ to live in a city that’s known to have a big festival every year, and is for some reason still angry said festival happens? You could just move, you know? Or at least plan vacation when the carnival happens so it doesn’t have to bother you.

In Switzerland you don't get the same day off depending on what canton you work at. And sorry, that Swiss banks don't plan their software release schedule, around carnival. 1000s of people need to get to and from the train-station, to go to their jobs and the city makes almost no extra arrangements.

If you can muster the strength to complain about having to make your way through a (horrible, I grant you that) carnival once a year, your life is pretty damn good! Maybe you should go celebrate that at the carnival, so you can value the other 364 days the more :-P

Re: Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

#107

Post by sschueller »

tobltobs wrote: post #60
philshem wrote: post #2

As a Swiss resident, I'm happy to see a federal-level decision that is effective immediately and made despite economic pressure to keep the status quo. Cancelled are the Geneva Auto Show (600k+ guests), Basel Fasnacht (carnival), and many other popular events (concerts and sporting events) with more than 1000 people.

Last time when the Basler Fasnacht was cancelled was 1920, during the Spanish flu ...

Not completely correct. The street fest "Strassenfasnacht" was also canceled during World War 2. [1]

[1] https://www.srf.ch/news/regional/basel-baselland/als-der-wel...

Re: Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

#108

Post by teekert »

mikl wrote: post #77
teekert wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are elected to make decisions for us. We hold them responsible at the next election. That is the currently what democracy is.

How’s that working for ya? Democracies where the people only have a voice every few years are regularly seen doing things against the will of the people, because the politicians know they can get away with it, because it’ll be forgotten by the time the next election comes around.

What would be the alternative?

Re: Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

#109

Post by roenxi »

dntbnmpls wrote: post #57
roenxi wrote: post #3

Switzerland, most democratic country in the world, reminding people that it isn't just the authoritarians who know how to keep organised. It is very hard to understand how democracies work; it is important to keep an eye on how these things play out.

> Switzerland, most democratic country in the world, reminding people that it isn't just the authoritarians who know how to keep organised. So a democratic country is just as authoritarian as "authoritarians"? > It is very hard to understand how democracies work It really isn't. It's been around for many millenia ostensibly going all the way back to the slave owning ancient greeks. And historically, democracies have…

> There is nothing inherently good about democracies. After all, democracies have exterminated continents full of people...

You might have missed the reason why democracies are so popular; they win wars and they are capable of managing the complexities of capitalist systems. If you expect anything inherently good in politics you are in for a lifetime of disappointments because the entire game (in any political system) is deciding which group of undeserving people get to be in charge.

Re: Switzerland Federal Council bans large-scale events

#110

Post by dntbnmpls »

lm28469 wrote: post #80
dntbnmpls wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Switzerland, most democratic country in the world, reminding people that it isn't just the authoritarians who know how to keep organised. So a democratic country is just as authoritarian as "authoritarians"? > It is very hard to understand how democracies work It really isn't. It's been around for many millenia ostensibly going all the way back to the slave owning ancient greeks. And historically, democracies have…

> There is nothing inherently good about democracies. Besides the fact that we naturally evolved toward them since everything else we tried so far was worse ? And the fact that people are fleeing authoritarian regimes risking their lives to get into democratic ones daily yet the opposite never happened ? > After all, democracies have exterminated continents full of people, democracies have practiced race-based slaver…

> Besides the fact that we naturally evolved toward them since everything else we tried so far was worse ?

Oh god, the silly "documentary" trope. Let me guess you heard that from a silly documentary with churchill? The same applies to democracies as well. We had them and they failed and we "naturally evolved" from them. It's almost like all forms of government are bad and have a shelf life. You do realize that the ancient greek democracy failed miserably right?

> And the fact that people are fleeing authoritarian regimes risking their lives to get into democratic ones daily yet the opposite never happened ?

No. People are fleeing poorer regions to wealthier regions. Most of the migrants around the world are from democracies not authoritarian regimes. Did you know that 1.3 billion people are without electricity? Do you also know that almost all of them are living in democracies? Did you know that almost all of the world's poorest countries are democracies?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/world-without-...

> When you put lions in cages they're still lions.

That excuses everybody, not just democracies. What bizarre rationalizations.

> Right, open an history book and it'll be painfully obvious that the vast majority of authoritarian regimes are worse than being "not inherently good".

Yes, open a history book and it'll be just as painfully obvious the same applies to democracies. Most of the human suffering around the world today are in democracies. Most of the wars started around the world today are by democracies.

> It's almost as if desperate times lead to desperate measures... more than democracy leading to authoritarianism.

So it's the desperate times and nothing inherent with the form of government. Okay, now you are starting to make some sense.

> The US is as far away as you can get from democracy and still call it a democracy.

Pretty much the definition of modern democracy. But you are right, we are a republic and that also is inherently flawed.

I used to think like you because I consumed the same documentaries and propaganda as you did. I agree with you that people should "open a history book" and look at what really happened. Most of the world's suffering in the past 200 years was caused by democracies sadly. It still applies today sadly.

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