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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

#231

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ericmay wrote: post #213
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're focusing on the actions of the territory (for lack of a better term) and ignoring the parent organization That’s how self determination works. > bit of a stretch to be upset at Switzerland who would be serving in a role similar to Scotland or Greenland* You’re muddling wildly different situations with wildly different levels of sympathy.

> That’s how self determination works. Right, like when the UK left the EU. > You’re muddling wildly different situations with wildly different levels of sympathy. I'm not sure they're really that different at a high level. The population of Spain would vote against Catalonia leaving. The population of the UK would vote against Scotland leaving. How can these groups (Scotland and Catalonia) self-determine to leave?

> population of the UK would vote against Scotland leaving

The UK literally let Scotland vote on it [1]. On the other end of the spectrum, Greenland is a proposed military invasion and unilateral annexation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Independence_Referend...

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

#232

Post by throw-the-towel »

contagiousflow wrote: post #210
tempay wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not simple with the "clock-face scheduling" system which is used which times the trains to all meet at the big nodes (Zürich, Bern, Basel) so connections work. To achieve this trains are supposed to fit into 30/60/120 minute beats which synchronise the entire system. See [1,2] for how this works. Also many of the most important parts of the system are at capacity. Bigger trains can help but a lot of these gains…

I'm not saying this is wrong, that makes a lot of sense. But on the other hand why have I never heard of other, much more dense countries facing this problem? I just never hear of Japan, China, Germany, Taiwan, etc seeing overcrowded trains and raise their hands saying "there can't possibly be a solution!"

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.)

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

#233

Post by bootsmann »

philipallstar wrote: post #227
bootsmann wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more people with certain skills (if you're filtering based on that) This is how freedom of movement works, yes, and it's a key reason why our country is so rich.

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

#234

Post by mschuster91 »

philipallstar wrote: post #227
bootsmann wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more people with certain skills (if you're filtering based on that) This is how freedom of movement works, yes, and it's a key reason why our country is so rich.

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> only spends 16% of GDP on public welfare

It's easy to not have to spend much money on public welfare when there is a constant stream of foreign money floating in.

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

#235

Post by [deleted] »

IlikeMadison wrote: post #163
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…

[flagged]

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

#236

Post by joe_mamba »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #228
joe_mamba wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>would say that European countries get along like "a sack of horns." True words of wisdom. > Hopefully they were wrong :-) They weren't. EU membership and cooperation is built on favoritism and necessity. You get into the EU if you have something of value the other members need from you (capital, geopolitical, industrial, human or natural resources) done via treaties instead of via war and conquest. So it ended up as…

But what did Romania experience?

Banks, energy, telecom, defence, oil & gas companies had to be sold to French, German and Austrian companies for below market value, so those countries would lift their veto.

Same with joining NATO TBF. We had to buy some overpriced shoddy used F-16 from the US with a lot of miles on the clock, for the same price of brand new Swedish Gripens just so the US would accepts us in NATO.

So if history does indeed repeat itself, Ukraine will also have to sell off vital industry and resources to major EU corporations to get in. Like all those new shiny drone startups they have. Safe to assume Rheinmetall or Dassault will want those under German/French flag before Ukraine is allowed in the EU. Same with oil, gas and rare earths.

Basically EU and NATO are two tier institutions. First there's the whales, the big players who are founders and make the rules, or get invited to join, and then there's the scrappy low level players, who need to beg and offer monetary dowry to be allowed to join. In theory everyone is equal, except some dogs are more equal than others.

Because everything in the world is transactional pay-to-win. There's no charity and no handouts. If you're being invited somewhere or given something, it's because something from you is expected in exchange.

@throwaway85825 Yes, except that was non negotiable form the US side. "You buy our overpriced junk or take a hike, I don't care if your poor country can't afford it." Leaked cables between our leaders at the time.

Also food for thought to MAGA who keeps thinking that US acted like a charity for NATO.

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

#238

Post by Barrin92 »

ericmay wrote: post #200
Barrin92 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These kinds of morally-superior, we'll show them, type of attitudes This is a strange framing that itself usually comes from a standpoint of moral superiority. When you sign agreements with a governing body, like the EU on freedom of movement, and you break that agreement then there's consequences. And I don't mean that in an underhanded agressive way, but just literally you've broken the terms you had negotiated. T…

> This is a strange framing that itself usually comes from a standpoint of moral superiority. When you sign agreements with a governing body, like the EU on freedom of movement, and you break that agreement then there's consequences. And I don't mean that in an underhanded agressive way, but just literally you've broken the terms you had negotiated. I don't think so. Even in the case where the Swiss or UK are breakin…

>it isn't something that's uncommon as countries and nations and companies and all sorts of entities break or renegotiate agreements or contracts all the time.

what the Swiss are trying to do here is very uncommon, in fact it's so uncommon literally nobody has ever done it before. No country in history has imposed a numerical population cap on its population, and in addition, freedom of movement isn't a detail. It's the very core of the Treaty of Rome and the Schengen agreement that Switzerland is part of. That Europeans can now move freely between countries is the bedrock achievement of virtually all its labored for.

And the EU is not going to do braconian measures, the EU does not bully its smaller neighbors. Britain wasn't intimated, threatened and nobody tried to interfere with it when they wanted to leave. THey decided to do so and did. Swizterland can cap its population and deny freedom of movement, nobody's going to bully them, but they're obviously not going to have the relationship they had with the EU.

To even rhetorically compare the EU to the US (which has threatened to annex an ally's territory) or China (which throws minorities into camps and threatens a democracy with force) is pretty damn absurd. Ask Taiwan if they want to trade places with Switzerland on the world map if they could.

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

#239

Post by kgwxd »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #197
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.

That avoids accusations of bigotry which Europe has convinced itself doesn't exist within its domains.

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-driven border control agenda just controls the border, and shut the fuck up about it. They don't boast about arrests, they don't make up stories about crime or eating cats and dogs, they don't send in the military to schools to grab kids out of class, they don't shoot people in the face when they look at them wrong.
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