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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

#591

Post by dpark »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #583
dpark wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now this I disagree with. I expect that you are interacting with a specific subset of Americans. A lot of Americans are deeply racist and xenophobic and I believe that the average could definitely get lower.

I guess I work in tech. Maybe it’s different elsewhere but even there I think it’s probably lower than most of the world among similar classes of society.

So I actually agree with you here. America has a deep, ugly pit of unconstrained racism, and a less deep pit of quiet racism that permeates a lot of society. But so do many (and very possibly most) other nations, where the level of racism is often even worse, just with different targets than Americans. I think in a way America is much more aware of our tendencies than other nations.

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

#592

Post by archerx »

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…

Really? I live in Lausanne and it’s getting a bit crowded. The buses and trains are completely packed to the point of over flowing, the city as well. Sure there’s a lot of land but that doesn’t mean we need to maximize its use at the expense of the environment and the nature it supports.

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

#593

Post by tpm »

kamaal wrote: post #560
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…

As a Indian I envy you. My whole life has been a struggle for living in places where there could be fewer humans.

There are plenty of such places and as the population in many countries gets older there will be more even with available housing etc; the only issue is relatively lower pay.

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

#594

Post by znpy »

breakyerself wrote: post #536
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's an unfalsifiable claim. If you need to bring in highly skilled people and most of them come from X Y or Z, it will be near impossible to distinguish in-group preference from a continuation of skilled immigration which for most countries that practice it, is beneficial for the economy. Also hiring is often based on trust and networks. People refer others to their company and jobs. That trust tends to work…

There's no such requirement to hire proportional amounts of every ethnicity. There are requirements not to discriminate. Which isn't the same thing. When companies do make an effort to give everyone a fair shot there's a tendency for mediocre white men to lose out to more qualified minorities. The companies get better employees and more diverse perspectives. Then those white men feel spurned. They imagine they weren'…

Wow that’s racist

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

#595

Post by amunozo »

herbst wrote: post #62
naths88 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is completely irrational. But the UDC knows it, pure manipulation of the masses.

It's not completely irrational. It's a fixed placative number yes. But reality is also we don't produce more food than we already do. More people means more import and it's actually lowering the quality of the available food, making shopping more complicated, etc. And that's just the food quality aspect, what about pensions? Health care? ...

Most of food is imported anyway, Switzerland is a very small country. This is a very silly argument, I'm sorry, it does not make any sense. "making shopping more complicated" what does that even mean.

What about pensions? We are talking about foreigners working and paying taxes in Switzerland, a lot of them in very specialized jobs. Health care? A lot of doctors and nurses are foreigners, too. But apart from all these cliches about how good immigrants are for the economy, the main issue is that all bilateral agreements with the EU depend on the free movement of people between Switzerland and the EU. Without that, Switzerland losses access to the EU market and becomes and isolated country. It is nonsense.

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

#596

Post by amunozo »

logancbrown wrote: post #202
foldr wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what about pensions? Health care? What about health care if there's no more 'room' for the immigrants who make up a substantial fraction of health workers in Switzerland?

Swiss people are perfectly capable of becoming health workers? What kind of argument is this?

Fertility rates are low and people are ageing, like everywhere in Europe. There will be a moment that simply there won't be enough workers. The reality is that there is already a lack of healthcare professional even without a population cap that would only get worse given the case.

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

#597

Post by amunozo »

transcriptase wrote: post #547
Stevvo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data/facts disagree with you. In a low birth rate society a constant influx of new tax payers is required. Without it you end up with decades of stagnation like Japan.

Why shouldn’t the need for tax revenue go down as the population it’s intended to serve declines?

One word: ageing. Population declines but also age, so working population declines much more than total population.

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

#598

Post by thin_carapace »

stouset wrote: post #585
thin_carapace wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks for clarifying your personal situation, given the stated context my initial question was not a valid method of assaying your perspective, please let me try again. what would your reaction be if you lived in a peaceful place, and a violent neighbour moved in? to be clear i am not asking any question other than this one.

I suspect you are implicitly trying to make the point that a hypothetical afghani neighbor is potentially a violent person. Regardless, my answer is the same. Violent people live everywhere. Many of them are native-born Americans, and are already my neighbors. Many native-born Americans even actively support clearly anti-American and fascist political policies. If my neighbors commit violent acts, I expect and assume…

[flagged]

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

#599

Post by amunozo »

greenavocado wrote: post #13
amunozo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way worse than Brexit, as Switzerland is much smaller, landlocked and had no colonies or anything like that. This would be a suicide for the country. Just populism to mobilize the electorate.

Imagine how crazy it is to call a population cap an act of "suicide."

It's not the population cap, but that bilateral agreements with the EU depend on the free movement of people. Without it, Switzerland could lose access to the EU market, which accounts for 51% of their exports. Switzerland cannot just choose whatever they like from the agreements and cancel what they don't. They will have to accept whatever in order to keep in the EU common market, or the country will suffer massive troubles. Switzerland needs the EU much more than the other way around.

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

#600

Post by 202508042147 »

joe_mamba wrote: post #236
throw-the-towel wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 it…

I'm surprised to read this on HN. Normally I stay away from this crap, but today I'll bite: the Romanian government did very well to sell Romtelecom, BCR and others. And I hope they'll sell more, like Tarom and other money sinks.
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