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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

#701

Post by tpm »

mike_hearn wrote: post #655
joxdosba wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Probably the same as Britain, which didn't suffer any economic damage from leaving the EU. Look at current trade ratios, GDP and other core stats vs neighbouring France. No difference. The EU single market is apparently not as important as it's cracked up to be. The EU has sanctioned Switzerland before and it didn't matter. And the Swiss economy is very strong.

only there are several studies like this: "These estimates suggest that by 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%" https://www.nber.org/papers/w34459

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

#702

Post by account42 »

soraminazuki wrote: post #526
pstuart wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That others have learned a different lesson from history compared to your beliefs does not mean that they are ignorant of it.

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

#703

Post by deaux »

ericmay wrote: post #118
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> execute a Swexit It wouldn’t be full Chexit. Just renegotiating and then rejecting the Schengen chapter. It would then be up to the EU to execute its Guillotine clause.

> It would then be up to the EU to execute its Guillotine clause. These kinds of morally-superior, we'll show them, type of attitudes and suggestions are precisely why so many folks have come to be anti-EU. Nevermind the actual other real day-to-day issues with the organization. I'm sure you're also staunchly against Scotland and any referendum to join the EU, and against Catalonia becoming independent as well? Why s…

> These kinds of morally-superior, we'll show them, type of attitudes and suggestions are precisely why so many folks have come to be anti-EU.

This would be a hilariously dumb reason to be anti-EU when the other major Western power, the US, has had a much bigger "we'll show them", strongarm attitude for much longer.

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

#704

Post by account42 »

thisisit wrote: post #580
jansport123 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The broader concern seems to be “outsiders taking our jobs/raising house prices/voting in elections” etc etc. Anything perceived to be done by “outsiders” is an issue. Americans/British saying this about non-white immigrants. Switzerland about Europeans. India saying it about Bangladeshi migrants. It’s like people dislike others who are worse off them.

No it's people disliking importing the cultures and problems that made those people worse off in the first place.

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

#705

Post by deaux »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #232
contagiousflow wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

> Japan's population is stagnant, and so train use might be stagnant too. (No idea about Taiwan.)

Japan's number of tourists has famously exploded over the last decade, and they take trains more than the resident population.

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

#706

Post by api »

wqaatwt wrote: post #613
api wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Technically yes, but usually I think there’s a racist undercurrent to xenophobia.

The US stopped accepting refugees recently… except white South Africans. I’d say these people share no more culture or values with the average American than a Central American refugee. Maybe less. I’d much rather party with a bunch of Central or South Americans than a bunch of Apartheid lost causers.

If ethnically white people were pouring across the US border I don’t think many of our immigration hawks would care much, even if some were committing crimes.

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

#707

Post by deaux »

soco wrote: post #89
deepspace wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an utterly meaningless statistic. Canada, with four times the population, ranks #233, because most of the country is uninhabited / uninhabitable.

> That is an utterly meaningless statistic It's very meaningful, when the main argument is population overcrowding.

It's completely useless, because you're comparing country area level.

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

#708

Post by deaux »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #463
deepspace wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an utterly meaningless statistic. Canada, with four times the population, ranks #233, because most of the country is uninhabited / uninhabitable.

Population weighted density is a better metric for this use case. It's more stable than population density when adding large areas of sparsely populated land, because the denser, more highly populated areas are more heavily weighted. It shows, roughly, the density experienced locally by the average person in some region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_weighted_density The problem is it's difficult to compar…

Whichever of the reasonable parcel sizes you choose, it's still miles better than the population density based solely on the territory of a country.

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

#709

Post by kypro »

deaux wrote: post #696
stouset wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They're partially right, some cultures are awful by any common usage of the word. The problem of course is that they're dogwhistle implying that this means all Afghan asylum seekers must be part of such cultures and therefore must be awful, which is of course not true.

[flagged]

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

#710

Post by throw1234567891 »

saguntum wrote: post #579
throw1234567891 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland is not a member of the EU.

Switzerland is, however, a member of the Schengen Area, which is very relevant to this discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area EU citizens can freely live and work in Switzerland and vice-versa. It would be difficult to reliably cap immigration from other EU countries and stay in the Schengen Area.

Yeah, but Schengen Area !== EU.
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