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Switzerland to vote on far-right proposal to cap population at 10 million (lite.cnn.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Beep@lemmus.org to c/europe@feddit.org

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Keystone-SDA;
Bloomberg.

Switzerland is to hold a landmark vote on a right-wing party’s proposal to restrict the nation’s population to 10 million, amid divisions over immigration.

The proposal, put forward by the country’s largest political grouping the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), would require the government to act before the population – currently at 9.1 million – rises to the proposed 10 million upper limit.

If the vote, due to be held on June 14, is passed, the government would have to refuse entry to newcomers including asylum seekers and the families of foreign residents once the population reaches 9.5 million.

If the population hits 10 million, the government would be forced to end its free-movement agreement with the European Union (EU), which is Switzerland’s largest trading partner.

top 17 comments

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[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 10 points 4 hours ago

"Let's cap the population at ten million."
"Letting the government regulate the population is inefficient. Let's use a market-based approach instead. Each year we'll have a certain number of birth licenses and auction them off to the highest bidder."
"Birth licenses are too expensive. Let's let future parents take out loans for birth licenses in their future children's names. If you think about it, it's only fair."
"I was born with a $1 million debt I will never pay off."

[–] Boron@lemmy.dbzer0.com -4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Thats exactly why God doesnt like what we do.

So much vaccines

You wanna live 100 years?

Only Earth?

bro we doing everything wrong

[–] daw@feddit.org 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Boron? More like moron...

[–] CulturedLout@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 hour ago

It's a portmanteau for "boring moron"

[–] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 54 points 1 day ago

Almost as stupid as Brexit.

Stupid right wing parties.

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 29 points 1 day ago

If this passes, that means they will have voted against taxing the rich but for this dumb shit.

[–] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Dann, that would mean that if foreign millionaires want to get a resident visa, the Swiss would refuse them? Up to now the money grabbing yodelers didn’t object to any funds coming in, they even stole it from the nazi victims, the dirty bastards hehehe.

[–] B0rax@feddit.org 1 points 7 hours ago

Clearly they will just throw some poor people out to make room for the „useful“ millionaires

[–] susi7802@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 day ago

Ah just cancel the economic agreement with them again, they’ll come crawling back begging for mercy.

[+] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world -11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

They are right for the wrong reasons. Population control is necessary. The environment cannot handle infinite people.

[–] j4yc33@piefed.social 11 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Ok, just to speed this along: Any discussion that starts this way will eventually come to the questions:

Who do you want to remove from the populations?
Who do you want to prevent from having children?

If we just open the conversation with this question, we can find out what your real motivation is here.

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Thank you! That's exactly what irks me about "overpopulation is the problem". Their path inevitably leads to genocide. I'll try anything to stop us from cooking the planet, but not that. Malthusianism is morally wrong

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

And yet affluent countries have birth rates below the 2.1 required for a steady population, meaning that in a generation’s time, the ratio between pensioners and productive workers will be a lot worse.

If the population is locked in to shrink in a few decades, a country will need immigration to stave off economic collapse. If Switzerland is concerned by large numbers of new immigrants arriving in a short timeframe and changing the culture, the sensible thing to do is to keep a slower, steady influx of immigrants coming in, assimilating and guiding the next ones in.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

If the population is locked in to shrink in a few decades, a country will need immigration to stave off economic collapse.

Eh. This is malarkey. Have you ever noticed how new technologies never seem to reduce the number of hours worked? Office computers and the internet didn't reduce the work week. They did free up time; the work simply expanded to fill the available hours. Things that were once taken care of with a one-page typewritten memo are now handled by 100 page reports with charts and graphics. Analyses became ever more complicated and elaborate. It's the bullshit jobs phenomenon.

And this is also why I don't worry at all about decreasing population. As labor becomes more scarce, companies will simply be forced to cut back on the amount of bullshit fluff work in their workflows. There is a ton of useless fluff built into the modern workplace. That waste is only possible because businesses have been used to having very cheap labor for a very long time. When markets force wages higher, companies are forced to become more efficient and to cut back on the number of bullshit jobs in the economy.

Realistically, we could produce all of the things we currently do even if we cut the labor force by 30%. Maybe we won't be able to hire as many vice presidents of social media marketing strategy. But we'll get along just fine.