Hacker News Reader

Comment by l33tbro | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for this. My own ignorance had me thinking Switzerland to generally be a more educated and progressive nation than it's neighbouring countries. By educated, I mean thinking more critically about issues like surveillance, terrorism, and immigration. Guessing the "well-propogated irrational fear" comes from mainstream media and politicians?

Also, having an old surveillance database named ISIS definitely got a chuckle from me.

View on HN

> Also, having an old surveillance database named ISIS definitely got a chuckle from me.

I think this one is worse:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CUxdvzDWoAARh_y.jpg

Yep, you win.

> My own ignorance had me thinking Switzerland to generally be a more educated and progressive nation than it's neighbouring countries.

Switzerland is actually much more conservative than its european neighbours. For example, they were the last country to give women the right to vote in Europe.

Women vote being allowed in Switzerland meant that men had to agree for it by at least 50%. Some days, I wonder if many of its neighbors would have had women votes as early as they did if they had such a strict condition.

While the swiss men did vote for it in 1971 and allowed women to vote on a federal basis, the men in the canton (state) of "Appenzell Innerrhoden" voted against it until 1990. Then the federal court stepped in and forced them to allow women to vote, too. "Appenzell Innerrhoden" has about 16 000 citizens.

Switzerland is small but diverse. The states have significant freedom in making their laws. This usually works well, but sometimes leads to situations like this.

Not to say Appenzell Innerrhoden people can be seen as Amish people of Switzerland (even in if fact they probably have very little in common).

ISIS was also the name of a secure IT governmental network in France :-)

Note that from a US point of view, there is also a fundamental difference in Switzerland: most citizens there trust that the government can be stopped by a simple popular initiative if it oversteps its bounds. In Switzerland, a petition with enough signatures triggers an official referendum, that if accepted becomes a law. No veto possible by government officials.

So yes, I am too very suspicious of governmental surveillance, but in Switzerland it may be less out of fear and more because they are pretty confident they can stop a government that goes over the top

its neighbouring countries.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com