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Comment by Fishysoup | Hacker News Reader

This has been my experience with Germany / Switzerland as well. Very punishment-based

Yes, it's called social responsibility.

Vauban is very special and strange even for German eyes. But one thing is abundantly clear among many German communities:

The egocentric individualism where all the problems you produce are offloaded to some ephemeral society funded by taxes you don't want to pay is not sustainable unless you exploit external communities around you.

Right. If your job as a Phillip Morris or Nestle exec (both headquartered in Switzerland) makes people's lives a lot worse in some other part of the world but you don't leave your garbage bin out before 8pm the day before it's collected, then you're a model citizen.

Conversely if you need to do laundry in your apartment building on a holiday because you're a single parent, that's an outrage. The person leaving all the racist and xenophobic notes about respecting local traditions is a model citizen.

Don't know which part of Suisse you talk about, but for me, living in Zurich, Lausanne and Geneva I never experienced even a glimpse of what OP mentions.

Yes, you can't behave like an arrogant a-hole, people will complain and call services/cops on you. But if you follow few simple rules which can be summed up as 'be respectful of others and laws in the country', you can have a great time since respect goes both ways.

I understand what parent is saying and this Freiburg example is a good one: there are going to be situations and times (such as the birth of a newborn) where following strictly to the rules (you have a limited amount of trash to dispose) just isn't viable or even possible. Anything that deviates from the norm and established rules, even slightly, is at least frowned upon and at most results in a fine or some other material punishment in Switzerland (I can't speak to Germany).

No you are wrong. People living there have had children or have children. Everybody knows when making an exception is ok or not, or when the allocated trash associated to a household must be increase.

The assumption that people living there are intolerant of babies and families is false.

On top of that there wasn't, and for Geneva isn't, any allocation of trash or similar stupidity. When I was moving out of Lausanne, they introduced special garbage bags that were supposed to be used (for our bin it was 2chf per piece), to pay for recycling. Avoiding those would be fined if found out.

But if I threw out 200 of them per month, that would be my own thing. Nobody frowns, complains, cares or anything. People just go about their lives in pretty sensible ways.

In Geneva, I can throw trash in Migros plastic bags if I want, nobody cares. No clue about current Zurich, 10 years ago I didn't pay anything neither.

That's a ridiculous system. "Everybody knows when it's ok to have more baby diapers in the trash" as a temporary hallway pass is a symptom of a failed mindset.

It’s the Alemannian heritage of pietism.

The areas of Baden, the former state Freiburg was part of, and Swabia e.g. were for decades the only areas in Germany were the otherwise urbanite-higher-ed focused Green Party had success with rural/small town voters.

But pietism is associated with protestant/Lutherian christians whereas Baden is mostly catholic, isn't it?

It has more Catholics but it’s still mixed. Besides pietism being of Protestant origin doesn’t stop you from being influenced by it, no less than Swiss Catholics are influenced by Calvinism or some Indian Muslims by the caste system.

For a punishment-based society, I'd redirect your view to America with its high incarceration and recidivist rates. The rhetoric of "war on X" and being "tough on Y" as well as the penchant for violence is quite unique to that country. Telling someone publicly to get their act in order for the betterment of society is not very "punishment-based".

"Strafe muss sein!"

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