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Comment by rosetremiere | Hacker News Reader

In Switzerland, we're soon going to vote on two initiatives ¹² aiming at reducing pesticide use. The first is essentially about forbidding the use of all artificial pesticides by 2031 (also importation of food that was produced abroad using pesticides). The second is about removing subsidies to farmers that use any kind of pesticide, or regularly use antibiotics on their livestock, etc.

I feel like they are quite drastic initiatives, but it's good to at least have a desire for change. I'm interested in any opinion from knowledgeable people on the subject!

¹ https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/votes/202106... ²https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/votes/202106...

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> I feel like they are quite drastic initiatives

To me the greatest thing about Switzerland's direct democracy is that society gets the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them with a very quick turnaround.

If it really is a bad thing or has unintended consequences, the people will revert it back soon enough. I doubt that is the case, but time will tell.

The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West is they are highly confrontational and loathe to undo the policies they wore on their shirt for so long, often waiting until most of the senior people behind such decisions are gone. It creates this horrible inertia against adeptly experimenting with solutions.

If politicians can offload some of the blame onto people for laws created, that's a good thing for society in my view.

This is awesome, under what conditions would Brexit be a) possible and b) reversed in the Swiss model?

Switzerland would have to be part of the EU, for one.

Assuming the UK was using the Swiss model.

The Swiss negotiated for 7 years a general agreement with the EU (and failed at it in the end) so I would say no, the UK wasn't using the Swiss model.

You can actually see the same dynamic playing out with Swiss access to the EEA: https://www.euronews.com/2021/05/27/what-s-the-future-of-eu-...

The debate doesn't seem to be being carried out in quite such a stupid way as it was in the UK, but everyone is clear that it's the public objection to immigrants that is the flashpoint.

How did you get that from the article? The agreements in place already allow immigration from eu countries, not a lot would have changed in this regard. The main problem is the further erosion of swiss direct democratic rights and sovereignty.

No, Brexit isn’t possible in Switzerland.

People voted for what is essentially Brexit, but the politicians refused to implement it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Swiss_immigration_initi...

Actually it is implemented as we speak, after years of tough negotiations, because that's the beauty of Swiss initiatives, they give the tone but not the legal terms - ensuring there's negotiation room, both internal and external. So depending on your personal definition it is succeeding or failing, but the fact is it is happening, there's no doubt about it. It's also not a "Brexit" because Switzerland never was part of the EU so using that name makes the discussion highly confusing for an outsider.

EDIT: I can’t add to my answer above but the point is to ask about how in the Swiss direct democracy model something as complicated as Brexit would have been handled (same? different?). I’m well aware Switzerland is not part of the EU. Apologies this wasn’t clear!

> The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West

You mean the US, maybe Canada? The closest equivalents outside of North America, the UK and Australia, with the same broken voting system that favours a limited party landscape, have more than 2 parties in the mainstream and coalitions are often needed ( like Tories with DUP recently).

I upvoted this because I agree that the UK and Australia have more than two important parties, but I believe that the Australian voting system is MUCH better than the US and UK systems (which also supports your main point in a way).

It's better, but it's still rubbish. The FPTP system virtually guarantees a two party system, which means that whatever one party thinks is a good idea, the other is effectively forced into taking the opposing view, and the lake of anti-competition laws (or enforcement of?) around media effectively means that Murdoch media and the Liberal/National coalition are basically wings of the same party.

Having seen MMP play out on the other side of the Tasman, it's pretty clear that MMP produces saner outcomes.

My personal opinion is that is MMP forces coalitions more often. The upshot of which is that everyone is forced to be more willing to communicate and compromise and take on saner positions, because the opposition one term may turn out to be the maker of the governing party the next.

Canada is decidedly not a 2 party system. There are 5 parties in parliment in total, although the Greens only have 3 seats. Yes, 2 parties tend to hold power, but we also end up with the ruling party only having a minority (as is currently the case) from time to time which makes for a very different dynamic. The biggest difference between Canada and the US is that Canadian voters can and will act to kick a government out of office when they aren't acting in the interests of the people, sometimes shifting the makeup of the government significantly after a general election. Ridings also aren't gerrymandered insanely, so there are many seats which can shift parties.

> The problem with modern 2-party systems in the West

Could you elaborate on this? Very few countries i know in the west have a 2-party system.

It's a common mistake to judge the entire west from an US perspective. But the UK is not very far from the 2 parties system either.

France is closer and closer from a 2 parties system

France is currently a 1 party system.

France is always a 1 party system in regards to who is in direct central power, since parliamentary elections are just after presidential ones, to send the winning president a parliament they can work with. In almost all cases the ( slim) majority the ruling party has falls apart over the course of their term.

And that's why there's an indirectly elected upper chamber ( Senate), to avoid a populist wave changing too much.

Bullshit, look at any election from the past 5 years and there are at least 5 mainstream parties - PS, LR, RN, LREM, EELV. PS are in a bit of a crisis but still do decently in local and European elections.

Arguably the UK is a "2-party-but" system. The main parties are limited in their policies towards Scotland because of how much influence the SNP has, and we've seen what UKIP managed to do while barely ever winning seats. There's enough of a threat from smaller parties to keep the big ones somewhat cooperative, or at least take a wider range of views into account.

The success of that type of system relies pretty heavily on having an informed populace. It's worth noting that in the US almost all of our media is owned by just a handful of corporations. We can vote on things all day long but it doesn't necessarily mean it'll be in our own interest.

An important and sometimes forgotten thing about democracy is that it isn't as simple as the majority rules. It's the majority rules while taking minorities into account. In a well functioning representational democracy this is kept in mind my career politicians. In a hybrid between representational and direct like in Switzerland, the population can overrule and just go with majority rule.

For example, the Swiss pension system is similar to others in Europe, where the current working population pay taxes almost directly towards pensions of the retired. Since this system will break down if taxes aren't increased like crazy or pensions lowered, politicians have been trying to change the system. But there are too many people soon to be retired or already retired that care less about their country's youth and future than their own pension, so they keep blocking changes. So every democratic system has its tradeoffs...

I learned this from a young Swiss when I was visiting Switzerland and praising their way of democracy. It was a few years ago though, so maybe this info is no longer accurate. And I didn't fact check, it was just an example brought up in casual conversation.

No, the Swiss & EU are right in this case.

Any form of retirement works the same - young people working to serve the old. How you finance it is a different question - but clearly increasing taxes & lowering pensions is just one way of the system breaking down. Another way is, everybody saving while working, not having kids, then spending when retired (results in market crashes & massive inflation).

The original problem is not having kids. The “direct transfer” system simply keeps incentives more aligned.

Many countries have realised that relying on a continuously growing population has its own problems.

So you need a pension system for a population that doesn't grow. Basically that means that everybody has to pay for their own pension. It doesn't really matter whether you do it as taxes that get paid to the people currently retired or by saving money.

The solution The Netherlands came up with (next to moving to an individual pension system) to try to raise the retirement age to 67. This is quite unpopular. But it's either that or a low pension.

No, you missed my point.

Pension isn’t about money. It’s about work. Less working adults => less surplus value created by society => less resources available for retired people.

How you finance that - via direct payments / taxes, or via individual savings - is besides the point. Neither of these can defeat the economics of supply (of working-age adults’ labour) and demand (of the retired non-producing population). If you try to force it, you’ll just cause other issues (e.g. housing / market crashes caused by all pensioners cashing out at once, or wage/food inflation caused by labour shortages).

This, TBH. Far too many people think economics is about money. Economics is really about distributing goods and services and work. Money is just one possible means to that end (perhaps the best one).

That why I specifically mention The Netherlands raising the retirement age. That causes both more labor to be available and reduces the number of people who are retired.

Pensioners don't cash out at once. The number of pensioners grows slowly which many result in gradually lower demand for stock or real estate. No need to expect a crash because of this.

No need to expect anything to happen to food either. Food production is highly efficient and relies on only a tiny fraction of the total labour

It does matter, because all the saving and dissaving of the saving-based scheme distorts financial markets and sometimes doesn't work anyway. For example, imagine a system where everyone buys an extra house, then sells it when they retire. Now there are twice as many houses as there need to be. And therefore everyone has to commute 1.41 times farther on average; twice as much lumber is used up; twice as many builders are needed. Now imagine the next generation invests in something other than houses because houses are too expensive because of all this extra demand. Let's say tulips. So the first generation goes to sell their houses to retire and... wait, nobody wants one? They already have one and they don't want to buy a second one for their own retirement savings? Well, then the housing market crashes and all those people lost money on their retirement. (And the third generation will buy up all these cheap houses and say screw the second generation's tulips, we don't want tulips...)

I naively assume that if you buy an extra house as investment, you rent it out. So the house is actually being used, no need build extra houses or have a longer commute.

Blindly investing and then assuming that it still has value when you retire has a lot of risks. This sometimes happens with owners of small shops who hope to retire with money they get from selling the shop.

Many European countries have massive pension funds collected over the decades, with accumulation and payout planned in advance to match the demographics. This is the better model parent suggested that is hard to get through if it wasn't started during the boomer generation.

> For example, the Swiss pension system is similar to others in Europe, where the current working population pay taxes almost directly towards pensions of the retired. Since this system will break down if taxes aren't increased like crazy or pensions lowered, politicians have been trying to change the system. But there are too many people soon to be retired or already retired that care less about their country's youth and future than their own pension, so they keep blocking changes. So every democratic system has its tradeoffs...

Other European countries (not all) have similar pension systems that you describe, with same problems, and even though they don't have the Swiss direct democracy, they have been equally unable to change their systems.

Is this better or worse than the OTHER kind of pension system, where people are required to hoard resources over their lifetime and then in their retirement, slowly release those resources back to younger people (who will then hoard them for their own retirement)?

Only partly right. The Swiss pension system is based on 3 pillars, and you described only the first one, namely the solidarity pillar. The second one is the mandatory saving which accumulates only for you, and there's a third one, optional savings - also tax exempt (up to some extent). So while yes the usually older politicians are looking at their own retirement horizon, there's wiggle room from the other two pillars. And adaptations of all three happen almost every second year with the goal to at least push further away the breaking point.

Yeah the description above is very outdated, currently the main focus is on everyone's own savings (2nd and 3rd pillar), its foolish to rely on the common 1st one for anything.

Switzerland has a bit unique position within Europe by having the highest salaries, so plenty of folks retire to places like Spain or Italy (or Bali) where your Swiss pension can give you relative luxury lifestyle compared to not so great lifestyle back en Suisse.

Generally everybody in Europe wants to have Swiss pensions, not only for the amount but also for the 3-pillar systems where you actually save decent amount for yourself to live comfortably and/or retire early. Not the case in most european countries AFAIK.

Germany, France or Romania have similar 3 pillars, so I'd say the system is far from being a Swiss particularity. Edit: the Swiss pension is so high because the contributions are also that high. Nobody stops an Italian to contribute four times as much, in order to receive four times as much pension. But the difference as you say comes from the salary level - although the expenses are just as high, so if you spend your retirement in Switzerland you will feel just as rich as a German in Germany. Only the Swiss retired (and healthy) going abroad get to feel that advantage.

One could say that the initiative to subsidize farmers who use highly toxic chemicals and unsustainable practices resulting in depletion and eventual destruction of soil is also drastic.

As in paying money to destroy the soil and help someone profit a bit extra in the process is maybe not the best investment of people’s taxes.

Of course, it took us some time to start paying attention to the externalities. But now that we do let’s correct course.

To clarify, I believe the goals are laudable, and the "drastic" adjective was the best approximation I had. My first guess would be to vote 2× yes, but I have some reservations:

* I heard that even among organic farmers, it was not a clear 2× yes.

* There is the question of efficiency of organic/no pesticide farming: are we going to have a really bad output and something less ecological in the end due to more work for the same amount of food produced?

* Am I just a bourgeois voting for my trendy ideals, not seeing that poorer people won't have the money to pay for heightened prices?

* Am I just a city-dweller that thinks farming is easy peasy, putting even more strain on the farmers, whose lifes as hard enough as it is?

* Are we going to rely more on importation, thus simply externalizing the problem (seemingly the initiative take care of this question)?

All this to say: I'm not confident enough in my knowledge of farming and ecology to yet say I'm going to vote 2× yes.

Your reservations are similar to mine. I still voted yes, I think we need a clear signal, that we want an exit strategy and what is being done is not enough. Even if both pass, I highly doubt they will be put into effect 1:1 (just look at the migration initiative). If they do not pass, it would be sad if only like 1/4 or less voted yes.

You're right in your doubts and I have the same, but let's not forget we're talking about Switzerland and nobody ends up not being able to feed themselves. Maybe social help will increase but on the other side a healthier diet eases the pressure on the health system (remember the 39% increased incidence of brain tumor in children from agrarian regions in canton Zurich?)

I am surrounded by organic farmers as well as "2 mal nein" (2 Times no) propaganda. I don't understand it, but it seems they are going for no.

If you're interested in the subject, I highly recommend Tomorrow's Table [1], a book by Pamela Ronald, a plant pathologist and geneticist, and Raoul Adamchak, her husband and an organic farmer (disclaimer: my fiancé works in Pam's lab).

The subject of the book isn't pesticides or biodiversity per se, but rather how to produce food sustainably in the face of population growth and climate change.

An anecdote from the book: what happens when artificial pesticides aren't used (setting aside the meaning of artificial/natural)? Corn can be sprayed with crystal toxins derived from proteins in the soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), engineered to produce these proteins, or exhibit damage from insects (it looks pretty gross [2]).

If you're going to ban pesticides, you need an alternative or will face lower yields.

[1] https://cropgeneticsinnovation.ucdavis.edu/book-tomorrows-ta...

[2] https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/use-and-im...

Somewhat lower yields are fine, just reallocate land from other uses. In Europe there's overproduction so large parts of land ended up growing biofuels, which is incredibly stupid. In America large part is fed to cows (in Europe grazing is preferred).

Switzerland doesn't have lots of excess land, it is highly industrialised already.

In Switzerland of all places there should be pretty accurate estimates what would happen after pesticides ban.

Anyone would be so kind as to link them so we could move beyond such nebulous arguments/counterarguments? ;)

Both initiatives are indeed quite drastic, but so is the decline in biodiversity. Double yes from my side!

What is the sentiment about this vote within you and your group of friends/family? As I pass by Swiss countryside I see a lot of farmers claiming they will vote 2xNO as it presumably kills their business but I have a hard time believing that. Is there a swiss website where I can see current general sentiment regarding this initiatives?

Among friends and family, it's mainly 2× yes. You see a lot of banners in the cities for the initiative, but I don't know how good an indicator that is (political banners seem to have boomed in the last 3 years: each campaign now has its own that people rush to hang on their balconies, etc). As you said, in the countryside, you almost only ever see the 2× no ads.

I don't really know how to probe for the general sentiment: you can look at what the different political parties recommend on their websites (that's my usual lazy voting strategy: if the green, socialists and far left agree on a choice, I'll usually go with it), look for polls and/or read the press (probably swissinfo.ch is a good starting point?). Typically in this case, the socialists and green agree on the 2×yes, and since the socialists are pretty tame, I guess it's a good indicator that I can safely vote that.

EDIT: Correction, the tendency among my entourage might be tilting to a "no" to the drinking water initiative!

Why the downvotes?

Removing antibiotics use I think is cruel and wasteful as you're going to just instead cause culling of livestock and increased greenhouse gas emissions per piece of product from livestock.

Also "artificial pesticides" are better for the environment than "natural pesticides" for equivalent effect. Natural pesticides are less effective and more frequent spraying which has additional problems associated with it.

Removing antibiotics as a cheap default option (as it is in the US) creates an economic incentive to ensure livestock health and welfare. In practice antibiotics are used mostly to compensate for unhealthy conditions and to increase yield (i think only by about %10 for milk, for instance). Keeping livestock on broad spectrum antibiotics continuously for their entire lives is not only medically unnecessary, but deeply irresponsible and a contributor to rising antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotics/vaccines are for exactly the purpose of "ensuring livestock health and welfare".

> The second is about removing subsidies to farmers that use any kind of pesticide, or regularly use antibiotics on their livestock, etc.

Anecdotally through medical school I've heard that there is evidence that antibiotic overuse in livestock, contrary to intuition, has no correlation with antibiotic resistance of human pathogens.

odd, because the literature is full of studies showing rather high correlations.

Here is a nice review article published in the Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...

The WHO is pretty convinced of the connection https://www.who.int/news/item/07-11-2017-stop-using-antibiot...

The initiative includes that farmers have to produce the fodder themself. wtf?

I'm honestly happy with this part: I'm all for reducing livestock use as much as possible, and the fodder restriction is a nice way to push for this by giving a natural constraint: can't have more livestock than you can feed "by yourself".

I guess the idea is to minimize the amount of slurry per square meter.

"Nitrate exceeds the limit value of 25 mg/l in groundwater at almost 15 % of the monitoring sites across Switzerland. In areas where arable farming is predominant, concentrations are above the limit at more than 40% of the monitoring sites."

Farming in Switzerland is a completely different, smaller, culture. Think many small farmers working together instead of one or two big farmers per valley

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