Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
by philipallstar on Monday June 08, 2026 @06:55PM
(#48453563)
I wouldn't call that extraordinary diversity - these are all Western European. I note you've added a new caveat "for a European country" as a get out of jail free card, but this "diversity" is extremely long-standing and, still, exists within Western Europe, the cradle of a hilariously disproportionate percentage of all of the social, civic, scientific, and technological advances the world has ever seen.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
by tpholland on Monday June 08, 2026 @07:25PM
(#48453869)
OK, you probably have a point. As they say, once you've seen the La Tène cultural package....
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
by bluebarbet on Monday June 08, 2026 @06:23PM
(#48453167)
Interesting statistics and I for one will back up your analysis. But the Alpine woolly mammoth in the room is that, in 21st-century Europe, "cultural and religious diversity" does not, for most people, imply a heterogeneity of Germanophones and Francophones, or Protestants and Catholics. It means something else.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
by tpholland on Monday June 08, 2026 @06:50PM
(#48453507)
Sorry if cultural history and facts are a bit dull. I don't really want to argue about *something else* though; let's leave that to the *something else*ists.
Re:Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M
by bluebarbet on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @05:49AM
(#48458883)
It's not that the facts you presented are dull. It's that given the massive extra-European population influxes since WWII, the "cultural diversity" of any given West-European country (including Switzerland) is now far broader than the linguistic and religious distinctions you keep mentioning. You surely know this.
This should be quite straightforward evidence regardless of your cultural assumptions, but many people may not be aware of the impact and cultural importance of the Reformation in Europe, which in general meant that nations ended up with a state religion that was either Catholic or Protestant. Switzerland was pretty exceptional and in the 16th Century (which is the important period here) the population was split pretty much 50/50. This religious diversity is pretty important to its history as well as to wider European history.