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> Vs. America, which is all just "hooray individualism: you're all on your own." Switzerland is about half the size of Maine. Not everything is about your perc

by jsbg 1y ago

> Vs. America, which is all just "hooray individualism: you're all on your own." Switzerland is about half the size of Maine. Not everything is about your perceived failings of American culture.

brummm 1y ago
What does size have to do with it? Switzerland also has less GDP, less tax revenue and less people to build things.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- TacticalCoder 1y ago
  [dead]
- ty6853 1y ago
  Because when you're talking about federal/nation level spending it is easier to get people to spend money on a bridge or institution they have some chance of being able to drive to within a day rather than convincing a guy in Montana why he should be paying for native Hawaiian culture in some remote village in the Pacific he can't afford to visit and will probably be kapu'd out of by someone screaming about haoles. As the nations grow in size you generally end up splitting into states that have more localized incentives and/or you have a more brutal central apparatus like in the large states of China/Russia.
palmotea 1y ago
> Switzerland is about half the size of Maine. Not everything is about your perceived failings of American culture. But this is. This is about attitudes, not size.
- stickfigure 1y ago
  Building bunker capacity for every citizen is definitely about size. The US is incredibly spread out compared to most European countries. And even culturally, population size determines attitudes. How do Europeans feel about Brussels? Can you imagine the commission building an EU-wide bunker system?
  - palmotea 1y ago
    > Building bunker capacity for every citizen is definitely about size. The US is incredibly spread out compared to most European countries. Not really, it's per capita, not per area. There's nothing physical about America that would prevent it from requiring developers to add a shelter to every housing unit or in every housing development, like Switzerland does. Likewise, there's nothing physical preventing America from building and maintaining public shelters in denser urban areas. The article also mentioned Sweden has public bunker capacity in urban but not rural areas. There's not physical reason American could not do something like that.
    - stickfigure 1y ago
      It depends on whether you want to build bunker capacity for every citizen or just the half that live in cities. It's just cities, you have to convince all the suburban and rural citizens to pay for it. You could imagine this being accomplished at a city-wide level out of city budgets and local taxes, but again this just reinforces the point that size is a problem. Sweden's population is more concentrated in cities than the US's population. In the US, rural voters have a dramatically outsized influence over the senate.
herbst 1y ago
Switzerland has 4 languages and even more highly different cultures and yet ...

by jsbg 1y ago

> Vs. America, which is all just "hooray individualism: you're all on your own." Switzerland is about half the size of Maine. Not everything is about your perceived failings of American culture.

brummm 1y ago

What does size have to do with it? Switzerland also has less GDP, less tax revenue and less people to build things.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
TacticalCoder 1y ago
[dead]
ty6853 1y ago
Because when you're talking about federal/nation level spending it is easier to get people to spend money on a bridge or institution they have some chance of being able to drive to within a day rather than convincing a guy in Montana why he should be paying for native Hawaiian culture in some remote village in the Pacific he can't afford to visit and will probably be kapu'd out of by someone screaming about haoles. As the nations grow in size you generally end up splitting into states that have more localized incentives and/or you have a more brutal central apparatus like in the large states of China/Russia.

palmotea 1y ago

> Switzerland is about half the size of Maine. Not everything is about your perceived failings of American culture. But this is. This is about attitudes, not size.

stickfigure 1y ago
Building bunker capacity for every citizen is definitely about size. The US is incredibly spread out compared to most European countries. And even culturally, population size determines attitudes. How do Europeans feel about Brussels? Can you imagine the commission building an EU-wide bunker system?
- palmotea 1y ago
  > Building bunker capacity for every citizen is definitely about size. The US is incredibly spread out compared to most European countries. Not really, it's per capita, not per area. There's nothing physical about America that would prevent it from requiring developers to add a shelter to every housing unit or in every housing development, like Switzerland does. Likewise, there's nothing physical preventing America from building and maintaining public shelters in denser urban areas. The article also mentioned Sweden has public bunker capacity in urban but not rural areas. There's not physical reason American could not do something like that.
  - stickfigure 1y ago
    It depends on whether you want to build bunker capacity for every citizen or just the half that live in cities. It's just cities, you have to convince all the suburban and rural citizens to pay for it. You could imagine this being accomplished at a city-wide level out of city budgets and local taxes, but again this just reinforces the point that size is a problem. Sweden's population is more concentrated in cities than the US's population. In the US, rural voters have a dramatically outsized influence over the senate.

herbst 1y ago

Switzerland has 4 languages and even more highly different cultures and yet ...