Comment by sschueller
5 hours ago
I trust my government (Switzerland) way more to do the thing that is right for the people and the law then some private company that has the primary goal of making money. It doesn't mean that governments don't make mistakes but the primary goal is to serve its people.
That is what government is for in a functioning democracy. A functioning government is of the people for the people.
The American mind cannot comprehend
If I had the Swiss government instead of the US Federal Government I'd trust it a lot more too.
Americans are pretty aware that government by large, multinational, unaccountable corporations sucks and has basically all of the downsides of big government without any of the accountability upsides.
American media may be less likely to share that narrative with you. But the actual people figured this out a while ago and they're mad.
It's a joke but Visa and Mastercard are American corporations so Americans can feel relatively secure using them. If you live in another developed country, relying on the whims of American entities feels less secure than something subject to the laws of your own country.
Dang has stated these sorts of comments do not belong on HN news. Discussion of specifics are fine, but nationalist slurs are not.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48100358
Edit: wow, my bad. HN really loves low effort nationalistic slurs as entire comments now.
What's the slur here? American? Mind?
I'm American, and I wasn't offended. Because it's true, we actually can't comprehend this because we are the poster child of government via huge corporations. We literally don't know what it's like to have a functioning and trustworthy government handling these things, it's completely foreign to us.
I don't think that's a slur, my friend. I think it's a statement of the American mindset. Then again, I'm not American, what do I know.
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Trust Switzerland? Protonmail is literally fleeing Switzerland. You now have to upload Government ID to use any online service with more than 5k users!! They are also now requiring backdoors (Article 50a). Literally the end of privacy!
It's honestly depressing no one talks about this, or even knows about this.
I hope I get to live in such a place some day.
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I think this focuses on the wrong issues.
Tin my observation the main advantage of swiss system is the institution of the referendum.
It means that every major decision is decided by the people. The elected government decides on the 99.9% other issues.
The consequence of this system is that absolute majority of public discourse focuses on the issues and problems and not party affiliation.
So e.g. the most consequential election isn't the one where you have to choose the guy who will make everything great again, but e.g. the referendum if the country should spend billions over the next decades on the new tunnel under alps instead of other infrastructure projects.
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> I trust my government (Switzerland)
I do, too. I’m not sure I trust Brussels.
I certainly trust the EU a lot more than I trust US corporations.
Oh, 100%. But the choice here is between European banks and a state-run Pix equivalent.
Do they deserve your trust?
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I even trust EU more than the local corrupt country governments.
Considering the head of EZB is a convicted criminal with, lets call it interesting, letters to the convicted criminal Sarkozy I am not sure what is plague and what cholera.
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I assume the concern is more about moving to mandated digital currency where every transaction is tracked by the government, no cash allowed.