Linkey

In the op it was mentioned, that due to politics, genuine friendship is being displaced by relationships rooted in drug culture or sects. One could likely add "criminal" friendships to this list as well. I have watched American films about gangsters—such as The Godfather, Once Upon a Time in America, Heat - and I am getting the impression that the filmmakers were trying to express the idea that true friendship exists only among hoodlums. I hope that, in the Western world today, an increasing number of revolutionaries are appearing - people who realize that both Left-wing and Right-wing politicians are deceiving them and are, in fact, in a hidden alliance. This friendship among revolutionaries should be considered the most normal and natural form of friendship, I think.

Winter is approaching, and I fear that Ukrainians once again will probably suffer greately from the cold: for four last years, Putin has been bombing Ukraine’s power plants. The most terrible aspect is that he does this rationally, with the goal of preserving his own power. Since the first democratic revolution (the Maidan) took place in Ukraine in 2004, the Ukrainian model of society became an ideological threat to "Putinism." If Ukrainians lived happier than Russians, the Russian people - seeing this - would also be inspired to stage a democratic revolution against Putin. Consequently, Putin artificially makes the Ukrainians unhappy; the pro-war supporters of Putin have a pseudo-logical construct "the very fact that Ukrainians live poorly proves the failure of the idea of democracy and democratic revolution". The phraze in the thread header is a meme of these pro-war Russian activists ("vatniks").

I will check this site more thoroughly later. If I wrote something not fully true, please note that I am not a professional blogger to factcheck everything. Geschichte der Sozialen Sicherheit in der SchweizPartial Implementation of an Old PostulateMaternity insurance had been a topic of debate since the 1920s and a constitutional obligation since 1945. However, funding concerns proved hard to dispel. In fact, the breakthrough did not come until At least in 1999 the Swiss people rejected the proposal of populist, and at the main link you provided this referendum is not mentioned, so I suppose the aim of this site is to propagate the idea of "social security", or the distribution of state money to the poor stratas of population - this is preferred by the Left politician everywhere. They are mercenaries, "condottieri".

Let me continue: 6) In 2016, Swiss citizens rejected a proposal to introduce a universal basic income in a referendum (77% voted against). This example illustrates that in a direct democracy, the population do not always beievesvthe promises of populists. I should note, however, that in March 2024, the Swiss voted to increase pensions (58% in favor, with a 58% turnout), but as far as I know, this was the only time they had voted to increase social benefits in the last 170 years. That time, the trade unions that proposed the initiative did not explain where the money for these pensions would come from (how much taxes would have to be raised). Overall, I assume that despite the world is experiencing a general decline in intelligence, in September 2024 the Swiss nevertheless again voted against increasing the pensions; 7) In 2013, a referendum on abolishing compulsory military service was held in Switzerland. This proposal was not supported (73% of voters voted against it). It's difficult to draw strict conclusions here, but since conscription doesn't play a decisive role in modern warfare, it can be assumed that military service in Switzerland serves a social function, as in Israel. Most importantly, this should mean that the Swiss army, unlike the armies of many other countries, does not have “hazing” practices. Furthermore, this example illustrates that the population of European countries does not vote for demilitarization, as it might look like for those who don’t know about these referendums; The information below is presented in the book "Switzerland in the Pocket," written by an immigrant woman who had married a Swiss man: 8) In villages in Switzerland, there are shops without salespeople: products are placed on a bench, customers take them and put money in a box for them. In other words, customers are so rarely able to cheat the system and avoid paying, that such method of trade is possible. Switzerland also has many bus routes without ticket inspectors, with a similar payment system. The author also writes that she personally experienced the honesty of people in Switzerland; 9) Switzerland has a very humane attitude toward animals. This is reflected in various laws; for example, if you get a guinea pig, you must introduce it to other guinea pigs to prevent it from becoming lonely. For owners who don't want to keep multiple guinea pigs, there are agencies that, for a fee, bring other guinea pigs to their homes for introductions. A sick aquarium fish cannot be disposed of simply by flushing it down the toilet; it must be humanely euthanized first. Butchers are required to stun the animal before slaughter to prevent it from suffering.

The difference is not important. The future of Putin💀

I fully understand this problem of the Swiss political system, and I had mentioned this in the op. To solve this problem, we need the "Maidan ideology," the Ukrainian mentality that was formed 22 years ago during their Orange Revolution. This ideology assumes that if the government violates the constitution, a revolution must immediately be started, and a new government must be elected. For the past 22 years, we have been locked in a deadly confrontation between two ideologies: this Maidan ideology, and Putin's "Orthodox pro-power patriotism." I believe that if Ukraine loses the war, it will practically mean the end of all human civilization… I hope, you're in the minority here with this opinion. P.S. Please note that I don't violate the forum rules, and discuss not only political topics but also scientific ones. But I consider political topics to be the most important.

I will provide you more arguments some time later. The more arguments, the better. Currently the best of my arguments is that the shadow economy in Switzerland is much smaller than in other Western countries, as some people here confirmed. And speaking of Ireland and UK, I know that the alcohol consumption is very high in these countries, that's enough as an argument for me.

I suppose, I need to provide all necessary proofs for the data I write in this thread: 1) https://smw.ch/index.php/smw/article/download/3279/5517?inline=1 2) https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/sci-tech/science_study-if-you-lose-your-wallet-make-sure-it-s-full-of-money/45045456? 3) https://geofactbook.com/countries/switzerland/obesity-adult-prevalence-rate https://geofactbook.com/fact/obesity-adult-prevalence-rate/2025 4) https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/che/switzerland/life-expectancy 5) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2022/734007/IPOL_STU%282022%29734007_EN.pdf?

I have a feeling that perhaps the handicap principle is actually not more strange and counterintuitive, than the concept of nagware in IT, which is very familiar to me since I am a programmer myself. Nagware is the way of distribution of software, when you download a free version of a program, and it's usable and has full functionality, but an annoying window constantly pops up where you have to enter a captcha. To make this window disappear, you have to pay money for authors. In my opinion, this is, in many cases, much better than traditional adware (when the free version shows you ads). Perhaps nagware is in fact a fairly close and accurate analogy to handicap? Anyway, one of the main factors in evolution is that even a small number of males can fertilize all the females in a population, so the death of a male is not a serious threat to the population. The moral of the story: take care of the women (not the men).

I’ve been thinking now, that perhaps the Handicap Principle isn't actually so counter-intuitive as it can look like. A question for those familiar with Grafen’s experiment: am I right that the "handicaps" (inherently disadvantageous traits that help a male attract females precisely because they are disadvantageous) are exclusively male traits that aren't passed on to female offspring? In humans, for instance, these would be traits encoded on the Y chromosome, which women lack. That makes the whole subject seem more or less clear. Suppose a man has a huge ..., so large that it actually harms him and hinders his survival. A woman considering him as a potential father for her future children knows that if they have daughters, those daughters won't inherit this disadvantaguos trait; instead, they’ll inherit other genes of this man (i.e. the ones that allowed him to survive despite this problem). It’s trickier with sons, but there’s another factor at play: if conditions for the population turn bad and 90% of the males die, nobody really cares, because the remaining 10% will be still able fertilize all the females and pass them their good genes. I think I understand it a bit better now. But that implies that Dawkins was talking nonsense in the final sentence of the last quote above (signal of an animal to a lion) that’s not exactly how it works.

In all times the autocrats use the following rhetoric to justify their wish to keep their power: "the mob is too stupid" and so on. But the fact is, that "the mob is stupid" only because stupid and drinking people are supported and protected by the power, because they are less interested in politics and lefss often criticize the power. I am absolutely serious and I can find a lot of arguments for this statement, both from history or from my own experience. In Russia, there probably was a phrase by Ekatherine the Great - "drunk nation is more easy to govern". She said this phrase, when she was asked, why the government supports the state alcohol monopoly. It is interesting, how much alcohol do people in Switzerland drink?

Sounds nice. Probably this is because their laws are more rational, than in other Western countries.

Currently, Switzerland's political system is most close to what I call direct democracy (although, in reality, it still isn't a true direct democracy - I can explain this point later). A referendum is held in the country every three months. Below, I will share what I know about Switzerland. I have 12 points, but for now, I will present five: 1) According to WHO data, Switzerland has a suicide rate of 9.8 per 100,000 people (2019). For comparison, WHO figures show rates of 14.5 for the USA, 21.6 for Russia, and 21.2 for South Korea. It is also worth noting that euthanasia is legal in Switzerland, which implies that suicide is less stigmatized there than in other countries; 2) In a "lost wallet" experiment, the Swiss proved to be the most honest people among those studied: they returned the wallet (without the cash, but with the key) in 73 percent of cases. The Chinese were found to be the least honest, returning the wallet only in 7 percent of cases; 3) According to UN data, the obesity rate in Switzerland is 19.5% (for comparison: 36.2% in the USA, 23.1% in Russia, and 32% in Egypt (2019)); 4) Switzerland ranks first in the world for life expectancy for men (81 years) and sixth for women (85 years). 5) According to 2021y data I found online, Switzerland has the smallest shadow economy among 31 European countries (it stands at 5.8% of GDP, compared to 13% in France, 16% in Belgium, 22% in Poland, and 32% in Turkey).

I meant that if 90% of all day time will be prohibited for work, the world GDP will be lower 10 times, but this fact itself will not make anybody unhappy. Currently the techologies allow people to live a life which was considered very rich in Middle Ages, if only 1% of the population are working and making the food and goods for others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox

I can explain: these numerous referendums will be not the referendums in usual meaning, but rather just "super-accurate opinion polls". They will just indicate what people need; and if the government does not fulfill the wish of people, it will become illegitimate and loose next elections. And one more thing: I think that the referendums must be also able to make decisions usually made by judicial branch of power, and if e.g. a president starts a war while people forbid him to do this, after loosing the power this president will be imprisoned via one more decision made by referendum. If the government thinks that a referendum was profane, ok maybe it is right, and it will have to prove that it was right for the people after leaving the power. I understand this problem, but firstly this problem is the same for usual representative democracy (90% of citizens can elect a party which will make the remaining 10% slaves), and secondly it can be solved, at least theoretically. I will explain this later.

I am sure that the direct democracy can solve the overwhelming majority of human’s problems. If a referendum is performed in US with two separate suggestions – banning transgender people in big sports and allowing abortions – I am sure that both the transgenders will be banned and the abortions will be allowed. The majority of Americans will vote for the first point, and slightly other majority, but still the majority, will vote for the second point. These results of the referendum will be good both for the Left supporters and for the Right supporters, because the Right supporters will not become greatly unhappy because of the allowance of the abortions (this question is less important for them, than the second question), and same for the Left supporters. Also, this referendum must cover questions like international politics vector (Ukraine) and the legalization of cryptocurrencies. I don’t know why Trump has not declared that he wants to perform such a referendum. And anyway, maybe his wish is not really so important. I believe that the described referendum can be performed via people’s initiative only, without the actions of the government. Spreading information via forums like this, X and Meta will be enough. Does anybody here guess what I mean? Ok, but after the first referendum, a second one can be performed, and so on, until only 10% of all time can be spent for work.

Speaking of direct democracy and the problem of profanation of referendum decisions, how about this idea: to holdi a planetary referendum proposing a partial ban on work. Following the referendum, each country would have to pass a law allowing 30% of the daytime to be spent on any activity except work. Then, with that 30% of time, people might (maybe out of boredom) start becoming interested in subjects like history and economics. They will also begin to find friends based on such interests, and join political clubs.

Let me paste a fragment of the book of R. Dawkins "Selfish gene". Sorry that the text is very big, and also it is not authentic: it is an auto translation to English of this text in another language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_principle The handicap principle is a controversial hypothesis, possible confirmed by Alan Grafen. I would like to understand his reasoning. A handicap is a harmful thing, like a peacock's tail, that attracts females precisely because it is harmful. Dawkins uses the following analogy: if two men are running a marathon, one of them has a bag on his shoulders, and they arrive at the same time, then the woman can choose the man with the bag, because her instincts know that he is strong (since he ran fast despite the bag). But this is probably not a correct analogy, because in wildlife such a bag is worn all his life, and is not removed after the demonstration. I will use a simple model. All men are divided into strong and weak, and into drinkers and non-drinkers (four combinations in total). The weak men drink a lot and this makes it very difficult for them to survive. The strong men drink moderately, this also hinders them, but not much. Women don't know if a man is strong or weak, but they know whether he drinks and that he survived. Therefore, if a woman sees a drinking man, she knows that he is more likely to be strong than a non-drinking man. Here is the weakest point - where did this correlation come from, that the weak drink much, and the strong drink a little? You can also suggest that a man stops drinking after the wedding, but somehow it turns out to be strained. Here the handicap principle is criticized, but I think that the skepticism is not well-argumented: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12563

In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Catherine Fitts was using the phrase "two sides of the same party" several times: https://youtu.be/BvLz1bI2sXU As far as I understand, it's perfectly obvious that just like any representatives of big business inevitably monopolize and cartelize finally (they understand that it's more profitable for them to cooperate than to compete), the same process finally occurs with all parties. The only way to solve this problem is direct democracy, at least like in Switzerland - several referendums each year. I really hope that Trump would initiate an all-US referendum asking people to vote on all hot US issues - prohibition of abortions, "gender diversity", Ukraine, cryptocurrencies, etc. This will destroy the illusion "if Americans choose between Harris and Disantis, that means they have democracy".

Please help me to find political or scientific forums in the Web. Previously I wrote about politics at thephilosophyforum forum: The Philosophy ForumThe Philosophy ForumAn independent community-run forum for philosophical discussion, since 2015The Philosophy Forum An independent community-run forum for philosophical discussion, since 2015 www.thephilosophyforum.com www.thephilosophyforum.com But several months ago I was banned there, after creating a thread about Time Patrol, similar to this thread: The decision of the forum moderator to ban me seems even strange, because this thread was highly philosophic and "not too pseudo-scientific" for that forum. Maybe this was a private decision of some forum moderator, not of the forum owner, and this decision can be challenged? If anybody here has an account at thephilosophyforum forum, maybe you can write there in the moderator section about my request? Any other links to political forums will be good for me.

As far as I understand, you can deny any fact (declare it fake) simply because it does not fit into your worldview and make you feel cognitive dissonance?

https://youtu.be/q07dm6lPs2k https://youtu.be/RMg0AGE11oo https://youtu.be/l07MYf2iPr4 https://youtu.be/EjdM3s-sMAI https://youtu.be/6GGriN--BA0 As far as I can see, about half of famous Russian musicians and writers are against Putin and his war. All of them have relocated from Russia.