[nnevod]

For a long time I haven't thought of Switzerland anything more than "expensive mountain Germany", until a couple years ago I've reconnected with an university friend who happens to live there. I've got to know a bit more about CH and lately I see it quite often mentioned here on HN, though that's probably more of my frequency illusion.

From all what I've seen, it feels like Switzerland is a country that pretty much made no serious mistakes in any field. Maybe not perfect, but certainly nothing is clearly wrong.

Thus your comment was also of interest to me. What do you mean by communal paranoia? As in they're (as a whole nation) afraid of falling from their mountain of success and do strive to remain successful? Perhaps not by hard work - it is hard to motivate oneself to apply really hard if everything's good - but by smart and meaningful work?

Or it is everyone's personal paranoia of falling behind the average of the CH society, which is not very keen on social support, as far as I understand, so every person is not complacent?

Also, by tides that lift all boats - you mean social support or some global-scale investiments?

Thanks!

[zemvpferreira]

Paranoia as in fear of losing sovereignty. The average Swiss is not a cleverer or more productive person than the average European. However like you said they make outstanding communal decisions because they at their core believe Switzerland must stay strong to stay independent. To the point of paranoia. No one does bunkers like the Swiss. EU does not do bunkers. Or much of anything material for itself these days.

[nnevod]

Building bunkers doesn't help well-being, and you did state that wealth difference is also staggering, Albania did a ton of bunkers in their time, didn't really help them much. I'm personally more interested in Swiss economic and social decisions and how they manage to, at least seemingly, do correct decisions on a long timescale wihtout blunders.

A couple months ago in a some post here on HN on, IIRC, something like using personal solar panels to provide power to the grid, I've seen a comment stating that in Switzerland, the bueracracy doesn't churn out regulations and laws, everything is very thoroughly reviewed, thought out, and-re-reviewed again if any objections arise. There was a response to that comment that was along the lines "As, that's the case when the more bueracracy, the better! While they're busy with paperwork, we do practical stuff under the radar."

And, as far as I understand from what I've heard or read about CH, that's not the case here. In US, the opposing parties can fight over issue endlessly to not let an inch of ground to opponent and to gain more for themselves. In Germany, discussions could be deadlocked by rules. In Russia, both things happen, more of former when there is political will from above, more of latter if it's some issue not cared for from above. But in Switzerland, they do actually converge on the real result because that's what they focus on, and the arguing between different viewpoints is not for the sake of itself, but a means to distill the optimal or at least compromise solution. What you've said explains their motivation, that everyone understands that they can't play tug of war endlessly, they have to do real thing. And perhaps that does say that average Swiss may be more clever than average European. Or at least in a more productive state of mind. Or that the Swiss decision-makers are smarter than others - so they are somehow better selected.

However, that's not all, besides motivation, there's also quality of decisions. USSR was also very motivated for independence, but did not decide well. Though average Soviet citizen wasn't really worried about losing independence indeed.

Returning back to bunkers vs economic well-being - perhaps, economic strive to be strong can't exist without strive for political resilience, one needs specific state of mind to be focused on economical sovereignity, that state of mind goes with political and militaty sovereignity as well. Also exacerbated by that Switzerland is a small country and absolutely not an autarky, so they have to stay significantly ahead in what makes them irreplaceable for the other countries, otherwise they would be prone to external coercion.