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First woman dies in ‘suicide capsule’ in Switzerland (www.volkskrant.nl)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In a first, an American woman used a suicide pod to take her own life. The process took place in Switzerland. It's done by pumping in only nitrogen gas, so the person will lose goes dizzy, loses consciousness and eventually dies. Enter futurama memes.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I am swiss and I know how our system works pretty well, I am a teacher

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh awesome! How does your governmental system work? How is it structured?

For me in the states we have 3 branches, it sounds like you have something similar?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, 3 branches (just the standard separation of powers) and 3 "levels" (with the judicative branch 4 depending on the case). Swiss and US system is very similar. The big and important difference is the election system. The US has the shitty system that forces a two-party-situation over the years. We have a more proportional system, where you vote for a party (actually a list by a party but thats a detail) and for candidates. Then the seats are spread to the parties, if your chosen party doesnt win a seat, your vote isnt wasted (which would then require strategic voting which leads to two parties). Your vote is passed on to another party. Which one that will be, your party decides. So if you vote for "radical-left-party" and its members, this vote isnt wasted bit goes to another leftleaning party, which has a "Listenverbindung" (Joint up lists) with the "radical-left-party".

And of course we have direct democracy (voting often on singular laws, also statewide/canton/communal) and we dont have gerrymandering but just the normal division into "Gemeinden" (literally "community", which would be a county? or village/city in the US).

I dont want to be obnoxious or condecending, but i think the swiss has one of the best democratic systems while the US has a very bad system considering the US is known to be democratic and even the birthplace of democracy. It turns out that later updates to democracy were needed. :D

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Man that sounds amazing. I honestly am pretty envious of your system. For your voting system, are you allowed to specify a preferred alternative similar to ranked voting or how does that work precisely?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Technically we have a open-list party-list proportional representation for the Nationalrat (one part of the legislative on federal level, like the congress in the US). This is the most interesting one in my opinion. Other parts of the political body do have slightly different systems I think, the Ständerat (kinda like the senate) even has a majority system.

I went down a YT rabbithole, because of your comments :D Short, kinda maths-video about different votingsystems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaxVCsnox_4 A longer math/maths-history video by veritasium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7ws2DF-zk More about the tradition and culture in swiss politics (altho a bit romantic i must say) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ5pmW3l8tU