Elderly people will absolutely believe they need to buy a new computer. They don’t understand the tech, just hear Win 10 will no longer be supported and their computer can’t run Win 11, so new PC.

Source: Recent conversation with my mother-in-law.

You’re missing the point, this law is not anti-sex work. You can be pro sex work and still be in favour of this law.

Legalising prostitution doesn’t make illegal prostitution go away. On the contrary, by normalising prostitution, the demand increases but the legal (voluntary) supply doesn’t. This increased demand is then supplied via increased sex trafficking by crime syndicates. This is a huge problem in the Netherlands that they haven’t managed to solve in the 25 years prostitution has been legal.

Even for the legally registered prostitutes, the improvements are limited. Financial exploitation and violence remain rampant.

By decriminalising the prostitutes, the Swedes are effectively providing them with legal protection. By criminalising the buyer, they suppress demand, which reduces sex trafficking, and is the best protection for society as a whole.

As a feminist, I’m a staunch advocate of bodily autonomy and have no issue with sex workers. However, what cost should society accept for their right to provide these services? If for every 10 legal prostitutes, 1 additional person is forced into sexual slavery, is that cost worthwhile to you? How about 1 sex slave for every 5 legal prostitutes? How about a 1 to 2 ratio?

According to this source:

the [Netherlands] government struggles to calculate the number of individuals in its regulated sex trade (numbers range from 6,000 to 30,000)

The law has also failed to curb trafficking, with a reported 5,000 to 8,000 victims each year, two thirds of which for purposes of sexual exploitation

So, best case scenario = 30,000 prostitutes vs 3,333 (5000 x 2/3) sex slaves = 1 slave for every 9 registered prostitutes

Worst case scenario = 6,000 prostitutes vs 5,333 sex slaves = 8 slaves for every 9 registered prostitutes

Now some of these people would have been trafficked anyway, but there is a lot of evidence that trafficking has increased substantially since legalising prostitution.

So, where do you draw the line? Personally, I find the societal cost to be unacceptably high to justify legalisation of prostitution.

I agree from a bodily autonomy perspective that everyone should have the right to do what they wish with their bodies. If the sex industry was primarily individuals or small scale brothels, with everything voluntary, then legalising prostitution would make sense. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

The sex industry is huge, with large crime syndicates involved, so legalising prostitution in the Netherlands resulted in higher sex trafficking. Once prostitution was normalised, the demand for services increased but the supply didn’t. Human traffickers bring in women to meet the demand and the Netherlands government haven’t been able to stop it.

There are a lot of online sources confirming this, including this recent (long) report: Failed Promises: The history of legal prostitution and sex trafficking in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

A big issue with Switzerland is that the EU lacks direct democracy i.e. the ability for the people to force a vote.

It’s actually pretty awesome. I mean sometimes they end up forcing a vote on stupid things but generally it’s a safeguard that allows the people to block legal changes. So a situation like the Trump tariffs couldn’t happen in Switzerland if the majority of the population objected.

Personally, I think the EU would be a stronger democracy if they added it, and the odds of Switzerland joining would increase substantially.

Makes sense, thanks for clarifying.

No argument from me, I understand why anti-DEI proponents oppose it. Their racism, classism and misogyny is clear.

The point to my comment was simply that the original commenter is incorrect in thinking that not having DEI explicit adverts excludes a business from having DEI targets.

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

I understand this to mean that job adverts shouldn’t explicitly target DEI hires. That is not, however, the same as not implementing DEI targets in a company.

The intelligent way to implement DEI has always been to interview and identity the top candidates for a role, and then if you have 2 capable and competent candidates and one is a women / minority, they get the job. This law wouldn’t prevent that.

That doesn’t apply to hiring women though, which is also DEI.

It’s basically subjecting the entire population to 1 hour jetlag twice a year. The problematic switch is to summer time (losing an hour), which causes many people to be tired for most of the week following the change.

Lots of tired people means more accidents on the road and at work. There is also a definite uptick in heart attacks.

Then there is the longer term impact of late evening light on people’s sleep. Whilst it is more social to have more light at night, it’s better for our sleep for darkness to come earlier and to have more light in the mornings. There are tons of studies on the health impacts of insufficient sleep and / or misaligned body circadian rhythms. Summer time is particularly problematic for night owls (which includes all teenagers), who already struggle to fall asleep at a reasonable time.

The economic costs arise from things like loss of productivity due to tiredness, accidents, and higher health costs.

Stealing this comment from u/Turicus on reddit (r/Switzerland):

I think they knew what they bought. This article is exaggerating.

The hangars at Belp are being upgraded to accommodate the new jet. Until then it flies from Payerne, ZRH or GVA. The first two are reachable in an hour from Bern.

The article is saying that the runway is too short. But that’s true only at full load. At MTOW (maximum take-off weight, meaning with 100% fuel and passengers), the plane is rated for a runway of 1760m at sea level. The runway at Belp is 1730m.

So they can’t fully use the max range of 14-15’000km. The old jet had a range ~8’000km. Even if they take off with a 90% fuel load because of the runway, the new jet will go much farther than the old one. For most destinations, it will avoid a stopover, saving time and money.

By the way, the Bundesrat often flies commercial for cost reasons. Anyway, there’s one jet, so they can’t all use it at once.

Femicide is a specific type of homicide, under which women are killed because they are women i.e. the “fem” part relates to the motive, and only indirectly the victim’s characteristics. Honour killings are a good example of this.

So this is good for feminism because it explicitly recognises and protects against crime that is driven by misogyny.