Comment by hhoran on Swiss Political System: More than You ever Wanted to Know (II.) · 2020-07-24T14:31:45.231Z · LW · GW

I'm American but lived in Zurich for four years. Understood the alignment/conflicts between the political parties but never had the slightest idea who the heads of the government were.

The washing machine issue is huge. My apartment block (about 20 units) was controlled by two families that had all the units on the top floors. Even though almost all of them were retired, they reserved all the evening and Saturday washing machine times. Thus it was impossible for the other people in the building (who all had regular jobs) to wash their clothes without taking time off from work. And even though the machines were still idle half the time, the wrath of the two families would immediately descend on anyone using an idle machine outside their officially assigned time. Some rough analogy with people in an American HOA going to anal extreme to enforce regulations. Plus an overlay of status distinctions between "more pure Swiss" e.g my family has lived in Zurich for generations and yours only moved here 15 years ago.