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points by stana 1 day ago | 0 comments

"in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." (Harry Lime in the movie "The Third Man")

[–] pluc 17 hours ago

If you want greatness, throw human suffering at it

[–] defrost 1 day ago

Cute.

In reality, of course, they produce a great deal more than cuckoo clocks; one of the most competitive pharmaceutical industries in the world, industrial chemicals, defence technology, agriculture, financial services, food processing, etc - up to a trillion or so per annum IIRC.

[–] adg001 1 day ago

The cuckoo clock was intended to be a contemporary reference to the Renaissance period, not an exhaustive assessment of what Switzerland contributed to the present day.

[–] defrost 1 day ago

In the flow of comments;

   and nothing of note has happened in any of them since World War II.

the timeframe does not appear to be pinned to the Renaissance period. Further, the quote I replied to was from The Third Man a movie made and released in 1949 that was set in post world war II Vienna.

Further again, that quote appears to address present era Switzerland 500 years after the infamous time of the House of Borgia.

[–] adg001 23 hours ago

1/ The referenced quote in the parent comment is clear (while false - more below) to everybody but you. Being taken from a movie, it cannot be germane to the present flow of comments, you claim to reply to. Rather the quote reads: "By the time in Italy [this], in Switzerland [that]."

2/ The OP is about San Marino; the quoted excerpt is referencing the European city states of San Marino, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and Andorra; hence the flow of comments you point at is not concerned with Switzerland per se.

3/ The referenced quote is nevertheless false, because cuckoo clocks were invented in the Dresden in early 1600s; only popular culture associate them to Switzerland.

[–] oliculipolicula 17 hours ago

According to co-writer Graham Greene (who retired to Switzerland) they had been importing the clocks from Bavaria

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/politics/miscellany/history...

[–] p-e-w 18 hours ago

It’s important to note that Switzerland has produced these things at least partially through the grace of the countries surrounding it.

Things would be very different in Switzerland if it bordered the Eastern Bloc or the Mediterranean Sea.