War

[Angrboda]

What does this have to do with the price of bread?

well, its just one quick list. If you wish for me to pull up more, I will be more than happy to.

what it has with the price of bread is that this country is able to invent and produce and become one of the richest countries in the world WITHOUT forcing itself on other countries.

You do of course realize that military service is mandatory for Swiss males (voluntary for females). One wag I spoke with told me about how guns and the Swiss were like bread and butter, that it was not uncommon to see men bicycling down the lane with an automatic weapon strapped to their back without drawing so much as a second look.

Overall, three general mobilisations have been declared to ensure the integrity and neutrality of Switzerland. The first one was held on the occasion of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. The second one was decided in response to the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. The third mobilisation of the army took place on September 1939 in response to the German attack on Poland

Now I don't want to get drawn into this, but I will point out that some of the most important advances in medicine and psychiatry have come about as a result of war (e.g. understanding of PTSD and the ambulance in the American Civil War). Granted that is a special case as war provided more opportunity for fixing broken people by providing more broken ones, but my understanding -- without doing any research -- is that the pace of technological advancement accelerates during times of war, just as other forms of production of use to the war effort accelerate during wartime (we wouldn't have nuclear energy without WWII). This is not to say similar accelerations can't occur at peace (e.g. the American lunar missions), but the incentive to do so in war is greater than that in peacetime.

Now, as to the list of Swiss scientist, I haven't looked at it, but really, who gives a rat's ass? A list of scientists or scientific accomplishments of one or more countries with a peaceful past proves exactly diddly squat.