[PASSED] On Expiration Dates

[Charlotte Ryberg]

I think under Free Trade that would be a good idea. What do you think, honoured ambassador from A mean old man? I mean, the current proposal doesn't have to be on the queue if the loophole clause is bothering you.

-Ms. S. Harper.

I appreciate this feedback, though it would have been much more helpful to me had it been provided back in December when I wrote this rather than now after I have submitted it. I'll admit Free Trade is a better category for it, however it has already been submitted under Human Rights and still serves its purpose under its current category.

The Republic of Quadrimmina voices our belief that this resolution would be much more useful as one on the broader area of consumer protection. We look forward to working with the esteemed delegation from A mean old man to make this a reality.

As stands, it is a good idea but one that seems too micromanaging for the WA to push as a mandate. As a line-item on a much more broad resolution, it would serve much better.

I had started writing this as a much broader piece of legislation that covered other areas of consumer protection, however dropped the other ideas I had for the proposal as I find it much more convenient to pass these sorts of things piece-by-piece in order to avoid writing broader pieces of legislation with which varying groups of people will find varying areas of effect that they dislike. Call it micromanaging if you like; I prefer to call it efficiency.

That's okay, we are going to support it anyway because it is very promising.

[Ardchoille]

I've just deleted the proposal on a category violation. Human Rights isn't, and isn't going to become, a catch-all category. When you realised it was in the wrong category you should have submitted a GHR.

My apologies for not including a list of approvals. Usually, in deleting proposals that have made quorum, I copy the approvals for the author to use for resubmission. Unfortunately, I copied something else on top and couldn't get back to the original screen to re-copy. If anyone has a recent list, please post it here.

On the subject of the references to "humans" in the text: it wasn't illegal for that reason. I went with the convention that "humans" in proposals is taken, where possible, as meaning whatever a nation's population is. That is, if it makes sense to substitute any other reasonable nation's population. "Bears", for example, makes sense here. But I would think that making the alterations other players have proposed, or simply substituting a neutral word, such as "individual" or "person", is preferable if you're trying to garner as many votes as possible.

EDIT: BTW, thank you for a proposal that got to the point and then, blessedly, stopped. Sorry about the last-minute decision, which was due to RL factors. I look forward to its resubmission.

[Intellect and the Arts]

I don't care how upset Knoot is at the number of Social Justice proposals/Resolutions. Social Justice is the best category for this proposal, as Mousebumples originally stated. It is economic in nature and therefore should be placed in a category specifically designed for legislation that affects the economy. It places regulations on industry, specifically the food production and healthcare industries, for the betterment of public well-being. That's Social Justice.

As to the Free Trade suggestion, I advise you to read the definition of the category instead of just the title. Placing additional regulations on industry and commerce is essentially the opposite of "reduc[ing] barriers to free trade and commerce".

In fact, I think that's one of the reasons it was suggested to reference Food and Drug Standards. It addresses a similar issue and is in the same category.

[Destructor Bunnies]

On the subject of the references to "humans" in the text: it wasn't illegal for that reason. I went with the convention that "humans" in proposals is taken, where possible, as meaning whatever a nation's population is. That is, if it makes sense to substitute any other reasonable nation's population. "Bears", for example, makes sense here. But I would think that making the alterations other players have proposed, or simply substituting a neutral word, such as "individual" or "person", is preferable if you're trying to garner as many votes as possible.

CAG! *


* translation: Human? OK fine. I can see how "human" would be acceptable since in an NS sense it's analogous with "person". But "human being" is a bit too species-specific. "Human being" means Homo sapiens sapiens, it can't be interpreted as meaning anything else. I would suggest either using "person" or the suggestions made by Intellect and the Arts. And the proper category is Social Justice.

[A mean old man]

I'll take this opportunity to sit on my ass for a while and wait to see if anyone else has anything to press upon me as if it were a heated cattle prod.

[Intellect and the Arts]

For my part, at least, cattle prod application was far from intended...

[Ardchoille]

I'll take this opportunity to sit on my ass for a while and wait to see if anyone else has anything to press upon me as if it were a heated cattle prod.

In the presence of heated cattle prods, I think the position you have assumed would be a wise one.

[A mean old man]

I've updated the draft to be under "Social Justice" and have changed "human being" to "human" (and have been sure to highlight that change with festive colors that we all can appreciate unless we're a sapient and colorblind dog - which I am sure that many of us are - in which case we can just appreciate the bolding), but I'm not resubmitting this until I have generated some time to TG campaign for it again.

The only business that I'm going to take mildly seriously with this whole "my nation's population is comprised entirely of pixies and your legislation is therefore prejudiced against them" nonsense is potentially making this legislation apply to food intended for anything with a pulse - just in case, as "Intellect and the Arts" has pointed out, some rare disaster such as a plane crash one might read about in a novel leaves people stranded atop a freezing mountain with nothing to eat but pet food - and God forbid that pet food be spoiled, for then they must refrain from eating it in case it give them worms alongside a slight chance of survival. Who wants to survive when you've got worms?

I also suppose that some people might not want to risk having their dog throw up all over the ornate carpet after it ate some rotten canned food for which the person was not provided an expiration date. The dog might have easily gone and found a rogue giblet which sat under the fridge for half a month and would have accomplished the same goal, though.

Let's just hope my proposal isn't then attacked because it covers far too many potential situations and is a terrible violation of national sovereignty and boo-hoo I want to find something to gripe about.

[Intellect and the Arts]

People who bitch about national sovereignty shouldn't join an organization the purpose of which is to strip it from them. Granted, there is a limit beyond which lies unnecessary micromanagement, but still.

[A mean old man]

I share those sentiments exactly. Unfortunately, impracticality is rife within these chambers.

[Intellect and the Arts]

I still prefer my more generic phrasing primarily for ensuring the (admittedly relative) freshness of materials intended for crops and livestock. Accidental application of expired insecticide or moldy fertilizer to commercial crops could have devastating results, as could giving bad feed to livestock. Both of these things could have a severe negative impact on national populations due to the destruction of a significant portion of its food and/or trade supply.

[A mean old man]

I still prefer my more generic phrasing primarily for ensuring the (admittedly relative) freshness of materials intended for crops and livestock. Accidental application of expired insecticide or moldy fertilizer to commercial crops could have devastating results, as could giving bad feed to livestock. Both of these things could have a severe negative impact on national populations due to the destruction of a significant portion of its food and/or trade supply.

Oh, I suppose. But there goes my nice, concise proposal - and more of my spare time.

I'll think about this possible addition later.

[Intellect and the Arts]

It'd still be concise. In fact, the net length difference between my phrasing and yours is all of one word. Even if you want to look at it from a character length perspective, it's all of ten letters. Anyone who suddenly can't be arsed simply because your proposal has become ten letters longer deserves a thorough beating with a dead pike.

[A mean old man]

What about the insecticide/fertilizer bit?

EDIT: Hmm. I think I get it. Well, I think I can figure it out.

[Intellect and the Arts]

The bit about medicinal/food specifications is preamble; it's pure argument. The part that counts is the declaration on what the Assembly is actually going to require. Saying "organic consumption" and using "intended recipient" effectively covers everything without having to go into a bunch of bullet points and subclauses. The elimination of species wank issues is just an added bonus.

[Mousebumples]

Here's some comments on the "final/current" version. I regret not having time to take a closer look-through of this proposal prior to your previous submission, but hopefully these comments will be somewhat helpful.

On Expiration Dates

Other suggestion: For Safe and Effective Products / Safety and Efficacy / something along those lines?

ASSERTING its belief that the people of all nations have a right to live without unnecessary and daily fears of damage to their physical well-being,

This reads clunkily to my ears. Might I suggest something like: ASSERTING its belief that members of all nations have a right to live free from daily fear of unnecessary and avoidable harm to their physical well-being. ? I did a few wording changes and rearranging. If that's not even close to what you'd meant to say, my apologies. Still, the current version isn't as clear I think it could or should be.

RECOGNIZING that many companies produce goods which significantly degrade or cease to function after a period of time,

Suggestion: RECOGNIZING that many companies produce goods which significantly degrade after a period of time, which can result in the product having toxic or inter properties.

Some medications (which isn't necessarily what is being targeted here) can actually become harmful after they "expire" and degrade. I think including that sort of detail in the proposal text is helpful and may win you a few more votes for those who can be bothered to read the proposal text.

BELIEVING that the average length of time that certain goods last must be known in order to promote the safety of the consumer,

Perhaps consider changing "last" (with regards to time) to "can be expected to be safe and effective" or something along those lines?

NOTING that this holds true for items such as medical supplies/equipment and food,

Perhaps: SPECIFYING that such details are important for a wide variety of items, including medical supplies, medical equipment, and food. (And medications? Food and Drug Standards may cover some of that - but it would also cover food, which you're specifically mentioning here.)

DEFINES, solely for the purposes of this resolution, a "necessity" as any item which is intended for human consumption and/or an item that, if it was not in proper condition or if it was not functioning, would lead to the deprivation of a human of any sort of bodily activity that is required for the extension of the lifetime of said human,

I think you could completely excise the first mention of HUMAN, if not both from this clause.

DEFINES, solely for the purposes of this resolution, a "necessity" as any item which is intended for human consumption and/or an item that, if it was not in proper condition or if it was not functioning, would lead to the deprivation of any sort of bodily activity that is required for the extension of one's lifetime,

I remain unconvinced that including dog food or catnip or ... whatever under the scope of this proposal would be damaging and/or harmful. Certainly, I'm open to argument if I'm missing some important point.

CHARGES any distributor of any necessity to attain an accurate and average prediction of how long each and every necessity that they distribute will last until it degrades to a level of quality at which it will directly "lead to the deprivation of a human of any sort of bodily activity that is required for the extension of the lifetime of said human,"

Like above, I believe that any/all mention of HUMAN can be excised from this clause.

MANDATES that the distributors of a necessity provide, in a readily comprehensible fashion, all of the information that they have been charged to acquire by the previous clause to any who wish to view it,

FURTHER MANDATES that any recipient(s) of a necessity be provided with the information on how long the exact necessity that they are receiving lasts by the distributer of said necessity.

Spelling error!

Also, I'd appreciate a clause along the lines of the following:
ALLOWS individual member nations to require the manufacturer of a necessity to detail all required information and to supply that information to the distributor, in accordance with all relevant international law.

Obviously, there's a number of ways to "write" that, but I would personally prefer to task the CREATOR of necessities (i.e. the manufacturer) with determining how long their product is good for rather than requiring such information to be determined by the distributor.

Additionally, it appears as if this proposal would apply to fresh fruit and vegetables, which almost seems like overkill. Maybe I'm just too much of a cook, but I can usually tell when "fresh" foods are going bad or have gone bad, so I don't know that such information is necessary. Again, I just wanted to clarify that this was something you meant to include and/or see if you have any brainstorms on the subject that I've missed.

Cheers,
Nikolas Eberhart
Ambassador from the Doctoral Monkey Feet of Mousebumples
WA Delegate for Monkey Island

[Unibotian WA Mission]

On the subject of the references to "humans" in the text: it wasn't illegal for that reason. I went with the convention that "humans" in proposals is taken, where possible, as meaning whatever a nation's population is. That is, if it makes sense to substitute any other reasonable nation's population. "Bears", for example, makes sense here. But I would think that making the alterations other players have proposed, or simply substituting a neutral word, such as "individual" or "person", is preferable if you're trying to garner as many votes as possible.

CAG! *


* translation: Human? OK fine. I can see how "human" would be acceptable since in an NS sense it's analogous with "person". But "human being" is a bit too species-specific. "Human being" means Homo sapiens sapiens, it can't be interpreted as meaning anything else. I would suggest either using "person" or the suggestions made by Intellect and the Arts. And the proper category is Social Justice.

OOC: Human being doesn't necessarily denote a specific species if 'human' does not, if human is just a synonym for something with personhood in NS, and 'being' doesn't denote a species but the existence of a person.. then it suggests that the term, 'human being' would not denote a specific species in NationStates, but the status of an existing person. *shrugs*

[Destructor Bunnies]

CAG! *


* translation: Human? OK fine. I can see how "human" would be acceptable since in an NS sense it's analogous with "person". But "human being" is a bit too species-specific. "Human being" means Homo sapiens sapiens, it can't be interpreted as meaning anything else. I would suggest either using "person" or the suggestions made by Intellect and the Arts. And the proper category is Social Justice.

OOC: Human being doesn't necessarily denote a specific species if 'human' does not, if human is just a synonym for something with personhood in NS, and 'being' doesn't denote a species but the existence of a person.. then it suggests that the term, 'human being' would not denote a specific species in NationStates, but the status of an existing person. *shrugs*

CAG! *


* translation: Human=Person because the category is called "Human Rights" and I doubt they'll be changing it to "Sapient Being Rights". So "human" means "any resident of a WA nation, regardless of species". But I think it would be a bit of a stretch to extrapolate that to mean that "human being" = "any resident of a WA nation, regardless of species". We've blurred the meaning of "human" because we have to work with a category called Human Rights, but I think Human Being still means Human Being, even in an NS sense.

Now having said all that, I think we should be able to write human-specific resolutions when such things are called for. If there is no reason to include other species, or if there is a legitimate reason to leave other species out, we should be able to do that. I'm not sure the Secretariat shares my opinion on that though.

[Ardchoille]

Now having said all that, I think we should be able to write human-specific resolutions when such things are called for. If there is no reason to include other species, or if there is a legitimate reason to leave other species out, we should be able to do that. I'm not sure the Secretariat shares my opinion on that though.

I did write a reply to that, but killed it so it wouldn't turn into a threadjack. Basically, it was: let's see 'em.

In the case of AMOM's resolution, though, since it has international relevance it just seems bad tactics to write it in a way that may annoy players of non-human nations. Why bother, when a simple neutral term would keep their votes onside without compromising your own RP (or lack thereof)? However, author's choice.

[Unibot II]

* translation: Human=Person because the category is called "Human Rights" and I doubt they'll be changing it to "Sapient Being Rights". So "human" means "any resident of a WA nation, regardless of species". But I think it would be a bit of a stretch to extrapolate that to mean that "human being" = "any resident of a WA nation, regardless of species". We've blurred the meaning of "human" because we have to work with a category called Human Rights, but I think Human Being still means Human Being, even in an NS sense.

Now having said all that, I think we should be able to write human-specific resolutions when such things are called for. If there is no reason to include other species, or if there is a legitimate reason to leave other species out, we should be able to do that. I'm not sure the Secretariat shares my opinion on that though.

I think Ard was saying earlier that if your mandates wouldn't allow other species to comply, then they are simply assumed to have a very easy time implementing it in their nation (Female Genital Mutilation, being the prime example). But I don't think that Human Being just mean Homo Sapiens Whatever, because the addition of 'being' to human was what made the word be a synonym for Homo Sapiens Whatever, but if you change the definition of 'human', then when you apply 'being', you get a much different meaning phrase.

Being (i.e. be+-ing, by synecdoche), is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living". In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it refers to a discrete life form that has properties of mind (i.e. experience and character, cf. sentience), which are deemed to constitute a more complex and evolved state than simple organisms (i.e. that have only "life functions").

[Krioval]

Instead of "human" or "human being", what about "citizen" or "national resident"? That at least takes care of the same group of individuals. As for regulating products intended for non-sapient animals, as per Her Excellency representing Intellect and the Arts, perhaps language like "...any product likely to be consumed by citizens/national residents..." would include things like pet food or veterinary medicines that could conceivably be used by humans (or whoever the sapient population in a nation is).

Henrik Søgård
Imperial Chiefdom of Krioval

[Unibot II]

Instead of "human" or "human being", what about "citizen" or "national resident"? That at least takes care of the same group of individuals. As for regulating products intended for non-sapient animals, as per Her Excellency representing Intellect and the Arts, perhaps language like "...any product likely to be consumed by citizens/national residents..." would include things like pet food or veterinary medicines that could conceivably be used by humans (or whoever the sapient population in a nation is).

Henrik Søgård
Imperial Chiefdom of Krioval

I'm not saying that citizen, resident or person wouldn't be better, I'm saying, if AMOM insists on not resubmitting, this concern over 'human being', is just semantical anyway, especially consider Ard's concern about people voting against because human beings are overrepresented in the resolution is bunk. The movement for full species inclusiveness is almost isolated to these forums, regional forums tend to actually hate that premise, I've seen both feeders and 10ki vote against simply because the language of a resolution was going out of its way to accommodate multiple species.

[Destructor Bunnies]

* translation: Human=Person because the category is called "Human Rights" and I doubt they'll be changing it to "Sapient Being Rights". So "human" means "any resident of a WA nation, regardless of species". But I think it would be a bit of a stretch to extrapolate that to mean that "human being" = "any resident of a WA nation, regardless of species". We've blurred the meaning of "human" because we have to work with a category called Human Rights, but I think Human Being still means Human Being, even in an NS sense.

Now having said all that, I think we should be able to write human-specific resolutions when such things are called for. If there is no reason to include other species, or if there is a legitimate reason to leave other species out, we should be able to do that. I'm not sure the Secretariat shares my opinion on that though.

I think Ard was saying earlier that if your mandates wouldn't allow other species to comply, then they are simply assumed to have a very easy time implementing it in their nation (Female Genital Mutilation, being the prime example). But I don't think that Human Being just mean Homo Sapiens Whatever, because the addition of 'being' to human was what made the word be a synonym for Homo Sapiens Whatever, but if you change the definition of 'human', then when you apply 'being', you get a much different meaning phrase.

Being (i.e. be+-ing, by synecdoche), is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living". In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it refers to a discrete life form that has properties of mind (i.e. experience and character, cf. sentience), which are deemed to constitute a more complex and evolved state than simple organisms (i.e. that have only "life functions").

CAG! *

* translation: Yeah I get what you're saying, I'm just not sure we want to extend the NS meaning of "human" to every instance in which "human" is used. Do we extend it to human genome? Human anatomy? Human immunodeficiency virus?

Also if human means "any resident of a WA nation, regardless of species" and human being means "any resident of a WA nation, regardless of species", what term would we use if we just wanted to talk specifically about Homo sapiens sapiens?

[Ardchoille]

What I am saying is that this, though fascinating, is a bit of a threadjack. I pointed out what I saw as disadvantages, but I left it up to the author; and, in any case, it wasn't the source of the illegality.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Slightly more on topic, what category was this submitted under before it was axed?