[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Trotterdam]

Option 2 for Issue 32 ("One Wife Is Never Enough, Say Polygamists") reads:

“This is nothing more than sexual deviants using religion as a pretext for perversion!” says Reverend Chip Meyer. “Marriage is one man, one woman, and death do we part. What’s so hard to get? Anything else is a perversion, and must be banned.”

When selecting this issue, the "Marriage Equality" policy, if currently active, should be revoked -- yet this does not happen.

Good call. Fixed.

Hmm. That makes sense, but it does mean that the issue needs to be dismissed by nations that want gay marriage but not polygamy (even though that's a very mainstream position in real life nowadays). (EDIT: Okay, allowing divorce is also a mainstream position.)

...What does option 1 do regarding gay marriage? It doesn't have anything to say on the subject explicitly, or even explicitly say that it does not support polyandry the way it does polygyny, but the contrast with option 3 does make it look like it's the option for favoring conservative gender roles.

What train of logic would allow marriage including two men, and marriage including three or more people, but not marriage including two men and also a woman (or a third man)?

[New Rikerland]

New Rikerland
November 19th 2017
Issue 330 (Supermarkets Gobbling Up All The Customers?) option 2

I got this one yesterday and was very surprised to see the results. The first option is to side with small businesses and restrict all big business. Second option which I chose was to get government out of regulating business, and the third option is to basically nationalize business. The strange results were that my economy went down, income of the rich went down and strangest of all is that my economic freedom went down. I can think of a few very rare cases where having a more free market might temporarily drop the economy or hurt wealthy, but how does economic freedom ever become lower from the government being less involved.

1) This issue deals with a mix of economic freedoms, so not all nations would have the outcome you did (see OP of this thread). Most nations would experience the opposite effect, in fact.

2) The decreasing economic freedom is the ability to open new businesses. A nation that does not restrict monopolies in anyway does not prevent monopolies from squashing competition in away that isn't really a "free market". But again keep in mind 1.

Government regulation is how monopolies squash competition. Its a misconception that a monopoly in and of itself can prevent other businesses from starting, all it can do is compete with them and without regulation small businesses will always exist. Even if a monopoly wages a price war on a smaller business and puts it out of business it is far more costly to the big business. As long as other businesses can just pop up in their place there is no way for a monopoly to restrict the economic freedom of starting a new business because they would go broke trying to undercut every new business..

[Ransium]

So your argument appears to be that monopolies pose no more bearier to entry to new businesses than the same sector if it were forced by the government to be competitive amoung many businesses. I don't think that this statement is the clear truth, and I don't think that the opposite statement is a clear misconception. In fact, my feelings is that if I surveyed 100 economics professors a majority, but not all, would disagree with that statement. I was planning on enumerating why, but I don't think that is wise, I'm sure if you care you can find plenty of sources which share my opinion, including most entry level economic text books.

Are they wrong and people hold your opinion correct? Perhaps, but our job as editors is, when there is not objective truth as there basically never is in economics, is to generally go with the more widely held belief (or our perception as such).

I don't think I'm going to persuade you that I'm correct or that you will persuade me that I'm wrong if we argued extensively about it. If others care to debate this further, or feel I've misrepresented the original logic of the issue, theft are more than welcome to continue. But I don't have the energy for what I'm guessing is a long drawn out and ultimately futile fight.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Issue 585 Option 2 Decreased my lifespan.

Yeah, it did, though your nation's Health improved.

Lifespan is, of course, a secondary stat calculated by the game engine. While it's mostly driven by the things you expect, there's actually 50+ factors feeding into it. What you're seeing there is that emergent calculation, shifting you from 38.16 yrs to 38.14 years.

The stat inputs are all more or less good ones, the weirdness emerges from the game engine choices.

One thing I will note, however, is that violet is currently pre-beta betaing changes to the Lifespan output. You may be pleased to hear that under the proposed engine fix your nation's lifespan is going to more than double.

Of course it may be a while before that beta is ready for public betaing, and even longer before it goes live, if it does. Right now, just a heads-up that things may change on this calculation.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Option 3 of 552

"Okay, boss, here's what you're gonna do!" asserts @@RANDOMNAME@@, one of @@NAME@@'s foremost TV pranksters, wearing a mock military uniform, and leaving security to wonder to how your office was penetrated. "You're gonna get the police to find where these people live. Then you're gonna get in your car, wait till they're on their walk to work... and then... BAM! Drive-by mooning! Come on, it'll be awesome! You want to grab a beer or six to get in the mood?"

This removes the no protests policy and increases political freedom.

Other way round.

It very slightly acknowledges the freedom to protest, as you're not treating their action as a criminal one. Then, crossing a numerical threshold changed that policy banner for your nation - not a universal effect, but based on you being right near the border between protests being allowed and not.

There's a distinction here between true binary policy flags, and "implied policies" that Violet has described on the policy page, but which exist by comparing sliding scales to a threshold point. This is one of the latter.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Good call. Fixed.

Hmm. That makes sense, but it does mean that the issue needs to be dismissed by nations that want gay marriage but not polygamy (even though that's a very mainstream position in real life nowadays). (EDIT: Okay, allowing divorce is also a mainstream position.)

...What does option 1 do regarding gay marriage? It doesn't have anything to say on the subject explicitly, or even explicitly say that it does not support polyandry the way it does polygyny, but the contrast with option 3 does make it look like it's the option for favoring conservative gender roles.

What train of logic would allow marriage including two men, and marriage including three or more people, but not marriage including two men and also a woman (or a third man)?

Option 1 activates the polygamy flag, but passes no comment on gay marriage, leaving that second (rainbow) flag unchanged.

[Greater Istanistan]

Issue 134, despite explicitly promising that my leader would not be probed so long as I passed the farm bill, shows no signs of having passed a farm bill. I now fear for the sanctity of my leader's bum.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Issue 134, despite explicitly promising that my leader would not be probed so long as I passed the farm bill, shows no signs of having passed a farm bill. I now fear for the sanctity of my leader's bum.

Don't worry, you'll remember nothing, though you may wonder why it hurts to sit down.

In case you're serious and missed the subtext, that funding is a front, and is being redirected to the Men In Black who are running alien cover-ups.

[Bear Connors Paradiso]

196, last option to put religious people in the insane asylum. 22/11/17

Obesity Rate 2.39 → 2.41 +0.84%
Health 27.26 → 27.12 -0.51%

I dont like what NS is implying about atheists, but really these two effects have no place for this issue.

[Fauxia]

196, last option to put religious people in the insane asylum. 22/11/17

Obesity Rate 2.39 → 2.41 +0.84%
Health 27.26 → 27.12 -0.51%

I dont like what NS is implying about atheists, but really these two effects have no place for this issue.

Putting sane people in asylums is not healthy

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Fauxia is right, but don't worry, that issue is in my sights for a re-statting.

Right now I'll vouch for any stats up to issue 163. To put this in context, I think there have been 4 issues so far that I haven't needed to modernise the stats.

Not far off that one now.

[Desmosthenes and Burke]

I thought this was somewhat curious, so I want to point it out.

#168: @@NAME@@ Plagued By STD Epidemic! had a somewhat bemusing effect.

1. "This situation is about to explode. At this rate, this epidemic could severely impact our economy, our way of life, and even our government," says Doctor @@RANDOMNAME@@. "We must supply powerful drugs to all infected people, even if we have to produce and distribute it ourselves. We must also educate people on the dangers of VODAIS and supply condoms to all sexually active males. Sure, we'll need to divert tax money from the military to fund all this, but what good is a military if the soldiers are too sick to fight?"

Taking this choice leads to "The government has undertaken a massive education and health program to combat VODAIS." as its description of what happened but somehow

Government Size
Bureaucratic Comprehensiveness Rating Scale Index 11.00 → 10.86 1.3%

Taxation
Effective Tax Rate 8.05 → 7.87 2.2%

being the effect. I do not mind that effect (the already low levels indicating I rather like small gov't and low taxes), but it does seem rather odd that starting a gov't health program cuts taxes and gov't size.

[Fauxia]

I thought this was somewhat curious, so I want to point it out.

#168: @@NAME@@ Plagued By STD Epidemic! had a somewhat bemusing effect.

1. "This situation is about to explode. At this rate, this epidemic could severely impact our economy, our way of life, and even our government," says Doctor @@RANDOMNAME@@. "We must supply powerful drugs to all infected people, even if we have to produce and distribute it ourselves. We must also educate people on the dangers of VODAIS and supply condoms to all sexually active males. Sure, we'll need to divert tax money from the military to fund all this, but what good is a military if the soldiers are too sick to fight?"

Taking this choice leads to "The government has undertaken a massive education and health program to combat VODAIS." as its description of what happened but somehow

Government Size
Bureaucratic Comprehensiveness Rating Scale Index 11.00 → 10.86 1.3%

Taxation
Effective Tax Rate 8.05 → 7.87 2.2%

being the effect. I do not mind that effect (the already low levels indicating I rather like small gov't and low taxes), but it does seem rather odd that starting a gov't health program cuts taxes and gov't size.

Presumably, it expanded industry. Taxation is not only defined by government size, but also by the size of industry. The more industry, the larger the taxable base, and therefore the lower the taxes can be.

[Ransium]

Also see the OP of this thread, in particular the spoiler about taxation and government.

[Fauxia]

I think it’s 76.2... the option allowing CEOs to form unions... it made wealth gaps on Liberated Anarchist Utopia go down from 180 to 60. Seems very extreme, and perhaps not even the right direction

[The United Oman]

I was confused by the affect from the issue " 'Boards, Say Pedestrians "

Allowing kids to ride skateboards and having cities build skate parks caused civil rights to go down 0.07%?

I just had the issue a few minutes ago

[Luna Amore]

I was confused by the affect from the issue " 'Boards, Say Pedestrians "

Allowing kids to ride skateboards and having cities build skate parks caused civil rights to go down 0.07%?

I just had the issue a few minutes ago

“Ticketing children for getting out of the house and exercising?” asks Ken Rubin, a school teacher, in disbelief. “That’s outrageous! It’s true that skateboarding can be dangerous but so is walking down the stairs! You want to ban that too?! What we should do is pass laws requiring safety equipment for skaters - if we allocate a little bit of the tax payers’ money to the cause, we can build a skate park that will keep our children safe and away from others on the road too.”

Bolding for evidence.

[The United Oman]

Bolding for evidence.

Ah ok, makes sense.

[Atsvea]

It's likely I've misunderstood (again)

“I shouldn’t have to spend hours poring over reams of government documents for just one story!” complains @@RANDOMNAME@@, reporter for the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ Enquirer, slamming a large stack of papers onto your desk. “Look at this! One thousand nine hundred eighty-four pages! What Minister Redbridge is doing is dishonest and despicable. You need to force him and those like him to use plain language and get to the point, so that the common people of @@NAME@@ will be able decipher what’s going on in the government.”

I get the decrease in political freedom, but forcing the government to use plain language in reports shouldn't have any sort of effect on civil rights or have anything to do with dismantling the free press, should it?

Placing restrictions on the government's reporting shouldn't remove legal protection of the media's right to free reporting, should it?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

It's likely I've misunderstood (again)

“I shouldn’t have to spend hours poring over reams of government documents for just one story!” complains @@RANDOMNAME@@, reporter for the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ Enquirer, slamming a large stack of papers onto your desk. “Look at this! One thousand nine hundred eighty-four pages! What Minister Redbridge is doing is dishonest and despicable. You need to force him and those like him to use plain language and get to the point, so that the common people of @@NAME@@ will be able decipher what’s going on in the government.”

I get the decrease in political freedom, but forcing the government to use plain language in reports shouldn't have any sort of effect on civil rights or have anything to do with dismantling the free press, should it?

Placing restrictions on the government's reporting shouldn't remove legal protection of the media's right to free reporting, should it?

It's just a granularity thing. We measure censorship of political views, but that category encompasses censoring individuals AND the media, whereas violet's pseudo-policy reads it as if it is to do with the media.

Not fixable, I'm afraid. Instead, assume that the general mood of censorship causes government policy changes off-stage, which tip the balance into the media being oppressed.

As to civil rights, turns out politicians are people too. By limiting their right to free speech you are (very very marginally) reducing the right to free speech in your country.

[Nova Sodor]

Nova Sodor

24th November

Government saturated in corruption


I opted to enact freedom of information and my corruption increased by 109%.

[Amazing Pollsters]

Why does 597.2 decrease political freedom?

[Fauxia]

I just received 641 on Theokratiss, which is in the top 5% of the world for environmental beauty and top 4% for health and top 2% for weather. It doesn't make sense that I received that issue for a nation with such stats

Also, I got 730.4 (I think that's what it is and abolished debates on Liberated Anarchist Utopia. I don't agree with political freedom falling, but I understand that. But why did it fall by 21 points? That seems very extreme to me.

[Tyrantes]

Picking 138.2 ("environmental protestors are being rounded up and taken away in sinister black vans as a massive land development campaign gets underway") on this nation (Tyrantes) lowered Authoritarianism from 10.04 -> 9.41. This happened yesterday. Why? Does it have something to do with my Authoritarianism already being sky-high or the other effects of that issue?

[Fauxia]

Picking 138.2 ("environmental protestors are being rounded up and taken away in sinister black vans as a massive land development campaign gets underway") on this nation (Tyrantes) lowered Authoritarianism from 10.04 -> 9.41. This happened yesterday. Why? Does it have something to do with my Authoritarianism already being sky-high or the other effects of that issue?

Well, you are increasing economic freedom, though I agree it’s imbalanced