[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Luna Amore]

Is 678.2 meant to decrease cheerfulness?

After a discussion with the editor, the cheerfulness changes have been removed. Thanks for the report.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

From the FAQSo basically, by abolishing inheritance tax your government had to raise income tax to compensate, which is the only tax taken into account for the taxation and freedom from taxation stats. Looking at Trotterdam’s site, looks like that option only ever raises taxation and drops freedom from taxation, so that is simply how that option is coded.

Normally that makes sense, but in my case it doesn't. My government spends literally 0. There is no government expenditure. There is no tax. The only thing it should do is mildly reinforce the anti-tax sentiment of my nation.

The explanation is correct. The coding can basically only show inheritance tax falling by marking its effect on income tax. Assuming spending remains constant, there's always going to be an increase in income tax when other taxes (inheritance tax, VAT, corporation tax) fall.

There is no simulation number for any tax except income tax. Taxation means income tax. Freedom from taxation means freedom from income tax.

As to it not making sense for zero government spend nations, you're right, it doesn't. But that's another simulation limitation. Like "negative industries" and "negative government departments" and many other things, there's a whole bunch of numbers in NS that basically fail to make sense once you hit the extremes. If you've achieved 0% income taxation, you're basically in a weird extreme zone, and in weird extreme zones the simulation isn't always intuitive or logical. Instead you've got to see the "beyond zero" scores as abstractions, representing momentum of policy.

Maybe think of it as your nation "losing some resistance to the idea of taxation". So you're still on 0% income tax, but you've moved slightly closer to the situation of needing income tax if you were to ever start spending money as a government. That is, you still don't need to levy income tax, but because you've no longer got inheritance taxes coming in, you'd be more likely to need to levy income tax if you started to spend.

I mean honestly, the income and expenditure simulation basically doesn't exist. There's no accounting for any tax but income tax, and there's no concept of deficit spending or reserves or national debt. There's no accounting for inflation, nor national credit rating, nor for costs being proportional to the population being served, nor of economies or societies doing anything without government intervention. There's no economies of scale, there's no one-off spends, there's no long term investments.
The simulation is what it is, which is a limited toolset that serves the needs of storytelling and satire. As a believable simulation of real nations, it's always going to lack a certain level of granularity.

[Drasnia]

Normally that makes sense, but in my case it doesn't. My government spends literally 0. There is no government expenditure. There is no tax. The only thing it should do is mildly reinforce the anti-tax sentiment of my nation.

The explanation is correct. The coding can basically only show inheritance tax falling by marking its effect on income tax. Assuming spending remains constant, there's always going to be an increase in income tax when other taxes (inheritance tax, VAT, corporation tax) fall.

There is no simulation number for any tax except income tax. Taxation means income tax. Freedom from taxation means freedom from income tax.

As to it not making sense for zero government spend nations, you're right, it doesn't. But that's another simulation limitation. Like "negative industries" and "negative government departments" and many other things, there's a whole bunch of numbers in NS that basically fail to make sense once you hit the extremes. If you've achieved 0% income taxation, you're basically in a weird extreme zone, and in weird extreme zones the simulation isn't always intuitive or logical. Instead you've got to see the "beyond zero" scores as abstractions, representing momentum of policy.

Maybe think of it as your nation "losing some resistance to the idea of taxation". So you're still on 0% income tax, but you've moved slightly closer to the situation of needing income tax if you were to ever start spending money as a government. That is, you still don't need to levy income tax, but because you've no longer got inheritance taxes coming in, you'd be more likely to need to levy income tax if you started to spend.

I mean honestly, the income and expenditure simulation basically doesn't exist. There's no accounting for any tax but income tax, and there's no concept of deficit spending or reserves or national debt. There's no accounting for inflation, nor national credit rating, nor for costs being proportional to the population being served, nor of economies or societies doing anything without government intervention. There's no economies of scale, there's no one-off spends, there's no long term investments.
The simulation is what it is, which is a limited toolset that serves the needs of storytelling and satire. As a believable simulation of real nations, it's always going to lack a certain level of granularity.

So to be anti-tax, I can't answer options that are anti-tax. Got it.

[Socialist State of LAY]

I want to report errors in issue 16. Option 1 increases income inequality. Definitely an error.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

So to be anti-tax, I can't answer options that are anti-tax. Got it.

Taxation = Income tax. Freedom from Taxation = Freedom from Income Tax. That's just how it is.
This isn't something we're entirely done discussing/arguing over backstage, but that's certainly the official position of the last year or so. It came up a lot in the Vexing VAT edit, for example. Honestly, we're not even agreed on whether there is an incomplete simulation or not.

For now, if you're playing the stat game and want to minimise the income tax rate, grow industry while spending as little as possible, but in the medium to long term hopefully we'll see definitions and stat names to be clearer.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I want to report errors in issue 16. Option 1 increases income inequality. Definitely an error.

Thanks for the report.

First up, give Trotterdam's outcome data a poke: http://www.mwq.dds.nl/ns/results/

This shows that there is a range of outcomes here for Income Equality (-6.68 to +34.33 Income Equality (mean +14.5563)) and that the average is that incomes grow more equal, which is narratively consistent.

However, you might well ask why income equality would ever fall. Well, basically this is one of those issue options where there are competing economic freedoms at play, namely that of the employers and that of the unions. The net change in economic freedoms depends on your starting position (see the opening FAQ for an explanation of this).

For the minority of nations, the balances of power change enough to create unintended inequality. In narrative terms, imagine that employers are already bound by layers of red tape and can't get any... uh... red tapier. But the "workers", they find with rising Union power they've got the tools to leverage more income almost at will, but this gained advantage in leverage is only applied by the best connected and most politically-motivated Unionists, who play the system to their advantage and gain a greater share of the pie than the masses they are meant to represent. So in this small number of nations, unchecked Unions basically paradoxically create inequality, as the powerful and well-connected within the Unions use the system to enrich themselves relative to the every day Union member.

This is essentially working as intended - most of the time the option will make society more equal in wealth distribution, but there's a complex emergent simulation here, and that can sometimes result in seeming paradoxical outcomes that take more to figure out.

Certainly, what I'd suggest to you in future is to use Trotterdam's excellent tool, and establish whether your outcome is an outlier or the norm.

Also worth noting here is that the stats inputting to Income Equality are under review and will be tweaked once this beta goes live:
https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta?sample_test=8a

[Trotterdam]

Taxation = Income tax. Freedom from Taxation = Freedom from Income Tax. That's just how it is.
This isn't something we're entirely done discussing/arguing over backstage, but that's certainly the official position of the last year or so. It came up a lot in the Vexing VAT edit, for example. Honestly, we're not even agreed on whether there is an incomplete simulation or not.

Something that I think is worth pointing out here is that there are also non-tax parts of the game that treat all economy as income. GDP, for example, is calculated as Average Income times population. If the entire economy is income, then all tax would be income tax.

All things considered, I think "overall tax rate" is a far more interesting and meaningful statistic than "income tax rate". The former tells you how greedy the government is, the latter is singling out a rather arbitrary category of no clear relevance, and could easily be fudged through technicalities ("no, we're not taxing your money as you earn it, we're taxing other people's money right before they give it to you").

and establish whether your outcome is an outlier or the norm.

To be fair, there are cases where a result is sufficiently incongruent to be dubious even as an outlier. You did a good job of narratively justifying the outlier this time, though.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

All things considered, I think "overall tax rate" is a far more interesting and meaningful statistic than "income tax rate". The former tells you how greedy the government is, the latter is singling out a rather arbitrary category of no clear relevance, and could easily be fudged through technicalities ("no, we're not taxing your money as you earn it, we're taxing other people's money right before they give it to you").

I totally agree, but that's not what the current "Taxation" stat represents in any way. It's the income tax rate, as showcased on each nation's front page.

A better tax model would certainly be a grand thing, though I don't know that the game needs it as such, as I don't think NS has ever sought to be a comprehensive simulation of government, but rather just the vehicle to which the prose is attached. Also, it's quite a deeply ingrained thing, the current tax model - I think it'd be a major undertaking to recode, and the sheer scale of change to the game would likely cause more upset than benefit.

Not that I'm against change, of course. 90% of the betas up there are things I personally proposed, and there's stacks more changes backstage that I'm pestering incessantly for. However, I don't think the tax model seems likely to be up for reform.

[Trotterdam]

I totally agree, but that's not what the current "Taxation" stat represents in any way. It's the income tax rate, as showcased on each nation's front page.

That's a relatively recent change, though, isn't it?

Prior to that change, Taxation did represent overall tax rate, and the only thing suggesting otherwise was a single place in the game which calls it "income tax", but where, given context (no other tax is mentioned, and that thing I mentioned about the next paragraph on the same page treating all of your economy as income), it seems intended to serve as a representative of how heavy the overall tax burden of your nation is, not as trivia about a particular type of tax.

Pestering Max Barry to delete the "income" word from the nation page seems like a more reasonable solution than recoding all the issues, but a little late for that now, I guess.

A better tax model would certainly be a grand thing, though I don't know that the game needs it as such, as I don't think NS has ever sought to be a comprehensive simulation of government, but rather just the vehicle to which the prose is attached.

Actually separately tracking different types of tax would be a significant complication, yes. Tracking only one type of tax, but making that a more narratively meaningful type ("all of it"), doesn't seem like it should be so hard, given that it's what you were doing before.

[Techolandia]

I answered option 118.1 with this nation, and my insurance industry decreased by 8.6% (from −6.26 to −6.80). Wouldn't more people by car insurance and life insurance if there were more car accidents, including deadly car accidents?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I answered option 118.1 with this nation, and my insurance industry decreased by 8.6% (from −6.26 to −6.80). Wouldn't more people by car insurance and life insurance if there were more car accidents, including deadly car accidents?

Could be read in different ways, but my thinking here is that if there are more accidents then insurance companies have to pay out more often. For sure, they could raise premiums to compensate, but essentially you're driving their costs upwards.

In the UK at least, car insurance is mandatory, so an increase in risk wouldn't drive up the numbers of customers. I think the same is true in every US state except New Hampshire. Other countries, I don't know, but I thought it'd be reasonable to say that demand for car insurance is not driven by absolute risk of accident.

So yeah, in my interpretation, the insurance industry suffering when accidents become more frequent seemed right to me.

These links suggest that some agree with me in saying that road safety is good for the insurance industry:
http://blogs.worldbank.org/transport/ho ... oads-safer
http://uk.businessinsider.com/car-insur ... ?r=US&IR=T

[La Badlandoj]

Taking Option 2 on Issue 87 significantly (4.6%) increased my already high taxes. Is there a specific reason for this? ...Fire insurance?

(Also, I'd like to say I acknowledge and really appreciate all the hard work you do here, which seems thankless sometimes.)

[Trotterdam]

Taking Option 2 on Issue 87 significantly (4.6%) increased my already high taxes. Is there a specific reason for this? ...Fire insurance?

I think it's that the economy is getting weaker, and so the government needs to tax a larger percentage of it in order to continue funding the same programs.

[Aclion]

Could someone confirm that I'm eligible for issue 139, or any other issues there might be that remove the no smoking policy? I don't need to know which one, i'm just worried that I might not be considered to have banned smoking enough to be eligible, since the issue that triggered it only mentioned smoking in public.

Also whatever happened to in inquiry about the no compensation policy?

The "no compensation" policy does look to be a little wonky in execution.

A formal review has been started on this, with Marsupial Illuminati overseeing. We'll keep you posted.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Taking Option 2 on Issue 87 significantly (4.6%) increased my already high taxes. Is there a specific reason for this? ...Fire insurance?

I think it's that the economy is getting weaker, and so the government needs to tax a larger percentage of it in order to continue funding the same programs.

Trotterdam is correct. Actually, before the stat review this option annihilated two thirds of your economic output presumably on the assumption that the option literally meant endorsing burning everything in the country, and I toned it down to a large fixed decrease.

In retrospect, I think I should have gone even further. I don't think the option can be fairly implied to suggest that arson is being carried out by the government, only that arson-as-protest is being recognised. I'll tone it down again.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Could someone confirm that I'm eligible for issue 139

Not really what the thread is for Aclion, but as it's you, I'll check. You're not eligible for 139.

You have banned smoking.

There are no other issues that unban smoking.

As flagged on post 2 of The Writer's Block this remains a minor policy reversal gap. A good no-smoking reversal is needed that will be eligible for all nations.

The no_compensation thing was reviewed and sorted in some way. I don't recall the outcome, sorry.

[God Fearing Devoted]

Making gun ownership compulsory led to the Right to Protest?

[Maalemzya]

“Carbon Copied” Issue 626.1 :

Allowing the upload of mind decreases civil rights ?

[Phydios]

Making gun ownership compulsory led to the Right to Protest?

Please read the fourth spoiler in the OP of this topic. The Public Protest policy triggers when some stat reaches a threshold- it's not a binary on/off switch.

[God Fearing Devoted]

TY Phydios! I think marking stuff as "please read" leads to them inevitably NOT being read. Not excusing myself, just an observation.

[The United Chads]

Issue 195.1 significantly increased the averageness and decreased the ideological radicality of my nation, even though it eroded individual property rights that would generally be considered the norm. The reason why I selected it was to reaffirm the public ownership of all property that should exist in any pure socialist state like mine, a stance that would generally be considered ideologically radical. Was there some factor in this situation that I did not consider? If so, I would like to know what it was. Thank you.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

TY Phydios! I think marking stuff as "please read" leads to them inevitably NOT being read. Not excusing myself, just an observation.

Well that's a dilemma, isn't it? I guess I could mark it "Please Do NOT Read"!

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Issue 195.1 significantly increased the averageness and decreased the ideological radicality of my nation, even though it eroded individual property rights that would generally be considered the norm. The reason why I selected it was to reaffirm the public ownership of all property that should exist in any pure socialist state like mine, a stance that would generally be considered ideologically radical. Was there some factor in this situation that I did not consider? If so, I would like to know what it was. Thank you.

Ideological Radicality is a secondary stat that looks at a whole bunch of numbers to say how average your nations approaches are on several metrics. It could move either way with this issue, depending on your starting position.

[Luna Amore]

TY Phydios! I think marking stuff as "please read" leads to them inevitably NOT being read. Not excusing myself, just an observation.

Well that's a dilemma, isn't it? I guess I could mark it "Please Do NOT Read"!

Just mark it "For Editor Use Only".

[Furryz]

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=444845&p=34176509#p34176509


Prisoners somehow gain weight when I am feeding them very little. Thread linked shows the entire report.