[MEGATHREAD] Unusual Issue Effects

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Ok, discussion done. The game no longer makes you a "slavery" nation when you institute forced labour on convicts.

Semantically, I'd say this is still slavery, but the narrative uses of that tag imply commercial slavery in the private sector, so the amendments have been made.

[[violet]]

Then I think the model is wrong.

IEs like me don't control the model, only some inputs of issue choices. These sort of queries need to go to technical. [violet] is considering a bunch of model changes right now, feel free to politely suggest decoupling drug rights with intelligence.

The reason this ranking is positively correlated with increased personal freedom, including drug freedom, is that it covers not just simple smarts but also worldliness. The description is:

The World Census eavesdropped on conversations in coffee shops, on campuses, and around cinemas in order to determine which nations have the most quick-witted, insightful, and knowledgeable citizens.

Citizens in repressive nations are less exposed to competing points of view, so, all other things being equal, do a little bit poorer here than citizens of open nations.

It's not a big effect, though... only a 0.26% difference, in this case.

[Androminea]

371.4, Government monopoly on gambling causes an increase in economic freedom?

[Fauxia]

371.4, Government monopoly on gambling causes an increase in economic freedom?

You had previously banned gambling. This is a positive change

[Tikamstan]

Name of Nation: Tikamstan
Date: 09.11.2017 1225 Hours(UTC +5:30)
Issue No. 21 (Police Consider "Big Brother" Anti-Crime System)
Choice No. 2 says that installing CCTV cameras in public places will reduce crime yet my Safety level decreased by 0.14% and Corruption increased by 1.3%

[Azurius]

The Issue
A minor domestic emergency recently left you searching for a call-out plumber, an electrician and a handyman able to rehang a chandelier. Though the sorry incident is now sorted, you’ve been left aware of how hard it is to find good tradespeople these days. Your Education Minister tells you that this is because the majority of high school graduates are enrolling in university programs, which is leaving a major skilled labor shortage in the trades industries. There are ample artists, architects and astrophysicists, but a poor proportion of plumbers, painters and plasterers.


The Debate
“Sometimes, perhaps it is best to let the ocean currents move you, rather than trying to turn back a rising tide,” suggests Taiqiquan practitioner Mike Perkins, working through a series of graceful circular movements. “Your nation’s economy is changing, and shifting away from manual work. This is natural, and you should move with, never against. Imagine: as graduates become unemployed, the market self-adjusts, and the economy flows back towards its former shape. As pipes become blocked, supply and demand mismatch results in the free market rising to fill a gap. Energy flows through the system like water, and problems resolve themselves.”

(Image)

End result Employment ↓53.6% and Economic Freedom ↑165%.
As can be seen here, the effect on Employment was excessive compared to everything the nation has ever seen before: https://www.nationstates.net/nation=ahm ... ensusid=56
In exhange Economic Freedom skyrocketed, which felt exaggerated as well. https://www.nationstates.net/nation=ahm ... ensusid=48
Especially notifying that effects on Industries and Economic Output was minimal. (And the rational mind thinks only about that 1 billion people became unemployed and economy grows.)

I admit that some of the problems I have with the effects may stem from reading comprehension concerning the answer option. (Should I make a post proposing rewrite?) The wording gave me the impression that the end result would be complete opposite. - Instead of forcibly trying to bring back manual labour in the nation, the nation simply embraces its high tech, high education future. And, as Ahma's economy already relied on high Culture, IT and Book Publishing (all other sectors being around zero) I felt that this option would simply boost white/pink collar sectors even further. And that maybe the non-existant manual labour industries might grow as well, as due to supply and demand, poorest paying jobs should be paid more that some people would bother to do those as well (instead that all go to university and end up astrophysicists.)

To my understanding the issue is the following: You have a socialist economy. Socialist economies do bad with free markets. Aka a socialist nation that installs a free market will see a sudden and huge drop of employment, this will reverse as soon as you scale down your economic freedoms again.

This is due to hidden values I still don´t understand. Either way, that is how the employment rating currently works in NS. Get your economic freedoms back down again and your employment will return to your old level.

Name of Nation: Tikamstan
Date: 09.11.2017 1225 Hours(UTC +5:30)
Issue No. 21 (Police Consider "Big Brother" Anti-Crime System)
Choice No. 2 says that installing CCTV cameras in public places will reduce crime yet my Safety level decreased by 0.14% and Corruption increased by 1.3%

Note that corruption is tied to safety(something that makes sense too). The higher the corruption the less safety you will have. Will safety is of course not exclusively tied to corruption, fact is the higher the corruption goes the more your safety suffers from it. Same principe, reduce corruption again and your loss of safety will return. Unless maybe you pick an option that decreases corruption but actually reduces raw safety... There are a few issues like those, the radio rebel head issue comes to mind. Going for civil rights may lower corruption, but at the same time more anarchism will still affect your raw safety levels negatively. So picking that option you usually end up with less corruption indeed, but no increase of safety either(but also no loss as it equals itself out).

[An imagination]

Issue 378 option 3
“Do you have any idea how much all of that would cost?” complains budget auditor Julia Garza while eating a stale rice cracker for lunch. “We shouldn’t spend money on something that happened a hundred years ago, and the savings from all that pomp and circumstance can be returned to the taxpayers. Are you going to eat that sandwich?”

This increases taxation?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

371.4, Government monopoly on gambling causes an increase in economic freedom?

You had previously banned gambling. This is a positive change

This is correct, just to confirm.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Name of Nation: Tikamstan
Date: 09.11.2017 1225 Hours(UTC +5:30)
Issue No. 21 (Police Consider "Big Brother" Anti-Crime System)
Choice No. 2 says that installing CCTV cameras in public places will reduce crime yet my Safety level decreased by 0.14% and Corruption increased by 1.3%

Indeed, but Crime reduced.

It just turns out that your citizens are less safe from government and that the state invasion of privacy makes corruption more possible.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Issue 378 option 3
“Do you have any idea how much all of that would cost?” complains budget auditor Julia Garza while eating a stale rice cracker for lunch. “We shouldn’t spend money on something that happened a hundred years ago, and the savings from all that pomp and circumstance can be returned to the taxpayers. Are you going to eat that sandwich?”

This increases taxation?

See the FAQ on page 1.

In this specific circumstance, though government spending decreased, the knock on effects of your decision caused a shrinkage of the economy by a small amount. Net result was that more taxation was required to support that smaller spend. In narrative terms, the refusal to acknowledge this occasion made your nation slightly less interested in history and that which has gone before, which caused shrinkage in some associated industries, which shrank your GDP and incomes, which made a higher income tax needed to support the same spend.

This is not universal but is emergent, and would be different for different nations receiving the same stat changes.

[New Rikerland]

New Rikerland
November 9th 2017
Issue 780 (Vexing VAT) option 1

This issue has 3 options, the first is to side with businesses and remove the VAT, the other two options are to keep VAT or raise VAT on the rich. I went with the first option to remove the tax, but got the direct effect of my Taxation score going up and my freedom from taxation going down. Granted there is dialog about getting rid of vat and replacing with with other taxes, but what is the point of having a question about a tax where every outcome is just to raise taxes?

[Ransium]

New Rikerland
November 9th 2017
Issue 780 (Vexing VAT) option 1

This issue has 3 options, the first is to side with businesses and remove the VAT, the other two options are to keep VAT or raise VAT on the rich. I went with the first option to remove the tax, but got the direct effect of my Taxation score going up and my freedom from taxation going down. Granted there is dialog about getting rid of vat and replacing with with other taxes, but what is the point of having a question about a tax where every outcome is just to raise taxes?

The "Taxation" stat has been taken to only represent income tax, not other sources of taxation. This issue and in particular this choice does a great job of highlighting the deficiencies and limitations of the model that the simulation is run by and therefore often complained about. I'm not a fan but I don't really have a solution.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Also, it's right there on the front page of this thread, on the FAQ that it is recommended that everyone reads before raising any unexpected effects.

- Why didn't tax fall when an option described a corporation tax cut / sales tax cut?

The tax model of the game is very simplistic, and it basically abstracts all spending as income tax and doesn't take into account any idea of government borrowing, deficit spending or tax from sources other than income tax.

That gives us limited tools for simulation.

Corporation tax is rolled into business subsidisation, with lowering of corporate tax representing an effective business subsidisation, and a shifting of tax burden onto the income taxpayer.

Sales tax and VAT, meanwhile, move income tax inversely, as raising more revenue from these forms of taxation decreases the burden on income tax, and vice versa.

This isn't entirely satisfactory, of course, as it means that the descriptions of "Freedom From Taxation" on the graphs aren't accurate, but it's reflective of how the game engine is written and of the simulation's limitations. It basically isn't possible to have burden of taxation and income tax move in opposite directions, as in the simulation all measured tax = income tax.

[Ahma]

Issue: 718 Roses Are Due If Violet’s For You

I'm simply asking for clarification considering Civil Rights. It has been my understanding that NationStates takes very strict stance that everything that causes State to take more control over people's lives lowers Civil Rights, and everything that causes State to stop meddling on people's lives (and how they run their bussinesses) will raise Civil Rights. Therefore, in issue 718 the option 1 should mean that that State doesn't oversee how people run their bussinesses, but it does lower Civil Rights. (I do not know how option 2 would have affected as I chose option 1 already, but wording in that sounds like that State would take more control over people's lives.)

VioletistsOnly.com, a dating site that helps members of the Order of Violet to meet each other, recently discovered that most of its users were not actually practitioners of Violetism. In response, the site’s owners suspended the accounts of all those who were not members of the Order. Bachelors, bachelorettes and believers from across Ahma have interrupted you while you are at dinner with family, demanding an immediate solution to their dating woes.

“Dating heathens is sacrilege!” bellows Shigeru Bender, Grand Poobah of the Violetist Order, as he pushes your brother out of the way and lowers his mighty rump into the newly-vacant seat. “The great Violet demands purity! We must be cleansed of impure thought, and remove ourselves from those not of our faith. VioletistsOnly.com is doing a good deed by segregating us from the unbelievers. Unless you would have Her Dread-Yet-Merciful hand wipe Ahma off the map, you must allow us to keep ourselves apart from scum, like you. No offence.”

“This is discrimination!” shouts Angus Grossweiner, batting his eyelashes at the Grand Poobah so hard that the force blows out the candles. “VioletistsOnly.com shouldn’t be allowed to suspend our accounts just because we aren’t of the same religion, even if that religion is part of their name. Make the owners reinstate our accounts, even if they don’t want to! This is not about religion. This is about freedom, my freedom as a single man to date whoever I choose! Plus, those purple robes are kind of cute.”

[Fauxia]

Civil rights is what people are allowed to do. It doesn’t matter so much if it’s endangered from the government or from business.

[Ahma]

Civil rights is what people are allowed to do. It doesn’t matter so much if it’s endangered from the government or from business.

I'm asking if there is consistency. For example in issue 674 "Let Them Eat Rainbow Cake!" enforcing protection of minorities lowers Civil Rights. (As it steps on the rights of business owners to choose their customers.)
https://nsindex.net/wiki/NationStates_Issue_No._674

[Minoa]

Civil rights is what people are allowed to do. It doesn’t matter so much if it’s endangered from the government or from business.

I'm asking if there is consistency. For example in issue 674 "Let Them Eat Rainbow Cake!" enforcing protection of minorities lowers Civil Rights. (As it steps on the rights of business owners to choose their customers.)
https://nsindex.net/wiki/NationStates_Issue_No._674

Issues are known for having surprising effects.

I don't know if the effects of option 2 have been changed since whoever reported the effects on 31 August 2017‎, but banning discrimination is hardly reducing civil rights overall.

[Leppikania]

I hope this is the right place to discuss unusual policies.

When did I implement child labor?

[Fauxia]

Civil rights is what people are allowed to do. It doesn’t matter so much if it’s endangered from the government or from business.

I'm asking if there is consistency. For example in issue 674 "Let Them Eat Rainbow Cake!" enforcing protection of minorities lowers Civil Rights. (As it steps on the rights of business owners to choose their customers.)
https://nsindex.net/wiki/NationStates_Issue_No._674

You have to understand that stat effects are not always the same. Whenever I answer that issue, civil rights goes up. I wish NSIndex would stop putting those stats up, because stats are not one size fits all.

That may have occurred on a nation that has extremely high civil rights, when the game starts lowering civil rights whenever it can.

[New Mushroom Kingdom]

So I answered Scandal Rocks New Mushroom Kingdom’s Government! today, taking 'newspapers may not print any negative stories about the government. ' and it had an effect that seems oversized compared to the displayed effect.
The change was: Industry: Book Publishing 226.55 → -5.22 102%
While it's natural this would damage the industry, it doesn't seem right that this single effect flipped it to a negative value.

[Trotterdam]

226.55 is tiny for an industry stat. This was just the last straw. If your book publishing industry were more robust to begin with, this probably wouldn't have happened.

[Ransium]

226.55 is tiny for an industry stat. This was just the last straw. If your book publishing industry were more robust to begin with, this probably wouldn't have happened.

Confirming this is accurate. Also this:

Some stats are on something like a logarithmic scale. So if the code for that stat moves from 2->4, the movement for that stat players see might be 50->100. However, a movement of 22->24 may only be a 10 point increase. Hope that helps.

[Ransium]

I hope this is the right place to discuss unusual policies.

When did I implement child labor?

Unfortunately, figuring this out would be incredibly time-consuming the way things are currently set-up.

[Ransium]

Civil rights is what people are allowed to do. It doesn’t matter so much if it’s endangered from the government or from business.

I'm asking if there is consistency. For example in issue 674 "Let Them Eat Rainbow Cake!" enforcing protection of minorities lowers Civil Rights. (As it steps on the rights of business owners to choose their customers.)
https://nsindex.net/wiki/NationStates_Issue_No._674

Your nation is one with extremely high civil rights, so pretty much any issue an editor deems increases some civil rights but decreases others (as is often the case since civil rights are often in tention) will decrease your nations civil rights. See more here:

"Why did my civil rights / political freedom / economy move the wrong way?"

Broadly, the game is seeking information from you all the time to define your position on the three main categories.
If you confirm what it already knows about you, then you see no or little change in its recording of your position.

If you go against what it thinks it knows about you, then you can see a sizeable change.

So, for example, if the United States of America were to block its citizenry from the internet for one week, that's be a massive shift in its position on civil liberties. If China were to do the same, it'd be a notable but less dramatic shift. If North Korea were to do it, people would consider it business as usual.

With me so far?

Now add to this that the game uses a lot of invisible stats, and checks each of these in isolation, and that sometimes a single option may effect many of these.

This is where you get the confusing situations. Say, for example, a North Korea like nation embraces an option that arms its populace and tells them to go out and shoot anyone of non heterosexual sexuality.

That sounds like an attack on civil rights, right?

Well yes, except that the game looks at the nation's attitude on homosexuality, and notes that it's already super-bigoted, so a super-bigoted stance has very little effect on civil rights. The game then looks at the people's right to bear arms, and notices that we're going from no right to bear arms, to having the right to bear arms for a specific purpose. This creates a sizeable increase in civil rights.

Thus, you get a spurious and confusing scenario where civil rights increase in an option that sounds anti-civil rights.

The closer your nation is to the extremes, the more pronounced this effect becomes.

Sometimes you can work out the freedom sub-category, sometimes you can't. There's a few things that frequently catch people out so I'll mention them here specifically:

1) The right to privacy is a civil right. Self-explanatory really, but people often associate options that invade privacy with the rights of the invader to do as he pleases, not the rights of the invaded to preserve their privacy.
2) The right to influence politics with bribes / lobbying / money is a political freedom. That is, the freedom to be corrupt is in fact a political freedom. Political freedom isn't just a "positive".
3) The right of small businesses to have an environment they can survive in (e.g. anti-monopoly legislation), and the right of the worker to unionise / strike etc. are economic freedoms. In other words, the game also considers the economic freedoms of the little guy.

90% of "unexpected effects" on freedoms are from people not realising these three are considered freedoms/rights by the game.

Finally, the Economy score has - in particular - an even more complicated simulation behind it, where your economic output, economic freedoms et al are not always going to correlate with your Economy score as you might expect. Take heart though - the same is true of real world economies, so this is probably weirdly realistic.

[Shen Yun]

Issue 279 Option 1 Causes a decrease in inclusiveness.