Add a "Standard of Living" Trendline

[Beepers]

"Standard of Living", a new trendline to be added to the Current Three ("Civil Rights", "Economy", "Political Freedoms"), would combine and quantify environmental, health and educational policy, that of which promote a happy, employed, literate and long living populace, into a value/100. As the system stands today, too much positive reinforcement is given to Nation's on the Right side of the political spectrum. Nations that have a suffering populace and a complete lack of social policies can have across-the-board high values in the Current Three. Unbeknownst to themselves, Nations exploit their people and reduce their quality of life and wonder later why their toxicity is sky-high, or why their obesity numbers are bloated. We need this trendline so Nations may better analyze the consequences of positions as they're taken over time. Let's turn the Current Three into the Future Four.

Humbly,
Our Beloved Blessed Beautiful Dear Leader Beepers

[Chinese Regions]

I'm kind of fond with this idea but it would make nation classification four dimensional.
I suppose how you implement the status of a nation's trend could play a factor, if this were added, what if "Left Wing Utopia" and "Anarchy" were made realistic and near unachievable and you had to answer certain issues with certain options to reach them with the highest standards of living.

[Feux]

This belongs in technical.

[Beepers]

@Chinese Regions - I'd leave "Standard of Living" independent of nation classification. Changing the way we classify nations would enrage those who spent years working towards a specific one.

@Feux - Huh, I could have sworn I did put it in Technical.

[The United Soviet Socialist Republic]

Love it.

[Corel]

I like this idea a lot.

[Benomia]

I also like this idea. It would give the World Assembly something else to improve.

[Frisbeeteria]

@Feux - Huh, I could have sworn I did put it in Technical.

No, I moved it from Gameplay.

This is not a trivial suggestion that could simply be added to the existing trends. If you look at the Analysis tab, you'll see most of the things the game is capable of tracking. "Standard of Living" isn't on that list. You'd have to come up with a better reason than "it be nice to know" before admins will consider looking at the thread, much less going through adding code to create this.

[Luna Amore]

@Feux - Huh, I could have sworn I did put it in Technical.

No, I moved it from Gameplay.

This is not a trivial suggestion that could simply be added to the existing trends. If you look at the Analysis tab, you'll see most of the things the game is capable of tracking. "Standard of Living" isn't on that list. You'd have to come up with a better reason than "it be nice to know" before admins will consider looking at the thread, much less going through adding code to create this.

Could a 'Standard of Living' census be created from the combination of existing stats? By combining other census stats like employment, health, happiness and/or lifespan for example?

[Beepers]

Could a 'Standard of Living' census be created from the combination of existing stats? By combining other census stats like employment, health, happiness and/or lifespan for example?

Aye, that's what I had in mind, but as a trendline so that Nation's can see its change over time

If you look at the Analysis tab, you'll see most of the things the game is capable of tracking. "Standard of Living" isn't on that list.

"Standard of Living" would use information we already have from Employment, Happiness, Health, Intelligence, Lifespace, -Obesity, -Toxicity, and Safety censuses.

You'd have to come up with a better reason than "it be nice to know" before admins will consider looking at the thread, much less going through adding code to create this.

What is anything under the "People", "Government", "Economy", "Trend" or "Analysis" tabs but "nice to know"? Not only would this trendline allow people to better understand the consequences of their actions and the "cause-effect" nature of policy- and everything, it'd allow people to observe the inverse relationship of the "Economy" and "Standard of Living" trendline, and challenge Nations to preserve both.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Could a 'Standard of Living' census be created from the combination of existing stats? By combining other census stats like employment, health, happiness and/or lifespan for example?

Aye, that's what I had in mind, but as a trendline so that Nation's can see its change over time

If you look at the Analysis tab, you'll see most of the things the game is capable of tracking. "Standard of Living" isn't on that list.

"Standard of Living" would use information we already have from Employment, Happiness, Health, Intelligence, Lifespace, -Obesity, -Toxicity, and Safety censuses.

That's your definition of "standard of living". Other nations may have their own. (ObIC: "I love the smell of asphalt in the morning. It smells like progress!")

So, I'd like something more general: the ability to add a small number of new variables to the trend graph. Ideally, we'd be allowed to combine existing variables to suit us, as Beepers wants, but even just keeping track of existing ones would be help. It's also not a bad way of signaling IC national values to people browsing a nation.

I don't think that would be a big deal to code, since it's mostly reusing existing code to generate the trend graph and the variable-picker GUI from the analysis page. To prevent needing to record all the variables, if we change what we're keeping trends for, the previous trend history would be lost, and the new history would start with the next update.

[Cocsoah]

This is an amazing idea, I support this!

[Chinese Regions]

@Chinese Regions - I'd leave "Standard of Living" independent of nation classification. Changing the way we classify nations would enrage those who spent years working towards a specific one.

@Feux - Huh, I could have sworn I did put it in Technical.

I wonder if Nationstates should have different modes. Begginner, Intermediate, Expert etc.

[Beepers]

So, I'd like something more general: the ability to add a small number of new variables to the trend graph. Ideally, we'd be allowed to combine existing variables to suit us, as Beepers wants, but even just keeping track of existing ones would be help. It's also not a bad way of signaling IC national values to people browsing a nation.

That's a good idea too. Maybe we would put them on a separate line graph as not to clutter the current one. But I'd like to solely-stick to this sorely-needed trendline.

Keep in mind that "IRL Nations" consider Standard of Living as important, if not more important, than Civil, Economic and Political rights. India is often condemned for its abysmal air quality, high poverty/disease, lack of living space and severe income inequality, while European countries like Norway and the Netherlands receive praise for having the highest Standard of Living, although being small nations. There's a system the UN uses to measure this, The Human Development Index.

[Amehstris]

I like this idea.

[Weiben]

I'm for this.

[Galifunkia]

The Protectorate of Galifunkia stands with Beepers on this. This idea would increase the enjoyment of Nationstates Exponentially! I look forward to us talking over the issues and making this soon happen! Obviously it will need tech support and support of the community, but with our nations combined, we can all work through this. I congratulate Beepers on this splendid itdea!/

[Frisbeeteria]

The Protectorate of Galifunkia stands with Beepers on this.

I'm for this.

I like this idea.

Folks, this isn't a poll. It's nice that you're supporting your regionmate, but this isn't an in-character forum. It's Technical. Appeals to popularity don't write game code, so please don't add any more of these sycophant posts.

[Galifunkia]

Oh, excuuuuuuuuuuuse me!! Maybe I just think its a great idea! Why don't YOU contribute anything instead of just whining!

[Benomia]

Oh, excuuuuuuuuuuuse me!! Maybe I just think its a great idea! Why don't YOU contribute anything instead of just whining!

Dude...that was a forum administrator...

[Galifunkia]

Well, maybe he should check himself! Here's what I want to discuss, instead of just lecturing each other:

-Implementation can be figured out when the idea is fleshed out, so...
-What criteria would be used in the calculation of The Standard of Living
-Would this have to be one of the three major trend lines, or would it work as one of the other measurables?
-I'd like to hear a greater proposal, since obviously many people do support it. We need more cool stuff!

[The Most Glorious Hack]

Here's what I want to discuss, instead of just lecturing each other

So discuss it. This isn't AOL; "me too" isn't a useful post.

[Galifunkia]

Discussion: I think the standard of living trend line would stop hacks like The Most Glorious Hack from rigging the trend lines in their favor; economic and political powerhouses often suffer from serious negative conditions, like high Toxicity and low life span and high rates of being a cunt; however, there is no remedy for that third one.

[Frisbeeteria]

* snip *

Since you seem intent on flaming site officials, we'll skip over the warning phase and go straight to a *** three day forumban ***.

[Zemnaya Svoboda]

I'd consider this too subjective but then again the actual UN has a human development index so this really could make sense.