Beta 002: Religion ignored by Scientific Advancement/Prim

[Clean Land]

Hmm my nation is in the top 8% for religiousness...
but it gets more primitive with these changes. And less scientifical advanced.
At least under 2 b
2 a would raise Primitive a bit, and Scientific too, but by a negliglible amount.
2 would make my nation less primitive, and more scientifically advanced.

2b... is that because of a massive miscalculation of the IT tech?(It is currently at -9,9/Top 98%)
What causes the changes between 2a and 2?
EDIT: A recent policy change has changed these figures, but they are still roughly correct.
The drop is not as severe, possibly due to an increase in IT Industry

[[violet]]

[002b] now affects both Primitiveness and Scientific Advancement by approximately the same amount. Is this also a consequence of this bugfix?

Yes. It's still possible for nations to be affected asymmetrically, but a lot of the difference you saw before was due to the buggy beta.

Does having a massively negative IT impact it even more?

Broadly, yes: Nations with massively negative IT will lose Advancement under beta 002b. But because the current ranking measures IT size weirdly, there may be some counter-examples.

Hmm my nation is in the top 8% for religiousness...
but it gets more primitive with these changes. And less scientifical advanced.
At least under 2 b
2 a would raise Primitive a bit, and Scientific too, but by a negliglible amount.
2 would make my nation less primitive, and more scientifically advanced.

2b... is that because of a massive miscalculation of the IT tech?(It is currently at -9,9/Top 98%)
What causes the changes between 2a and 2?

None of the changes are really huge in your nation, but yes: first beta 002 removes your Advancement penalty for being religious, which gives you +26% to SA. Then you lose a lot of that due to beta 002a considering policies like your ban on cars, which takes you back to +6% SA. And finally you fall back further the correction of your IT industry size in 002b, coming out at -5% to SA overall.

[Bedetopia]

Looking at the numbers again... I don't think having negative advancement and negative primitiveness at the same time is normal.

[[violet]]

Looking at the numbers again... I don't think having negative advancement and negative primitiveness at the same time is normal.

(Image)

It's definitely unusual, but looks like a legit outcome, i.e. the model is correctly measuring what it wants to measure. Bedetopia is very anti-technology, but also opposes things that promote Primitiveness; for example, you are even more extremely anti-basket weaving.

[Kazakstotzka]

Wow. I am quite astonished at how much of an effect the "religion = primitive" assumption has had on nation stats. For example, Culture of Life would see their Scientific Advancement go up by 108.52, or 454%, if this link was removed! The assumption of religion as intrinsically primitive is both loaded and baseless, and it needs to end. The modern concept of a university started in monasteries, for heaven's sake! I highly support this proposal, and you have my thanks for considering it.

Could not disagree more. Religiousness is possibly the most primitive human behavior.

Scientific Advancement and Primitiveness should be polar opposites. This is fine.

Religion is ultimately an Ideology + Theism. Historically, the monastic education lead to schools which focused on "secular" education so that people could actually learn various crafts in a starved economy.
Whether or not religious thinking is primitive by nature is't something I'm willing to get into, but there are many religious organizations that are ultimately progressive and scientific by their very nature.
The belief in "faith" for the unknown and "science" to improve what we can know, so that we don't need to rely on faith, is very popular and widespread in numerous modern religious organizations. Historically speaking, providing an explanation for the world around them is how they survived.

Whether or not a religious organization is involved in a resolution is irreverent to the resolution being primitive or scientific.

[Azurius]

While I agree that in realife religion is pretty much responsible for holding back science, there are as mentioned religious fringe groups that actually embrace science fully. However those don´t happen to have any real influence in realife.

As of such, I think this beta is a good idea. Since NS is a completely fictional realm in which you have all sorts of different religions. Some being pro science, some anti-science or neutral. The problem is that this really depends on what kind of religion the player envisions.

As of such, it should be issue choices that reflect a nations religions stance on science and technology. Which is why I support this beta. Instead of religion other factors such as policies and maybe the IT sector should rather determine SA instead of religiousness.

[Kyratistani]

Oh my...the changes in effect here would raise my Primitiveness by 75.2% to 533.75 on that Big Scary Number Index! But if my nation is very religious too (it is in top 0.3% of the world), shouldn't this change make me less primitive...?

[Bedetopia]

Looking at the numbers again... I don't think having negative advancement and negative primitiveness at the same time is normal.

(Image)

It's definitely unusual, but looks like a legit outcome, i.e. the model is correctly measuring what it wants to measure. Bedetopia is very anti-technology, but also opposes things that promote Primitiveness; for example, you are even more extremely anti-basket weaving.

How come these two scales are not exact opposites? It's confusing to have them both in the negatives.

[Nothreen]

Oh my...the changes in effect here would raise my Primitiveness by 75.2% to 533.75 on that Big Scary Number Index! But if my nation is very religious too (it is in top 0.3% of the world), shouldn't this change make me less primitive...?

Not necessarily. From your policies, I can tell that you have banned computers,internet,cars,airplanes and video games. most likely, other issues answered in similar fashion, and promote primitiveness. your tech industry is 104th from the end.
All those things increase primitiveness in the new model, and override the religiousness effect.

[Mantenos]

Any way this can stay as it is, or at least keep old SA tracked? Coming from a heavy RP region, scientific advancement is the main stat we use and we have an extensive system surrounding it. Changing it will completely f*ck our entire RP backend and it's not something easily fixed.

[Thama]

This is very good I approve

[Imperio de Jandira]

Very nice idea!

[Enclave Of American States]

I think that in this thread it is being ignored that most issues that have to do with religion make you choose between theism and science. Maybe your SA shouldn't go down but it shouldn't go up either.
And if you are actively choosing a religious option versus the option that promotes science your SA should go down.
Most of the religious issues put SA against religion therefor it makes no sense to delink the two without editing the issues.

[Jute]

This is a great, long overdue change. I have good intelligence and decent scientific advancement despite high primitiveness and religiousness, but it's probably justified for the former to be higher based on how I have answered my issues.

[New Constitution of Lost Earth]

Violet, this question really doesn't have to do with my opinion on it, but a problem my Region will encounter with it. While I love the update and agree with it, as a RP Region we use the SA chart to determine technology levels. The problem is that due to the massive increase for the nations they will get a free boost to their technology levels. Is their any way you could share with me the average rate of gain so we can change our chart accordingly?

[Aelyria]

I think that in this thread it is being ignored that most issues that have to do with religion make you choose between theism and science. Maybe your SA shouldn't go down but it shouldn't go up either.
And if you are actively choosing a religious option versus the option that promotes science your SA should go down.
Most of the religious issues put SA against religion therefor it makes no sense to delink the two without editing the issues.

I don't really understand what you're arguing for here. You said, "it shouldn't go down, but it shouldn't go up either." This change will not make religiousness increase scientific advancement, so it cannot do the thing you don't want it to do. Instead, it will stop decreasing SA all by itself. Any changes to SA only occur because SA is being suppressed by religiousness (it's making it "go down," which you oppose), and this change will mean it doesn't do that anymore (religiousness will have *no* effect, so it won't increase OR decrease SA). To turn this around: why should being deeply secular make a nation more scientifically advanced? Because that is how things work right now. The Soviet Union was secular, to the point of executing priests in some cases, and it advocated the flagrantly anti-scientific biology "method" of Lysenkoism (to its own massive detriment...unless you consider only the people with political power at the time).

As for your point about the issues, I see that as exactly the reverse. If choosing the religious option in an issue already reduces SA, why double-dip the penalty? It's not like there will suddenly be NO issues that increase religiousness and decrease SA (nor will those that increase SA and decrease religiousness disappear). Those changes will simply be part of the issue's direct effects, not hard-coded into the fundamental calculation of SA. No editing of any issue text is necessary; at most, they will just need a review to make sure that the original author/editor didn't *rely* on religiousness being intrinsically pro-primitive and intrinsically anti-SA.

As for myself, I am wholeheartedly in favor of this change. I am a man of science and faith both. I'm working on my further education in physics and (hopefully soon) assisting one of my professors with his theoretical HEP (high-energy physics) research at my institution, UIC. I also believe in the God of Abraham. (And believe you me, there are several other ways I could surprise you.) Such people have been common in history, and have often done incredibly important work. James Clerk Maxwell, for instance. You know, the guy who made the world's first color photograph, and developed the modern theory of electromagnetism, aka Maxwell's equations, the ONLY complete theory in all of classical physics to survive relativity? (In fact, Einstein postulated it specifically because of Maxwell's equations!) Or Maxwell's partner and mentor, one of the greatest experimental physicists of all time, Michael Faraday? Or perhaps the inventors of the calculus, Leibniz and Newton, who were both deeply religious (and idiosyncratic!) men. Being religious has no direct correlation to scientific advancement or primitiveness. Let the two develop separately. If one's choices produce great faith and great primitiveness, or great faith and great advancement, so be it! Don't double-dip it, and don't unfairly punish nations (like mine) which pride themselves on being both highly religious (top 1% devout) and highly advanced (top 2% SA).

[[violet]]

Violet, this question really doesn't have to do with my opinion on it, but a problem my Region will encounter with it. While I love the update and agree with it, as a RP Region we use the SA chart to determine technology levels. The problem is that due to the massive increase for the nations they will get a free boost to their technology levels. Is their any way you could share with me the average rate of gain so we can change our chart accordingly?

Here is your region. The average SA scores goes from 222.73 to 312.08, a gain of 40.12%.

[New Constitution of Lost Earth]

Violet, this question really doesn't have to do with my opinion on it, but a problem my Region will encounter with it. While I love the update and agree with it, as a RP Region we use the SA chart to determine technology levels. The problem is that due to the massive increase for the nations they will get a free boost to their technology levels. Is their any way you could share with me the average rate of gain so we can change our chart accordingly?

Here is your region. The average SA scores goes from 222.73 to 312.08, a gain of 40.12%.

Thank you for that.

[Trotterdam]

We can perform beta tests by region? I'm not seeing any buttons for that on the page. Did you just add the feature or has it secretly been there all along?

[Alistia]

Great Change.
A nation can be religious and scientifically advanced.

[Merconitonitopia]

We can perform beta tests by region? I'm not seeing any buttons for that on the page. Did you just add the feature or has it secretly been there all along?

well, now we know we can.
https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta? ... region=___

[[violet]]

We can perform beta tests by region? I'm not seeing any buttons for that on the page. Did you just add the feature or has it secretly been there all along?

The first one.

[Parhe]

We can perform beta tests by region? I'm not seeing any buttons for that on the page. Did you just add the feature or has it secretly been there all along?

well, now we know we can.
https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta? ... region=___

That doesn't seem to be working. WHenever I fill it in with my region I just get a string of random nations, most of which are not in Penglai.
https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta? ... on=penglai

[[violet]]

It doesn't work on very large regions (200+ nations).

[Mushet]

This would be a good change, since the religions these fictional nations follow don't have to be anti-science. They also don't have to be so tied to Abrahamic notions of sin but I understand that may be a more difficult and larger change.