Trying out NationStates, and ....

[Elbovia]

I recently decided to try out this "NationStates" web thing. It's kinda fun, but everything is very U.S.-leaning. "Size of government"!? "The average income tax rate is 37.8%, but much higher for the wealthy"!? How is that even an issue? "Much higher"? Well, of course it is. That's not a net negative for society. On the contrary. "Taxes" is just a term for the resources we all chip in for the organization of our society, where the state - the organizer - is us. It's like outsourcing services, but in a much broader sense.

These are issues very seldom discussed outside of the U.S. Progressive tax is the norm. It's like: "OK, you're trying to build a SOCIALIST society, so let everybody make the same amout of money and eliminate all differences in wealth!". But no, I just wanted to even out some of the worst capitalist flaws, like 1 percent of the population owning 99 percent of all resources. But I don't want communism either. There's a loooong stretch of scale between those two end-points. Most nations on earth (not counting the U.S. of course) tends to scale from a centrist perspective to left leaning.

What size the government is tends to only be a factor in countries where you don't trust it. In Europe most do. In the U.S. (and most dictatorships) you tend not to.

Maybe not let your preconceptions shine through as much?

[Merni]

See:

This is a satirical game, based on demonstrating unexpected effects of difficult choices. The idea of offering realistic easy choices has never been part of this game.

Also relevant is the fact that the game was initially created as a promotional thing for Max Barry's 2003 novel Jennifer Government, which is a satire of a small-government corporate-dominated dystopia.

[Elbovia]

See:

This is a satirical game, based on demonstrating unexpected effects of difficult choices. The idea of offering realistic easy choices has never been part of this game.

Also relevant is the fact that the game was initially created as a promotional thing for Max Barry's 2003 novel Jennifer Government, which is a satire of a small-government corporate-dominated dystopia.

I totally get that it's satirical, and I do enjoy that part of it. It's fun! I just could live without the preconceptions of political norms. But yeah, maybe it's just me.

[Risottia]

I recently decided to try out this "NationStates" web thing. It's kinda fun, but everything is very U.S.-leaning. "Size of government"!? "The average income tax rate is 37.8%, but much higher for the wealthy"!? How is that even an issue? "Much higher"? Well, of course it is. That's not a net negative for society. On the contrary. "Taxes" is just a term for the resources we all chip in for the organization of our society, where the state - the organizer - is us. It's like outsourcing services, but in a much broader sense.

These are issues very seldom discussed outside of the U.S. Progressive tax is the norm. It's like: "OK, you're trying to build a SOCIALIST society, so let everybody make the same amout of money and eliminate all differences in wealth!". But no, I just wanted to even out some of the worst capitalist flaws, like 1 percent of the population owning 99 percent of all resources. But I don't want communism either. There's a loooong stretch of scale between those two end-points. Most nations on earth (not counting the U.S. of course) tends to scale from a centrist perspective to left leaning.

What size the government is tends to only be a factor in countries where you don't trust it. In Europe most do. In the U.S. (and most dictatorships) you tend not to.

Maybe not let your preconceptions shine through as much?

Uhrr durr this site is totally, like, American!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Barry

Omg you're totally, like, a cappie playing like a totally cappie country!

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=risottia

[Wallowis]

I recently decided to try out this "NationStates" web thing. It's kinda fun, but everything is very U.S.-leaning. "Size of government"!? "The average income tax rate is 37.8%, but much higher for the wealthy"!? How is that even an issue? "Much higher"? Well, of course it is. That's not a net negative for society. On the contrary. "Taxes" is just a term for the resources we all chip in for the organization of our society, where the state - the organizer - is us. It's like outsourcing services, but in a much broader sense.

These are issues very seldom discussed outside of the U.S. Progressive tax is the norm. It's like: "OK, you're trying to build a SOCIALIST society, so let everybody make the same amout of money and eliminate all differences in wealth!". But no, I just wanted to even out some of the worst capitalist flaws, like 1 percent of the population owning 99 percent of all resources. But I don't want communism either. There's a loooong stretch of scale between those two end-points. Most nations on earth (not counting the U.S. of course) tends to scale from a centrist perspective to left leaning.

What size the government is tends to only be a factor in countries where you don't trust it. In Europe most do. In the U.S. (and most dictatorships) you tend not to.

Maybe not let your preconceptions shine through as much?

It never said it was an issue. It just says that its much higher for the wealthy. What on earth makes you think that that implies that it is a bad thing?

[The Orwell Society]

It's a really good game, just don't take it seriously or it'll send you into a depression fueled by snarky issue outcomes that are never what you want.

[Informed Consent]

It's a really good game, just don't take it seriously or it'll send you into a depression fueled by snarky issue outcomes that are never what you want.

I support this message.

[Umbratellus]

Well, for starters the game isn't US-centric; the original author was Australian. Most issues have been done by users but far from all of them are from the US either.

One thing to keep in mind is that this site is pretty old. You didn't use to have nearly as much transparency about what the stats for your nation were or what was going on behind the scenes. Back when I first joined the website, there were no badges and you only know your relative ranking for a stat when it happened to be randomly selected to be that days stat.

Your size of government stat lets you know the overall proportion of your economy as it's split between private sector and government (state owned industry was added later). My government is "relatively small," yours is "medium." It's not a value judgement, it's just saying that my government-as-a-percent-of-economy is pretty small and yours is slightly higher. The taxes are how the income equality stat used to be conveyed. IIRC income equality/wealth gaps weren't always a publicly listed stat, and the overall gap was conveyed based on your taxation scheme (provided you even have an income tax). Nowadays it's something like, 10:1 income gaps or higher are flat taxation, <10:1>5:1 are just "average tax rate," and less than 5:1 is "much higher for the wealthy." Just a bit of a hold over from an earlier version of the game.

[Czardas]

I would say the game is somewhat "capitalist-centric" rather than US-centric, but a) that's sufficiently common in Western countries that you probably won't notice unless you actually become a communist, b) this was exhibited mostly in terms of being primarily a satire of capitalism early on, whereas now things are somewhat more equal opportunity with communism also being satirised (e.g., you can't run a socialist economy now without getting issues where your leader is referred to as "Comrade" and everything is called a Five-Year Plan and so on). As such things no longer feel quite as unbalanced, and therefore might feel less obviously satirical, compared to back in the 2000s.

This applies mostly to the various stats (for about as long as I've been here, vaguely left-wing posters have complained about the capitalist bias inherent in the "Economic Freedom" stat, where higher economic freedom = more capitalist). There's some tendency for issues to be vaguely "western-centric" as well, tying into hot-button political issues in Western countries that may not be of much importance elsewhere, and obviously they will be kinda "human-centric" and "modern tech-centric" (issues are going to be inaccurate if you're a nation of space aliens or a medieval kingdom or whatever).

Over time the biases become relatively easy to ignore.

[Kandorith]

This is hardly US centric, especially the government size thing. Living in a not further named European country people here do not trust the government and even the government itself claims its too big. This is a theme returning almost every where.

Next to that most of the entire status of your nation is satire that is why indeed if you completely eliminate wealth gaps, you must be communist!

Honestly I would not say my nation's classification is very positive either, it's fun though.

[DNA]

The ranks have names for their ranks for a reason, and their specific for a reason.

[Unified Democratic Europe]

First off, welcome to the game. Now, one thing you have to know is that this game is mostly satirical. If you want to have fun answering issues, you mustn't take the issue outcomes seriously.

Have fun.

[Katganistan]

I recently decided to try out this "NationStates" web thing. It's kinda fun, but everything is very U.S.-leaning. "Size of government"!? "The average income tax rate is 37.8%, but much higher for the wealthy"!? How is that even an issue? "Much higher"? Well, of course it is. That's not a net negative for society. On the contrary. "Taxes" is just a term for the resources we all chip in for the organization of our society, where the state - the organizer - is us. It's like outsourcing services, but in a much broader sense.

These are issues very seldom discussed outside of the U.S. Progressive tax is the norm. It's like: "OK, you're trying to build a SOCIALIST society, so let everybody make the same amout of money and eliminate all differences in wealth!". But no, I just wanted to even out some of the worst capitalist flaws, like 1 percent of the population owning 99 percent of all resources. But I don't want communism either. There's a loooong stretch of scale between those two end-points. Most nations on earth (not counting the U.S. of course) tends to scale from a centrist perspective to left leaning.

What size the government is tends to only be a factor in countries where you don't trust it. In Europe most do. In the U.S. (and most dictatorships) you tend not to.

Maybe not let your preconceptions shine through as much?

You do realize it's neither hosted in the US nor is it owned by a US resident, and the issues literally are created by players who span the globe?

Maybe don't come to a site that's existed 20 years and make your first impression here as "Here's everything wrong with your site since I've just spent a few hours looking at, in my opinion"?

[Senkaku]

I recently decided to try out this "NationStates" web thing. It's kinda fun, but everything is very U.S.-leaning. "Size of government"!? "The average income tax rate is 37.8%, but much higher for the wealthy"!? How is that even an issue? "Much higher"? Well, of course it is. That's not a net negative for society. On the contrary. "Taxes" is just a term for the resources we all chip in for the organization of our society, where the state - the organizer - is us. It's like outsourcing services, but in a much broader sense.

These are issues very seldom discussed outside of the U.S. Progressive tax is the norm. It's like: "OK, you're trying to build a SOCIALIST society, so let everybody make the same amout of money and eliminate all differences in wealth!". But no, I just wanted to even out some of the worst capitalist flaws, like 1 percent of the population owning 99 percent of all resources. But I don't want communism either. There's a loooong stretch of scale between those two end-points. Most nations on earth (not counting the U.S. of course) tends to scale from a centrist perspective to left leaning.

What size the government is tends to only be a factor in countries where you don't trust it. In Europe most do. In the U.S. (and most dictatorships) you tend not to.

Maybe not let your preconceptions shine through as much?

You do realize it's neither hosted in the US nor is it owned by a US resident, and the issues literally are created by players who span the globe?

Maybe don't come to a site that's existed 20 years and make your first impression here as "Here's everything wrong with your site since I've just spent a few hours looking at, in my opinion"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ru8DMW-grY