Worldbuilding Realism Consultation Thread Mk. 4

[Korva]

people just won't do good until you force feed it to them during their formative years

this explains many of your posts

[The Soodean Imperium]

- Humans are greedy selfish bastards by nature
- Societies are groups of humans each selfishly trying to find a way to make the game more difficult for everyone else but make them the king, and because there are so many of them they tend to end up meeting in the middle.
- Different societies are different interpretations of what that middle is.

So, Hobbes meets Axelrod and they give birth to Douglass North?
Still a better love story than Twilight

[Taihei Tengoku]

emergent order

e. you'll cowards don't even Theory of Moral Sentiments

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

A lot of definitions were thrown around in that last post so I'll take a moment to straighten them out:

- an "ideal" meritocracy, as I see it, is one that directly and consciously selects and promotes officials based on their actual ability to administer the country well. Like Dahl's definition of democracy, this is impossible to objectively determine in practice because so many competing standards and practical obstacles exist, but it serves as a useful heuristic end-point along which to rank different systems.

Assuming you would combine meritocracy with democracy, and seeing how there is no possible way to objectively define what constitutes administering a country well, I would say that it should logically result in selecting and promoting officials based on their actual ability to administer the country as the citizens want to, or in other words, on how closely they can apply the wish of the people in their actions and/or how closely they match the citizens' "ideal" ruler.

IMO relying solely on some form of "meritocracy" that democracy is not a part of is inherently flawed and authoritarian because as it has been pointed by others, there is no objectively correct way of defining merit and consequently no objectively correct way of classifying individuals based on it. The principle of democracy pretty much states that the closest you can get to finding this definition is asking the regular citizen, or rather, averaging their answers.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

Sperg Union undermined by Parasite Normies. ):

To be clear, I'm not saying that the Soviet Union was undermined by a conspiracy of speculators and parasites, but that its economic system was rife with conflicts of interest from the start. It probably would not have survived as long as it did without factory managers trading and stockpiling spare parts behind the scenes.

plottwist: what if it actually was what brought the whole thing down

(disclaimer: i have no idea what i'm talking about)

[Gallia-]

Sperg Union undermined by Parasite Normies. ):

To be clear, I'm not saying that the Soviet Union was undermined by a conspiracy of speculators and parasites, but that its economic system was rife with conflicts of interest from the start. It probably would not have survived as long as it did without factory managers trading and stockpiling spare parts behind the scenes.

I don't disagree.

I just wish people valued tanks and fast jet planes more than iPhones and big computer monitors.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

To be clear, I'm not saying that the Soviet Union was undermined by a conspiracy of speculators and parasites, but that its economic system was rife with conflicts of interest from the start. It probably would not have survived as long as it did without factory managers trading and stockpiling spare parts behind the scenes.

I don't disagree.

I just wish people valued tanks and fast jet planes more than iPhones and big computer monitors.

me too ;.;

[Gallia-]

And if they can't, they should be forced to by bayonet.

Entire planet turned into a tank manufactory.

Dream come true.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

And if they can't, they should be forced to by bayonet.

Entire planet turned into a tank manufactory.

Dream come true.

too much politics .

i think we should all resume sperging over police and shit if you all agree

[Kouralia]

QUick question - for which I will commence writing something.

How do your nations respond to major incidents, esp. those with a large number of fatalities?

I'll define 'major incident' as follows:

A major incident can be defined as any emergency that requires the implementation of special arrangements by one or more of the Emergency Services, the [health service] or local Authority for:

• The initial treatment, rescue and transport of a large number of casualties.
• The involvement, either directly or indirectly, of large numbers of people.
• The handling of a large number of enquiries likely to be generated, both from the public and the news media, usually to the Police.
• The need for large scale combined resources of the emergency services.
• The mobilisation and organisation of the emergency services and supporting organisations, e.g. local authority, to cater for the threat of death, serious injury or homelessness to a large number of people.

And as an example incident...
A train carrying soldiers derails at speed and mounts a station platform which has civilians on it, resulting in multiple fatalities.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

Hmm. As somewhat related sperg:

Is using an Mi-26 or potentially even a larger helicopter (obviously an NS one as Mi-26 is the largest helicopter even in production IIRC) for any of the following purposes useful/viable?

• Multiple Casualty Unit
• Mobile Hospital
• Mobile Command Post
• Mobile Communications Relay

/other duties where it operates similar to how a large specialized trailer or RV would, basically landing in an area for personnel to operate in and around it (e.g. have a mobile hospital inside to treat relatively major wounds, and set up awnings/tents from/around it where triage and minor injuries are handled, etc.)

Also would it be practical to have several of these fly out to some remote location (allegedly with sufficient resources or awaiting resource shipments) and essentially land and set up an ad-hoc base (assuming they had a reason) ?

What I basically want to know is essentially, are these helicopters prohibitively expensive to use in such fashion (and numbers) and would using them like this not offer much benefits where it would just be better to drop off whatever they have to drop off and then simply go be useful somewhere else?

[The Akasha Colony]

Hmm. As somewhat related sperg:

Is using an Mi-26 or potentially even a larger helicopter (obviously an NS one as Mi-26 is the largest helicopter even in production IIRC) for any of the following purposes useful/viable?

• Multiple Casualty Unit
• Mobile Hospital
• Mobile Command Post
• Mobile Communications Relay

/other duties where it operates similar to how a large specialized trailer or RV would, basically landing in an area for personnel to operate in and around it (e.g. have a mobile hospital inside to treat relatively major wounds, and set up awnings/tents from/around it where triage and minor injuries are handled, etc.)

Also would it be practical to have several of these fly out to some remote location (allegedly with sufficient resources or awaiting resource shipments) and essentially land and set up an ad-hoc base (assuming they had a reason) ?

What I basically want to know is essentially, are these helicopters prohibitively expensive to use in such fashion (and numbers) and would using them like this not offer much benefits where it would just be better to drop off whatever they have to drop off and then simply go be useful somewhere else?

The latter.

These sorts of helicopters are very expensive to purchase and operate and there is little sense in designing them to be single-role vehicles where they will rarely be trotted out for their specific purpose, flown once to the target area, then left for several days with the pilots twiddling their thumbs until they fly back to base.

It would be much more efficient to just develop containerized communications platforms, command centers, or mobile hospitals and transport them via helicopter, then unload them at the destination, freeing up the helicopter to go do other things. Especially because some of these uses (command center, communication platform) do not need something as huge as an Mi-26 while a hospital would be better off being even larger. Building a larger field hospital would either require multiple helicopters converted to hospital use (at great expense) or you could just have a single helicopter airlift the hospital in modular pieces to the crisis zone and have it assembled on site, then re-task that helicopter to ferrying stable casualties to other medical centers and return with fresh supplies to keep the field hospital stocked.

[Gallia-]

Also would it be practical to have several of these fly out to some remote location (allegedly with sufficient resources or awaiting resource shipments) and essentially land and set up an ad-hoc base (assuming they had a reason) ?

:vietnam:

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

QUick question - for which I will commence writing something.

How do your nations respond to major incidents, esp. those with a large number of fatalities?

I'll define 'major incident' as follows:

A major incident can be defined as any emergency that requires the implementation of special arrangements by one or more of the Emergency Services, the [health service] or local Authority for:

• The initial treatment, rescue and transport of a large number of casualties.
• The involvement, either directly or indirectly, of large numbers of people.
• The handling of a large number of enquiries likely to be generated, both from the public and the news media, usually to the Police.
• The need for large scale combined resources of the emergency services.
• The mobilisation and organisation of the emergency services and supporting organisations, e.g. local authority, to cater for the threat of death, serious injury or homelessness to a large number of people.

And as an example incident...
A train carrying soldiers derails at speed and mounts a station platform which has civilians on it, resulting in multiple fatalities.

So you don't mean like natural/man made catastrophes but localized but still major incidents right?

Well, seeing how RN likes to copy the US a lot you essentially have the following: Local, County, State, Federal (with a directly subordinate tier to Federal, that is not a State, Border) emergency services. There are 4 emergency services: Police, EMS, FRS (Fire & Rescue Service) and SES. I've detailed SES on this thread some pages ago, basically think of it as an elite, "polythreat" and multiple duty-trained emergency force.

Additionally, the jurisdictions I've outlined above have various mutual aid agreements between each other.

What all of this means is that, assuming for example that a large forest fire affects a certain town, you might have the following involved:

• Town emergency services
• Neighboring towns' emergency services
• County emergency services
• Neighboring counties' emergency services
• State emergency services
• Neighboring states' emergency services
• Federal emergency services

! fear not, however, as apart from the mutual aid agreements that govern the legalities/formalities of inter-operation of this multitude of agencies, there exists a common, centralized command/control and communications protocol and network so that their inter-operation is always done clearly and with seeing the bigger picture. Normally what will essentially happen is that whenever a higher-tier agency gets involved, they get the top spot in command, similar to military units/formations somewhat. So, for example, in accordance with higher orders, a certain agency may directly order a lower agency to do something or simply task them with a general objective and let them figure it out.

Between agencies of the same tier, theoretically the commanding agency will be the one on whose jurisdiction the operations are taking place, unless directed differently by a higher agency, although many times the former will allow other agencies of similar rank on its jurisdiction without clear orders (basically allow them to perform their duties how they please) .

In practice, all of this inter-mingling and inter-operation between agencies of the same and different ranks mean that decentralization is practically more on paper than in real life and consequently the lines between decentralization and centralization become blurred.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

It would be much more efficient to just develop containerized communications platforms, command centers, or mobile hospitals an

this is like dynmicpara's wet dream come true

[Kouralia]

With regards to incident response, this is more or less what will happen:

The Initial Phase is triggered on report of the incident. In the given example, there are likely to be many calls to the emergency services - these will probably be directed to multiple services as if they don't ring the service-specific number they're likely to reach the Operator and say they need 'everyone', which will put them through to the local territorial watch. The local watch will likely begin by dispatching response officers to the scene with the Sergeant (and potentially Vice-Commissioner) from the nearest station moving to the scene, and the Watch Incident Manager will manage the incident initially from the force control room. In the given incident the Fire and Rescue Service will likely immediately respond with a number of appliances, and the Ambulance Service will respond with rapid response vehicles.

As soon as the response officers arrive they'll begin to move members of the public back from the scene, and provide initial aid to survivors. It's up to the Watch Incident Manager, but at some point he will have to 'declare Ruby.' This is a term meaning to commence 'Operation RUBY PLACE-NAME' which is a pre-established contingency plan for a major incident in X force area. He may do so simply on reports from the public, or may hold back until the duty response Vice-Commissioner reports in - it is his decision, and it could destroy his career and kill potentially tens to hundreds of people if he gets it wrong. As soon as he declares Ruby, the Watch will seize control of the incident. (The Fire Service's Regimental Control Manager or the Ambulance Service Control Manager could also declare Ruby, and doing so will automatically transfer over-all control of the incident to the Watch's Incident Manager)

When Ruby is declared, the On-Call Major Incident Commander, On-Call Senior Identification Manager, HM Coroner for the area, the on-call Senior Health Service Manager, and On-Call Regimental Officer Commanding will all be called on duty. Furthermore, all Fire Stations, Watch Houses, Ambulance Stations and Accident And Emergency departments will be notified, as will all neighbouring Fire and Rescue Regiments, Territorial Watches, Ambulance Services and Health Trusts.

The currently-piecemeal response will be coordinated by the Major Incident Commander, likely from a force-wide specialist suite where he will be joined by senior managers of the other emergency services. Senior, but not seniormost commanders will be on the ground in incident control vehicles. The incident now enters the Planned phase of the response:

The Fire and Rescue Regiment has firefighting equipment, lifting equipment, cutting equipment etc. etc. They are also of a standard-ish size, which provides for each Regiment to meet a certain minimum standard of full-spectrum capability (however if they really really need some extra help, they can ask for additional appliances from neighbouring Regiments and/or Service Firefighting Troops). Their responsibility is making the site safe, and removing the victims from the wreckage.

The Ambulance Service will then either take victims to triage points where they can move under their own steam/in conscripted local buses to the Survivor Reception Centre. Those who require minor treatment at the triage point will likely be treated by accredited first aiders such as those from monastic-based charities affiliated to the state church. Those who require hospitalisation will be conveyed to a location determined by the Incident Healthcare Manager. This is a senior emergency medical care manager who is in the Major Incident Room with the MIC and other senior commanders. They have continually updated information on the capacity of all A/E rooms and the statuses of all ambulances assigned to the operation, and with their staff will direct them to the closest possible hospital. If the civil health system cannot cope, then the Army Medical Corps may be required to set-up a field hospital nearby to act as an additional A/E or surgery.

The local Watch now does two things.

The Senior Identification Manager (a Detective Captain/Detective First Captain. Equivalent to a UK Detective (Chief) Superintendent) will open a body holding area of varying types. Due to much of Kouralia's climate this will likely be a number of refrigerated containers whose appropriation will have been organised years in advance as part of the Ruby planning. He will also set up a Casualty Bureau at a separate location to the Major Incident Room, because he has a fuck-tonne of work to do. Many people are now going to call him looking for their loved ones (though fortunately in the given scenario the Army will take most of the calls relating to those on the train) for those who don't... The Watch now need to set up call centres to take their questions and to receive information potentially beneficial to giving an ID, after all in these situations you first call your loved one's mobile, and if they don't answer you call the police. As an example of how serious this can be... Following the 7/7 bombings in London the police received 30,000 calls. Per hour. He must also set up a Friends and Relatives Reception Centre similar to the Survivor Reception Centre. Except, instead of loads of first aiders and tea-making people walking around with tin foil blankets and biscuits, this one is filled with huge boards of names and staffs of police family liaison officers who have likely been brought in from other forces to help out. He must also set up an emergency mortuary. One mortuary is likely already designated an emergency mortuary in the region, and has more than merely 'day-to-day' capacity like all others. But even this one can potentially be swamped, in which case he'll need an additional mortuary which will again likely be pre-arranged with some specialist company. If the Body storage area is good enough, however, then this will not be a major rush.

Now the On-Call Senior Investigating Officer will be summoned. He is also likely to be a DC/DFC. He comes with the Force Major Inquiry Team of detectives, and responsibility for determining criminal liability (if any) for the incident. He will now run a criminal investigation alongside the Disaster Victim Identification, Rescue, and Lifesaving efforts.

The Police will fully seal off the site from non-emergency personnel. The Incident Commander is now juggling four things.

When the above is more-or-less concluded, the incident enters the Aftermath Phase. At this stage the Fire and Rescue Regiment has located all victims, and has entirely removed the possibility of further danger ensuing. In the given example they must a) assist the Senior Inv. Officer determine the factual cause of the incident (for example, a build up of leaves on a badly maintained line), and b) when he lifts the crime scene, clear it for normal daily use. The Medical services will have fully removed all casualties from the site. Those who required hospitalisation are successfully (at least) in A/E or wards follwoing surgery. Those who did not have progressed to the Survivor's Reception, and hopefully many have been picked up by their family and will now undergo care in the community. The Senior Identification Manager will be removing bodies from the Holding Area to the Emergency Mortuary, and from there to a Body Storage Facility. From there they can be moved to/from Viewing Facilities to allow family to come and see identified bodies or to make identifications. Identification is made by Odontology, fingerprints, DNA, or by unique medical conditions. Secondary identifying characteristics such as documentation, jewellery, tattoos, familial identification, or personal effects are considered inferior to the primary characteristics. It is up to Her Majesty's Coroner/an appropriate Coronial Officer to decide when an identification is considered made. At that stage they may release the body to the family for burial. Prior to that, nothing happens to the bodies (including investigative processes on the orders of the SIO) without his or her permission.

By this time the main player is the Senior Investigating Officer. When everyone else is packing up their tents and driving their specialist big rigs home, he or she will be working with their major inquiries team and other police officers and staff to determine the factual and legal cause of the crash. This will be supported by a Coronial Inquiry which will determine the cause of death of all involved, and potentially a Fire and Rescue Service inquiry if they possess the expertise to determine the factual cause of the derailment.

In this incident it may be that all deceased were killed by the crash. The crash was caused by a build up of leaves on the line. The leaves were not removed prior to building up, and neither were trees growing dangerously over the lines. This is because the company maintaining the railway leading up to the station had slashed the patrols and inspections in that area to save money. Now people will be charged with corporate manslaughter, and finally, maybe years after the fact, the response to the Major Incident will end on the steps of a court house.

The involved parties are likely to be:

• Territorial Watch has responsibility for incident management, body identification, victim and friends/relatives care, contact management for callers and the media, and criminal investigation.
• Fire and Rescue Regiment has responsibility for making the site safe, and extracting individuals from the site.
• Ambulance Service has responsibility for emergency medical care and conveying wounded to hospitals.
• Health Authority has responsibility for wounded at hospitals.
• The Treasury Guard will act in its role as Coast Guard if the incident occurs at sea.
• Her Majesty's Coroner has overall responsibility for the deceased, and will assist the Watch in determining cause of death and identity.
• The Royal Army, Royal Navy, or National Air Force may be called upon to give assistance if local equipment or manpower prove insufficient.
• Gaoler and Warder's Constabulary may be responsible for holding criminally liable individuals in custody before trial.
• HM Courts Service may be responsible for trying individuals in a criminal or civil case, though HM Coroner has responsibility for trials in his or her court.

[The Soodean Imperium]

A lot of definitions were thrown around in that last post so I'll take a moment to straighten them out:

- an "ideal" meritocracy, as I see it, is one that directly and consciously selects and promotes officials based on their actual ability to administer the country well. Like Dahl's definition of democracy, this is impossible to objectively determine in practice because so many competing standards and practical obstacles exist, but it serves as a useful heuristic end-point along which to rank different systems.

Assuming you would combine meritocracy with democracy, and seeing how there is no possible way to objectively define what constitutes administering a country well, I would say that it should logically result in selecting and promoting officials based on their actual ability to administer the country as the citizens want to, or in other words, on how closely they can apply the wish of the people in their actions and/or how closely they match the citizens' "ideal" ruler.

IMO relying solely on some form of "meritocracy" that democracy is not a part of is inherently flawed and authoritarian because as it has been pointed by others, there is no objectively correct way of defining merit and consequently no objectively correct way of classifying individuals based on it. The principle of democracy pretty much states that the closest you can get to finding this definition is asking the regular citizen, or rather, averaging their answers.

Oh I'm not arguing that (bureaucratic, examination-based) meritocracy is "ideal" in the sense that it's the optimal way of organizing human society.

I'm just saying that this is an "ideal definition" in the sense that it reflects what a "pure" meritocracy would look like. No actual meritocracy would actually reach that standard, because it's hard to objectively define. A very loose definition would include democracies as meritocracies because they measure the plurality of voters' assessments of a candidate's qualifications. An intermediate definition would exclude this by making a separate state agency a necessary condition for classification.

I readily agree that the standardized examination example I gave is by its very nature elitist, undemocratic, and authoritarian, because it plucks the power of selection out of the hands of the people and places it in the hands of a faceless state agency, and does so on the premise that the unwashed masses are too fickle and gullible to choose their own leaders or seek office without qualifications. I would also agree that adding meritocratic elements to a democracy, such as requiring that candidates pass a civics test or hold a college degree, limits popular access to elected office.

Whether this is good or bad is an entirely different question, and a far messier one since so much of it comes down to subjective values. Whether it would actually govern more effectively (or really, how it would function differently from a democracy in various areas) is also a separate issue, though potentially a more productive one for NS factbook writers.

I don't disagree.

I just wish people valued tanks and fast jet planes more than iPhones and big computer monitors.

For the record I don't disagree with that either. It's the reason I generally steer clear of bringing up my actual political views on NS.

[The Soodean Imperium]

Time for a completely unrelated question.



Coins with holes in them. The Ancient Chinese did it. The Native Americans did it. Thoughts on a modern country doing it?

I don't see any obvious problems with it, since fiat coins are just pieces of metal stamped with an arbitrary value. The only real arguments I can find against them are that the leaders in the coinage field adopted conventional coins and everyone else followed via institutional emulation, and that the hole makes it hard to fit faces and art in the usual places. But if it comes down to aesthetics, I don't see what stops a nationalist regime from reinstating square-hole coinage, especially if it's updating its inflated currency with a new series of coins in different denominations anyway.

That said, I've been proven completely wrong on topics I know nothing about before, and I don't want to painstakingly lineart a new series of square-hole coins only to learn afterward that "all vending machines designed after 2002 have a scanning procedure that can only work if the coin is a perfect circle" or whatever.

[NeuPolska]

Japan still has coins with holes in them, though it's only one certain coin, I think it's the 50 yen coin

[The Soodean Imperium]

Japan still has coins with holes in them, though it's only one certain coin, I think it's the 50 yen coin

Huh, on looking it up both the ¥5 and ¥50 coins have holes in them.

[NeuPolska]

Japan still has coins with holes in them, though it's only one certain coin, I think it's the 50 yen coin

Huh, on looking it up both the ¥5 and ¥50 coins have holes in them.

I personally was able to use the ¥50 coins with vending machines buying Pocari Sweat when I was in Japan two years ago, so it seems to work fine

[The Macabees]

Some Spanish peseta coins also had holes: https://static-numista.com/catalogue/photos/espagne/g210.jpg

[Laxaria and Sakria]

Time for a completely unrelated question.

(Image)

Coins with holes in them. The Ancient Chinese did it. The Native Americans did it. Thoughts on a modern country doing it?

I don't see any obvious problems with it, since fiat coins are just pieces of metal stamped with an arbitrary value. The only real arguments I can find against them are that the leaders in the coinage field adopted conventional coins and everyone else followed via institutional emulation, and that the hole makes it hard to fit faces and art in the usual places. But if it comes down to aesthetics, I don't see what stops a nationalist regime from reinstating square-hole coinage, especially if it's updating its inflated currency with a new series of coins in different denominations anyway.

That said, I've been proven completely wrong on topics I know nothing about before, and I don't want to painstakingly lineart a new series of square-hole coins only to learn afterward that "all vending machines designed after 2002 have a scanning procedure that can only work if the coin is a perfect circle" or whatever.

Limang sentimo

[Chinese Peoples]

The Chinese coins used to have round holes in them, until this was changed to a square one c. the 3rd C. B.C.E. In either event, it was designed to allow coins to be strung together, and Chinese people had a unit called a "string" which consisted of 1,000 coins. When paper currency developed in the 10th C., denominations as representative money evolving out of IOU were noted in "strings". While the "one string" bill legally had the purchasing power of 1,000 coins, the actual conversion rate would fluctuate between 1,000 and 800. So while you can pay one string with a "one string" note, if you instead chose to convert the note into coins, you'll end up short, but somehow merchants still recognized the valuation of the note, even though it couldn't actually be converted at its face value.

Before coinage became common, China used these:



Spades. They were initially actually usable spades, but eventually they became miniature spades and were flattened into this:

[Prosorusiya]

Huh, on looking it up both the ¥5 and ¥50 coins have holes in them.

I personally was able to use the ¥50 coins with vending machines buying Pocari Sweat when I was in Japan two years ago, so it seems to work fine

for buying Pocari Sweat, and having been to Japan before. Even though I disliked PocariSweat, and greatly preferred Calpis (for which I have the exact carb numbers for, if anyone is interested, as I note in my sig I am a T1 Diabetic so before I returned to Japan this summer I emailed the company to find the info on this).

IIRC the holes in coins originally meant you could hold them on a string, which kept all your change together. Nowadays it's just for looks. Fun fact, "yen" is pronounced "en", it was romanized a really long time ago so the spelling is funky and doesn't match the pronunciation. Let's all just be glad we don't call it "Jipon". God early romanization was weird. AT least there isn't three different systems, like for China. That's got the Postal, Wade-Giles, and Pinyin. The latter is used in modern contexts and works fine, but for Historians like me things get mighty damn confusing quite quickly.

This reminds me of an incident last semester where I went to use my schools vending machine, and it would not work. I turned out that, in my late night confusion, I had accidentally been using yen instead of US currency!