The Cat-Tribe wrote:Bears Armed wrote:OOC: Can people please stop arguing about NS legislation on the basis of RL studies and laws?
I'm glad you brought this up and it may well be worthy of its own thread, because the answer is "to an extent, yes, but not really."
I did try to make RL comments OOC, but treating WA as divorced from reality is a bit silly. RL laws don't have much place here, I agree (with the possible exception of examples), and I didn't bring them up. RL studies are a different matter. Just as a study done in the U.S. may be relevant to legislation in Japan or vice versa, RL studies can be relevant to issues before the WA.
The alternative is unacceptable. When people make assertions of fact as the basis for opinions that simply aren't true, it is reasonable to be able to say (1) "why is that true? where is your evidence?" and (2) "here is evidence to the contrary." Does a fact in RL necessarily mean the same is true in all WA nations? No. But there should be some basis for explaining why the fact doesn't apply to the WA. For example, gravity generally exists. Simply saying "but this is the WA" doesn't make gravity go away.
To reinforce my comments, let's be clear that (without commiting a violation of the rules regarding WA proposals containing RL references) many (if not most) WA proposals are premised on someone's perception of a RL problem. That perception may or may not be accurate and the premises of arguments ought to be scrutinized.
What say other Ambassadors?