Draft: Public Statistic Convention

[Potted Plants United]

A large potted plant in a big plantpot with wheels suddenly comes to life, revealing a large leaf curled up to form a cone, from which a somewhat hissing voice can be heard:

"We have read the proposal and the debate that has taken place, and we have some comments and questions to make."

Public Statistics Convention

Category: Free Trade
Strength: Mild

"We are not convinced that this is the best category for a proposal such as this one, since beyond some preamble clauses, there is nothing in this that would benefit international trade directly. Perhaps Educational would be a better choice?"

1. All data and statistics collected by the World Assembly, including those sent to it by member states and collected by agencies and committees, shall be published on an open platform accessible to the public and free of charge.

"Would this not in effect be a kind of committee action, even though no specific committee is not tasked to do it?"

2. No personally identifiable information shall be published, nor shall any proprietary information be published, nor any information originating from a member state deemed unpublishable by that member state be published, on the platform described in article 1.

"We are slightly confused about what this means. Does that mean that even if a WA agency collects data on Issue A, if Issue A data would not be something that would be publicly available in the member nation, then the WA would not be allowed to publish the data? And if so, it seems even less likely to be good for international trade, as the data that would be most useful for commercial uses, would likely be considered non-public information by whichever instance collected it, exactly because of its commercial value.

Additionally, this clause seems to further the action of clause one, thus being nothing more than a committee action."

3. Dependent upon technical and financial ability, and in accordance with international and national privacy laws and regulations, member states shall collect, publish, and share the following statistical information on their own state:

"So if a member nation's laws say that the statistical information about its population is not to be shared with any foreign agency, the WA is powerless to do anything about it, thus essentially rendering this proposal toothless and/or optional?

Also, this doesn't say which instance the information should be shared with. This is the only true "active" clause that requires the member nations to act. It should have something to do with the previous clauses, and currently it is missing that binder."

a. Economic data regarding imports, exports, gross domestic product and its constituent components, natural resources, currency, wages, and employment sector data.

"We fail to understand why any nation would wish to make all that information public even within their own borders! Furthermore, this categorization seems to dump a lot of unconnected statistics together. Imports and exports being together make sense, even though a lot of that information would likely be business secrets by the companies doing the trading. Also, is "gross domestic product and its constituent components" supposed to include the rest of the litany, or are they unrelated, individual statistics? The way the sentence is constructed, it seems to imply unrelatedness. Furthermore, what of a nation that does not anally obsess about its natural resources, but has, for example, lots of nature reserves or area otherwise off-limits from development? Such nations couldn't comply with this requirement even if they wanted to.

b. Social data regarding race, ethnicity, age, gender, life expectancy, and birthrates.

"Why is species excluded? Though it may seem obvious for nations that have only a single sapient species, that doesn't stop the author from demanding currency information in the previous subclause, even though it is far more likely that a multi-species nation would have a single currency. And "age" confuses us as well, since the age of every single individual is in constant change. Also, why birthrates but not deathrates? Furthermore, not all nations would want to collect such politically sensitive information as race and ethnicity. Additionally, as this subclause claims to include "social data", would not religion or lack thereof be a valuable statistic as well? And political standing? Regional population density? Why are certain statistics selected and others ignored, if this proposal aims in some weird way towards encouraging international trade?"

[Sandaoguo]

We are not convinced that this is the best category for a proposal such as this one, since beyond some preamble clauses, there is nothing in this that would benefit international trade directly. Perhaps Educational would be a better choice?

Trade benefits from more and more open data. Businesses are able to judge market demand, determine trends in import/export, have reliable data on currency valuation, etc. It's definitely a pro-trade policy, and I'll make that more clear in the next draft. I don't think it's appropriately an education resolution.

We are slightly confused about what this means. Does that mean that even if a WA agency collects data on Issue A, if Issue A data would not be something that would be publicly available in the member nation, then the WA would not be allowed to publish the data? And if so, it seems even less likely to be good for international trade, as the data that would be most useful for commercial uses, would likely be considered non-public information by whichever instance collected it, exactly because of its commercial value.

I'm respecting sovereignty on these grounds. Previous resolutions that created WA programs that inherently involve collecting data were not voted upon with the intent that such data would be publicly distributed for free to everyone. Even though the WA owns this data, it wouldn't be respectful of sovereignty for the WA to publish data on specific member states without permission.

So if a member nation's laws say that the statistical information about its population is not to be shared with any foreign agency, the WA is powerless to do anything about it, thus essentially rendering this proposal toothless and/or optional?

Yes, the WA is powerless to do anything about it, and that's fine. That's respecting sovereignty. Reasonable states would not do so, however, and I don't write to the lowest denominator.

We fail to understand why any nation would wish to make all that information public even within their own borders!

Actually, this data usually is public already. Countries that can collect it usually do publish it, because it's incredibly valuable information. What they don't always do is make it available to the public, which is what this resolution would require.

Furthermore, what of a nation that does not anally obsess about its natural resources, but has, for example, lots of nature reserves or area otherwise off-limits from development? Such nations couldn't comply with this requirement even if they wanted to.

I'm not sure why they wouldn't be able to. If there's no economic activity utilizing, say, timber from a nature reserve, then there isn't an economic data to record. Having nothing to record wouldn't mean falling into non-compliance. Some countries, for example, won't have any data to record about domestic oil extraction, because they don't have any oil to drill up.

Why is species excluded?

[/quote]
Because I write from an MT-realism perspective. It's easy enough for you to read your species in there yourself.

[Tinfect]

OOC:
Are we going to be seeing any alterations to the draft anytime soon? I don't mean to rush you, it just seems like there's a whole lot of nothing going on on that front.
Or, at the very least, can you address the points I made, instead of dismissing them outright as Techwank?

[Sandaoguo]

90% of your concerns are techwank. I don't mean to be disrespectful here. I'm simply not interested in moulding any of my resolutions to fit styles of play that aren't realistic. If you're not playing a country that can be ripped directly from the 80s-present day Earth, it's not my responsibility to make sure my drafts don't contradict your backstory or to make them fit the peculiarities of post-FTL galactic empires. If you have critiques that make sense from a modern day realistic point of view, that's why I'm looking for and listening to.

As for the other 10% of your posts, they mostly boil down to, "I don't see the point." Well, I've explained the point as best as I can. Socioeconomic data is incredibly valuable to markets. It's invaluable for making judgements on a country's social and economic progress, which is of interest not only to businesses crafting market strategies and governments assessing the success of policies, but to society as a whole so we can all make comparative analyses of the international community. If you don't see the importance of that, that's fine. There are 14,000 other votes out there.

Lastly, it's been a week. I'll get to the second draft when I have free time I want to use on it.

[Araraukar]

Lastly, it's been a week. I'll get to the second draft when I have free time I want to use on it.

OOC: Okay, I'll come back to reply to your replies after you've done something to the draft to make it worth it.

[Tinfect]

90% of your concerns are techwank.

OOC:
Really? Are you sure you even read my second post beyond the bit where I mentioned that the Imperium is, in fact, an FT Nation? Or even the third post at all? Here's some select sections you might want to take a look at before you start waving your arms about shouting "TECHWANK".

I don't see how this is even possible, given WAR#209.

"Ambassador, the Imperium would very much like to know why you believe Resolution 209 prohibits the Imperium from maintaining borders closed to both transit and trade."

There are myriad benefits to the collection and publication of socioeconomic statistics,

"And what benefits might arise from wasting resources and time so as to trace the genetic history of all of our citizens?"

trade

"Which the Imperium wishes absolutely no part in, and has exactly no relevance to genetic history whatsoever."

business development,

"Which is handled adequately by Civil Oversight's recent alterations to Imperial Business Law, and has absolutely nothing to do with a citizen's genetic history."

oversight of compliance with domestic and international laws,

"The Imperium is in full compliance with all World Assembly Legislation, and, quite obviously, with all Imperial law at this time. We fail to see how tracing the genetic history of our citizens would assist in continuing this."

cultural development,

"Observation of which is handled on a Planetary and National Level, rather than based upon genetic history."

anthropological record,

"Observation of which is handled on both the National and Planetary Level, again, as basing the observational standards on genetic history is pointless."

I'll give you this, the last two there make reference of a 'Planetary Level'. Feel free to Find/Replace command those to 'Regional Level' if it makes it so that you can read it without going into a breakdown.

The whole point of this resolution is that this data is important and should be collected by those who want to be in the international community of the World Assembly.

"You have not proven that this information is important, Ambassador. Merely that your government operates on the mistaken belief that ethnicity guide social evolution more heavily than economic status. We recommend that your Government endeavor to raise the position of your lower-classes, and implement policy that moves to eliminate racial biases."

GDP is largely worthless as an economic indicator, and becomes completely worthless when you take into account Nations that aren't free-market states, or any State that keeps wide-reaching restrictions on what exactly can be sold. If a half-million assault rifles are produced in a state-owned-factory, with State-owned materials, in a state where civilian firearm ownership is prohibited, they don't count towards the GDP at all, having absolutely no monetary value.*
*And as a specific Imperial example that would be used In-Character, A Rassvet Dreadnought would probably bankrupt pretty much every MT nation in the WA combined, but it is worth exactly 0 Iron Marks because it can't be sold, and the resources and technologies used to construct it are the sole property of the state, and can't be sold either.
Addendum: Okay, maybe not no value for the purposes of GDP, as labor costs are applied for some reason, as IA pointed out, but labor costs remain a minute fraction of the costs, especially in highly-automated production systems.

In socialist states, consumer spending is heavily reduced for obvious reasons, government expenditure is hardly comparable to that of Capitalist states, due to difference in economic policy that generally means the only currency expenditure of the state is the paychecks, unless currency has been eliminated entirely somehow, capital investment is generally nonexistent, for, again, obvious reasons, and imports are likely to vastly outweigh exports due to resource limitations and the general focus on its own borders that these states tend to have.
As for the matters of Trade, yeah, sure Autarky might not exactly be the best of decisions for lesser-states, but when it's literally the addition of two-or-three words that would resolve the issue, not doing so is just throwing away votes.[/quote]

I don't mean to be disrespectful here.

That's hard to believe.

I'm simply not interested in moulding any of my resolutions to fit styles of play that aren't realistic.

Ooh, here we go, something else that proves that you clearly didn't read anything I posted, let's use this bit:

OOC:
I'm not asking you to accommodate the weight of a massive interstellar empire to neuter your draft mate, I've tried to provide reasonable advice, the fact that it comes from a less-than-standard source isn't all too horribly relevant.

If you're not playing a country that can be ripped directly from the 80s-present day Earth, it's not my responsibility to make sure my drafts don't contradict your backstory or to make them fit the peculiarities of post-FTL galactic empires.

In other words, "Because you're actually Roleplaying in a Roleplaying Forum, instead of renaming Wikipedia Articles, I don't want to listen to you." For what must be something like the fifth time now, I'm not asking you to write legislation for massive interstellar empires. I'm asking you to fucking consider what's being said instead of who's saying it. At the very fucking least, you could make an attempt to respond to it instead of blowing it off.

If you have critiques that make sense from a modern day realistic point of view, that's why I'm looking for and listening to.

There's plenty of them if you'd like to respond to them, I already reposted them here, so I'll not do so again. Maybe you should consider trying to prove why gathering arbitrary social data can help economies, instead of just throwing them out there as absolute truths to be accepted rather than questioned, and blowing off anyone who doesn't agree as an ebil teckwankre trying to force you to write to absurd standards? I don't now, just a controversial, totally out there thought.

As for the other 10% of your posts, they mostly boil down to, "I don't see the point."

This more than anything else demonstrates that you have exactly negative interest in any debate or roleplay, and about the same tolerance for opposing opinions.

Well, I've explained the point as best as I can.

If endlessly stating that it's valuable counts as the best you can do, then it's hardly any wonder why you're unable to convince anyone of anything.

One has to wonder why you even bothered to put something up for drafting if you don't have any intention of actually debating, or, taking criticism. It's become something of a theme for long-standing, returning members.