[PASSED] Ban on Ritual Sacrifice

[Aclion]

"This resolution allows the sacrifice of criminals, as capital punishment is protected by World Assembly law." Blackbourne responds.

"Wait! It does that... and it requires that member nations criminalize ritual sacrifice? So a member nation could have the laws that they pass in response to this proposed resolution passing make volunteering for sacrifice a criminal offence, for which the appropriate sentence is execution by a method that just happens to be the method already used for ritual sacrifice, and thus effectively continue allowing the sacrifice of volunteers anyhows?"

Urrna Silvertrees,
Apprentice Voice, Bears Armed Mission at the World Assembly.

"No unlike those nations that make attempted suicide a capital offense."

[Tarsonis]

Quintus takes a long swig from a hidden flask. "Alright, while I can't believe this even needed to come up, I have to ask, is there an established standard of sapience?"

[Separatist Peoples]

Quintus takes a long swig from a hidden flask. "Alright, while I can't believe this even needed to come up, I have to ask, is there an established standard of sapience?"

"Yes."

[Tarsonis]

Quintus takes a long swig from a hidden flask. "Alright, while I can't believe this even needed to come up, I have to ask, is there an established standard of sapience?"

"Yes."

"....and that standard being?"

[Wallenburg]

"Yes."

"....and that standard being?"

"As defined in GAR#355, 'Rights of Sapient Species', a sapient being must possess the ability to 'think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic, choose a sensible course of action or considered response, and eperience subjectively, feel, or recognize, discern, envision, understand, or attain awareness of.'"

[Separatist Peoples]

"Yes."

"....and that standard being?"

"I'm not your paralegal, you look it up!"

[Tarsonis]

"....and that standard being?"

"As defined in GAR#355, 'Rights of Sapient Species', a sapient being must possess the ability to 'think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic, choose a sensible course of action or considered response, and eperience subjectively, feel, or recognize, discern, envision, understand, or attain awareness of.'"

"Ah, very well, that seems to be in order".

[Excidium Planetis]

"No unlike those nations that make attempted suicide a capital offense."

"I don't see why they couldn't." Delegate Blackbourne replies. "The resolution exempts capital punishment from the proscribed reasons for sacrifice, and and does require ritual sacrifice to be criminalized. It would be trivial to make the minimum sentence for ritual sacrifice be sacrifice."

[Aclion]

"No unlike those nations that make attempted suicide a capital offense."

"I don't see why they couldn't." Delegate Blackbourne replies. "The resolution exempts capital punishment from the proscribed reasons for sacrifice, and and does require ritual sacrifice to be criminalized. It would be trivial to make the minimum sentence for ritual sacrifice be sacrifice."

"Well A Decriminalization of Suicide prevent member nations from doing it. But wasn't commenting on legality, just referencing that they exist."

[Excidium Planetis]

"Well A Decriminalization of Suicide prevent member nations from doing it. But wasn't commenting on legality, just referencing that they exist."

"That argument is easily circumvented." Blackbourne replies. "GA#180 states that

a. If a subject committed criminal offenses in the course of an attempted suicide, the subject could be convicted for those offenses but the actual act of attempted suicide would not be a criminal offense

"Which would allow conviction and sentencing to sacrifice for a capital crime committed during the course of attempted suicide. Since the current resolution states that it

Requires member nations criminalize such acts of ritual sacrifice and prosecute perpetrators accordingly;

"We must conclude that those who attempt to have themselves sacrificed committed a crime, in this case ritual sacrifice, in the course of suicide. Any contrary interpretation yields the result that this resolution requires criminalization of suicide and GA#180 prohibits criminalizing suicide, which would form a contradiction."

[Aclion]

"Well A Decriminalization of Suicide prevent member nations from doing it. But wasn't commenting on legality, just referencing that they exist."

"That argument is easily circumvented." Blackbourne replies. "GA#180 states that

a. If a subject committed criminal offenses in the course of an attempted suicide, the subject could be convicted for those offenses but the actual act of attempted suicide would not be a criminal offense

"Which would allow conviction and sentencing to sacrifice for a capital crime committed during the course of attempted suicide. Since the current resolution states that it

Requires member nations criminalize such acts of ritual sacrifice and prosecute perpetrators accordingly;

"We must conclude that those who attempt to have themselves sacrificed committed a crime, in this case ritual sacrifice, in the course of suicide. Any contrary interpretation yields the result that this resolution requires criminalization of suicide and GA#180 prohibits criminalizing suicide, which would form a contradiction."

"I'm not arguing that that's not the case. If you wish to do so you may argue with the wall."

[Imperial Polk County]

"We must conclude that those who attempt to have themselves sacrificed committed a crime, in this case ritual sacrifice, in the course of suicide. Any contrary interpretation yields the result that this resolution requires criminalization of suicide and GA#180 prohibits criminalizing suicide, which would form a contradiction."

"Not only does such logic reek of victim-blaming, it's nonsensical. The proposal states that the act of ritual sacrifice is illegal, and defines such a term, in part, as the killing of another being. The person performing the act, not the person volunteering for it, is the criminal. Look at it this way. If someone were to take us all hostage, and that someone were to put a gun to your head, and I told them, 'no, don't shoot, take me instead,' and they were to shoot me but I would survive, would you dare say that I should be prosecuted for attempted murder?"

[Ransium]

Ban on Ritual Sacrifice was passed 11,976 votes to 5,035.

[Pilarcraft]

Congrats to everyone involved in the editing (and to the Proposal's author)
We did it, guys. now let's hope someone doesn't pull out the repeal gun.

[States of Glory WA Office]

OOC: I'm surprised that someone hasn't tried to repeal this yet.

[Excidium Planetis]

"Not only does such logic reek of victim-blaming, it's nonsensical. The proposal states that the act of ritual sacrifice is illegal, and defines such a term, in part, as the killing of another being. The person performing the act, not the person volunteering for it, is the criminal. Look at it this way. If someone were to take us all hostage, and that someone were to put a gun to your head, and I told them, 'no, don't shoot, take me instead,' and they were to shoot me but I would survive, would you dare say that I should be prosecuted for attempted murder?"

"There are no 'victims' when someone tries to kill themselves, anymore than there are 'suicide victims'." Blackbourne responds. "Besides, governments which wished to carry out consensual sacrifice, a major complaint against this resolution, would likely desire to sacrifice, as a capital punishment, people who attempted to sacrifice themselves consensually in the first place."

[Little St Nick]

Hi,

Having paid no attention to either the debate or the resolution I'm on the back foot here.

We had plans to ritually sacrifice millions of turkeys and geese for 25th December. How do our plans fit in with this resolution?

Thanks

[Willania Imperium]

Congratulations! Thank God for its passing!

Hi,

Having paid no attention to either the debate or the resolution I'm on the back foot here.

We had plans to ritually sacrifice millions of turkeys and geese for 25th December. How do our plans fit in with this resolution?

Thanks

Don't worry. Animal sacrifice is still allowed. Just discouraged.

[Willania Imperium]

Congratulations! Thank God for its passing!

Hi,

Having paid no attention to either the debate or the resolution I'm on the back foot here.

We had plans to ritually sacrifice millions of turkeys and geese for 25th December. How do our plans fit in with this resolution?

Thanks

Don't worry. Animal sacrifice is still allowed. Just discouraged.

[Little St Nick]

Phew! Thanks for the clarification. I had a horrible feeling that geese might count as sapient.

Did you hear that, Migrating Geese?

[Wrapper]

Okay, folks, gather around the sacrificial fire pit, it's time for some Lessons Learned^TM. Yes, there was a purpose behind doing this, and it has virtually nothing to do with the resolution itself.

1. You do not need to be a known nation or a member of the fictional "WA Elite" to pass a resolution. Thus, the "disguise" as Imperial Polk County (only three or four people found me out, and none of them are high-endo delegates). Those who continue to claim that there is a conspiracy to keep new authors from passing proposals, or that a "WA Elite" runs the General Assembly, are not really paying attention. Not only can anyone pass legislation here, but....

2. You do not need to buy thousands of stamps and send out a WA-wide campaign to pass a resolution. Yes, stamps can be very helpful in getting delegates to approve your proposal, but that would cost you only about US $1.50 to do so. A WA-wide campaign is not only costly (about US $25), it can also be counter-productive, as there are regions and delegates who consider such campaigns spam and will automatically vote against your proposal. My opinion is, don't waste your money. If a WA-wide campaign is what makes the difference between passage and failure, then the odds are very high that it won't last long on the books and an insta-repeal is coming. However....

2(a). You do need to run a WA delegate campaign to get approvals for your proposal. Upon submission, a proposal needs 6% of the delegates to approve it in order for it to get to vote, and I've yet to notice a proposal make it into the queue without a delegate campaign. Spending about US $1.50 in stamps is one way of doing it; you can also use an API key (not my specialty) or do a manual campaign (saves money but is time consuming).

3. You can overcome an early stack by high-endo delegates. In the first hour, TNP's delegate cast 1115 votes against this proposal; after that tally the proposal was losing by a 65%-35% margin. Two hours later, the vote had turned around, 55%-45%. Even though delegate vote counts were split about 50-50, individual nations continued to vote in favor by about a 2:1 margin. To add to this point....

4. The so-called "lemming effect" is overstated at best, inconsequential at worst. The "lemming effect" supposedly says that voters will largely ignore or just skim the text of a proposal and vote for the side that's winning. I put this to the test by monitoring the hourly votes by non-delegates. If this were indeed the case from start to finish, then it would be impossible to overcome an early stack against a proposal. Granted, this one only trailed 65-35 at one point, and not 90-10 or 80-20, but with the exception of the last 8 hours of voting, non-delegate nations continued to vote in favor by about a 2:1 margin. There was a large uptick in favorable votes in the final hours, when non-delegate votes reached as high as 5:1 in favor, but by then over 99% of the vote had been cast, and any herd mentality by that point wasn't going to make a difference.

And now, a few notes on the drafting and submission process.

5. Pay attention to what everyone has to say during the drafting process. I was pretty quick to dismiss what Clean Land was saying early on, particularly since their proposal to mandate ritual sacrifice was what drove me to write this. Yes, the idea of mandatory ritual sacrifice is a ridiculous notion, but ignoring what Clean Land had to say during the debate was a mistake. It resulted in an unworkable definition of ritual sacrifice, which led to me pulling the proposal after it had already reached quorum. Which leads to....

6. Having to withdraw a proposal that's in queue is not a death sentence. I could have let it ride, and if I had, it possibly would have failed; if it had passed, it would have been an easy mark for insta-repeal. There's nothing wrong with withdrawing a proposal, correcting it, and resubmitting it. In my opinion, it's a good idea to wait a couple weeks or so (I believe I waited three weeks after withdrawal) before resubmitting, just to be sure that you got everything right this time, and to give the delegates a chance to "forget" the old proposal. A lot of delegates will refuse to approve even a worthy proposal if they get three or four campaign TGs in a short period of time.

7. Don't get upset when people miss something in your proposal text, or you need to repeat yourself because a debater hasn't followed the entire thread. Yes, I had to mention several times, that you can still follow rituals while carrying out an execution or an assisted suicide, and I also had to mention several times that sacrificing animals was still legal and that allowing voluntary sacrifice was not going to happen. Just keep your cool, stay in character if you can, and calmly lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

8. Don't cave in to those who prefer to bicker about your formatting. As long as it's not garish, it's probably fine. And, yes, I purposely chose to italicize the first word or two of each clause, not to cheese off Imperium Anglorum, who hates italics, but because the real UN does it that way, and that way looks fine to me.

I probably have more observations, but I'll stop here for now.

[Excidium Planetis]

Ah, so that's who you were.

Good job. Also, the current resolution is also passing in spite of a TNP-Europe vote against.

[Imperium Anglorum]

I agree with most of the points, except these, the second being primarily methodological rather than falsifying:

2. You do not need to buy thousands of stamps and send out a WA-wide campaign to pass a resolution. Yes, stamps can be very helpful in getting delegates to approve your proposal, but that would cost you only about US $1.50 to do so. A WA-wide campaign is not only costly (about US $25), it can also be counter-productive, as there are regions and delegates who consider such campaigns spam and will automatically vote against your proposal. My opinion is, don't waste your money. If a WA-wide campaign is what makes the difference between passage and failure, then the odds are very high that it won't last long on the books and an insta-repeal is coming.

...

4. The so-called "lemming effect" is overstated at best, inconsequential at worst. The "lemming effect" supposedly says that voters will largely ignore or just skim the text of a proposal and vote for the side that's winning. I put this to the test by monitoring the hourly votes by non-delegates. If this were indeed the case from start to finish, then it would be impossible to overcome an early stack against a proposal. Granted, this one only trailed 65-35 at one point, and not 90-10 or 80-20, but with the exception of the last 8 hours of voting, non-delegate nations continued to vote in favor by about a 2:1 margin. There was a large uptick in favorable votes in the final hours, when non-delegate votes reached as high as 5:1 in favor, but by then over 99% of the vote had been cast, and any herd mentality by that point wasn't going to make a difference.

Beyond the pointless semantic debate about there being more than 1000 WA delegates, meaning that one would have to buy thousands of stamps (and then the even more pointless semantic extension that there are fewer than 2000 delegates which means– come on), it does cost money to get WA resolutions passed unless one has an API key or the somewhat ridiculous patience to telegram hundreds of nations. I think that much should be clear.

Many people don't have that kind of money, not because they are poor, but because their pocketbooks are controlled by other people. Certainly, I can remember a time when I was above the age of 13 and below the age when I first earnt money that would make it possible to pay for stamps. That is a barrier that does have implications on who can participate given real world resources. This is part of why I am willing, as Europe's WA delegate, to use my API key to support budding European WA authors and conduct campaigns on their behalf.

Onto the 'lemming effect'.

I agree that in a resolution like this one, it would probably have minor implications. This is because a more nuanced conception of the effect would state that for resolutions say, on abortion, nuclear weapons, prostitution, and all the other big ticket items, voters act with more independence than if we are considering ... tax disputes (Phantom Menace, anyone?) or relatively obscure financial and administrative policies. While this also happens to make the 'lemming effect' nearly unfalsifiable, I think there is probably a way to get around that statistically.

Certainly, the methodology of measuring marginal voter persistence as a means of quantifying the lemming effect is probably correct. However, if we were to establish a regression such as:

m%aye_t1 ~ %aye_t + controversialD + waCampaignD + resLength (+ etc.) where,

m&aye_t1 is the marginal percentage of ayes in period t + 1,
%aye_t is the percentage of ayes in the period t,
controversialD is a dummy variable on whether it is a controversial topic,
waCampaignD is a dummy variable on whether a full WA campaign was run, and
resLength is the length of the resolution.

If the error term is correlated with one of the regressors (even where the sample size is very large), which I believe it probably would be, since there is probably a simultaneous causality problem with the Y term and the first regressor, then this would require an instrumental variable, which is always tricky to find.

[Wrapper]

...it does cost money to get WA resolutions passed unless one has an API key or the somewhat ridiculous patience to telegram hundreds of nations. I think that much should be clear.

Yes but that wasn't my point. As I stated, spending the money on a WA-wide campaign, which currently costs over 15 times that of a WA delegate approval campaign, is a complete waste of funds, totally unnecessary, and probably counter-productive. That said, I do agree. An approval campaign is pretty much mandatory nowadays, regardless of method. I don't know of a single proposal that reached quorum without such a campaign.

Now that I think about it, I should probably edit my post to include delegate approval campaigns. Will do so later. Thanks.

As far as the lemming effect, you make a good point in that the more complex or obscure or who-give-a-shit-about-this-topic type of proposal, the more of a chance of a lemming effect occurring. Still, I daresay it's not the be-all/end-all that some people make it out to be.

[Araraukar]

*snip*

OOC: I'm glad I no longer have to actively remember who is "in the know" about your secret identity.