[SUBMITTED]Going Cold Turkey on AC

[Wischland]

This has been submitted. Thank you all for your assistance!

Going Cold Turkey on AC
The Issue:
The nation was shocked when @@MAJORINDUSTRY@@ workers declared earlier today that they would be going on strike to protest, of all things, excessively cold air conditioning in office buildings. Confused by the workers' strange complaints and concerned about the loss of national productivity, you have called the strike leaders into your office to explain their motives further.

The Debate:
1. "Our office buildings are f-f-f-freezing," a shivering strike leader explains. "The air conditioning is constantly running, which means offices get uncomfortably cold for us poor workers. To make matters worse, our bosses always give us the cold shoulder if we ask them to turn up the thermostat! You ought to encourage businesses to chill out on the extreme air conditioning. It'll save money, reduce our nation's carbon footprint, and save workers from freezing to death! "

Effect: many office buildings double as saunas

2a. "Nonsense!" interjects @@RANDOMNAME@@, a lobbyist for the air conditioning company Too Cool 4 U, who happened to be passing by your office. "Colder temperatures improve worker productivity, so maintaining subzero office temperatures is crucial for the economy! Not to mention the production, sale, and installation of cooling units provides thousands of jobs for @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@. Don't leave air conditioning out in the cold! Instead, you could give out some subsidies, and order that the AC of all government buildings is always kept on."
Validity: Must have private industry

Effect: parkas and long underwear are considered a staple of @@DEMONYM@@ office wear

2b. "Nonsense!" interjects @@RANDOMNAME@@, your Minister of Temperature Regulation, who happened to be passing by your office. "Colder temperatures improve worker productivity, so maintaining subzero office temperatures is crucial for the economy! Not to mention the production, sale, and installation of cooling units provides thousands of jobs for @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@. Don't leave air conditioning out in the cold! Instead, you could increase my department's funding, and order that the AC of all government buildings is always kept on."
Validity: Must not have private industry

Effect: parkas and long underwear are considered a staple of @@DEMONYM@@ office wear

3. "Too hot, too cold, someone will always complain." muses your secretary, while fiddling with the thermostat. "Perhaps we ought to mandate that every worker's office or cubicle has its own thermostat, heating, and cooling unit? That way everyone can set the temperature to be whatever they like. It might be a little impractical to install all that, especially in open office floors, but I'm sure we can figure it out with a little technical ingenuity and government funding. I know I'd appreciate not having to listen to my coworkers whine about how I always turn the temperature too low. "

Effect: office buildings contain several different climate zones

4. "You've gotta be kidding me," groans small-government aficionado @@RANDOMNAME@@. "The government wants to regulate air conditioning? Do you guys really have nothing better to do? You should try taking a look at how oversized the government has gotten. Clearly, there are too many bureaucrats with nothing to do, or else you wouldn't be trying to meddle with people's AC." @@HE@@ shakes his head in disgust and walks away, muttering something about the ridiculousness of it all and "my AC, my choice".

Effect: former government officials can no longer pay the heating bill


3rd Draft

Going Cold Turkey on AC
The Issue:
The nation was shocked when @@MAJORINDUSTRY@@ workers declared earlier today that they would be going on strike to protest, of all things, excessively cold air conditioning in office buildings. Confused by the workers strange complaints, and concerned about the loss of national productivity, you have called the strike leaders to your office to explain their motives further.

The Debate:
1. "The office buildings of @@NAME@@ are f-f-f-freezing," a shivering strike leader explains. "The air conditioning is constantly running, which means offices get uncomfortably cold for us poor workers. To make matters worse, our bosses always give us the cold shoulder if we ask them to turn up the thermostat! You ought to encourage businesses to chill out on the extreme air conditioning. It'll save money, reduce our nation's carbon footprint, and save workers from freezing to death! "

Effect: many office buildings double as saunas

2a. "Nonsense!" interjects @@RANDOMNAME@@, a lobbyist for the air conditioning company Too Cool 4 U, who happened to be passing by your office. "Colder temperatures improve worker productivity, so the subzero office temperatures are crucial to the economy! Not to mention the production, sale, and installation of cooling units provides thousands of jobs for @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@. Don't leave air conditioning out in the cold! Instead, you could give out some subsidies, and order the installation of AC into all government buildings."
Validity: Must have private industry

Effect: parkas and long underwear are considered a staple of @@DEMONYM@@ office wear

2b. "Nonsense!" interjects @@RANDOMNAME@@, your Minister of Temperature Regulation, who happened to be passing by your office. "Colder temperatures improve worker productivity, so the subzero office temperatures are crucial to the economy! Not to mention the production, sale, and installation of cooling units provides thousands of jobs for @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@. Don't leave air conditioning out in the cold! Instead, you could increase my department's funding, and order the installation of AC into all government buildings."
Validity: Must not have private industry

Effect: parkas and long underwear are considered a staple of @@DEMONYM@@ office wear

3. "Too hot, too cold, someone will always complain." muses your secretary, while fiddling with the thermostat. "Perhaps we ought to mandate that every worker's office or cubicle has its own thermostat, heating, and cooling unit? That way everyone can set the temperature to be whatever they like. It might be a little impractical to install all that, especially in open office floors, but I'm sure we can figure it out with a little technical ingenuity and government funding. I know I'd appreciate not having to listen to my coworkers whine about how I always turn the temperature too low. "

Effect: office buildings contain several different climate zones

2nd Draft

Validity: Must have moderate or higher weather
Going Cold Turkey on AC
The Issue:
During a meeting with the Smalltopian ambassador @@RANDOMNAME@@, @@HE@@ commented that the air conditioning had made your office "cold enough to chill a Weizenbier" and asked why @@NAME@@ is so adamant about its use of air conditioning.

The Debate:
1. "My nation uses air conditioning sparingly; most buildings don't even have a cooling unit installed." The shivering ambassador explains. "Instead, we take advantage of colder nights to open windows and keep buildings naturally cool. It saves money and reduces Smalltopia's carbon footprint. You ought to encourage your people to do the same and chill out on the extreme air conditioning."

Effect: home burglars love the government's new open-window policy

2a. "Nonsense!" interjects @@RANDOMNAME@@, a lobbyist for the air conditioning company Too Cool 4 U, who happened to be passing by your office. "Many parts of @@NAME@@ are much warmer than Smalltopia, so AC is absolutely crucial. Not to mention the production, sale, and installation of cooling units provides thousands of jobs for @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@. Don't leave air conditioning out in the cold! Instead, you could give out some subsidies, and order the installation of AC into all government buildings."
Validity: Must have private industry

Effect: parkas and long underwear are considered a staple of @@DEMONYM@@ fashion

2b. "Nonsense!" interjects @@RANDOMNAME@@, your Minister of Temperature Regulation, who happened to be passing by your office. "Many parts of @@NAME@@ are much warmer than Smalltopia, so AC is absolutely crucial. Not to mention the production, sale, and installation of cooling units provide thousands of jobs for @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@. Don't leave air conditioning out in the cold! Instead, you could increase my department's funding, and order the installation of AC into all government buildings."
Validity: Must not have private industry

Effect: parkas and long underwear are considered a staple of @@DEMONYM@@ fashion

3. "It's true @@NAME@@ does have a warmer climate than Smalltopia, but perhaps we could work with that?" muses your secretary, while fiddling with the thermostat. "If every @@DEMONYM@@ had a house in both the warm and cold regions of @@NAME@@, we could simply move between them as seasonal temperatures demand. Then we won't need AC or heating! Of course, we'll have to double the number of houses in @@NAME@@, but I'm sure the taxpayers wouldn't mind if they get both a beach house and a mountain villa."

Effect: ski lodges resemble horror movie-esque cabins in the woods as they're forced out of business

1st Draft

Going Cold Turkey on AC
The Issue:
During a meeting with the Smalltopian ambassador @@RANDOMNAME@@, @@HE@@ commented that the air conditioning had made your office "cold enough to chill a Weizenbier" and asked why @@NAME@@ is so adamant about its use of air conditioning.

The Debate:
1. "My nation uses air conditioning sparingly; most buildings don't even have a cooling unit installed." The shivering ambassador explains. "Instead, we take advantage of colder nights to open windows and keep buildings naturally cool. It saves money and reduces Smalltopia's carbon footprint. You ought to encourage your people to do the same and chill out on the extreme air conditioning."

Effect: home burglars love the government's new open-window policy

2a. "Nonsense!" interjects @@RANDOMNAME@@, a lobbyist for the air conditioning company Too Cool 4 U, who happened to be passing by your office. "@@NAME@@ is much warmer than Smalltopia, so AC is absolutely crucial. Not to mention the production, sale, and installation of cooling units provides thousands of jobs for @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@. Don't leave air conditioning out in the cold! Instead, you could give out some subsidies, and order the installation of AC into all government buildings."
Validity: Must have private industry

Effect: parkas and long underwear are considered a staple of @@DEMONYM@@ fashion

2b. "Nonsense!" interjects @@RANDOMNAME@@, your Minister of Temperature Regulation, who happened to be passing by your office. "@@NAME@@ is much warmer than Smalltopia, so AC is absolutely crucial. Not to mention the production, sale, and installation of cooling units provide thousands of jobs for @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@. Don't leave air conditioning out in the cold! Instead, you could increase my department's funding, and order the installation of AC into all government buildings."
Validity: Must not have private industry

Effect: parkas and long underwear are considered a staple of @@DEMONYM@@ fashion

3. "It's true @@NAME@@ does have a warmer climate, but perhaps we could work with that?" muses your secretary, while fiddling with the thermostat. "If every @@DEMONYM@@ had a house in both the warm and cold regions of @@NAME@@, we could simply move between them as seasonal temperatures demand. Then we won't need AC or heating! Of course, we'll have to double the number of houses in @@NAME@@, but I'm sure the taxpayers wouldn't mind if they get both a beach house and a mountain villa."

Effect: ornithologists excitedly study @@DEMONYM@@ migratory patterns

[Daarwyrth]

This a well-written issue draft, in my opinion. It can use a little of polishing here and there, but overall the language is good and the issue subject interesting.

About the tense in the premise sentence: I feel this one could be written in the past tense, as in "@@HE@@ commented", "made your office" and "asked why". I'll leave this up to you to decide on, however!

The number of options 2 and 3 actually can be 2a and 2b, as it's the same option just with a different validity.

What leaves me wondering however, is whether the premise is strong enough, in the sense that it's supposed to be a national issue. In theory, @@LEADER@@ could simply reply to the ambassador that it's simply the way they do things in @@NAME@@. Perhaps you could consider adding in the element, that the ambassador (or another influential personage in the nation) made a remark about ACs being stupid or unnecessary and that in turn sparked a drop in sales for AC selling companies. It would come a little close to the premise of the Eckie Cola issue, where a minister made a comment on Twitcher that resulted in a drop of sales for Eckie Cola. But I could be wrong of course and that the current premise is valid enough to be considered a national issue!

[Australian rePublic]

Option 2 contradicts option 3. What you should say in option 2 is that parts of nation are warmer than Smalltopia. Also, in its extreme form, considering that option 3 completely diembowles the nation's ski industry, please come up with a better effect line

[Wischland]

snip

Thank you! I've fixed the grammatical and numbering issues.

As for it being a national issue, perhaps a little context will explain why I choose this scenario. As I said in my original post, this was inspired by a German relative complaining about American air conditioning, making it more of a personal issue for me. I've never heard any American complain about too much AC, and maybe it's just cultural ignorance, but most Americans I know don't even realize other countries don't use much AC. So, I never really saw this a a pressing issue for the countries of NS, but rather as a fun way to highlight cultural differences. Since other issues (#459, #503, #551, #597 to name a few) are either fun concepts or are brought about through a more personal connection to the leader, I figured mine wasn't too much of a stretch. Of course, I'd love to hear more opinions about this, so I can fix stuff if necessary.

snip

Fixed the contradiction. Thanks for pointing it out! I'm not super sure if this is what you mean with the skiing industry going out of business, as I'm not much of a skier, but I changed the effect line to "ski lodges resemble horror movie-esque cabins in the woods as they're forced out of business"

[Daarwyrth]

As for it being a national issue, perhaps a little context will explain why I choose this scenario. As I said in my original post, this was inspired by a German relative complaining about American air conditioning, making it more of a personal issue for me. I've never heard any American complain about too much AC, and maybe it's just cultural ignorance, but most Americans I know don't even realize other countries don't use much AC. So, I never really saw this a a pressing issue for the countries of NS, but rather as a fun way to highlight cultural differences. Since other issues (#459, #503, #551, #597 to name a few) are either fun concepts or are brought about through a more personal connection to the leader, I figured mine wasn't too much of a stretch. Of course, I'd love to hear more opinions about this, so I can fix stuff if necessary.

Perhaps you could consider the cultural aspect of what you described as the issue premise? It can be of course that I am overly nitpicky with this and that the current idea with the ambassador is perfectly fine. But perhaps you could consider making the issue premise that for example immigrants from @@REGION@@ don't use ACs, much to the horror of other citizens but most importantly, the AC selling companies who see their sales drop. One of the issue options could feature an immigrant who says what the ambassador says atm. Or, instead of immigrants, you could say it's the younger generation - more globally aware and thus connected to other cultural influences - that stops with the use of ACs which results in issues for the companies selling and producing them, or cultural outrage in general. You could consider making it a "millennials killed X" affair xD

However, as I said before, it might be that I am wrong in my feeling that the ambassador in the current issue premise feels to small. I'd wait to see what other people think, before taking any of my suggestions into a new draft (should you choose to take any of them on ofc, it's your right to dismiss them).

[Wischland]

I'll wait to see what other people think, but that's a really good approach to the issue. I'll probably use it if necessary! Thank you for the idea.

[Minskiev]

What if your nation is, say, Antarctica? Then would Germany, or Smalltopia, really be colder?

Perhaps a validity of moderate and up weather is necessary?

[Wischland]

Good point! I added that in as a validity requirement. Not quite sure how validity is traditionally phrased for issues, but it's there!

[Westinor]

What if your nation is, say, Antarctica? Then would Germany, or Smalltopia, really be colder?

Perhaps a validity of moderate and up weather is necessary?

Smalltopia doesn't have a specifically mentioned temperature, so it's actually safe to say Smalltopia is colder, because it's an assumption about Smalltopia, not the nation. Therefore, if the nation was Antarctica, Smalltopia would simply be a way-out-of-wack nation, but still, if a nation could be Antarctica-levels of cold, so can a neighboring nation, right?(unless a player's nation is specifically the coldest on the planet. I'm still not sure if there's a way to keep this out of player autonomy in that case though, and there are plenty of issues that assume much more about geographical descriptions than this) Also, I'm not so sure weather necessarily means heat, even if the measurement is "Meters of Sunlight".

On the other hand, option 3 mentions that @@NAME@@ is warmer than most of the world(or a "warmer climate"). This could be in comparison to Smalltopia, but at first glance I assumed the former. Try to make it clear that it's in reference to Smalltopia.

[Wischland]

Thank you! I'll have to check statistic descriptions to try and figure out the validity issue, but I have clarified option 3.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

During a meeting with the Smalltopian ambassador @@RANDOMNAME@@, @@HE@@ commented that the air conditioning had made your office "cold enough to chill a Weizenbier" and asked why @@NAME@@ is so adamant about its use of air conditioning.

I dunno, seems a bit assumptive to suggest there's a culture of excessive air conditioning in the nation, when just about the only country in the world that uses it in a weather-inappropriate way is the USA.

Maybe instead the narrative framing could be around corporations that run their offices at air con temperatures too cold. That's an actual thing, of course, based around productivity being more important than comfort, about male domination of workplaces, and about the difficulty of cooling large shared spaces.

https://www.popsci.com/office-summer-co ... von%20says.

[Australian rePublic]

During a meeting with the Smalltopian ambassador @@RANDOMNAME@@, @@HE@@ commented that the air conditioning had made your office "cold enough to chill a Weizenbier" and asked why @@NAME@@ is so adamant about its use of air conditioning.

I dunno, seems a bit assumptive to suggest there's a culture of excessive air conditioning in the nation, when just about the only country in the world that uses it in a weather-inappropriate way is the USA.

Maybe instead the narrative framing could be around corporations that run their offices at air con temperatures too cold. That's an actual thing, of course, based around productivity being more important than comfort, about male domination of workplaces, and about the difficulty of cooling large shared spaces.

https://www.popsci.com/office-summer-co ... von%20says.

The other argument is that if you're cold, wear a jacket, if you're hot, then you'll be hor. Men have to wear more crap in offices, of coarse we'll be hot. What do you mean by the USA using air con in weather inappropriate ways?

[Wischland]

snip

An interesting framing device. It would also fix the problem of it being a issue of national importance, since it'll be affecting a lot more people. I rewrote the issue around your suggestion. It's a pretty radical departure from my original draft, but I like it. Let me know if you think it works!

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Nice!

Though I'd note that there's a much more reasonable RL version of option 3, which is to suggest that whole building air conditioning be replaced by individual small desk fans that allow people to control their own workspace.

I'd also note that there's no option here that's suitable for fans of small government (pun intended). It's either subsidise or regulate. That's a common issue in NS in general of course, but it'd be good to head that tendency off here.

[Wischland]

Though I'd note that there's a much more reasonable RL version of option 3

True, but I think the ridiculousness of it all is part of the fun!

I'd also note that there's no option here that's suitable for fans of small government (pun intended).

I added an option to remedy this!

[Wischland]

Just a little bump.

[Wischland]

Alrighty, it's been a bit since I've received any responses here. That means I'll be submitting this shortly, probably two majors from now, or a little over 24 hours. Last call for comments, questions, or critiques!

[Westinor]

Mostly stylistic suggestions here!

Confused by the workers strange complaints,

Needs a "s' " at the end of workers, and you probably don't need the comma

you have called the strike leaders to your office to explain their motives further

I think "into" would sound better than "to". As to the entire sentence, it's probably not a problem but the "confused" and "concerned" apply to the player, as well as the action of calling the leaders. It's not a huge violation of player autonomy, but I just thought I'd point that out.

The office buildings of @@NAME@@

Maybe just "Our office buildings"?

so the subzero office temperatures are crucial to the economy!

The sentence might sound better as "so maintaining the subzero office temperatures is beneficial/crucial to the economy!" Definitely up to you, though

Don't leave air conditioning out in the cold! Instead, you could increase my department's funding, and order the installation of AC into all government buildings.

A few things - "Don't leave air conditioning out in the cold!" might work better as something to end the option, but that is 100% up to you (that would result in you having to remove the "instead" at the beginning of the second sentence, though). As for the second sentence, this assumes all government buildings lack AC, which might be a bit of a leap. It also seems contradicted by option 3. Perhaps mandating that the cooling system is permanently on?

Ooh, also an effect line playing along the lines of "workers complain that their office jobs are frozen coffins" might be fun. Just a suggestion - don't use that if you don't find a better way to express that, just a thought!

Overall, this looks fun! Take what you will from these - I don't want to be rewriting your issues, just some thoughts you can take from. Best of luck!

[Wischland]

Mostly stylistic suggestions here!

The draft has been stylized! Thank you!