[DRAFT] An Explosive Reveal

[Caesarovia]

DRAFT (Mark V):

[Title] An Explosive Reveal

[Description] After several regrettable incidents in which a gender reveal party used explosives, resulting in shaking houses and wildfires, the debate around accessibility of explosives has, well exploded.

[Option 1] ''You must put a stop to this madness!" says @@RANDOMNAME@@, a peace and quiet-loving neighbor affected by one of the fires. "What kind of lunatic does this? The obvious solution is to ban all explosives of any kind, except for the military of course".

[Effect 1] Demolition crews work at an astoundingly slow pace

[Option 2] "Hey, you can't just infringe on my rights like that!" shouts Mike Bay, an expecting father who used explosives at a gender reveal party. "I have every right to celebrate the arrival of my son however I darn well want to". "In fact, we should make explosives the norm at all parties, maybe we could even use some military surplus?" he says as he lights a sparkler.

[Effect 2] Rocket-propelled grenades are the new party poppers

[Option 3] "Hold on now, let's not be too hasty here, we shouldn't ban all explosives just because a few nincompoops don't know how much is too much" says your reasonable Minister of Compromises, as he snatches the sparkler out of Mr. Bay's hand. "Instead, just to make sure that no unauthorized people are using pyrotechnics, we cant set up a simple licensing program to insure that no inexperienced idiots use dangerous explosives

[Effect 3] The line to get a pyrotechnics licence is longer than the one to get a driver's license.

[Option 4] "I think the real issue here is how this trend got started" says your Minister of Propaganda. "We just need to fund a nation-wide Public Information Campaign to educate people on less-destructive ways to celebrate, and while we're at it, we can throw in some nationalist propaganda to honor the glory of you, @@LEADER@@!

[Effect 4] Rowdy college parties often feature chants of "Glory to @@LEADER@@!

What do you guys think, any suggestions? This is the 5th draft of this issue, and I've overhauled it quite a bit since the first one.

[Tinhampton]

The El Dorado wildfire was also caused by a gender reveal party and - as far as I know - caused much more damage.

The first gender reveal party occurred in July 2008. Do you really believe that "family and friends of expecting couples" had no means of knowing if they were expecting "a boy of a girl until after the baby is born" (including just asking them in the weeks and possibly months before the due date) before then?

[Title] An Explosive Reveal

[Description] After a regrettable incident in which a gender reveal party used 80 pounds of explosive, houses were shaken and some people were hurt. Now, citizens are asking you to do something

[Option 1] ''You must put a stop to this madness!" says @@RANDOMNAME@@, a peace and quiet-loving neighbor affected by the blast. "What kind of lunatic does this, you need to ban gender reveal parties!"

[Effect 1] Family and friends of expecting couples don't find out if it's a boy or a girl until after the baby is born

[Option 2] "Hey, you can't just infringe on my rights like that!" shouts @@RANDOMNAME2@@, the father of the baby, and the one whose ides it was to use explosives. "I have every right to celebrate the arrival of my son however I darn well want to"

[Effect 2] Rocket-propelled grenades are the new party poppers

[Option 3] ''The real issue here is how easily anyone can obtain explosives" says your security advisor @@RANDOMNAME3@@. "Today it's a baby shower, tomorrow it's some nut-job terrorists blowing up a bomb in the city, the only way to prevent such a catastrophe is to restrict access to explosive materials"

[Effect 3] New Year's Eve is much quieter and less bright

[Caesarovia]

The El Dorado wildfire was also caused by a gender reveal party and - as far as I know - caused much more damage.

The first gender reveal party occurred in July 2008. Do you really believe that "family and friends of expecting couples" had no means of knowing if they were expecting "a boy of a girl until after the baby is born" (including just asking them in the weeks and possibly months before the due date) before then?

thank you for the suggestion, I will try to incorporate that in the next draft

[Trotterdam]

I... err... what?

I mean, sure, celebrating parties with 80 pounds of explosives is probably a bad thing, but why are gender reveal parties specifically more likely to overdo it like that than any other kind of party?

This seems like a one-off case of someone doing something stupid, not a systemic problem.

[Tinhampton]

...This seems like a one-off case of someone doing something stupid...

Because it's based off one, right down to the amount of not!dynamite used

[Trotterdam]

Sure, it's something that can happen, but if someone is an idiot and goes and sets off a bunch of explosives at a gender reveal party, sensible discussions would be about "we need better control about who can access explosives", not "we need to ban gender reveal parties".

[Australian rePublic]

Wait, option 1- you want to ban all gender reveal parties because some head jobs use explosives? That's extreme, even by NS standards

[Sunhizria]

Don't ruin the fun, but I think #681: @@NAME@@'s New Year's Resolution: Lose Fewer Limbs deal with the idea of an explosion injuring people.

[Caesarovia]

Don't ruin the fun, but I think #681: @@NAME@@'s New Year's Resolution: Lose Fewer Limbs deal with the idea of an explosion injuring people.

ok, I'll try to make it different, thank you for bringing that up

[Candensia]

I... err... what?

I mean, sure, celebrating parties with 80 pounds of explosives is probably a bad thing, but why are gender reveal parties specifically more likely to overdo it like that than any other kind of party?

This seems like a one-off case of someone doing something stupid, not a systemic problem.

Disagree that this constitutes a one-time phenomenon. While, um, using 80 pounds of high explosive is unusual, there are other examples of gender reveal parties causing big problems.

An example from last year: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado_Fire

[Australian rePublic]

Okay, so I looked into this and holy shit! People using explosives for gender reveal parties is apparently a thing in real life. Holy shit! Holy shit America, you need to stop allowing explosives to enter the hands of nutters who use them more frivolously than a terrorist organisation's resident pyromaniac. I mean, why does a gender reveal need fricken military grade explosives? Holy shit! Sorry for saying this is too extreme even for NS standards. You carry on working on this draft. And yet, another 15 nails in the coffin of my faith in humanity...

[Trotterdam]

For what it's worth, the latest draft actually does address my concerns. Although the specific party that brought the issue into national discussion was indeed still a gender reveal party (which I'm fine with), the proposed solutions are more reasonable and appropiate to the situation than in the original draft.

Sunhizria's concern about it being too similar to #681 is valid, but since that was my issue, I don't want to tout it too much, so I'll let others be the judge of that.

A suggestion - to keep the type of party relevant to the narrative without doing something as silly as trying to ban those parties - would be to include an option for propaganda campaigns teaching people more appropiate ways to party. The way culture works is that people throwing parties will often copy ideas from other similar parties (which is presumably how this thing got started despite gender reveals having nothing inherently to do with explosives), so you just need to get the snowball rolling in the other direction.

[Caesarovia]

Okay, so I looked into this and holy shit! People using explosives for gender reveal parties is apparently a thing in real life. Holy shit! Holy shit America, you need to stop allowing explosives to enter the hands of nutters who use them more frivolously than a terrorist organisation's resident pyromaniac. I mean, why does a gender reveal need fricken military grade explosives? Holy shit! Sorry for saying this is too extreme even for NS standards. You carry on working on this draft. And yet, another 15 nails in the coffin of my faith in humanity...

For what it's worth, the latest draft actually does address my concerns. Although the specific party that brought the issue into national discussion was indeed still a gender reveal party (which I'm fine with), the proposed solutions are more reasonable and appropiate to the situation than in the original draft.

Sunhizria's concern about it being too similar to #681 is valid, but since that was my issue, I don't want to tout it too much, so I'll let others be the judge of that.

A suggestion - to keep the type of party relevant to the narrative without doing something as silly as trying to ban those parties - would be to include an option for propaganda campaigns teaching people more appropiate ways to party. The way culture works is that people throwing parties will often copy ideas from other similar parties (which is presumably how this thing got started despite gender reveals having nothing inherently to do with explosives), so you just need to get the snowball rolling in the other direction.

Thanks for the suggestions and support. I will include them in my next draft.