[DRAFT] Am I The Autocrat?

[Kalosia]

This is an idea I've had for a while, but I've never written an issue before so here goes nothing. If you know, you know.

Current version: 1.1

Am I The Autocrat?

VALIDITY: Has elections, has freedom of speech

DESCRIPTION: Following an unprecedented incident in which you were interrupted and confronted by activists at a high profile event, the state of @@NAME@@'s democracy has become a highly debated topic. Various institutions and civil society organisations have engaged in heated discourse in order to determine whether or not you are becoming authoritarian.

OPTION 1: "Not the autocrat!" argues @@RANDOMNAME@@, the ambitious assistant to your soon-to-retire campaign manager. "When I campaigned for you during the last election, I spoke to many young @@DEMONYM@@ citizens who all put their trust in you to lead the nation. You were elected for a reason! The people trust you, and you making decisions on their behalf is exactly how democracy works. In fact, we can make our democracy run even more smoothly by rewording the questions on the ballot of the next election." @@HE@@ pulls out @@HIS@@ planner and starts taking notes. "All you need to say is 'yes' and I'll get on it right away!"
EFFECT: voters who want a elect a new leader must submit a 10-page essay explaining why they dislike the government in power

OPTION 2: "You're the autocrat!" proclaims a figure bursting into the room, who turns out to be one of the protesters who confronted you during the incident. "We've seen the way you use your power to reward corrupt officials who systematically violate the rights of @@DEMONYM@@s!" As the activist is dragged out of the room kicking and screaming, @@HE@@ suggests, "What @@NAME@@ needs is for that money to go elsewhere, like a court that convicts public officials who violate the rights of @@DEMONYM@@s!"
EFFECT: public librarians are taken to court for denying noisy patrons their freedom of expression

OPTION 3: "Everyone sucks here," remarks your apolitical cousin, stopping by for a coffee before heading to @@HIS@@ next business meeting. "Don't those protesters have anything better to do with their lives?" @@HE@@ inches closer. "And it's kinda your fault too for allowing people to spend their days doing stuff like that. Why don't you make it mandatory for every citizen to have occupations that are actually meaningful? That way, everyone will be too busy contributing to society to mess around and cause trouble."
EFFECT: unemployed people argue that doing nothing is a valuable contribution to society

OPTION 4: "We need more information" says a political historian, who has won multiple awards for @@HIS@@ work combining political theory with quantum mechanics. @@HE@@ shows you a page out of @@HIS@@ latest book. "You could be both the autocrat or not the autocrat depending on how you interpret this loophole in the constitution. I recommend that you make a few changes to our historic law to settle things once and for all."
EFFECT: the constitution defines authoritarianism as a form of democracy

OPTION 5: "No autocrats here" concludes a first-year political science student at the University of @@CAPITAL@@. "The fact that there is public discourse about the state of @@DEMONYM@@ politics shows that the values of democracy are alive and thriving in @@NAME@@. Just the values, though. I can talk to you all I want, but I'm still not old enough to vote." @@HE@@ produces a piece of paper out of @@HIS@@ backpack. "Can you sign this petition to allow people like me to vote, please?"
EFFECT: parents often vote on behalf of their newborn children in polling booths

Archive

Am I The Autocrat?

VALIDITY: Has elections, has freedom of speech

DESCRIPTION: Following an incident in which you were interrupted and confronted by activists at a high profile event, the state of @@NAME@@'s democracy has become a highly debated topic. Various institutions and civil society organisations have engaged in heated discourse in order to determine whether or not you are becoming authoritarian.

OPTION 1: "Not the autocrat!" argues @@RANDOMNAME@@, the ambitious assistant to your soon-to-retire campaign manager. "When I campaigned for you during the last election, I spoke to many young @@DEMONYM@@ citizens who all put their trust in you to lead the nation. You were elected for a reason! The people trust you, and you making decisions on their behalf is exactly how democracy works. In fact, we can make our democracy run even more smoothly by rewording the questions on the ballot of the next election." @@HE@@ pulls out @@HIS@@ planner and starts taking notes. "All you need to say is 'yes' and I'll get on it right away!"
EFFECT: voters who want a elect a new leader must submit a 10-page essay explaining why they dislike the government in power

OPTION 2: "You're the autocrat!" proclaims a figure bursting into the room, who turns out to be one of the protesters who confronted you during the incident. "We've seen the way you use your power to reward corrupt officials who systematically violate the rights of @@DEMONYM@@s!" As the activist is dragged out of the room kicking and screaming, @@HE@@ suggests, "What @@NAME@@ needs is for that money to go elsewhere, like a court that convicts public officials who violate the rights of @@DEMONYM@@s!"
EFFECT: public librarians are taken to court for denying noisy patrons their freedom of expression

OPTION 3: "Everyone sucks here," remarks your apolitical cousin, stopping by for a coffee before heading to @@HIS@@ next business meeting. "Don't those protesters have anything better to do with their lives?" @@HE@@ inches closer. "And it's kinda your fault too for allowing people to spend their days doing stuff like that. Why don't you make it mandatory for every citizen to have occupations that are actually meaningful? That way, everyone will be too busy contributing to society to mess around and cause trouble."
EFFECT: unemployed people argue that doing nothing is a valuable contribution to society

OPTION 4: "We need more information" says a political historian, who has won multiple awards for @@HIS@@ work combining political theory with quantum mechanics. @@HE@@ shows you a page out of @@HIS@@ latest book. "You could be both the autocrat or not the autocrat depending on how you interpret this loophole in the constitution. I recommend that you make a few changes to our historic law to settle things once and for all."
EFFECT: the constitution defines authoritarianism as a form of democracy

[Tinhampton]

Following an incident in which you were interrupted and confronted by activists at a high profile event, the state of @@NAME@@'s democracy has become a highly debated topic.

Politicians are heckled in public all the time. Why does this particular heckle pose a threat to "democracy" in a way that no other heckle does?

[Kalosia]

Following an incident in which you were interrupted and confronted by activists at a high profile event, the state of @@NAME@@'s democracy has become a highly debated topic.

Politicians are heckled in public all the time. Why does this particular heckle pose a threat to "democracy" in a way that no other heckle does?

With the event being high-profile, my logic was that an incident would have higher visibility and therefore ignite more public discourse.

I could maybe add a detail about the activists' demands? Although it's also covered by one of the options...

[Kalosia]

Bump — added a 5th option, which I somehow forgot to include based on the source material.

[Verdant Haven]

The Reddit thing is used reasonably well here to create a set-up. The required format ("the Autocrat") to make the joke work is kind of awkward, largely because it implies that there must be somebody fitting that description. While I realize you need something with the letter A to fit the AITA format, keep in mind that NationStates uses the word "Autocracy" specifically to refer to any nation without elections. It could get confusing if players are trying to think of the issue in NS terms, but the word keeps getting used with a different meaning. The current validity, requiring elections, inherently means that Leader is not an Autocrat in game terms, and there really isn't any question about that. We also can't tell players what Leader is thinking - only what others are - so that throws some hurdles in the way of the format, which is inherently a first person inquiry. I imagine this can be workable with enough finesse and effort to get the rest of the language structured for it - it will just requires writing with that in mind.

A major challenge with the issue and options at this stage is that there are a number of assumptions made about what is going on in your nation, which the proposed validity check of a democracy with free speech doesn't inherently support. Speakers can of course make very subjective and opinionated statements, but many of these things seem like they're being presented to the player as factual statements, which may be so inaccurate as to lead to issue dismissal in many cases. For example:

- Speaker 2 claims that Leader is rewarding corrupt officials and encouraging civil rights violations. In a nation that doesn't have big corruption problems, and has great civil rights, that doesn't make sense. Claiming that there are cases of corrupt officials like this without Leader's knowledge would be an option, but then why is this person claiming Leader is the bad guy?

- In option 4, what loophole? What constitution, for that matter? It also has the same issue as before, in assuming that the leader is actually demonstrating authoritarian tendencies, without providing any support for that claim and without a validity check to make sure it's true. "Autocracy" isn't based on whether or not a person is following the law - an autocrat can be operating with full legal authority (and in fact most are, because they can change the law to make it so). In this option, that "the autocrat" format is really struggling to make sense for people who don't know the reference.

- For speaker 5... why is a university student unable to vote? At the very least, a validity check for voting age might be needed, but most university students are legal adults anyway, so even that might not make sense.

Unrelated to validities or assumptions, the main text needs to be a lot clearer on what occurred. "Something happened at an important event" doesn't tell us why that thing happened, or why the event was important. It also doesn't tell us why this would spark nationwide debates. Saying it is unprecedented, but then describing it merely as an interruption by activists, is not really enough. How would some activists interrupting you cause the entire state of the nation's democracy to come into question? I suspect the overall issue might be stronger if it is written specifically for nations that have elections, but have extremely curtailed freedoms - nations on the cusp of becoming dictatorships, where the very act of protest itself is possibly illegal and could therefore be shocking. There are other issues like that, so of course care is needed in that direction too.

[The Orwell Society]

Perhaps add some 1984 references here and there?

[West Barack and East Obama]

Perhaps add some 1984 references here and there?

Do we not have enough of those? There's a whole issue dedicated to the book

[The Orwell Society]

Perhaps add some 1984 references here and there?

Do we not have enough of those? There's a whole issue dedicated to the book

REALLY!?!? Which one?

In all my time on NS, answering issues as soon as I receive them, I have never seen a single 1984 reference.

[Tinhampton]

Why are we assuming that "first-year... students" at university are too young to vote? In most countries - even South Korea, which relaxed the age limit recently - the voting age is 18, which catches most all uni students.

Do we not have enough of those? There's a whole issue dedicated to the book

REALLY!?!? Which one?

In all my time on NS, answering issues as soon as I receive them, I have never seen a single 1984 reference.

Just because your nation is called The Orwell Society does not mean that you are entitled to get Orwell quotes in your issues.

[Australian rePublic]

Why is this event different to any other criticism of the government?

[Kalosia]

Thank you everyone for the feedback, particularly Verdant Haven who has definitely given me a lot to work on. Yes, it does seem like I need to strengthen the premise/description to warrant it getting the kind of reactions this issue displays. Also, noting NS definitions of autocracy, I'll try to see whether I can find a way to make it work or even use a completely different word altogether.

Why are we assuming that "first-year... students" at university are too young to vote? In most countries - even South Korea, which relaxed the age limit recently - the voting age is 18, which catches most all uni students.

Most, definitely. Writing that, I had in mind a friend of mine who turned 18 just days after her country's election, and ultimately missed out on voting. Although, I accept that she is probably an outlier and that cases like hers are probably not enough to justify it being the basis of an issue option.

Anyway, as I don't think I will have enough time to bring this draft into a submission-worthy state by the end of the month, I've removed the contest tag from the title. I'll also likely be busy with other things so it may take me a while to present my next revised draft; bear with me. Again, thank you.

[American Collectivism]

Do we not have enough of those? There's a whole issue dedicated to the book

REALLY!?!? Which one?

In all my time on NS, answering issues as soon as I receive them, I have never seen a single 1984 reference.

Test results deemed "ungood" after global survey
https://nsindex.net/wiki/NationStates_Issue_No._113