The Writers' Block

[DF of Nulltopia]

Working on an issue regarding AI, copyright laws and cultural immortality.

Only going to be valid for high tech capitalist nations with copyright laws

Description: A scandal has been caused with the recent death of a famous opera singer Giorgio Ivanov, after his voice was used in a popular online video. The video used artificial intelligence to make the deceased say several sexually explicit words and at least 4 different slurs against Bigtopians, causing an outrage online. A group of angry petitioners is storming your office.


P.S. It's gonna be quite different from the usual copyright law questions since AI gives you a lot more freedom to work with as a subject, and I have some great fallouts planned. Will have 4 to 5 issues. What do you think?

[NormanJackson]

I got a question on policies and wonder where the right spot would be to ask - so I just put it here.

Up to which age is "Child Self-Rearing" active on the nation's children?
I guess it must be ending around an age of 6-10, otherwise a lot of issues about school, child-labor, conscription (of ten-year-olds in some cases) etc. So is there a set limit when these children come out of "woods" and return to some sort of society for all the other issues or is it very loosely regulated as needed for an issue (e.g. #1547)? In 1547 option 1 the minister is said to have little to do since the introduction of the Child Self-Rearing policy, so based on that option, all issues about schools should not appear on Child Self-Rearing nations?

[Pogaria]

Up to which age is "Child Self-Rearing" active on the nation's children?

We've never clearly defined this, unfortunately. There may be a few narrative inconsistencies.

[Candesia]

Q. If a nation submit an issue, other than DRAFT topic, after how many duration you will receive a telegram that your issue is approved or deleted?

Q. If a nation submits an issue in this forum, how we will know that our issue is approved or deleted?

[Candesia]

Also, if I would mention leader's name, then how we will define it as he or she?

[SherpDaWerp]

Q. If a nation submit an issue, other than DRAFT topic, after how many duration you will receive a telegram that your issue is approved or deleted?

If your issue is deleted, you won't receive any notification. If your issue is accepted, you will receive an auto-generated TG - but there is absolutely no guarantee on timeframe. Publication can take anywhere from weeks to years - the most-recently-published issue as of this forum post was submitted nearly a year ago, and I'm currently working on an issue from 2021.

Q. If a nation submits an issue in this forum, how we will know that our issue is approved or deleted?

Posting an issue on this forum does not result in any approvals or deletion. It is merely feedback from the community. If your issue reaches a stage of being publishable, experienced authors or editors may tell you that it's time to submit, but this is not a given.

Also, if I would mention leader's name, then how we will define it as he or she?

Issues have no way of determining whether @@LEADER@@ is male, female, non-binary, or, in some nations, they may even be an AI. This also says nothing of nations who play as non-human, but the issues canon does not explicitly support them.

[Trotterdam]

@@LEADER@@ [...] may even be an AI

Although NationStates has an AI citizenship policy and therefore it would logically make sense to be able to have an AI leader too, current issues do not support it. Many, many issues assume that @@LEADER@@ has a biological family, or other biological attributes (such as being in pain after a visit to the dentist).

[Candesia]

Issues have no way of determining whether @@LEADER@@ is male, female, non-binary, or, in some nations, they may even be an AI. This also says nothing of nations who play as non-human, but the issues canon does not explicitly support them.

And, hey! I drafted an issue for NationStates. Please take a look at it. And tell something feedback about it.

[Southland]

I'm wondering, is it possible for a nation to have both the "Theocracy" and "AI Personhood" policies simultaneously? I don't think I encountered a nation with both, and one idea I have may touch on both.

[The Ice States]

Is there an issue which abolishes education?

[Tinhampton]

The latest issues contest announcement once again excludes pandemic and war issues. The war moratorium was discussed when I last pointed this out in 2022; it applies only to the Issues Contest and you can still submit non-contest issues about war.

The pandemic moratorium applies to all issues. It was developed over the course of a couple of weeks at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• On March 24th 2020, CWA said that while there was no moratorium, "when all this is done there's been enough pandemic-related topics come up to make a kick-ass issue chain, but that's something for the future."
• On March 27th, he warned the community to "hold off on issues relating to the current crisis and the issues it raises for now," and that he would write the chain when "a tactful amount of time" had elapsed. He reiterated this on March 31st.
• On April 2nd, The Free Joy State confirmed that there was a moratorium on all pandemic issues.
• On April 7th, a Got Issues Update reaffirmed the moratorium and said that "[t]here is likely to be a chain based off it in the future, but that's next year at the soonest once things have returned to normality."
• The moratorium was casually reaffirmed by various editors a few times in the following months, but nothing - about the chain or the moratorium - has been said here since.

Given the lack of noise in the health department as of late, and to be clear: Is the plan to end the pandemic moratorium eventually (even if not now), and will the pandemic chain still be published at some stage (especially now that COVID-19 has faded from the public imagination, the PHEIC designation has been revoked and cases are broadly falling)?

[SherpDaWerp]

@@LEADER@@ [...] may even be an AI

Although NationStates has an AI citizenship policy and therefore it would logically make sense to be able to have an AI leader too, current issues do not support it. Many, many issues assume that @@LEADER@@ has a biological family, or other biological attributes (such as being in pain after a visit to the dentist).

To be fair, an AI could still have a family, and I don't think it's ever explicitly biological. The dentist issue is a fair point though, I did forget that one.

I'm wondering, is it possible for a nation to have both the "Theocracy" and "AI Personhood" policies simultaneously? I don't think I encountered a nation with both, and one idea I have may touch on both.

Theoretically yes, although I haven't actually checked whether there are nations with both. It's a fun combo, but beware not to make your issue just a generic "religious people think AI bad".

Is there an issue which abolishes education?

It's quite possible that we have options on existing issues that would lead to an abolition of education. This isn't a tracked policy, but we can otherwise check for extremely poor/non-existent educational systems. However, an issue where the entire premise is "should we abolish education" is probably not a good idea.

Is the plan to end the pandemic moratorium eventually (even if not now), and will the pandemic chain still be published at some stage (especially now that COVID-19 has faded from the public imagination, the PHEIC designation has been revoked and cases are broadly falling)?

Yes.

[Federationalism]

It is now my turn to draft some ideas. I was thinking about a possible series/Easter egg about parallel universes and leaders from different universes coming together in a doomsday situation. Would that work?

[Edush]

Does anyone here know if there is any published issue regarding on what should education focus on? I mean, if the schools choose to teach children only theoretical subjects, or if they also want to add some practical ones which can make children ready for blue-collared jobs or things like that.

[Trotterdam]

I'm wondering, is it possible for a nation to have both the "Theocracy" and "AI Personhood" policies simultaneously? I don't think I encountered a nation with both, and one idea I have may touch on both.

Approximately 0.3757% of nations have this combination (or, 75 nations in my database). This is only slightly lower than the 0.4812% that would be expected from the policies' individual frequencies if the two were uncorrelated.

So, very very rare, but technically possible!

Although NationStates has an AI citizenship policy and therefore it would logically make sense to be able to have an AI leader too, current issues do not support it. Many, many issues assume that @@LEADER@@ has a biological family, or other biological attributes (such as being in pain after a visit to the dentist).

To be fair, an AI could still have a family, and I don't think it's ever explicitly biological.

#300 option 3 comes to mind.

Also, while we've been cracking down on issues that explicitly assume @@LEADER@@ is sexually/romantically interested in someone, there are still issues that assume that other people think @@LEADER@@ would be interested in that kind of thing, and that other people are interested in you, and you maybe have the option to reciprocate. (#417, #1171)

Does anyone here know if there is any published issue regarding on what should education focus on? I mean, if the schools choose to teach children only theoretical subjects, or if they also want to add some practical ones which can make children ready for blue-collared jobs or things like that.

Does anyone in real life think school should focus purely on theoretical subjects? My impression was that elementary / high schools teach mainly practical skills (even if they sometimes have a controversial idea of what counts as practical, as some of them fall into the "this may be useful someday, better safe than sorry!" category), and people who are interested in purely-theoretical subjects might decide to continue studying them as a university major.

[Edush]

Does anyone here know if there is any published issue regarding on what should education focus on? I mean, if the schools choose to teach children only theoretical subjects, or if they also want to add some practical ones which can make children ready for blue-collared jobs or things like that.

Does anyone in real life think school should focus purely on theoretical subjects? My impression was that elementary / high schools teach mainly practical skills (even if they sometimes have a controversial idea of what counts as practical, as some of them fall into the "this may be useful someday, better safe than sorry!" category), and people who are interested in purely-theoretical subjects might decide to continue studying them as a university major.

By practical I mean having a class teaching students how a train works, that helping them to get hired after high school as a train mechanic. Or a course on food industry, so they can get a job in that area and so on.

In the country where I live, "theoretical high schools" are educational institutions where the children only study subjects like languages, math, sciences, history etc. They don't study anything relating to a real-world job. This doesn't mean that what they do study isn't "practical" in their day to day lives. Knowing biology is very practical, but it doesn't help you get a blue-collar job. If you want to go to university and study medicine (or something related to medicine), then knowing biology is crucial for your future career.

We also have "technological high schools", which don't have anything to do with IT or stuff like that, but they teach students stuff relating to how to be an electrician, a welder or other jobs present in your geographical area. In those schools, children also study traditional subjects (mentioned above), but also specific ones for the job they choose to have after high school ends.

So, I was asking if there already is an issue regarding this problem: should there be specific schools teaching students useful skills for the economy alongside traditional classes, or should children just learn how to do their job after getting hired, and if they want to have a more qualified job, go to university? Also, thanks for your fast response!

[Trotterdam]

Okay, so it sounds like the issue isn't so much practical vs theoretical schools, but rather students being allowed to choose between private schools with different focuses vs everyone being required to receive the same baseline education decided on by the government. (Mind you, even a single school will usually have some time slots free for elective classes, in addition to the mandatory ones everyone takes.)

Students being allowed to choose their own direction of education is already the norm in universities, so it's basically just asking how early in your education that practice starts.

[Edush]

Well, still, in my country both of these systems are free and offered by the government. None of them is private. But still, the idea is the same. So, do you think that is a decent basis for an issue?

[Federationalism]

It is now my turn to draft some ideas. I was thinking about a possible series/Easter egg about parallel universes and leaders from different universes coming together in a doomsday situation. Would that work?

Any thoughts?

[Trotterdam]

The bar for being accepted as an easter egg issue is significantly higher than the bar for being accepted as a normal issue, so I wouldn't recommend trying for an easter egg issue as your first attempt, but it's technically possible. Ultimately, it always comes down to how good of a writer you are.

[Federationalism]

The bar for being accepted as an easter egg issue is significantly higher than the bar for being accepted as a normal issue, so I wouldn't recommend trying for an easter egg issue as your first attempt, but it's technically possible. Ultimately, it always comes down to how good of a writer you are.

Ah, but I mean, couldn't it be considered as either?

[Trotterdam]

An issue about being visited by leaders from parallel universes is not going to be accepted as a non-easter-egg.

[Federationalism]

An issue about being visited by leaders from parallel universes is not going to be accepted as a non-easter-egg.

Yeah. I had another idea about "the face of @@NATION@@ being overshadowed by poor people", how would that work?

[Southland]

I have two ideas for the contest: the "Sample" one that's already posted, and one that deals with robot religious conversion. I have a draft of the latter sitting on my computer with the original intent of it being my follow up on the "Sample" issue (severely overestimating the speed of getting drafts resolved...), but I feel its unique premise would make it stick out more. Which one should I go with?

[Cachard Calia]

Are there any threads joking about how trans women are supposed to act super feminine while there are many people saying cis women being too feminine is against feminist/egalitarian ideals?