[CONTEST] Clockwork Oranges

[Cretox State]

You know what they say: the early bird gets the worm. And by worm, I'm of course referring to the prehensile appendage growing out of that tomato's nose. The one that's currently limping towards you while screaming about the sweet succor of human blood.

Clockwork Oranges

Validity: 553.2, private industry, high scientific advancement, low safety, at least some agriculture, autarky.

Description
Biotech giant McSanto LLC's latest line of genetically engineered superfoods has become a national craze for their high nutritional value, long shelf life, and luscious flowing hair. The company's executives are now demanding that you allow them to expand their runaway success (and profits) to juicy foreign markets.

Option 1
"Don't worry about the lamprey DNA: our products are completely safe!" jokes McSanto CEO Saul Lent-Greene, carefully placing a delicious-looking orange on your desk and taking a few steps back. "Scrapping that silly self-contained economy thing and giving us a little boost to go global will make @@NAME@@ the world's leader in modern agriculture. Think of the prestige! Think of the profits! If you still aren't convinced, just take one bite of that orange over there. Don't worry, it tastes just like any other reptile."

Effect: @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ produce is literally flying off supermarket shelves

Option 2
"Why are you exclusively dealing with McSanto without even considering the little guy?" asks private equity firm CEO @@RANDOMNAME@@, finally showing up for @@HIS@@ appointment. "When I bought up half the small farms in western @@NAME@@, I thought I'd get some respect from you. But what's really disrespectful is how McSanto keeps suing me for patent infringement every time I try to cut into their business or one of their products lays eggs in my researchers' ear canals. I'm all for opening up trade, but loosen up the intellectual property laws keeping the rest of us down first."

Effect: tomatoes are trained to play dead when a corporate spy approaches

Validity: Adult.
Option 3a
"We shouldn't even be considering this without some very strict and well-funded regulations on selling abroad," says your Science Minister, dumping a bucket of badly deformed gourds all over your desk that bear a striking resemblance to your groin area. "Otherwise, this could backfire spectacularly if a bunch of foreigners get cancer or premature puberty or something. Could you imagine the kind of bad press we'd get? Those gourds are terrifying, by the way. Remind me of the worst one-night stand I ever had."

Effect: supermarket vegetables dynamically modify their skin pigments to resemble regulatory agency logos

Validity: Not adult.
Option 3b
"We shouldn't even be considering this without some very strict and well-funded regulations on selling abroad," says your Science Minister, dumping a bucket of badly deformed gourds onto your desk in violation of several government policies. "Otherwise, this could backfire spectacularly if a bunch of foreigners get cancer or premature puberty or something. Could you imagine the kind of bad press we'd get? So let's keep trade closed for now, and make sure we get this right."

Effect: supermarket vegetables dynamically modify their skin pigments to resemble regulatory agency logos

Validity: Not atheist.
Option 4a
"Cancer? Premature puberty? Preposterous!" shouts McSanto senior researcher @@RANDOMNAME@@, as the orange on your desk nods along in approval. "When Specimen HK-1420 started rolling towards you, did it undergo puberty? No! Not human puberty, at any rate. Treating our work as a way to merely make money is insulting when it has the potential to allow us to redefine life itself. I know it sounds scary at first, like all the hatchlings currently scurrying out of that orange's gills. But with enough funding, the sky's the limit!"

Effect: people accusing scientists of playing god are directed to the 7-armed octopus-monkey currently serving as Religion Minister

Validity: Atheist.
Option 4b
"Cancer? Premature puberty? Preposterous!" shouts McSanto senior researcher @@RANDOMNAME@@, as the orange on your desk nods along in approval. "When Specimen HK-1420 started rolling towards you, did it undergo puberty? No! Not human puberty, at any rate. Treating our work as a way to merely make money is insulting when it has the potential to allow us to redefine life itself. I know it sounds scary at first, like all the hatchlings currently scurrying out of that orange's gills. But with enough funding, the sky's the limit!"

Effect: people accusing scientists of playing god are directed to the 7-armed octopus-monkey currently serving as Atheism Minister

[Cretox State]

Reserved.

[Trotterdam]

Description
Biotech giant McSanto LLC's latest line of genetically engineered superfoods has become a national craze for their high nutritional value, long shelf life, and luscious flowing hair. The company's executives are now demanding that you allow them to expand their runaway success (and profits) to juicy foreign markets.

Why is expanding business to foreign markets something that the government should get involved in? Unless you're an autarky, being allowed to sell to foreign markets should be the rule rather than the exception.

Your options then divert to talking about irrelevant stuff like safety and monopolies, and have nothing to do with the right to sell to foreign markets.

[Cretox State]

Description
Biotech giant McSanto LLC's latest line of genetically engineered superfoods has become a national craze for their high nutritional value, long shelf life, and luscious flowing hair. The company's executives are now demanding that you allow them to expand their runaway success (and profits) to juicy foreign markets.

Why is expanding business to foreign markets something that the government should get involved in? Unless you're an autarky, being allowed to sell to foreign markets should be the rule rather than the exception.

The validity is restricted to autarkies.

Your options then divert to talking about irrelevant stuff like safety and monopolies, and have nothing to do with the right to sell to foreign markets.

Option 2 talks about ensuring that McSanto doesn't disproportionately benefit from opening up trade: "I'm all for opening up trade, but loosen up the intellectual property laws killing our industry first." Option 3 talks about implementing strict regulations before opening up trade over fears that opening up trade willy-nilly will backfire. Option 4 is only relevant to international trade in the context of "my thing's better," but it's the crazy(er) option anyway.

[Trotterdam]

The validity is restricted to autarkies.

Oh, okay. I missed that part. In that case, though, there's the opposite problem: why would a government that is otherwise strongly against international trade suddenly make an exception for something as niche as genetically-modified food, of all things?

My other point also still stands. The options do not actually discuss the merits of foreign markets.

Option 2 talks about ensuring that McSanto doesn't disproportionately benefit from opening up trade: "I'm all for opening up trade, but loosen up the intellectual property laws killing our industry first." Option 3 talks about implementing strict regulations before opening up trade over fears that opening up trade willy-nilly will backfire. Option 4 is only relevant to international trade in the context of "that's dumb," but it's the crazy(er) option anyway.

I notice you're not even trying to defend option 1.

Your excuse for option 3 doesn't count. The sort of safety regulations it talks about would be relevant regardless of whether you're selling to domestic or foreign markets. If anything, citing safety as a reason to refuse exports makes it sound like the speaker cares more about foreigners' health than his own neighbors', which is just weird.

Your excuse for option 2 falls into the same point I raised above, which is why does anyone think it's a good idea to open international trade just for the benefit of one company in the first place?

[Cretox State]

Oh, okay. I missed that part. In that case, though, there's the opposite problem: why would a government that is otherwise strongly against international trade suddenly make an exception for something as niche as genetically-modified food, of all things?

Because the CEO of the country's biggest GMO company is asking you to do it in a meeting, and justifying it by saying it'll be prestigious for the country to be a leading producer of bizarre genetically engineered foods. He's not necessarily right and you don't have to listen to him.

I notice you're not even trying to defend option 1.

What is there to defend? The CEO's meeting with you specifically to ask you to let his company expand to foreign markets and tells you why you should let his company expand to foreign markets. It flows from the description, which says that corporate executives are asking you to let them expand to foreign markets.

Your excuse for option 3 doesn't count. The sort of safety regulations it talks about would be relevant regardless of whether you're selling to domestic or foreign markets. If anything, citing safety as a reason to refuse exports makes it sound like the speaker cares more about foreigners' health than his own neighbors', which is just weird.

My excuse? Alright. Anyway, that's the joke. Not a single speaker cares one bit that these companies' "foods" are clearly cartoonishly dangerous. It's all about making more money or making sure that other people can make more money. Even the "concerned government official" cares more about how you'll look than people's actual wellbeing. I think you're right in that it's weird that the Science Minister's talking about people getting cancer and then telling you to keep trade locked down for now. I edited the option to hopefully flow better.

Your excuse for option 2 falls into the same point I raised above, which is why does anyone think it's a good idea to open international trade just for the benefit of one company in the first place?

Because McSanto's the industry leader and their CEO's the one lobbying you in the first option. He doesn't care about his competitors. The first thing the second speaker says is that letting McSanto benefit like this isn't a good idea.

What's your overarching concern? That the options aren't grounded enough and lean too heavily into parody?

[Trotterdam]

What's your overarching concern? That the options aren't grounded enough and lean too heavily into parody?

That too, but your cartoonish depiction of genetically-engineered foods is really a secondary problem, and I ignored it because it pales in comparison to more important problems.

Take a look at our existing autarky reversals.

#1356 is about a specific type of (digital) good, operating systems, that in real life there are very few makers of, in part because it takes a lot of work to code an entire operating system, and in part because interoperability concerns means you're better off using the same operating system everyone else is. Having to reinvent to wheel would be a major hassle all-around.

#1230 is about goods that, although less critical, are still hard to produce natively due to climate reasons, so there's an actual reason why autarky would be more of an issue with these goods in particular than with average goods.

#1185, meanwhile, is about the harm that autarky does to your former trading partners, rather than your own nation's economy, and asks you to reconsider on humanitarian grounds.

#1546's relevance is weaker, but then the issue isn't actually about autarky, it just has an autarky variant option on an issue that's mainly about something else, and the issue as a whole is still valid in non-autark nations.

Now, all of those are about imports, not exports, so in theory there is still room for an autarky reversal issue that specifically addresses the consequences of missing out on exports rather than imports. (Although in practice, the two go together. Money by itself is useless, and so exporting goods won't benefit your nation unless you can then use the money you're earning off them to import other goods.) However, there would still need to be a convincing reason why the specific good under consideration is more worth exporting than all of the other ones that you were presumably already aware when you made the decision to become an autarky in the first place. Clearly, a player that decided to be an autarky is already going to be disinclined to care for exporting goods, and if you want to change his mind, you will need a better reason than "some people have a good that they want to export". Likewise, there are enough sensible concerns surrounding genetically-modified foods that addressing the effects of autarky on them seems like a weird thing to focus on, and indeed you mostly don't focus on it.

[Cretox State]

Now, all of those are about imports, not exports, so in theory there is still room for an autarky reversal issue that specifically addresses the consequences of missing out on exports rather than imports. (Although in practice, the two go together. Money by itself is useless, and so exporting goods won't benefit your nation unless you can then use the money you're earning off them to import other goods.) However, there would still need to be a convincing reason why the specific good under consideration is more worth exporting than all of the other ones that you were presumably already aware when you made the decision to become an autarky in the first place. Clearly, a player that decided to be an autarky is already going to be disinclined to care for exporting goods, and if you want to change his mind, you will need a better reason than "some people have a good that they want to export". Likewise, there are enough sensible concerns surrounding genetically-modified foods that addressing the effects of autarky on them seems like a weird thing to focus on, and indeed you mostly don't focus on it.

I do understand what you're saying, but no matter how many times I reread the draft, I just don't see these problems you're describing. Maybe it's my author bias?

I mean, the way I see it, "important person tells you to do something because it benefits them and you by extension" is as good a reason as any other for Leader to do something, and gets used constantly in issues. And again, speakers caring more about profit and image than safety when the products are so clearly unsafe is the overarching joke here. This could just be an autarky-irrelevant GMO safety issue (which we don't seem to have for some reason) with a few small tweaks if it comes to it, and I could just write an autarky export reversal over mining or something like that, but I think the current angle is unique and I don't want to do away with that if I don't have to.

[Australian rePublic]

Wait, what? What makes you assume that such technology doesn't exist overseas? I mean, if you're an autarky, you wouldn't have access to international technology that would help advance your own technology the way that other countries do. Unless your nation is as large as China or India, I don't see that happening

[Australian rePublic]

China has 1/5 of the world's population. India has 1/5 of the world's population. That means that one in every five inventors would be Indian or Chinese. Those behamous of countries might be able to come up with a new invention under autarky due to sheet scale. However, India and China are the exception here, not the rule.

The average population of a country is approx. 40 million, and it's only that high because China, India and even the USA skew the statistics. Remove those behemoths, and it becomes significantly lower, but let's just stick to the 40 million mark. Now that would mean that the average country has 1/200 of the world's population. All else being equal, you should have 1/200 of the world's inventions. However, not all else is equal. Even doscounting wealth differences, the difference in the number of inventors, etc. And all else were equal due to your auturky policy, not all else is equal. Due to your stance on auturky, you can't import products from overseas, and therefore, you can't build upon existing inventions from overseas. Unless your auturky policy specifically allows for the trading knoweldge for inventions, you're going to have significantly less than 1/200 of all unique inventions come from your country. If someone will "invent" something it'll almost certainly be something that already exists or something minor that isn't worth.worrying about. The odds of inventing something unique unique are extremely unlikely, and even if it were to happen, under some million to one fluke, wouldn't it abide by the same technology sharing rules that already exist?

The closest we have to an auturky state in real life is North Korea. Aside from being really, really poor, North Korea isn't going to be onventing anything unique any time soon, because they don't have outside technology to build upon

[Verdant Haven]

- As a heads-up, the "Adult" condition applies to the whole issue, or not at all. It's handled differently than validities are.

- Option 2 focuses a little too much on claiming that Leader has been acting in a specific way towards the speaker. Perhaps redirect the accusation from Leader to their ministers. There's also a bit of weirdness with regard to "(McSanto) keeps suing me for patent infringement every time... one of their products lays eggs in my researchers' ear canals." Seems like something McSanto would be getting sued for, not the other way around. If this is in reference to lawsuits over seeds that spread naturally being in an "unapproved" field, might want to add a little bit of clarity.

- Option 4 isn't responding to the dilemma. The dilemma is a request to open the borders to trade. This option is just about domestic funding for GMOs.

- We try to avoid having more "reversal" options than "keep it" options when an issue challenge's a player's existing policies. In general, most people like and respect the nation's policies, whatever they are. I'd suggest having option 2 demand keeping the borders closed (to prevent over-expansion of "the big guy" as a monopoly) in addition to breaking down IP laws. Separate note: this option should have a validity to avoid nations with no copyright law (which we often allow to include patents), and to only go to those nations with a court system. I'd probably get rid of option 4 entirely, and put a doppelganger on this one for nations that the above validities would block.