Nation States seems to have a bias

[Carpathenia]

Has anyone else noticed a bias in a lot of the issues you encounter?

Any right-wing solution I pick to an issue lowers the intelligence. Any left-wing solution however makes the people of your nation significantly smarter.

[Katganistan]

I hadn't noticed that, actually. I suppose if you want to check the veracity of your claim, you could look at the issues in Got Issues and see if that is actually the case or if it is only your perception.

Also understand that it's satire, so all of the choices are extreme and have unintended consequences.

[The Objectivist Commonwealth]

Let me think here. Indeed, funding education will increase intelligence, as will prioritising science over religion, for example. Can you provide specific choices that seem strange?

[Australian rePublic]

Yes, many issues have left wing bias, in my opinion

[Ransium]

These threads aren't terribly helpful. Do you expect us to go back and recode every issue based on your vague suggestions of bias? Feel free to point out bias in individual issues stats in the Unusual Stats effects thread. Feel free to become good enough of an issue writer to be an editor so you can suggest your own stats (a conservative bend would probably help your chances since we are looking for diversity). But please don't make another of these general 'editors are biased' threads and think you are helping something. Your not. We are volunteers doing our best, we try to achieve fairness, but we are humans and as such are inherently biased (as are you). I'll note that I've also seen threads accusing us of having a conservative bias too, so no matter what we do some people will be unhappy.

[Singapore no2]

Most people think that they are biased as well.

But if almost everyone thinks that it is biased, doesn't that mean that it treads a middle ground, and in fact you, are the one who is biased?

[Caracasus]

Has anyone else noticed a bias in a lot of the issues you encounter?

Any right-wing solution I pick to an issue lowers the intelligence. Any left-wing solution however makes the people of your nation significantly smarter.

I'm pretty sure that intelligence is an average score. There's nothing that says a nation with an abysmally low average intelligence wouldn't have some very bright people. As others have noted the typically "left wing" approach of funding/promoting education etc. is going to be more likely to increase intelligence overall.

It's also kind of important to note that we only work with what we're given. Most issues are written by players, which are then edited by us. If you feel that there is space for an issue that allows for a more right-wing option increasing average intelligence you could always write one. Maybe one where a nation can decide to offer lucrative tax-breaks to well-educated foreign nationals fleeing high-tax societies?

[Liberillia]

Has anyone else noticed a bias in a lot of the issues you encounter?

Any right-wing solution I pick to an issue lowers the intelligence. Any left-wing solution however makes the people of your nation significantly smarter.

If you have even a quick Google you'll find news pieces, and scientific reports discussing the direct link between lower IQs/intelligence and more conservative/prejudice/right-wing beliefs.
Here's just one:
https://www.livescience.com/18132-intel ... acism.html

[Australian rePublic]

Has anyone else noticed a bias in a lot of the issues you encounter?

Any right-wing solution I pick to an issue lowers the intelligence. Any left-wing solution however makes the people of your nation significantly smarter.

If you have even a quick Google you'll find news pieces, and scientific reports discussing the direct link between lower IQs/intelligence and more conservative/prejudice/right-wing beliefs.
Here's just one:
https://www.livescience.com/18132-intel ... acism.html

Those studies are both bullshit and bias

[The United Providences of Perland]

Has anyone else noticed a bias in a lot of the issues you encounter?

Any right-wing solution I pick to an issue lowers the intelligence. Any left-wing solution however makes the people of your nation significantly smarter.

If you have even a quick Google you'll find news pieces, and scientific reports discussing the direct link between lower IQs/intelligence and more conservative/prejudice/right-wing beliefs.
Here's just one:
https://www.livescience.com/18132-intel ... acism.html

Don't be that guy bro. As for the possible bias, I honestly think most of the issues are so weird that bias, if any, is not intended and you'd have to physically put effort into looking for it. Not saying there aren't biased issues, but not that many I've found. The only really biased ones I've seen have been two option ones where it's just Conservative v Liberal and the stats get wonky for my poor Socialist nation when I choose the conservative option.

[A Humanist Prognostication]

Has anyone else noticed a bias in a lot of the issues you encounter?

Any right-wing solution I pick to an issue lowers the intelligence. Any left-wing solution however makes the people of your nation significantly smarter.

If you have even a quick Google you'll find news pieces, and scientific reports discussing the direct link between lower IQs/intelligence and more conservative/prejudice/right-wing beliefs.
Here's just one:
https://www.livescience.com/18132-intel ... acism.html

All of us in the social sciences outside of psychology know that the only thing "IQ" tends to demonstrate is how easy it is to statistically rig results with "IQ" tests. Or any questionnaire, since biased language is impossible to avoid since the researcher must inject their own cognition into that of the respondent in order to even ask a question.

Anyhoo, some "libertarians"/conservatives racists thought they proved that people of African descent were "naturally" stupider too:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

My non-Mensa qualifying brain tissue suspects that a lot of the criticism directed at that pile of nonsense also applies here.

And more generally, I would strongly hope that all of the issues in the game are strongly biased in some direction. Otherwise, no cognition at all would have gone into them, and they'd probably be rather bland.

[Caracasus]

If you have even a quick Google you'll find news pieces, and scientific reports discussing the direct link between lower IQs/intelligence and more conservative/prejudice/right-wing beliefs.
Here's just one:
https://www.livescience.com/18132-intel ... acism.html

All of us in the social sciences outside of psychology know that the only thing "IQ" tends to demonstrate is how easy it is to statistically rig results with "IQ" tests. Or any questionnaire, since biased language is impossible to avoid since the researcher must inject their own cognition into that of the respondent in order to even ask a question.

Anyhoo, some "libertarians"/conservatives racists thought they proved that people of African descent were "naturally" stupider too:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

My non-Mensa qualifying brain tissue suspects that a lot of the criticism directed at that pile of nonsense also applies here.

And more generally, I would strongly hope that all of the issues in the game are strongly biased in some direction. Otherwise, no cognition at all would have gone into them, and they'd probably be rather bland.

I remember one of my lecturers telling us that "Intelligence tests are an excellent measure of how well someone does at intelligence tests"

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Looking at the world census tables, it certainly seems that many of the nations with high intelligence have left wing politics. Of course, that's not universal. Of note as well, the lower end is mostly full of dictatorships. Make of that what you will, but personally I don't consider corporate police states to be "right wing".

Candlewhisper Archive does pretty well on this stat, and we're a small-government, near-zero taxation, heavily pro-capitalist nation with no spending on social welfare.

Likewise, while there's a lot of left wing states topping the charts on intelligence, I suspect that a large part of this is because of the "no downside to spending" exploit that NS suffers from, where the only thing that goes up with government spending is taxation rate, and there's no economic harm from excessive spending.

Naturally, if you put money into projects that are pro-education, your people get smarter. And if you have huge government, you're going to look somewhat left-wing.

koffee could also be shown as an example of a smart right wing nation.

Broadly though, a lot of what you're seeing here may be simulation deficiencies rather than issue biases. For example, there's no real way within the game engine to show the benefits of good private schools, or the drive to innovate created by the free market, at least not at a structural level.

However, there's also means for these things to be addressed on an issue-by-issue level, so please do consider writing issues about this. I'd love to see an issue linking economic freedom to innovation on a conceptual level.

[Trotterdam]

Make of that what you will, but personally I don't consider corporate police states to be "right wing".

I consider nations with more civil than economic freedoms to be "left-wing", nations with more economic than civil freedoms to be "right-wing", and nations with similar amounts of both (this includes everything from Psychotic Dictatorship to Anarchy) to be "center-wing", with political freedoms entirely disregarded in this simple one-dimensional classification. Corporate Police States would count as "right-wing" by that classification. (And Iron Fist Socialists would be "left-wing".)

This, of course, is why NationStates doesn't use a one-dimensional classification and instead tracks three separate freedom axes.

Naturally, if you put money into projects that are pro-education, your people get smarter. And if you have huge government, you're going to look somewhat left-wing.

Right-wing people would argue that private for-profit schools are more competent than government-run ones.

Broadly though, a lot of what you're seeing here may be simulation deficiencies rather than issue biases. For example, there's no real way within the game engine to show the benefits of good private schools, or the drive to innovate created by the free market, at least not at a structural level.

Ah, you already mentioned those.

As I've long said, the chief factor here is that NationStates is, at its core, a government simulator. The government is the only part of the country that you control, and is modelled in more detail than anything else, so things tend to only get done if the government is doing them.

Who wants to play a game where the smartest way to play is to sit back and do nothing?

[A Humanist Prognostication]

Who wants to play a game where the smartest way to play is to sit back and do nothing?

Code: Select all

 SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?

[Trotterdam]

NationStates had a nuclear war minigame last April, and many of us used it as an excuse to randomly start nuking people just because we can.

[Jutsa]

I recreated ten alts, founded the union against humans, and died horribly within a day by trying to nuke the most powerful region. That was fun!

[Nouveau Yathrib]

I'm going to put this post by Candlewhisper Archive here.

There is a definite bias, which is hard to avoid, but which we strive to do so.

That is that the vast majority of contributors, be they editors or writers, seem to be male. I admit, I haven't confirmed this with a poll, but the general pronoun being deployed is "he". This is likely because gamer culture is so heavily male - there might be a lot of female gamers out there, but they're less vocal on the internet.

Also, there's a strong westernised bias, likely because this is an English language game. There's a lot of Americans and Brits on the team. This has definitely biased the language of the game, with terms like Parliament, MP, Senate and so on being obvious signs, with subtler things present like the stereotyped presentation of communist countries, the high emphasis on issues based on dilemmas faced by western governments, and so on. We've got issues on high speed monorail, fur clothes, Neo-Nazi extremists, university fees, cheese and pizza. There's a lot of westernisation in the presentation. We don't have issues on male/female population ratios, on broad population illiteracy (#273 Is our children learning?), regional concentration of industry (#497 The Widening Gyre), village governance (#111 Southern @@NAME@@ Demands Semi-Autonomy is about local government and #526 Any Idea Where The Law Is, Bessie? is about village authority), effects of water shortages on rice harvest (#096 Water Supply Problems Becoming A Major Drain doesn't mention rice specifically, but it does concern the plight of farmers), and so on.

There's also a bias of preferred topics. We talk about technology, gaming and pop culture way more than the general population is. There's a lot of issues that deal with the internet. Again, this is selection bias of available writers. We've got a simulation game on the internet, spawned by the promotion of a science fiction book. It's like wikipedia's inherent biases - compare the number of articles about Star Trek to the number of articles about Lipstick. Now compare that to the ratio of written information about these topics in broader media... clearly lipstick is underrepresented.
The same is true here on NS. We've got nowhere near the content of wikipedia, but we're just as biased in content.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Note that was a year ago but not a vast amount has changed. Women are better represented on the team than before, at least.

Also, please note that the above post you quoted is NOT a direct quote of my post, but also incorporates elements of Trotterdam's post.

[USS Monitor]

We still need more issues about lipstick.

Now that I think of it... Are there any issues about toxic chemicals in cosmetics? IRL, some of the chemicals in hair dye, skin-lightening cream, and hair relaxer are pretty nasty, and black feminists tend to complain about how black women are disproportionately affected.

[Chan Island]

Another one of these threads?

If you think the issues are biased, contribute your own, become an editor and correct for the discrepancies.

[The Blaatschapen]

Another one of these threads?

If you think the issues are biased, contribute your own, become an editor and correct for the discrepancies.

Quite unhelpful.

A player plays the game, and has comments on what they believe is happening. It does not mean that you can only provide feedback by becoming highly involved in the process of creating the game (rather than playing the game).

Of course, the feedback itself is vague (as has been mentioned) , so questions regarding that in order to get better feedback is welcome. But we should not set the expectation that the only way to be allowed criticism on the game is by becoming a creator.

[Merconitonitopia]

I'm pretty sure that intelligence is an average score. There's nothing that says a nation with an abysmally low average intelligence wouldn't have some very bright people. As others have noted the typically "left wing" approach of funding/promoting education etc. is going to be more likely to increase intelligence overall.

Aye. A left-wing culture would be interested in empowering and enlightening all folks with education and such. A right-wing culture would be more interested in giving most folks the practical things they need for work and life, and instead having a small group of various highly intelligent visionaries and the like to guide the simple-minded masses.

[Petrolheadia]

There certainly is an issue while choosing not to subsidize food production automatically puts your Economy score at 0.

[The Transylvanian States]

Yepp it is true it is Very left wing