Political Apathy / Good or Bad?

[Croatian empaths]

Now I am confused totally... After certain political decision my political apathy rose, but in a same time political rank also rose to World Benchmark.

Does political apathy in this game is good to be high? Wouldn't that makes population doing less participation in political matters? I thought how questioning everything is the key to progress in rising society freedoms? Meaning political apathy should be at lower level... let say 33% would be ideal. Questions yes, but not to many in a every single insignificant detail.

[Leutria]

Political apathy is largely irreverent to the political freedom stat. People might have a lot of political freedom and not care about it, or very little but have an opinion on anything. Just looking at the top 4 nations for political apathy in order they have ratings of superb, below average, excellent, and few for their political freedom.

Also, it is not a percent, the highest nation in the world has a stat of 202.25 whatever (that is literally what the unit is called). Likely devised just as an arbitrary measure, not to correlate to any real world metric.

[Croatian empaths]

Ok, but still could you be more specific does higher number means more docile population in political sense and vice versa lower number will make citizens politically more proactive?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Meh, why should I care?

[Leutria]

Ok, but still could you be more specific does higher number means more docile population in political sense and vice versa lower number will make citizens politically more proactive?

Yes, that would likely be true.

[Bears Armed]

Ok, but still could you be more specific does higher number means more docile population in political sense and vice versa lower number will make citizens politically more proactive?

It can mean that the population isn't "docile", it's a 'proactive' one that simply happens to like the way that the current government is doing things and therefore currently isn't campaigning for changes in policy or government...

[Polis Diamonil]

I've enjoyed thinking about political apathy in this game's model, but I haven't come to any firm conclusions on it.

I tend to imagine that political apathy increases are either, (1) "Okay, my concerns are being dealt with adequately by other people, so I'll go do something else," or else (2) "Ugh, my concerns won't be satisfied, but it's not worth starting a riot; I'll go do something else." Whereas political apathy decreases are either, (3) "Hey! This politics thing isn't as bad as it was supposed to be," or else (4) "That policy is terrible and my concerns WILL be satisfied; I'll find a way!"

In all of these cases, there's been a change in which particular individuals are paying attention to politics every time the political apathy score shifts.

Issue #798 probably increases political apathy because a government which recognizes "dihydrogen monoxide", is pleasant towards scientists, and can respect the need for stability common to scientists, is a government that scientists don't need to pay a great deal of attention to. I would say that's a good thing, because scientists are supposed to be working on tasks other than politics. So that would be an example of a type 1 shift in political apathy. The other choices on that issue avert the political apathy increase among scientists, but they do so at various price tags. The first one rewards energetic rudeness and common mannerisms among scientists; the third one makes the government more noxious to scientists; the last one recruits scientists towards the cause of better explaining things to stupid people so that they can function in an advanced society. Of course that completely derails them from science, to the dubious "compensation" that it probably increases primitivism more than it reduces science... if that's a good thing. I think it might be, personally; I sometimes favor primitivism gains... although... I'm generally averse to any loss of scientific advance in that cause, and I think the real advantage of the fourth option on that card is that it rewards someone who objects (an "increasingly incredulous" observer at the window) to seeing members of the nation's scientific community throwing hours of loud partying. That's not really the kind of behavior that scientists are known for.

Other issues that could raise/lower political apathy can probably be broken down in a similar manner.

[Croatian empaths]

I've enjoyed thinking about political apathy in this game's model, but I haven't come to any firm conclusions on it.

I tend to imagine that political apathy increases are either, (1) "Okay, my concerns are being dealt with adequately by other people, so I'll go do something else," or else (2) "Ugh, my concerns won't be satisfied, but it's not worth starting a riot; I'll go do something else." Whereas political apathy decreases are either, (3) "Hey! This politics thing isn't as bad as it was supposed to be," or else (4) "That policy is terrible and my concerns WILL be satisfied; I'll find a way!"

In all of these cases, there's been a change in which particular individuals are paying attention to politics every time the political apathy score shifts.

Other issues that could raise/lower political apathy can probably be broken down in a similar manner.

So are you telling me, how satisfied people or groups in general start to pay less attention to politic and thus creates more stability of the country? But in a same time to much political apathy leads to stagnant society with no new ideas, where nothing changes and thus progress comes sluggish?

[Polis Diamonil]

I've enjoyed thinking about political apathy in this game's model, but I haven't come to any firm conclusions on it.

I tend to imagine that political apathy increases are either, (1) "Okay, my concerns are being dealt with adequately by other people, so I'll go do something else," or else (2) "Ugh, my concerns won't be satisfied, but it's not worth starting a riot; I'll go do something else." Whereas political apathy decreases are either, (3) "Hey! This politics thing isn't as bad as it was supposed to be," or else (4) "That policy is terrible and my concerns WILL be satisfied; I'll find a way!"

In all of these cases, there's been a change in which particular individuals are paying attention to politics every time the political apathy score shifts.

Other issues that could raise/lower political apathy can probably be broken down in a similar manner.

So are you telling me, how satisfied people or groups in general start to pay less attention to politic and thus creates more stability of the country? But in a same time to much political apathy leads to stagnant society with no new ideas, where nothing changes and thus progress comes sluggish?

I can see where you'd get that, but another way of thinking about it is that political apathy is a source of empowerment for the tendencies already ruling the nation. With less opposition, they'll do more of what they were already tending to do. That could be stagnation, sure, if the predominant tendency in the nation was doing a whole lot of nothing; it could also be a lot of other things.

So if scientific advancement is already going up, apathy would tend to strengthen the upwards trend of science.