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We currently have another poll going in A Liberal Haven, and we would love your input! Our last poll closed, and the results are available to be viewed by anyone interested :)
Should I be worried that the Civil Rights/Economy/PF rating of this oppressive nation is really similar to my primary one? ;-;
Greetings from the Sultanate of Polysaccharides, here is a complimentary cup of sugar.
Depends what you're going for in your primary nation ;P
I actually place less emphasis on Civil Rights, Economy, and Political Freedoms, since I think these tell you relatively little about the quality of life in that nation. Even though World Assembly categories are based on Freedom rankings, I think there is a surprising amount of variance within individual categories. Not all Capitalist Paradises or Democratic Socialists are the same!
Pizza
top 100: Red skywalker, Macroglup, Microglup
top 1000: Mum, PA Terror, Anarch, Nork, T-T, Bender
bottom 100: Nw hell rehab center
bottom 1000: Superior-I, Hippies, NONNY
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Welcome to P115, Lhomon, Cory the busta, Zamberdonia, Goshenwaish, and Mikeartica!
RIP, Qasiotopia, Shrekdom, and Far planes.
Superior Intelligence, Red skywalker, Draughtash, Techno-titania, and 4 othersCentral Kadigan, Nitliak, Siee-estas, and Blattaria
Dr. George, I really enjoyed reading your article, thank you. What impact does being a WA member have on a nation, other than influence?
Lowest Taxes
top 100: Macroglup, Red skywalker, Microglup, @!Anarchocapitalistan, 
Postapocalyptic Terror
top 1000: Mum, Nork, HRC, T-T, Hoosier, Son of Bender
bottom 1000: Hippies, Superior_I, Christminster0
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You're most welcome (and apologies to those who thought it was a waste of RMB space).
That's a good topic for a future article, Garchy! ;) I think of being in the WA as akin to attaching your three categories to a small stock market: some days you're up a little, some days you're down a little, but the average "investor" doesn't necessarily see any great net movement over a medium period of time. Like the stock market, it's almost impossible to time, you know, "buy low, sell high." You might have two issues that successively lower Civil Rights, or two issues that bolster your economy, or two issues that improve your environment. Overall, I don't see a net direction--over the long run, the differences that WA issues make is quite small, but real. I've seen nations that were right on the border between two government types, that have stopped answering issues, actually change government types because of individual WA resolutions, but I consider it likely that in the long run, nations experiencing that will find themselves restored to where they were. My current WA nation has all three categories at their maximum levels currently (although not at 100% right now), so obviously it can be done, with or without WA membership. The WA typically reveals how much a resolution will affect the three categories; if your primary goal is to build a world-class economy, for instance, and you see that the present issue being voted upon will have Significant downward influence over your economy, you might consider temporarily dropping out of the WA unless you are that region's WAD, in which case you have to remain a WA member continuously to remain the WAD for that region. If your WA nation is outside of its home region over an Update, it will lose all of its endorsements.
Remember that resolutions that pass the WA immediately take effect. One time, many years ago, the WA was about to pass a resolution that I considered to be anti-gay, so I resigned before the vote was done, both as a symbolic protest but also because I didn't want that law to affect my nation.
As a reminder, especially for newer nations reading this, that you, the player, can only have 1 nation in the WA at any given time; having 2 or more is called "multying" and is considered a prime TOS violation. If this is the first time you've been caught and you only had two nations in the WA at the same time, the Mods might just issue you a stern warning and strip one of the two nations of its WA membership. Being caught multiple times or multying egregiously will carry considerably harsher penalties, including having all of your nations barred from ever again having WA membership to even being banned from the game (all of your nations are deleted and a DOS "delete on sight" tag will be placed on your IP address so that future attempts to join NS will likely be immediately thwarted). Some people try to find clever little ways to avoid being caught multying, but my STRONG recommendation is not to try-- the benefits are too small and the penalties too great to make multying worth the risk. I can envision a future time in which one might legally be allowed a second WA nation for a significant payment or significant contribution (maybe tied to having your nation Commended in the Security Council), but I consider such unlikely.
You are correct in identifying Influence as the exception that proves the rule. The only ways to gather significant Influence are:
(1) to be one of a few members of a small region, especially being the sole occupant of your own region; or
(2) to be a WA nation with a significant number of endorsements, held over time.
In this second regard, nations who become the WAD of one of the feeders or sinkers in the game will usually have more endorsements than P115 has members, so they will tend to zoom up the Influence ladder very quickly. On the other hand, regarding (1), a truly ancient nation that has never left the large region to which it has belonged and has never been a member of the WA, even after 10 years, will still be a Minnow, the lowest one can be. For most people, most of the time, the only way to improve Influence is to stay a WA member with many endorsements in ONE region over the course of time. Region hopping will tend to destroy your influence, as you immediately stop gathering influence in the home region and begin accumulating trivial amounts of Influence in the new region. I speculate that perhaps you lose half of your Influence within a region simply for leaving it, although if you return to that same region fairly quickly, you will gain back your remaining Influence, i.e., you don't start from 0 again. If you have a wanderlust or want to be a member of a region that travels to the Region of the Day, for instance, do so with your non-WA nation(s)! Raiders and defenders who routinely go on missions will seldom accumulate much Influence; to overwhelm a native or R/D delegate in power, it usually takes a coordinated attack with many nations right before an update successfully to snatch away the WAD in a region. Keeping or losing the WAD is a strict matter of total endorsements in a region, but for a new WAD in a Founderless region, all actions, from setting up a regional password to banjecting your opponents, require Influence to do, so recently invaded regions tend to be more vulnerable to a counterattack than comparable other regions.
That's probably TMI, but I wanted to cover the basics of WA membership.
Topic: Do you feel that religion should be taught in public schools. Not as a form of indoctrination, but as a "social studies" or "world history" topic.
Article:
http://qz.com/383348/if-we-dont-teach-religion-in-schools-us-kids-wont-understand-the-rest-of-the-world/
Dr george, that's exactly the type of information I was looking for, thanks again! I have noticed a few anomalies with influence, most of which you answered for me - take Derkomia, a nation which has been in ALH about as long as my WAD nation, yet has more influence than the WAD - I speculate it's because of the cost of influence in setting passwords, ejecting raiders, etc. (of which you covered above). Interesting also is the case of the good nation Sheila anteres, who has been in ALH longer than the WAD, without WA status, yet has "Ambassador" status! Very impressive.
Now the only thing I need to figure out - Easter eggs ;-)
Dr george, this perfectly explains why I have very high civil rights and political freedom, but an abysmal economy. I do not trust "big business" to self-regulate (a truly moronic idea if ever there was one) and if NS bases economy mostly on rate of deregulation, then I suppose I will remain scrapping the bottom.
In actuality, much more goes into an economy then just deregulation. I feel that my policies, which are designed to focus on the financial health and well-being of my middle and working classes, would do more to help my economy than would allowing uncompetitive monopolies to thrive and to basically enslave my populace while they destroy my environment all in the myopic pursuit of profit.
My ideal would be to have an H-M-H Civil Rights Lovefest.
I have voted FOR the General Assembly resolution "Rights of Indigenous Peoples".
I am open to debate on the issue.
It's more complicated than that. I would argue that subsidization of business plays just as large of a role in gameplay as deregulation - and that a savvy subsidizer can ultimately attain a Frightening economy even with private enterprise being illegal, although it may a long time to achieve this.
Please notice as well that the strength of one's economy has nothing to do with the amount of Economic Freedom - although these two values are often correlated, they are not identical.
As an example, consider my own national stats: I am presently a Corrupt Dictatorship, which means my freedom distribution is MLL. But despite the fact that I have Low Economic freedoms (i.e. a high degree of regulation and high taxes), I also have a Frightening Economy, ranked at 97/100, and if you look at the tend page you'll see that despite some ups and downs the overall long term trend for Holy Mother Church has been one of increasing economic growth, despite having a tightly regulated private sector.
One of my alts, Hanguk, is a Left Wing Utopia (HLH), has outlawed private enterprise for some now, but has also had a Frightening Economy of 99/100 for a while now. Despite an initial economic crash, which I believe was caused by banning cars and abolishing capitalism at the same time, Hanguk has been cruising along as an economic powerhouse, powered solely by state owned industry and with a very low level of income inequality.
In contrast, consider a nation like New sade: they are an Anarchy, with a freedom distribution that is H-H-H, but in spite of high economic freedoms (i.e. literally no regulation) their economy is merely "Good" and has remained fairly stagnant for a long period. New Sade is fairly unique as nations go, and I'm sure they have their own take on the matter, but I attribute this fairly lackluster economic performance to a lack of subsidies (or indeed any government spending at all!) and a truly insane level of crime.
Dr george: very interesting read. I would like to add that political rights seem more tied to civil rights than vice versa. This may be because there are more issues that pertain to civil rights than there are those that deal more exclusively with political rights. This makes it easier to have a nation with higher civil rights and low political rights (benevolent dictatorship, libertarian police state) than one with low civil rights and high political freedoms (free market paradise, tyranny by majority). I haven't seen a survey about it in years but my own observations make the LCR/HPR nations very rare indeed. The biggest problem I find with this category of government types is it is difficult to tailor your nation to other specifics (great environment, no gun rights, etc) while maintaining the government type. One of the best ways to get a nation with LCR/HPR while keeping your other priorities intact (though it takes patience) is the combo Terrorists Strike City Center (last option) & Extremists On Ballot Sheet (second option). Your civil rights might go up by the first issue but it is easier to lower civil rights without costing you too big a hit on political freedoms.
I've always thought the first two choice in eminent domain issue to be about equal economically, since the second option might not pay compensation but is still spending in areas that don't directly benefit economy (day care centers, hospitals, etc.), while the third one was the worst economically since government had to pay compensation and it could only be used for government purposes. Are you saying the first option is worse economically (no eminent domain) than the second AND third options? Or just the second option.
Post self-deleted by Central Kadigan.
Holy mother church, I am not a fan of the public subsidization of private businesses. All that does is privatize the rewards of capitalism while foisting the public on the hook for all of the risk. If you do well, then you get to keep everything, but if you do poorly then everyone else will bail you out. To borrow from Winston Churchill: I happen to think that capitalism is the worst economic system - except for all of the others. But government subsidization perverts an already perverted system.
That said, I do believe that regulations can go too far, but I would rather have an overregulated marketplace than one in which businesses run rampant over the rights of my populace. I do not trust “big government”, but I will choose that scenario over “big business” 10 times out of 10.
The issue seems rather contentious in the overall vote (currently 56-44) and I have received at least 4 telegrams on the issue, but our region have voted 7-1 FOR it.
It is worth noting that governments have armies, jails and a monopoly on the use of force. Businesses, even the biggest, have none of these things. This does not mean that businesses should not be regulated, but it does mean that abuses of government are far more to be feared than abuses of businesses. (IMO, of course.) Another corollary of this fact is that it is probably best for government and business to be opposed to each other. A business with the government standing behind it is far more dangerous than one which stands apart from it.
Let me add to the above by noting that, of course, big businesses can in fact have armies and a willingness to use deadly force, as with the Mafia and the drug cartels of various nations. This is hardly ever the sort of organization people are referring to when they talk about the dangers of "big business" however, and "business regulation" tends to have remarkably little impact on them. :) If you think Wal-Mart is evil for its labor policies, just try unionizing the Mafia rank and file!
This is true, and a fair point. I would observe, however, that when a government goes awry and uses it's armies, jails, and 'force' against its people, that these abuses are usually overt and blatantly obvious, and thus subject to popular opposition.
Conversely, I would observe that when a corporation attempts to leverage its amassed power and influence to squash its competition through monopoly, enslave its workers (through pittance wages, long work days, and dangerous working conditions), and sacrifice *everything* in the name of profit (environment, worker safety, public welfare, &c) - that it has not, in fact, "gone awry" at all - it is behaving exactly as a business is supposed to and expect to.
It is the purpose (one of, anyway) of the government that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people" to hold the excesses of "big business" in cheque.
I'd also add that I agree wholeheartedly with Nw hell rehab center's point: A business with the government standing behind it is far more dangerous than one which stands apart from it. I absolutely agree! A similar sentiment is often attributed to Italian politician Benito Mussolini: "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."
I wasn't making an argument about real world economics, I was talking about NS gameplay.
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