by Max Barry

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Region: Refugia

Dacay wrote:Furthermore, it's a really poorly written proposal. There's no definition for the word "green space" in it, which makes it extremely open to interpretation by literally everybody. As cheekily and accurately remarked by a longtime Refugi in our Discord server;

As I said in the Discord, I'm not entirely sure that can be misinterpreted like that, using the ambiguity of a real term (https://www3.epa.gov/region1/eco/uep/openspace.html). If I mandated in a GA proposal that member states had to put up signs saying 'Fine for staring at this sign', it wouldn't be a valid interpretation of people in those member states claiming it to mean 'Fine to stare at this sign'. Bureaucracy would rain hell on them, those poor souls. Similarly, using the ambiguity of a term with one meaning and one meaning only IRL to support breaking GA law is...iffy. And this isn't a case of reasonable either. Because bending that term beyond the author's intent isn't a misinterpretation. You are following the resolution in a reasonable manner, just reasonable to yourself.

I'm only like 75% believing that this is the case though.

Although what's interesting about reasonable though, and this might be a bit of a textwall, is that there's no good way to properly enforce serious violations of GA law. Fines? They don't have to recognize the IAO. They may just resign membership. And so there's a whole spiral into descent of the meaning of GA law and what matters. All of it might as well have no meaning. So if you really stretch reasonable, then there's no real punishment to it. Does this mean that using reasonable doesn't matter? Because member states could break it regardless? And using reasonable would just make resolutions easier to write? Isn't that a good thing?

An international tribunal should be the final step of how GA violations get punished. Dibs on any resolution like that. While there would be no OOC action for breaking GA law, because it's a game, there would be IC punishments. Not sure if you could sidestep those as easily. But those don't really matter, right? Well, OOC of course not, nothing would happen. OOC nothing would happen to your nation if you violated GA law either. So all GA laws have no meaning OOC? No. They do because people choose to play the game and choose to recognize that they must not break GA law. The GA might as well not exist if nobody squabbled over the specifics of GA law because they wouldn't follow it anyway.

So in conclusion, there needs to be more of an IC punishment for breaking GA law than what's currently offered with easy-to-sidestep fines. And also dibs on a resolution like that.

Responding to your comments Dacay:
- I agree, hotline is weird.
- The government will oversee it. Your concern is baseless here.
- Good point with the private-public overlap.
- This will pay for it.
- No, because it's a suggestion. There doesn't need to be supervision to ensure it's carried out.
- Most parks already are free of charge, I don't think it will be too damaging. Furthermore, it's a recommendation, so no actual worry.
- Yeah, definitions are needed.

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