Post Archive

I still agree with the previous discussion about Ariusgrad. I'm open to counterarguments but I don't foresee any.

Since we're talking about WA proposals lately, now that it's reached quorum I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on IA's 'Repeal: "Supporting and Valuing the Humanities"':

Proposal: https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_view_proposal/id=imperium_anglorum_1605247913

Target: https://www.nationstates.net/page=WA_past_resolution/id=495/council=1

Thread: https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=491107

I've spent a little while weighing its arguments and reading the threads, including this one for another repeal shot down in June. One of the pillars of the repeal rests on this clause in the original legislation (emphasis mine):

The repeal argues, correctly, that this cuts off funding upon receipt of a report regardless of credibility. It also argues that this clause applies to all allowed GAO funding, rather than pertaining only to the allowance for humanities set up by the rest of the resolution. I'm not convinced this is a reasonable reading; if we're applying such a broad interpretation of the language, the first clause, "If incorrect use of funds is reported," would also apply to all GAO funding and balloon the scope of the proposal, but the repeal author doesn't apply this logic consistently.

Here are my qualms with the remainder of their arguments:

I don't disagree with need-based grants, but this is not a compelling way of making that argument. Need/benefit are not determined solely by whether you have that amount of cash on hand, and the original legislation was not strictly targeted at nations incapable of providing any humanities programs. A lot of the points in this section are nested in an understanding that's unfortunately only outright stated on the forums: "The text of the target does not give the GAO discretion to reject reports." But the WHF seems to me to have the discretion to decide whether a proposal "[accomplishes] either in part or in full the following objectives," because, you know, someone's got to, and they were established for the sole purpose of administering those funds. Again, there's some inconsistent reading going on here where the repeal author uses strict textual interpretation for the abilities of the WHF but cites GA#80 as a favourable comparison, which makes no effort to clarify how recipients will be deemed genuinely needing. These concerns of fraud seem overblown within this framework.

You can't quantify abstract accomplishment, so I'm not sure what the repeal author wants here. Projects either contribute to the study of humanities or they don't, and that doesn't become any more quantifiable no matter how many absurd hypotheticals of mosaic jacuzzis and spiritual zeppelins you bring up.

There is absolutely no interpretation of the legislation in which this is reasonable.

I find the comparison to GA#80 lacking. It promotes the same goals insofar as both resolutions financially support education systems, but GA#80 fails to include several academic foci, such as music and anthropology, and is thus unable to provide support for development of those curricula. GA#495 is not superfluous, no matter how much you dislike the subjects it benefits.

I'm not entirely opposed to repealing and replacing #495, particularly if it strengthens the support and tightens up the functions of the necessary bureaucracy, but that's not the given basis for the repeal. I think what's laid out there is a) pretty weasely in its legal interpretation, and b) fundamentally opposed to the direction of the proposal rather than its execution. I'm not going to be too sore if this repeal passes, but that doesn't mean it's not shoddy.

I agree with all of these points. I actually feel bad I don't have a lot to contribute to this discussion, but it's another one of those that requires a level of close reading I don't think I've developed. I'm really happy we have people like you around who can point out these issues, otherwise I might have supported it on the surface level of "Oh yeah, I guess he's technically right about that one sentence". Thanks for this <3

Oh, I should have mentioned that RRSR#9 Excessive Waiting Reform has passed and has been added to the thing of things that's on the thing.

Today's question for the chat: If you had to change the number of toes that people had, how many would you select.

Twelve, six per foot.

Zero.

Green week has concluded! Hooray Green Week!

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1455778

FLOWERS FLOWERS FLOWERS FLOWERSSSSSS! *nods*

And poor Samu ;-;

Now that's a lotta damage.

Hello Ref--wait I was told not to say that ever again--people! To immediately follow up on Green Week I've put together another week called "Wholesome Week"! Please view this dispatch for more details about the week and how to participate. Two legendary cards are up for grabs: Carrasatova and Lamoni!

Special thanks to Refuge Isle and Sylh Alanor for helping me in their own ways to put this together!

I just realized that I believe half of my nation is unemployed... I should probably fix that

Thank you for the cookie! Eats the cookie

Commend TB has been interesting so far. The people I expected to be against it have been for it, and the people I've expected to be for it have been against, and it's all for a variety of different reasons. In the East, the opinion was raised that the content regarding defending is sufficient and substantial enough to warrant a commendation on its own. I have no opinion on this. I suspect, however, that even if it were the greatest writing on the face of the earth, XKI still wouldn't go for it because of resentment for the switch and how it happened. I'm sympathetic towards TB in that regard: Everyone should be able to move on or switch sides without resentment or long-term injury.

This may be the best representation of my feelings about the text. For me, I don't think that the resolution is really about TB so much that it is about Jakker making a resolution to commend a second TBH member out of the novelty of doing so. And, while I won't discuss the content of DMs, I think it would be very silly political posturing to say that this wasn't the case, and that commending TB is just a convenient bi-product (although I'm sure he likes TB quite a lot). And you can argue that all SC resolutions have those kinds of undercurrents and sub-goals, that's fine. But I'm less inclined to support them when those undercurrents rub me the wrong way or look like they're not really supporting the spirit of the SC.

I think it if were really about TB and his work and his story, it would and should pull the reader into understanding what all happened, why it mattered, and why it makes TB stand out among everyone else who isn't yet worthy of a commend. It should tell that narrative story and make people want to read it. If the SC isn't a platform to talk about things like that, then I'm just uninterested in it. Will be voting against.

swims around happily while observing serious discussion

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Also welcome Bellerre, I'm happy you're here!

Hello! It's nice to meet you ^-^ If you have discord, we have a special mask for friendly diplomats and you can hang out with us there. Otherwise we're always happy to have you around the RMB.

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https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1287372

Thanks! It’s the "New West Indies" alt to my normal Karteria flag. Someone was kind enough to make it for me.

what.

Is there any established canon relating to the regional map? Like, is it its own world or just a set of islands in, say, the middle of the pacific ocean? I'm only asking because I have plans to make a bunch of new lore for UwUsberg soon, and I want to keep it in line with whatever stories already exist.

From an upcoming dispatch :3

Essentially Refugia is its own place, and we connect to the outside world through Travel Runes (see some examples in the Foreign Affairs Dispatch heeeeeeere:)

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1458987

As for my own personal lore, the Alanori inhabited the forest where they currently live for thousands of years, dating back at least to 250BCE when written records begin. More on that here:

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=sylh_alanor/detail=factbook/id=1314010

This raises a small query across my mind, how do we get people here? Do their people get transported via travel runes or do they find their way here?

Travellers always seem to find their way into new places :) by what strange magic or fate, it is not up to us to say~ Also we don't have a military, why would we need one?

Also I thought I'd bring this up, potential new embassy for us to check out ^-^ poll will be up as soon as the current one is completed.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1464354

Elenaraghaenaris was founded 500 years ago after the Daemon people overthrew their Emeralis overlords because they loathed the classist way that Elenarahaenaris was being run. T'was a very bloody revolution because they committed regicide upon the Emeralis nobility after defeating them. Our island to the right of the one which our capital is is was gained 200 years ago, they were no native inhabitants. Our left island, which holds our capital is named Halistram(hal-lis-stram), and the right one is called Eyby(pronounced EB) and its main city is Draford(draw-ford), named after its expansive cave networks (the Daemon word for cavern is "dral'fier(pronounced draw-le-fe-air)). We have an English-French accent and our language has 26 letters that all have English counterparts, they correlate to English letters, it's called Avista. I can DM you a picture of the lettering system if you'd like. We also have two numbering systems, one for practicality(the standard 1 2 3), and one for formality, which is composed of line and dot patterns.

I see. Thank you for clarifying.

How does one interact with these people and where is there centre of government activity?

Yggdrasil seems very mysterious to me and I don't think I've ever heard from any of them outside of recruitment from Vandy.

Is there much of an outside world outside the map or are lets say Nova Nova Hibernia and Avalonia actually just across the ocean from each other? Also, is it possible for real natural disasters specific to certain regions (ex: tropical cyclone activity) to happen on the map? Could theoretically, nations bordering tropical waters be hit by a tropical cyclone?

I think we should have directions to the regions we have embassies in.

Yeah, I was just trying to understand what "references to other regions" meant.

Welcome Ntrc to Refugia ^-^ if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Everyone here is super nice and knowledgeable about stuff.

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Yeah I understood it afterwards but I was very very confused at first...

Hello, I'm sorry to hear about your general.

Welcome to Refugia, comrade. If you need any help, just ask us. Also, F in the chat for your general.

Don't worry in my country once you turn 17 you have to serive at least one year in the military

Hay at least our military wolnt fall enless you bomb all our city's

Have we talked about this one yet? https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_view_proposal/id=honeydewistania_1605675990 I’m honestly not sure my thoughts on this

GAR#520 5(b) reads (emphasis mine) "establish, if such does not already exist, a state agency or similar organization with the responsibility of inspecting and regulating SWLs in accordance with this resolution and reviewing complaints regarding the operation of particular SWLs," so I'm not sold on this point. This is the subject of a legality challenge from Wallenburg right now, but even if it stands it's not a convincing interpretation.

Wallenburg is also challenging the repeal on the grounds that this is inaccurate, as scrap metal yards are short term storage while GAR#520 defines SWLs as being long term storage facilities.

GAR#520 4(b) reads (emphasis mine) "include effective systems for the collection and removal of leachate for treatment and environmentally safe disposal," which seems to be a similar misunderstanding on the repeal author's part. This is not currently in the legality challenge but probably should be.

My goodness, I was getting all my thoughts together and rereading everything and Natalie swoops in with another great response. I agree with basically everything said.

Something I would add is that a quick look at the thread (https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=493789) for this shows a lot of the issues coming up there. I don't think I see a single post really supporting the repeal as written, and I think it would have been better for Honeydew to bump the thread and ask for more feedback. Every response was either addressing something incorrect in the text, or straight up making the arguments Wally would use later in the legality challenge (unaddressed by the author).

The repeal text is sloppy and didn't get nearly enough time in drafting to fix those issues (the thread hasn't had a response since five days after it was originally posted, and GAR#520 was only passed 16 days ago besides). I'll be voting against as soon as it hits the floor in an hour.

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If that is indeed true, then I'm truly happy for this region.

Agreed

Its to late our capital is getting over run Send Every thing you got

I’m not a rper personally so I can’t help ya out much. Also that sounds a wee bit threatening

Wait what's going on?

Holy Empire lost the civil war

kittens

[s]Foxes[/s] cats probably. Seems like it'd be a lovely existence.

Capybaras.