Post Archive

Hi!

Thank you! So cozy here ^-^

Just twelve more hours for me.

Same for me!

you can say i didnt post here for a year :D

Away with 2020, bring on 2021! Cheers!

Good evening Refugia!! I'll be kickin off the New Year in almost two hours as of writing this, and before I go off to watch meaningless New Years broadcasts, I have some thoughts on the proposal in queue right now, Regulating Remote Election Administration

WA link: https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_view_proposal/id=boston_castle_1608929988

Forum discussion: https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=495121&start=50

I've voiced my thoughts in that thread as well but would like to put them here as well. The biggest issue I see with this proposal is the concept itself. The biggest thing it does is enact standards on mail-in/e-voting, a topic that, while it has become a topic of discussion irl, also has no business being in a WA organization. The issue is that the WA is not all democracies and while there are other resolutions regarding election standards(See GA 130), they are both very simple guidelines for keeping basic elections in check, and also I feel set a bad precedent for the WA. Resolutions that go through the WA, I personally think should pertain to as many possible nations, if not all nations, in the WA. And not only does this resolution only pertain to democracies, it also only pertains to specifically democracies that use mail-in or e-voting, which in my mind is not a sufficiently large enough portion of WA nations to garner a resolution.

This, coupled with the fact that the author submitted the resolution while there were still active questions and concerns in the draft thread, leads me to be solidly against this resolution.

i am pleased to announce that I've finally gotten into the top 1% of Youth Rebelliousness. Also i hit 2k Environmental Beauty. Also also, happy new year's everybody

Happy new year, friend <3

I agree entirely with this sentiment. When you're creating a General Assembly resolution, you need to consider every member that is a part of the World Assembly. This is not really a practical thing, so it's easier to write proposals from an assumption that every possible nation is in the WA. This means a group of sapient, bi-pedal turtles, anarcho-communal Eldrazi primitivists, and intergalactic space empires rules by Quebec. The fact is that there are valid and legitimate WA nations which are authoritarian monarchies, sortition dictatorships, AI hiveminds, and nations with no concept of government at all. It doesn't make sense for all World Assembly nations to be forced to adopt legal policies which have no applicable use to their government style or structure.

Another topic I have to wonder about is why we are specifically targetting elections by distance - and specifically only electronic or postal at that, when there is no such one-size-fits-all structure on in-person voting. I am given to believe the author has gotten this idea from the abundance of distance-centric technologies that have been used this year, without thought or consideration to how much it makes sense to insert this topic out of the blue to the General Assembly.

I am fundamentally opposed to the concept of this proposal and will vote it down on those grounds alone. For my own due diligence, however, I will itemise the mechanical construction of the proposal for more kindle for the garbage fire and to talk about the myriad ways this is horrible.

Why is this considered to be an "absentee" voter? Here we just call it "voting".

What is the circumstance where an individual holds two or more citizenships by birth or naturalisation, and remains outside of the country that is holding an election. This definition has not been remotely thought out.

If a hand my vote to a fellow tribesman who takes the ballot to a voting centre on horseback, is that considered a postal service? If I carve a travel rune over a door's archway and open a portal to a vote receptacle, is that considered technology? One has to wonder what a circumstance would be where any aspect of a postal service is not considered a technology. The intent was clearly "electronic device", but that's not the effect of the sentence.

Oxford: [Technology is] "scientific knowledge used in practical ways in industry." People tend to toss around the word technology like it's implicitly meant to always be a smartphone or whatever someone thinks is advanced and cool. But if it's the 15th century and I'm using a printing press to create a message on a piece of paper, that's technology. If I'm using a printing press today, that's still considered technology. There's no aspect of a mail sorting machine, transportation by vehicle, automated address reader, or - hell, writing that does not count as technology. So the difference between the the postal/technology definitions will always be in conflict.

I'm very confuse about this line. If all of the votes have equal validity, why would certain votes be counted separately from from votes which would be turned in personally. What is the value of treating these as a second class of votes, and what is the intrinsic benefit of having people physically go to a voting location which negates this necessity?

Literally why. If someone wishes to vote electronically or by mail, they should be able to do so without being grilled for their reasoning for it. Literally the same type of thing where you go to fill out an online form and it says "why are you not available for a phone call". Well because I don't like phone calls. Begone.

We're continuing on with this subtle implied theme that voting from a distances is either bad, insecure, or needs a darn good reason to take place. I oppose the undertones in all three. Speaking of which, oh my god:

What does this even mean. Does this refer to the voting process? "You can vote by mail, but only if you live with one other person who can stamp your ballot and pinkie promise that they're a different person".

Does this refer to the counting process? "We need to mark all of these ballots when they are counted, but not the other ballots which are protected by in-person magic."

Literally have no idea, but I have no faith that this author has ever voted by a postal system or has ever seen this process in action.

Is there any reason this would be different than an election date? Is there any benefit to specifying this in text? Strictly speaking, this is under a clause 4 which states that "Member nations are allowed to...", well sorry to break it to you but member nations are allowed to do literally anything that doesn't have a legal restriction before one is made.

Sorry, it's late and my eyes are a little fuzzy. For a minute I thought that this was in the "Furtherment of Democracy" category. But now that I've had some coffee, I can clearly see that the text actually implies that military service or illness should be necessary in certain cases before distance voting is permissible. Holy actual crap.

So, if we apply the heavy implications in clause 4 to citizens who are outside the election country (and apparently not in a nation where they also have citizenship), then the effect is that you may have a upper ranking military person retired in a tax haven nation who can vote, but someone who has to be outside the country due to a financial emergency with an external family member - they cannot. Or at least this is a circumstance that this proposal explicitly allows.

"But Luca, that's not what the author intent was". Yes, yes maybe not. Of course the law doesn't care about author intent, but even if we consider author intent, we're still going back to "citizens are sus unless they have a damn good reason for distance voting. Maybe we can trust them if they've been in the military. Maybe they can do this if they are bedridden, but in all other times, we want that in-person magic" - No sale from me, thanks.

Another way to write this is: "Voters must receive the ballot for their electoral district". The bizarre way this is worded has implications that I will let someone else spend time on.

No thanks. I don't care to set up a politically meaningless "and the others" category that has no function of valid representative capacity. If you are a nation that has citizens which live abroad in eighteen other countries, I'm going to go ahead and say that the needs and interests of the citizens in each are all wildly different, and if you're the type that feels like you can handle all of that by shoving them into the same box, the only thing you telegraph to me is that they are irrelevant to you government's priorities.

Fortunately, this clause, like 4 and 5, has no actual legal weight since it's basically a recommendation. It is just here to take up space and provide more examples of how many bad ideas can be contained in a single proposal.

There are two ways that this can be taken. The first way is that nations must make a meaningless "your privacy is important to us" statements. But that's not quite right, is it. All member nations must make clear what processes are used. So we want the actual processes then. This either means we need to specifically talk about what encryption techniques we are using or we need to reveal the actual mathematics about how those work. In either case, you are literally exposing your security tools for no other purpose than having someone who neither knows nor cares about them, being able to give a vacant stare at your explanation and wordlessly nod, jaw agape, presuming that all of it makes sense, and the process is somehow good for them.

lmao what. Distance votes work based off of a roster of eligible voters. When the concept of a vote's anonymity is discussed, the idea is that it need not be known (or at least remembered) by the government how someone voted. It does not mean that it is not known to the government that someone voted. What world are you theorising where I, by name, may cast multiple votes as myself with no prevention to do otherwise and why would such incompetence be taken as a given in a resolution that is supposed to legislate on this topic?

Wew, this resolution ain't great chief.

Ara and Luca covered a lot of my concerns about the GA proposal, but I wanted to cover a couple other things that I had noticed from reading the thread. The author has a pretty blatant "my knowledge of this is better than your knowledge of this" approach to all feedback, which turns me off to the idea of voting for it from the start.

They also generally defend against arguments from people outside of the US by making arguments about how things work inside the US. Needless to say, the general rule for the World Assembly is that WA =/= real life, and that Real Life =/= United States. A few token "this is how Estonia/Colombia does [specific point]" arguments are also thrown in, but there's a lot of "this happened in a specific part of Georgia" meaning the US state.

Another point to consider is that some in-person votes are considered. The "absentee" definition includes people who vote by mail as well as people who vote in-person but early. This is acknowledged by the author as well. So it's not just "in-person magic" that they care about, but "day-of in-person magic". This also means that in that list of entirely irrelevant and useless suggestions for countries to pad out the document length, it's possible that you'll only be allowed to do some early in-person voting if you're military or infirm.

This post by Araraukar covers a lot of great points, looking at this very US-centric proposal with eyes from outside the country (specifically Finland, though it doesn't matter). Reading this, I agreed with every point they made. The author's response gave me very little hope that they were genuinely aiming to submit the best possible resolution they could. In fact, a lot of questions in the thread were entirely ignored so that the author could rush this to a vote. This is another thing that, on its own, tilts me towards voting against.

This follows 9(a.), which Luca had a great take-down of, but I think this is important as well. This is exactly the same thing I point out for so many other GA resolutions. It's a completely meaningless and empty statement, and I wish people would stop. What does this mean? What are these platforms? This is a nothing statement.

Hard, hard against. In fact, I'll be setting an alarm to make sure I'm the first delegate vote on this 😆

I agree with all the points made. That said, unlike the religious sites resolution, TNP seems to be unwilling to salvage it as they're leaning against, so this'll likely be defeated or withdrawn

Question: What or Where is "Feu de Glace"?

6. Absentee and expatriate voters must receive a ballot that is compliant with their request and matches the election day ballot of the electoral division in which they are registered to vote.

This, and other parts of the proposal, tell me that this is (another) proposal written with an American mindset and view.

Neither my main NS nation, nor my RL nation (The Netherlands) employ votes divided by some administrative districts or divisions in national elections.

In both case the whole country is in fact one big district, the same goes for European elections as well in The Netherlands.

Well, I want to add a crown on to my flag to represent the monarchy, but I don't even know what software to use for photoshopping and stuff like that, let alone how to use said software.

If this question is in response to the flag contest, we also have a channel on the Discord server called Feu de Glace Hall, since she won the Green Week competition, to which having the general discussion channel named after her was a prize.

Just making the announcement that the recent referendum over closing the embassy with India has concluded. The final result was 15 for, 2 against, and 1 abstain. I have gone ahead with withdrawing the embassy ^-^

Thanks everyone for voting, you're the best <3

Happy New Year everyone! 2021 is finally here!

Inversa is curious on the national anthems of other nations in Refugia

Does other nations have a national anthem in mind?

Inversa is also curious about the cultures of other Refugi nations

Inversa is confident that it is a good national anthem then, even if it remains in your head

That's what Inversa did since Inversa lacks creativity, a socialist song was used as the national anthem :l

Cadenzana's national anthem is Eighth Wonder by Lemon Demon. :P

If I ever decide that Ongmonnif needs a national anthem it will probably go something like this:

ThIs Is A bAd NaTiOnAl AnTheM, i DoN't KnOw WhAt I wAs ThInKiNg WhEn I mAdE tHiS, bUt ThIs Is SuPpOseD tO bE OnGmoNnIf'S nAtIoNaL aNtHeM!!!!! lAdEeDaDeEdO!!!!

Elenaraghaenaris does not have a national anthem yet because I haven't gotten to writing that part of the lore. :)

Due to a very uninspired song write battling a hangover on deadline day (the morning after the Tovenian National Music awards), and really phoning it in, our National anthem sounds suspiciously like Queen's "We are the Champions" with the words "the champions" replaced with "Tovenia".

Of course to save face the government deny all similarities, passing any "hard evidence" presented as mere coincidence.

Okay, well, here's another textwall. Might post something to the forum, but I don't really feel like getting yelled at lately, especially for how hard Bormiar has been pushing people to try to get them to do what he wants, seems like a bad time. But here's my thought on the SC repeal

With regards to the original text of TWI, I agree that the argument isn't convincing. I would note that there are a couple bad regional commendations out there, for targets that really don't deserve it, pet projects aside, and this was certainly better than that. I don't really have a comment on whether TWI itself is a commendable region or not, they very well may be. But the author of the target didn't do a good job of expressing why their region as a whole is an intrinsically good force on NS and has made good contributions to the NationStates community. The evidence that was cited in the target largely demonstrated why TWI is good for TWI; they are stable and happy with themselves. Nothing submitted talked about what they have done for the world outside of their boarders and that may do that commendation in.

That said, I don't agree remotely with how this repeal is being presented. Bormiar had some successes with Condemn Koem Kab and a couple ancient GP areas and now believes that he is the godking of SC topics and an end-all authority that people passing through the SC must pay a tithe to and receive his blessing. This is evidenced in the TRF repeal which was presented as though the SC must follow his word or the establishment is trash, it is evidenced in the overzealous demand to vote down any cards-based proposal in the future, despite that demand's irony, and it is evidenced here:

This is not remotely necessary for repealing the content of the target. They are personal attacks for the author not behaving exactly like Bormiar wants. And Bormiar can want things and feel like people ought to act a certain way, but when we place those things into a passed and permanent Security Council resolution, it becomes the canon by which aspiring writers will look for evidence of what works. But this is not a thing that should work.

If an author rushes out a proposal because of IRL or other obligations - the damage as a result of that decision is represented in the quality of writing. This damage is something we can all notice and is the reason for much of this repeal existing. That decision, on its own, does not damage the resolution and it is no business of the Security Council to determine an appropriate amount of time in drafting. A case is ready when it is ready.

The author's decisions to adopt a criticism and use that to change the content of their proposal is no business of the Security Council. The point of the drafting process is to increase a proposal's quality. It is not to pay homage to the powers that be and ensure everyone's back is properly scratched before a topic is submitted. Contrary to the opinions of certain representatives in the SC, I don't actually believe that a topic needs to go into drafting at all. Does it help? Yes, absolutely. But let's say that you are the world's most amazing writer, and you are able to come up with a flawless A++ piece of quality writing. If that goes directly to submission, that's fine with me. Drafting is to the benefit of mechanical construction, not to commentators who wish to have their idea imprinted on the subject.

For the inverse, the author of the target certainly has a much different drafting style than I do, but it is no care of the Security Council and certainly no poor reflection in an author if there are three drafts or three hundred. The goal of all drafting processes is quality and any manner they wish to go about it is valid if it works to that end. It did work to that end, even if it did not ultimately meet expectations. Canonising that process to be in poor taste makes me ill.

Ultimately, the fact that this repeal was submitted without care or consideration to a replacement, where Bormiar had originally said that the commendation was good and should be replaced, and has backpedalled that over time, makes me suspect that the reasoning for the entire repeal is a personal gripe. But that's no concern of mine, I only care about mechanical construction, and the mechanics of this one are pretty yikes to me personally. So I will be voting against.

This opinion has been copied to TEP in my WAA capacity there.

Hi, just wanted to come by and say that I really love what Refugia has become -- it's awesome. I've only really met some of you, but you all seem so genuine and fun-loving, and I really appreciate your very informed opinions on WA proposals. Without you guys, I probably would've been lost on Cretox's recent economics-related proposals, so thank you all very much!

Check your telegrams Flohovistan.

Welcome Cookievee and Whakandha to Refugia! If you have any questions about the region or how NationStates works feel free to leave it here on the RMB! You can also join our Discord server found at the top of the page within our region description. We're all friendly and don't bite!

If you haven't already, consider joining the World Assembly (located on the left sidebar) which will allow you to become a Member State! Member States are able to get a spot on our map (link in the region's description), vote in regional polls, and even run for office when elections come up! If you're not interested in that, that's completely fine! We're a chill laid back community and we aim to make everyone's experience here as wonderful as possible.

No u :D

Ay, I've got some more company! My country was relatively isolated but now I have a friend just offshore!

I think that's me!

I just realized Ongmonnif is not a tiny speck, wrong map.

Good job getting elected Junitaki-Cho!

You're going to do a wonderful job ^-^ I'm happy to have you on board as a fellow Councillor.

Not really, no. The "rough draft" foundation for the office was laid out in the amendment that went up for vote recently (you can find it in the RRS now), and Junitaki-cho has already laid out some immediate ideas for the office. My thoughts in designing the office was to make sure that anyone could eventually become delegate, even someone who wasn't as interested in GA/SC affairs as I am. The delegate's job is to vote and approve proposals, they don't have to be an expert on those proposals. Having someone who is interested in the actual work of WA Affairs means they can advise, lead discussions, and write opinions.

Four sentences isn't a lot to read. You can read them if you wish, or you can skip it, but it's not appropriate to dismiss things people say because it doesn't fit within your attention span.

The biggest difference is that the delegate votes. But the delegate isn't just a queen that does what she wants. The delegate represents us.

The WAA person holds discussions about whether a resolution is good or bad. Whether it does stuff we like or doesn't. They keep up with stuff. We'd have less votes if we swapped delegates every four months.

Yes congrats Junitaki-Cho I'm sure you will be great.

I must say we had 2 really strong candidates to chose from so I know either way we would have been in safe hands.

Might've been a weird bug

Question

Is the Universal Healrhcare Policy a new policy to Nationstates? And does anyone know what issue(s) can offer it?

Can Inversa into Island?

My employment rate just keeps on going down... Shoot.

Same, it’s rather frustrating. I literally decided to ban robots from doing unskilled labor in order to raise my employment rate, and then it went down... but my economic output went up? Doesn’t make much sense to me tbh.

You can get the policy from issues #48, #117, #337, #748, and #771.

There is an off-site database which maintains a list of issues by policy. You can find it here: (http://www.mwq.dds.nl/ns/results/policies.html)

Good morning Refugia,

It's been about...eight months, but nevertheless! In my acting role as Councillor of Culture, I would like to present to you this legally-required Eco Report:

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1486265

Additionally, I would like to remind members that there are only three more days to submit a flag for the winter flag competition! If you're interested in testing out your creative abilities and seeing your work used as the region's official flag for a while, please check out this dispatch: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1484369

Yay

Inversa can into Island (just gotta start the proper application but its confusion when thinking about it to much:l)

For sure for this one. Honeydew did a great job of editing and fixing the issue and I’m really glad of the positive direction it went in :) Singapore No2 is a very commendable target and I think this resolution does them a lot more justice ^-^

I agree entirely. I've been following the thread since Honeydew pulled the original proposal, and I'm extremely impressed. The effort and dedication he showed to making this the best possible version of itself is clear to me, and I was happy to reward it with an approval. I anticipate I will be casting a very early vote in support of this ^-^

I assume you're reading this, Honeydew, so I want to say good job directly, and thank you for taking our criticisms into account. I think this is a really good commendation proposal, and fitting of Singapore no2's contributions to the site.

[quote=ongmonnif;42261704]Hello Floofybit! ;)

As you can see(?), Ongmonnif is that tiny speck next to Floofybit.[/quote

Hey Ongmonnif! I hope u enjoy ur stay next to my island

Feel No Mercy harkens back to our origins. Our founders Jim Locke and Desmond Shephard spearheaded a rebellion against the capitalist, fascist Fargleams. Part of their goal was complete genocide against the 1% of the population that was members of the nobility. Many of the members of their rebellion were opposed to killing unarmed people or children, but Locke and Shephard started a motivational speech starting with "feel no mercy, for they will give you none". And it was true, because the Fargleams sent a battallion of children to kill Locke and Shephard, and the rebellion would have lost if they had not gave up their ethics and annihilated the group.

Elenaraghaenaris' motto "Just because We're Daemons Doesn't Mean We're Bad" is a play on words. Daemon is the old spelling of demon and when you call someone a demon it's an insult. The word "daemon" has a very negative connotation and I would argue is more offensive than calling someone a demon. So the motto is basically "Just Because We're Daemons Doesn't Mean We're Daemons", which I think is pretty funny because I'm contradicting myself in a way that is grammatically correct and makes sense only because "daemon" is being used as a name for a group of people and is inferred as an adjective.

Long story short, I'm a nerd.

Our motto is based off of the two main goals of The Council. Environmental benefits and social services above all else.