Post Archive

You can give out as many endorsements as you want, so if you want to throw one back my way I'd appreciate it a lot.

Issue answering is difficult sometimes. Your stats are going to be in flux right now because you're new, so they'll be jumping around a lot on these early issues. After a while they'll stabilise and you'll be able to start some long term growth. For now, try to pick the best seeming answer for some stats you're interested in, and it'll get where you want it with time.

Hi Refugia how is everyone today

Awesome, accepted.

I just got an issue that asked me to either allow or prohibit a Neo-Nazi rally.That got me thinking a little bit.Should we irl actually ban or constrain such radical movements (Neo-Nazis,fascists,communists etc.)?On the one hand,it is a sad truth that such groups generally promote hate and regressive ideas, and banning them could be a plus on stability,but on the other hand,If we constrain these people's ability to spread their ideas,aren't we becoming the same (or even worse) than them,putting a strain on their liberties?I believe that allowing such groups to exist could be the right thing to do,but I'd love to hear what everybody else has to say about that.

To build on what Refuge Isle said (which is the correct answer), the argument that people should be free to spread whatever hateful- and often genocidal- ideologies they want is often informed by a misunderstanding of how those people tend to work. These ideas spread most fervently when they are openly discussed and not challenged, because they bring in people who are trying to find an answer to why things aren't working out for them. In a lot of western countries, this space has been entirely co-opted by fascists and, specifically, nazis. Attempting to engage someone in a 'free marketplace of ideas' means that you're leaving it up to who is the best rhetorician, which is usually the fascist, having spent ages specifically preparing for this argument.

Banning that speech altogether, banning their ability to rally and speak at universities and make big showings of force, ultimately limits their exposure, which means that people don't get this smokescreen of "your life isn't working because of the [insert religious, racial or sexual minority here]", when the actual reason their life sucks is because they're being exploited by governments and corporations not letting them have the security or income they deserve for their work. Otherwise you end up with the police stepping aside so a white-nationalist terrorist group can actively attack people in the streets (https://theintercept.com/2021/08/23/portland-police-proud-boys-protest/).

It was a cheeky response, I admit, but I've recently given this argument before and I'm just a little tired to do it again so soon.

I'm usually someone who looks up in life, and will always inspire to become better towards anyone and everyone I meet in life or on the Net. I love talking to people and getting to know them, to learn what inspires them, what their hopes and dreams are for the future. And I never wish anyone any ill will, as it would only sour my mood and ruin my vibe completely.

That said, ugh. Nazis. I h a t e them.

For the record, this disagreement tends to be American vs. non-American in ideology. In Canada specifically, I can quote from Wikipedia here:

The banning of hate speech is something I consider to be a net positive, and I imagine that seeing how openly violent hate groups are in the US, where these things are allowed, and how that isn't so much the case in other countries (acknowledging a global increase in fascistic ideologies), the evidence bears out that it's a good thing to ban.

Hello hello

Hey there, thanks for the welcoming.

oh god I’m too tired and I misread stuff aaaaa now my civil rights die

I wanted to clarify that my point of view was that freedom of speech and assembly should be guaranteed to all, which is what that issue was about. However, as was pointed out, hate speech is an incredibly corrosive form of speech that I didn't think about specifying should not be allowed.

My point is that speech, when it falls under what was described in that Canadian Supreme Court case, should be illegal. I think I did properly specify what type of assembly should be illegal such as violent groups organizing (but I should add that people should have permission to assemble wherever they plan on assembling).

Now, in the context of a NationStates resolution, I would feel comfortable with the outright banning of terrible ideologies like fascists and neo-Nazis.

What I'm hopefully trying to explain again is that no, ideologies should not be banned by a government, but certain actions people take while promoting those ideologies should be.

I don't understand what is so incredibly disappointing about this point of view, and I didn't expect such a sharp type of response, especially not just before a election.

I freaked out because I felt like I had accidentally said something terrible without thinking about it or meaning to say it, and I felt tremendous guilt and shame about saying what I said, though after looking back at what I said several times, I don't see what was so problematic about a difference in point of view.

Ironic a Dictatorship worries about that.

No one can read deleted messages; they are not even available in the API.

I will absolutely fight off any sentiment of defending Nazism, defending the rights of Nazis to espouse their dangerous ideology, and calling banning nazism "a dangerous tactic". This is the reason, among so many others that I described in my long-form post, that fascism has been on the rise. We tolerate these viewpoints and allow them to spread and fester by third party bystanders falling victim to their easy-outs and convenient scapegoats to avoid facing the real problems.

No one asked you to drop out of running for Councillor of the Interior. You could have admitted fault and moved on rather that using it as a catalyst for a ultimatum no one made.

Instead we are debating here, in my home once again, whether or not Nazis ideology should be banned for the third time this year, in 2021. My position has remained the same as it ever has when this conversation has come up. You can depend on me to do so when it returns once again. It's my obligation as the administrator of this community, and it should come as no surprise I will not shirk the responsibility.

I’m new to this game, is fair economy positive or negative?

By nation states ranking, it's around borderline negative as it stands right inbetween Good and Reasonable.

Every once in a while, it seems necessary to reaffirm the region's position of banning Nazi ideology.

Gaming question: on the issues - the choices that are offered are so off the wall that often I don't like any of them. I see that this game really really goes full in on the "unintended consequences" idea, but it seems like they overdo it.

I guess that public opinion and such has gotten so partisaned (ok - that is not a real word!) that there is a bit of merit to this on a governmental scale. On the other hand, the way things work in the at least my day to day life is: I make a decision, and as the decision has its effects I work to capitalize on the good parts of it and also work to mitigate the downsides. The operating assumption here seems to be that the actions will basically negate the good parts, and maximize the damage of the downsides, as well as causing maximum harm in places that there is no reason we would even consider when choosing an option.

As a new country/player, I am glad I got a invitation for the glorious Refugia.

The kind and helping People of Refugia has helped me with things,

And to all of you, ones that have helped and haven’t, Thank you.

I was just thinking about a single NS issue and not some broader picture really. Fascism and Nazism is on the rise and we must fight against it as a people, and the government should try to fight against it by prosecuting them if they do anything unlawful.

I understand this is somewhat of a libertarian (not be confused with Libertarians in the United States) perspective, and I'm content with being in the minority opinion about this issue.

I know nobody asked me to recuse myself, and I never said someone did. I apologize for deleting those messages and I thought they could be viewed by a regional officer or founder, but I may have mistaken it for when they are deleted by a regional officer or founder, but I guess they can't if they are deleted by the person who made them.

I'm sorry that you don't like this topic being talked about in your region, and neither do I, but I just wanted to offer a different perspective on the NationStates issue. I didn't even really expect any big response anyway, which is why I asked if someone would add me on Pokemon Go in a message shortly afterwards.

Perhaps as you've pointed out, there shouldn't be a Councillor of Internal Affairs in the first place, and I apologize to Michelland if my behavior was some sort of catalyst for this.

Maybe if Nazism and fascism was outright banned by the government there wouldn't be some sort of slippery slope, but I don't trust any real life governments to not abuse this type of power. If I didn't think this was a possibility, I would be absolutely on board, but because I don't trust governments to be fair and free without checks and balances I don't--because even with checks and balances they often aren't.

I simply said I want to fight and limit those people's abilities to spread their message without revoking freedom of speech and assembly. I listed out some ways this could be done.

I know it isn't. That's why I dropped out. I couldn't handle being called out like that by the founder of the region like that. I had no issue with Emily's response, only yours.

I didn't realize that, I guess that furthermore proves that I shouldn't be a regional officer.

You shifted your position several times, yes. The original position being to engage the nazis in debate. We cannot see that text, of course, because it was deleted by the author. However this part does remain.

Your later adjustments to accept the Canadian Supreme Court and ban "speeches" and "terrorist membership" generally don't mean much to me. I'm not comfortable with the advocacy of Nazis arguing their talking points, the defence of their ideology being banned is a defence of their ideology being espoused. That is how disagreeing with the original suggestion that the speech be banned works -- you are advocating for the group whose speech is being banned.

It's incredibly inappropriate to take issue with me responding critically to a comment just because I made the region. I live here, and being a founder does not mean that I suddenly don't have opinions, and it's an ironic complaint while you're advocating free speech. It makes no difference whether I said the comment was disappointing or if Emily did. We are human beings.

This link can also be very helpful for stats based gameplay.

http://www.mwq.dds.nl/ns/results/

I see that there is a very intense discussion going on. I hope that you all can find some way through it, or at the very least an agreement to not fight this particular issue.

Having said that, the issue you are discussing is not one that is going away anytime soon. There are no awesome solutions, no good solutions, and maybe not even any decent solutions. But there is agreement on the fundamental goal. The problem is: how do we get to that goal without blowing everything up in the meantime.

I know that I do not have an answer to that question. I see that others are fighting hard for various possible approaches to the problem. From the little bit that I have read here, I don't get the impression that anyone here is trolling or just trying to cause dissent.

At the very least, please pull your punches against each other. We have to at least succeed at that. Over time, with some hard work, we can come up with ways of discussing our approaches without hurting each other's feelings too much.

The setting did not seem to help. The link was QUITE useful once I figured out how to make it work (like that the number is listed in the Issue in the top right corner).

From what I can tell, it will take a while for these issues to affect my country that much. Are there other ways of altering the characteristics of my country as it presumably grows?

Answering issues is the only way to affect the stats of your nation, besides a select few like endorsements, residency, influence, and international artwork--which are meta stats. Those stats do not affect your actual nation itself.

Here is a good article that explains what trading cards are, what they do, and will help determine whether or not you'd like to participate in them hopefully. And yes, they are a sub-game that some people enjoy to different degrees, if at all. https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1495436

Probably would have been better to link our regional guide to cards instead of contributing to the constantly-growing black hole of power that is The North Pacific.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1495436

Hahaha, little did we know.

Welcome to all the new people! I think I've got an exhaustive list up until this moment, so let's try. Welcome to Warste, Charland69, Union-Of-Ireland, Whatamievendoingstan, Federation Of Kariba, Motherland Of The Red Bear, Bosea, Newfrontland, Southern Kariaterroc, Letargia, Monaka Chi, Liberal Republic Of Britannia, Queendom Of France, Fonfan, Terasnaw, Vaps Estonia, Saritaru, Armeninech, Malta And Naples, Staniss, Bluvatia, Vinozil, Uley And Britain, Pludia, Tomtopialand, Southernmost Coast, Crycusas, Euroupa, Tows Banards, Undomia, Atomicai, Winterhail, Imprathea, Szalyland, Lycaonn, Shanterland, Noral Grees, and Zootroplis!

Refugia is a mostly community-focused region, happier to just vibe with one another than get involved in a lot of heavy, drama-related site issues. If you have any questions about how NationStates or regional stuff or anything else works, please feel comfortable asking questions. Everyone's very nice and we have a lot of highly proficient people around who have deep knowledge of various site activities.

If you haven't already, please consider joining the World Assembly and endorsing some of your regionmates. Every endorsement generates more Refugia-exclusive Influence, which is a magical site function that can only be made here. It also increases our voting power at the World Assembly (more information on that is in the WA link I provided). If you don't feel up to it or don't want to, that's also entirely fine.

We have an off-site forum (https://calref.cc/) and discord server (https://calref.network/chat/) connected to our larger community Calamity Refuge, of which NationStates is only one thing we do. If you want a friendly place to just be yourself and hang out, I can absolutely recommend checking out those community links at the top of the region page. In fact, right now we have a big site event going on on the forum, the Battle of All Things! If you register on the forum, you can vote to determine the outcome of different character battle scenarios. We also run weekly movie nights in our discord server.

I know that's a lot, and I'm sorry if things feel a bit overwhelming. Just know that we're all here and want to be friends, so take things as quickly or slowly as you like, and we'll all be here for the ride. Thanks for joining us.

If you're interested in learning more about the region, Refuge Isle has put together a master dispatch that explains a lot of the different things going on in Refugia: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1449847

I'll check it out over time.

Rask. I didn't name you in the statement for a reason. Nobody thinks you're a fascist, but this argument has come up multiple times this year and I thought it was a good idea to make a full stop statement so we could head this off from happening again. This wasn't about you.

It's not normally nearly this exciting. I'd posted the welcome message in hopes that this was over, it's unfortunate that it came back up afterward.

I would recommend taking any further exchanges on the fascism topic to telegrams.

The regional telegram should make clear that the topic isn't on the table for debate.

Just wanted to state that I'm voting against the current GA repeal-at-vote because I think the original is fine and I think this current culture of nitpicking things written ten years ago to death despite them being perfectly functional for a browser-based political simulator game is aggravating.

Well the day is finally here! It is the Grand Final of the Refugi Regional Football Championships.

The Deep One’s have had a great tournament, topping their group picking up 4 wins and 1 draw so far and most importantly have not yet gone behind in a game.

The Vulpines have had a slightly tougher time losing once to Endmigt and having to come from behind in their quarter final match. But they have shown great spirit to make it this far and will believe they have a great chance of taking the title.

After the anthems were sung, the 2 teams shook hands in the middle of the pitch to rapturous applause from an excited crowd from all across Refugi. The formalities were done and it was time to play.

The first half was too close to call. Once again the Star Enpire took the lead but it didn’t take long for the Vulpines to equalise.

Half time 1-1

In the second half it was the Vulpines who came out the sharper team and took the lead with a clinical finish. For the 1st time in the whole tournament the Deep One’s were losing. How would they respond? The answer came quickly and in the best possible way. A brilliant team move created their equaliser. This looked to be going down to the wire. As players on both teams began to tire someone had to step up and seize their big moment….

And it was the Vraisten Vulpines that did so with 2 of their trademark counter attacks calmly put away in just 2 minutes to put the game out of reach!

The Star Enpire Deep One’s 2 – Vraisten Vulpines 4

What a great game and a fantastic tournament for both teams. Tovenia have loved having you here. Better luck next time The Star Enpire you were magnificent all tournament, I thought this final was yours. However there can only be one winner and with an attacking masterclass in the 2nd half (not for the 1st time) it is a huge congratulations to Araine and the Vraisten Vulpines! Our Regional Champions!

Thanks for the likes and sticking with it. I hope people enjoyed it?

It's optional but it'd be nice to endorse as many members as possible, especially the delegate, Sylh Alanor.

I really enjoyed it too, it was a very cool championship !

Thanks Tovenia, I hope that there will be more events like this in the future !