NationStates Jolt Archive

A new study by researchers at Lovefest University say that UN population inspectors have their figures spectacularly wrong.

"Some idiot at the UN has pressed too many zeroes on his calculator and multiplied every country's population by ten," said Carlos De Simal, Professor of Demographics. "So Tanah Burung doesn't have in excess of two billion people, it has over 200 million. And so on. Where in God's name do they think we'd put all those people?"

Professor De Simal blamed excessive wine consumption at the UN for the error. "You know how when you drink too much you see double? Well, the population people have had so much to drink, they're seeing dectuple. Or whatever the right word for ten times is."

The extra zero at the end of all countries' populations might seem like a harmless error, buut it has dangerous results, according to political scientist Helena Handbasket.

"A bunch of quite young countries are throwing their weight around, convinced by the UN reports that they have a billion people and must therefore be great and powerful. Well, they're delusional. These are some very big countries, but they're not muscle-bound superpowers. If they behaved as if they were nations with 100 million people, then the world would be a much safer place."

(OOC: To your last comment, not necessarily...)

Um, no.

"Those meddlesome busybodies over at the UN always seem to get some stats mixed up. If we went by weight, why, our nation would certainly be more of a 'superpower'. After all, a fully-grown bull walrus can weigh in excess of 1600 kilograms. The only nation that we can think of that might rival us in this regard is Hell Bovines, with their cow population."

-- unnamed senior government official

actually typically it is some one who has left their nation in hibernation mode.... when it is "resurected" all posts are re-set

"I've always thought the U.N. was under-generous in their population counts! After all, in the last few elections, we've received nearly four times as many ballots as their official records of our population!"

-random (and naïve) Iansislean election worker

OOC: I'd go with this as well if it becomes widely used...

ooc:I already do with Beth Gellert's other manifestation, Beddgelert, which is in the region of Eastern Europe where all populations are considered to be 10% of that recorded.. I think most of us still want a better system than that, but until we can get every newcomer and regional vet. to agree on who's biggest a better solution is not likely.. and I'm going on too long.

For now I still consider Beth Gellert's population to be that recorded in the national profile, because frankly the nation doesn't interact enough with nation's lead maturely enough to set reasonable limits, and I'm not in the mood to be annexed right now. (Beddgelert may be on its way to getting its arse kicked back to Finland, you see (Sopworth's back!). I'm worried losing with every nation might impact upon me personally somehow :) )

Mathematicians in The Captan have also come to the same conclusions.

However, it has also been found that we were underestimating our GDP per capita. Instead of $45,000.00, the real amount of income per person is $450,000.00.

Therefore, our national budget and GDP will remain the same regardless of what those donderheads at the UN have to say about it.

After a quick consultation, Kanuckistani officals conclude that the UN has infact got their number right, atleast with regaurds to Kanuckistan, despite the population's infamous tendency to proactivly screw with UN factfinders.


OOC:
I've ICly expanded offworld as a direct result of my population; cut it down by 90% and I have no reason to have started terraforming worlds some months back. I'm not into revisionist history, so I'm not about to cull my stats; however, this will leave me with only 100-200 million people on Earth when I'm done, so the net effect's not that bad if this 10% idea does become popular.

I'm just waiting for that pop bug fix to come along, then I get to RP the sudden loss of a few hundred million people............should be interesting for the rest of you :wink:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/forumfun/misc15.jpg

DAMN YOU, EBAUM!

DAMN YOU, EBAUM!

lol... And I'll post soon on the TRSN thread...

"This is typical of the United Nations!" Raged Prime Minister Kilany as he consumed the Tanah Burung report. "They can not read" He said, referencing the UN's reclassification of Al Jumhuriyah Al Khals Dimuqratiyah as a Corrupt Dictatorship (hint hint, see Al Khals' thread!) "and neither can they count!"

The possibility of such an error in Al Khals has initiated a major government programme to root-out the truth in light of yesterday's expulsion of the UN from the republic. Clearly a 90% miss in the estimation of the supposedly two-hundred million peopled desert nation could mean drastic changes in the food import-export market, and decimation of its trusted armed forces.

"Plus you've got to wonder who is claiming all those benefits." Added opposition leader Amal Abeid.

Just to elaborate, the major problem with this is that any RP relating to population, military size, industrial output or political power is rendered a non-event by this.

This means that any wars in the history of your nation didn't happen. It means that any project requiring vast industrial output [arcologies, say] did not happen. It means if you're spent hours defining your military based on your nation's stated population, tough luck, because 'the UN reported your population wrong.' It means if you've actually addressed the overcrowding issue of so many people it doesn't matter because they never existed in the first place, even though your government obviously thought they did. It means entire cities in your nation presumably stand totally empty and nobody's ever even noticed.

Frankly, this 'solution' is so ridiculous it's worse than the 'problem,' which isn't really a problem anyway. Destroying the entire NS canon just because some people want smaller nations doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

If people want to arbitarily reduce or freeze their population for RP purposes, that's fine, but if they want to play vast nations that's also fine. Frankly, since assuming an average age of a week and a half or so per nation makes NS' population 1.18 trillion even [i]with the ten percent decrease, it's not any more realistic either way. Play as thou wilt, but only with your own nation. Everyone else's population is their business.

And let's not forget all the per capita UN Rankings that would be screwed over.

Besides, the amount of stuff in NS that's absurd is excessive, singling out population as the stat to be completely changed is just silly. As mentioned before, if people want to lower their population, it's their choice, but trying to force it on them is rather stupid.

I mean, one of my nations just removes the descriptor, just using the number. They've got about 600 people right now, but I'm not going to do it for my main nation, as it would completely destroy one of the key elements of the Hack, namely The Warrens.

Silly? NS? This thread? Gosh, that's front page news!

Still, I'm struggling to see how uniform population reduction would influence per-capita ratings..I mean, they are per-capita, not per-billion or such..

Meh. I don't know about you, but this make me think that I need more tea.

The people of Island where aghast when the United Nations informed them they had a population of 254 million. For an hour or so, there was panic. Then, government officials walked all the way round the island looking to see if a few million intruders were huddled somewhere, and reassured everyone by saying there were none.

"Those UN people must have been very, very drunk," one Islander citizen commented. "There's just 2000 or so of us here. Where would we fit 250 million? Pile them up?"

Once the initial confusion was past, most decided it was, on the whole, amusing. Jokes on the matter have been circulating round Island ever since.

(ooc: certainly not trying to force anything on anybody, just havin' a bit of fun! I'll continue to describe Tanah Burung, if it happens to be relevant in any given thread, as one of the larger countries out there.)

FURTHER LIGHT ON THE POPULATION PARADIGM PROBLEMATIQUE

By Poisson D'Avril
Professor of Poststructuralist Demography
State University of Kisses

In an increasingly liminal, polyethnic world of hybridity, borrowing on Handbesket's work, we can see that participation in the post-constructivist mode of demographic analysis is itself a function of ethnicity. Where the members of marginalized minority linguistic clades (such as Dutch-speakers) appear open to the concept of a more intimate stage, those hailing from today's centres of empire such as the United States resist dimishment.

Indivuated collectivities, as the post-contemporary school teaches, are a function of reflected imagery. That is to say, in laymen's terms, many nations are inflating their population figures with the use of mirrors, aided by smoke generators. As Baum might tell us: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"

(ooc: certainly not trying to force anything on anybody, just havin' a bit of fun! I'll continue to describe Tanah Burung, if it happens to be relevant in any given thread, as one of the larger countries out there.)

FURTHER LIGHT ON THE POPULATION PARADIGM PROBLEMATIQUE

By Poisson D'Avril
Professor of Poststructuralist Demography
State University of Kisses

In an increasingly liminal, polyethnic world of hybridity, borrowing on Handbesket's work, we can see that participation in the post-constructivist mode of demographic analysis is itself a function of ethnicity. Where the members of marginalized minority linguistic clades (such as Dutch-speakers) appear open to the concept of a more intimate stage, those hailing from today's centres of empire such as the United States resist dimishment.

Indivuated collectivities, as the post-contemporary school teaches, are a function of reflected imagery. That is to say, in laymen's terms, many nations are inflating their population figures with the use of mirrors, aided by smoke generators. As Baum might tell us: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"