The UN is way way way too defunct and weak and doesn't work.
The Un is totally defunct, the resolutions are never enforced, and are always about the strangest things. Someone needs to start making the resolutions worth voting for by enforcing them. The NorthEastern Pacific Rim, and it's UN members strongly propose on this post that Max Barry, the creator of the website starts enforcing UN resolutions, and therefore make the UN an institution with some power!
The Un is totally defunct, the resolutions are never enforced, and are always about the strangest things. Someone needs to start making the resolutions worth voting for by enforcing them. The NorthEastern Pacific Rim, and it's UN members strongly propose on this post that Max Barry, the creator of the website starts enforcing UN resolutions, and therefore make the UN an institution with some power!
You can already feel powerless by voting in an election. The whole point of this is to give an individual total power to affect his own virtual nation...not have just one vote among countless other nations.
Give the UN too much power and no one will want to be a member.
New Clarkhall
25-10-2003, 18:22
I think the resolutions that are passed here actually DO have an effect on member nations. It is true that some resolutions (especially the earlier ones) are not enforced (such as electing a secretary general)...because they require changes to the game which Barry clearly cannot just make at his whim.
All in all though, the current ENFORCEMENT of resolutions does not seem to be the problem. My main beef lies in the complete inability of members to repeal and remove those past resolutions. Very very annoying and illogical.
The resolutions are enforced in their coding - not in their texts.
Two examples from recent history (with the text simplified):
1. "Let's have a Secretary General"
Category: Furtherment of Democracy
Text: The UN needs a Secretary General. Secretary Generals are 00ber c00l, we need one NOW!
This resolution is passed and enforced. "But we don't have a Secretary General!", I hear you cry. Look at the category ->Furtherment of Demoracy. What happened when this proposal was passed was that "Democracy" in all UN member nations was "Furthered". Ergo, the resolution was enforced.
2. "AIDS Initiative"
Category: Social Justice
Text: We all need to work together to stop AIDS. Lots of confusing provisions about what the heck we're supposed to do.
This one was passed as well, and enforced. Being a "Social Justice" resolution, it has the effect of promoting social justice (most likely income redistribution) in the member states. The argument was raised that the redistribution should have been from the poor to the rich, given the way that the resolution was written, but the game only works the other way.
Detour about Repealing resolutions:
From memory, there are only two proposal categories (Gun Control and Recreational Drug Usage) that have the ability to promote or retard the thing being proposed (Gun Control can be "relaxed" or "tightened", for example). There are some other categories which work as approximate opposites - Political Stability might be the opposite of Furtherment of Democracy, depending on how you phrase your proposals, and Moral Decency (especially where homosexuality and abortion are concerned) often looks like the opposite of Human Rights. Obviously International Security and Global Disarmament work together as well.
Thus, it is theoretically possible to propose something which will have the opposite effect to the proposal you don't like. I've seen it done, although neither of the proposals in question reached the floor of the UN. No problems so far.
The problem appears when someone actually writes a proposal with the express purpose of "repealing resolution X". Quite often, these are submitted in the same category as the resolution to be repealed - which is obviously a case of the wrong category (repealing a Human Rights proposal by giving more Human Rights doesn't make any sense in pure game terms). The other problem is that many of these resolutions call for "Resolution X to be made null and void". This is a game mechanics thing, in that resolutions cannot be made null and void. Thus, the proposal is zapped for those reasons.
There was talk about a month ago about the possibility of allowing resolutions to be repealed. I don't know what came of it, but it might be an option for NS2.