NationStates Jolt Archive

it seems as though many of the UN resolutions, such as legalized prostitution, are not the sort of issues that should be decided by an international body. There should be a way to ensure that all issues before the UN are actually international issues and not issues that should be left up to individual countries to decide on.

Yeah, I agree. That should be an issue you get...not a UN resolution. But hey, if it reached quorum, can't help it.

I concur as well. It does bring up the interesting idea of some sort of issue where the people of your nation want out of the UN, though. With the UN is doing things like legalizing child molesting "so it can be regulated", you'd think the people wouldn't like that much....

I can't see how anyone could determine a criteria for which issues are International and which for individual countries.

I object strongly for instance to having the EU tell me I can't use herbal medicines because they aren't approved by someone I don't give a tinker's for.

And I want to fire-bomb the bureaucratic tits who're trying to dictate that I can't treat my horses with 'Bute if they're in pain, simply because the French actually EAT horses and the EU don't know I'd rather chew gravel than ever let my horses become part of the food chain ...

Surely to you or I these would be (relatively speaking) minor issues which individual countries should find ways to regulate - but nope, they're apparently not ... and in these terms, legalising prostitution for example, could be seen as a major issue concerning people's most basic human rights .... i.e. to earn money to support yourself by hiring out the use of your body, and to ease basic urges by paying someone to assuage them.

Just my NVHO :wink:

Then, are we in truth a massive republic ruled by delegates who declare for or against our wishes our laws, or part of an international body which has some limits upon its power?

I agree. A lot of the resolutions which have been voted upon recently should not be within the jurisdiction of the UN, but should be left up to individual nation states to decide on.

I agree with the comments presented by other nations. Resolutions like the legalize prostitution is out of context of the U.N. Our country would not be forced to implement such a ludicrous resolution. It has gone beyond its powers... The resolution at vote should be stopped and withdrawn from the floor or else we might see a mass leave of nations from the U.N.

Can I ask what is the power of the Secretary General? If he has power over resolutions then we can demand for his/her resignation.

We doubt many more would leave than left over euthanasia.
Some left, some stayed.
We should probably have an "international relevance" litnus test for the mods, which would let them pull these offending proposals, but that would change game mechanics, wouldn't it?
No herbal medicines in the EU? Medicine really IS like religion then, literally telling people what they cannot do with their own bodies, and having the power of the state behind these pronouncements.

Can I ask what is the power of the Secretary General? If he has power over resolutions then we can demand for his/her resignation.
There is no Secretary General, but you can call for his resignation if you want.

It all depends on how seriously you take the Secretary General Proposal.

it seems as though many of the UN resolutions, such as legalized prostitution, are not the sort of issues that should be decided by an international body. There should be a way to ensure that all issues before the UN are actually international issues and not issues that should be left up to individual countries to decide on.

The Theocracy of Purisgard agrees with the above statement. There should be someone to make sure the issues be relevant and not infringing on national sovereignty eg.prostitution.

The United Nations has overstepped its boundaries numerous times. It is time for it to be dissolved...well the NationStates one. Perhaps some wise citizens of the world could form a new world governing body, which could surpass the UN in scope and intelligence. (Yet again, just for NationStates)

I agree with the Great Hamlet- it is time for the UN to be dissolved. Too many people vote "yes" to each resolution without even reading them. The UN should make resolutions only when something is absolutely necesssary. It should be minimalistic, and it shouldn't be passing 3 or so resolutions a month- for a resolution to reach quorum and be voted upon it should be really really important. Not all these useless BS resolutions ppl. are passing.

We doubt many more would leave than left over euthanasia.
Some left, some stayed.
We should probably have an "international relevance" litnus test for the mods, which would let them pull these offending proposals, but that would change game mechanics, wouldn't it?
No herbal medicines in the EU? Medicine really IS like religion then, literally telling people what they cannot do with their own bodies, and having the power of the state behind these pronouncements.

so how does one propose changes in the game such as this? they seem pretty adamant about not making it a un proposal and i can't imagine that admins actually read the forums... so what is the process to advocate game changes?

We doubt many more would leave than left over euthanasia.
Some left, some stayed.
We should probably have an "international relevance" litnus test for the mods, which would let them pull these offending proposals, but that would change game mechanics, wouldn't it?
No herbal medicines in the EU? Medicine really IS like religion then, literally telling people what they cannot do with their own bodies, and having the power of the state behind these pronouncements.

so how does one propose changes in the game such as this? they seem pretty adamant about not making it a un proposal and i can't imagine that admins actually read the forums... so what is the process to advocate game changes?

We doubt many more would leave than left over euthanasia.
Some left, some stayed.
We should probably have an "international relevance" litnus test for the mods, which would let them pull these offending proposals, but that would change game mechanics, wouldn't it?
No herbal medicines in the EU? Medicine really IS like religion then, literally telling people what they cannot do with their own bodies, and having the power of the state behind these pronouncements.

so how does one propose changes in the game such as this? they seem pretty adamant about not making it a un proposal and i can't imagine that admins actually read the forums... so what is the process to advocate game changes?

The Technical forum - and it's not going to happen. People have been advising national sovereignty restrictions since at least July (see my Outlaw Pedophilia resolution).

This has been an OOC post.

Prepare for rambling. I might come back and edit to clean this up later.

I agree that, ideally, the UN would be concerned mainly or even wholly with international issues. I also believe, however, that the basic limitation of government by the recognition and enforcement of certain civil liberties is an essential international issue.

NationStates was not set up with a large stock of international issues to settle. Most all of the international issues that have been settled -- banning single-hulled oil tankers, as an example -- have been entirely devised by the players. Wars and the occurances therein would seem to be an excellent supply of international issues, but the UN system operates slowly (easily two weeks between submission of a proposal and the end of the successful voting period) and doesn't seem compatible with many such things because (1) the entire voting population of NationStates probably doesn't care to focus for a week at a time on a mere two nations, (2) wars and other international conflicts are not recognized aspects of the game, and (3) the NationStates system itself would not support such focused resolutions.

Under the current system, any resolution passed by the UN is a blanket resolution -- it will affect all member nations, regardless of intent -- and the text of a resolution is largely irrelevant. The game cannot be expected to interpret the text of a resolution, but it can interpret the category and strength (ie: Human Rights, Strong). Nations all have several numeric values which change based on the choices of their leaders; UN resolutions also change those values -- I'm fairly sure that all of the available UN proposal categories reflect all of the available values, but I can't be certain. So, based on that, a resolution to recognize Freedom of Speech (Human Rights) would increase the HR value in every nation regardless of whether or not that nation already recognized that freedom.

A proposal must pass one key gauntlet before it can become a resolution: It must reach quorum. The present number of delegate-endorsements required is 147. It seems sensible that any proposal which generates that much interest is probably worth a vote -- especially seeing as proposals rarely do generate that much interest.

The most tempting potential solution is to alter the number of delegate-endorsements required. That, however, will have little effect if the demographic of the delegates remains the same. It's also important to note that NationStates is only a game and, that being the case, it is presumably desirable that the UN be dealing with a resolution almost constantly. Ideally, the delegate-endorsement requirement would be set such that there is generally one proposal in the queue -- more, and the UN slows down even more as the resolutions for vote pile months into the future; less, and the UN stops functioning. The idea is that the delegates will hopefully select the most deserving proposals.

I believe that a coordinated effort could actually become quite powerful at the delegate level. As the number of endorsements required is dependent on the number of delegates, increasing the number of delegates increases the requirements. At the proposal level, each delegate has an equal vote; at the resolution level, each delegate has a number of votes equal to one plus the number of endorsements they have from the other member nations in their region. That being the case, two delegates with fifty votes each will actually hold more power than one delegate with one-hundred votes -- the drawback being that the two delegates aren't unified and won't necessarily vote as a unit. Taking that theory to it's extreme, five-hundred delegates with two votes each are far more powerful than one delegate with one-thousand votes because they can exert far greater influence over which proposals reach quorum and still have an equal influence once voting begins. This delegate bloc wouldn't hold absolute power, but they could, possibly, control the quorum system by endorsing only the proposals they initiate -- thus swamping the queue -- or refusing to endorse particular resolutions -- thus preventing those proposals from coming to a vote. Such an alliance might be difficult to spot because most people tend to disregard delegates with only two votes and because the alliance presumably would take care of their business at some forum or chatroom outside of NationStates itself.

So those are just some thoughts of mine. There's not a particular unifying point to that, but I hope it was worth reading.

I agree with the Great Hamlet- it is time for the UN to be dissolved. Too many people vote "yes" to each resolution without even reading them. The UN should make resolutions only when something is absolutely necesssary. It should be minimalistic, and it shouldn't be passing 3 or so resolutions a month- for a resolution to reach quorum and be voted upon it should be really really important. Not all these useless BS resolutions ppl. are passing.

That is always true people just read the civil rights bit which it is proposed under and think yes and ta da they vote yes. It is a major problem and the whole U.N needs a major rethink but that will be in NS2 :D

Prepare for rambling. I might come back and edit to clean this up later.

I agree that, ideally, the UN would be concerned mainly or even wholly with international issues. I also believe, however, that the basic limitation of government by the recognition and enforcement of certain civil liberties is an essential international issue.

NationStates was not set up with a large stock of international issues to settle. Most all of the international issues that have been settled -- banning single-hulled oil tankers, as an example -- have been entirely devised by the players. Wars and the occurances therein would seem to be an excellent supply of international issues, but the UN system operates slowly (easily two weeks between submission of a proposal and the end of the successful voting period) and doesn't seem compatible with many such things because (1) the entire voting population of NationStates probably doesn't care to focus for a week at a time on a mere two nations, (2) wars and other international conflicts are not recognized aspects of the game, and (3) the NationStates system itself would not support such focused resolutions.

Under the current system, any resolution passed by the UN is a blanket resolution -- it will affect all member nations, regardless of intent -- and the text of a resolution is largely irrelevant. The game cannot be expected to interpret the text of a resolution, but it can interpret the category and strength (ie: Human Rights, Strong). Nations all have several numeric values which change based on the choices of their leaders; UN resolutions also change those values -- I'm fairly sure that all of the available UN proposal categories reflect all of the available values, but I can't be certain. So, based on that, a resolution to recognize Freedom of Speech (Human Rights) would increase the HR value in every nation regardless of whether or not that nation already recognized that freedom.

A proposal must pass one key gauntlet before it can become a resolution: It must reach quorum. The present number of delegate-endorsements required is 147. It seems sensible that any proposal which generates that much interest is probably worth a vote -- especially seeing as proposals rarely do generate that much interest.

The most tempting potential solution is to alter the number of delegate-endorsements required. That, however, will have little effect if the demographic of the delegates remains the same. It's also important to note that NationStates is only a game and, that being the case, it is presumably desirable that the UN be dealing with a resolution almost constantly. Ideally, the delegate-endorsement requirement would be set such that there is generally one proposal in the queue -- more, and the UN slows down even more as the resolutions for vote pile months into the future; less, and the UN stops functioning. The idea is that the delegates will hopefully select the most deserving proposals.

I believe that a coordinated effort could actually become quite powerful at the delegate level. As the number of endorsements required is dependent on the number of delegates, increasing the number of delegates increases the requirements. At the proposal level, each delegate has an equal vote; at the resolution level, each delegate has a number of votes equal to one plus the number of endorsements they have from the other member nations in their region. That being the case, two delegates with fifty votes each will actually hold more power than one delegate with one-hundred votes -- the drawback being that the two delegates aren't unified and won't necessarily vote as a unit. Taking that theory to it's extreme, five-hundred delegates with two votes each are far more powerful than one delegate with one-thousand votes because they can exert far greater influence over which proposals reach quorum and still have an equal influence once voting begins. This delegate bloc wouldn't hold absolute power, but they could, possibly, control the quorum system by endorsing only the proposals they initiate -- thus swamping the queue -- or refusing to endorse particular resolutions -- thus preventing those proposals from coming to a vote. Such an alliance might be difficult to spot because most people tend to disregard delegates with only two votes and because the alliance presumably would take care of their business at some forum or chatroom outside of NationStates itself.

So those are just some thoughts of mine. There's not a particular unifying point to that, but I hope it was worth reading.

It was and quite enlightening, but I don't want to have to be a sneaky bastard to be allowed a fair playing field in this very twisted game of politics. The current policy creators claim being just when they're apparently using military action to steal delegate votes and secure their wins. It's very underhanded and a blatant lie considering their claims of fairness.

The Un here is becoming a father know best nation.

Anything that would apply to another nation and mine the UN may and I say again may have some right to try to regulate but how I treat my own public is really non of thier bussiness

The UN here is becoming a father know best nation.

well yeah-- only it's usually a contingent of several thousand fathers voting against several thousand other fathers. and it was designed as a father knows best structure-- by entering the UN, you implicitly acknowledge that you're no longer an untouchable bubble. i mean, *somebody's* going to disagree with any proposal we put up there, right?

and speaking of father knows best, isn't the proposal to screen proposals for acceptability an even more acute form of father knows best-ness? (i mean, if we decide, for instance, that trade laws are an international affair, and that, say, the international slave trade is an international affair, we could pretty easily construct a slippery slope that says 'trafficking women is an international affair too', and from there start griping about prostitution in general. no?)

anyway, that said, i don't think anyone actually thought there would be so many zillions of nations signing up-- which makes the idea that *one* body could possibly function as an effective single unit rather absurd. when i first got on a year ago there were two hundred...