NationStates Jolt Archive

Lately we've had some interesting arguments:

Yes, it actually does. The real U.N. needed to do so in order to eliminate loopholes in resolutions and prevent precisely the form of legalistic maneuvering I am engaging in. There is uncertainty allowed within common dictionaries of the English language as to the duration of the year. Webster's, in its unabridged edition, allows for a year to be "the year adopted by any nation adopted for the computation of time." We have adopted a year of 182.625 days for the purposes of computation of time. The definition of "year" is left purposefully vague because there are sufficient descriptors for legal purposes to clarify when needed. Since this is a case in which clarification was needed, the author of the resolution failed to perform due diligence and left a legal opening that my nation is exploiting.
vs.
One question though, when are you going to tell us that your daddy can beat up our daddies? I mean, really, these types of arguements went out of style about the same time that children learn that just putting your hands over your eyes doesn't make you invisible either.

Naturally, my first inclination was to set fire to both of them for being moronic and childish. But then it occurred to me that instead we could set up a board of standards which would resolve such issues for us - allowing us to set fire to people with a clean moral slate.

Which is pretty awesome, when you think about it.

The proposal is currently to be found here:

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/53326/page=UN_proposal/start=70

Don't make me come over there.

Lately we've had some interesting arguments:

The definition of "year" is left purposefully vague because there are sufficient descriptors for legal purposes to clarify when needed. Since this is a case in which clarification was needed, the author of the resolution failed to perform due diligence and left a legal opening that my nation is exploiting.

Naturally, my first inclination was to set fire to both of them for being moronic and childish. But then it occurred to me that instead we could set up a board of standards which would resolve such issues for us - allowing us to set fire to people with a clean moral slate.



OOC:
Actually, I was the second guy you want to set on fire, but I was responding to what is the UN forum's version of International Incidents forum's Godmodding on the behalf of some other guy.

I'm not too sure that your idea to adopt standards is really a good one. If we end up adopting some standards, say a resolution just saying we use S.I., next somebody is going to say that according to their culture that simple English words mean the opposite in their countries. So then we'd respond again by adopting a dictionary as the official dictionary ... then what of the folks that don't have access to it? It also borders on a game mechanics issue.

You'll be replacing dudes who are desparate to knock down a resolution by making up words by people who will start flaming newbies because they aren't reading from the same dictionary as the rest of us.

The bottom line is, if somebody wants to cheat the game, they will. There is a reason people in the other forums talk about IGNORE cannons. It is the only way to handle somebody who just isn't gonna let another nation beat him / her in a roleplayed conflict (be it war or the simple passage of a resolution).

That said, I'll point out again that I'm a strong proponent of roleyplaying. The country with the clones and warbots ... fun stuff. The genocide stuff from last month, again ... cutting edge fun. Claiming to rewrite the English language, the only power we have over those people is to turn our diplomatic IGNORE pistols at them (the smaller person sized version of the cannons) and just continue on with the debates and discussions from the people who actually bring up real issues.

Michael

Naturally, my first inclination was to set fire to both of them for being moronic and childish. But then it occurred to me that instead we could set up a board of standards which would resolve such issues for us - allowing us to set fire to people with a clean moral slate.


For the record, I'd like to apologize for my remarks and state that on the record that what I said in reguards to the above quote does not represent my nations point of view. Furthermore, it was in bad taste.

I still stand by my governments position that the language of the resolution could be no more clear. But my overreaction to a single individuals extreme remarks was uncalled for.

Thank you for not setting anybody on fire.

10kMichael

As it is written, The Holy Empire of Gethamane will not support the proposal, nor will the regional delegate The Jade Citadel endorse it.

Although, The Holy Empire of Gethamane would like to commend the efforts of Hooglastahn, and offers the following considerations:

A) Article II be removed. While Gethamane recognizes the potential necessity of such an Article, we feel it would better serve its purpose in another proposal. Granted, this proposal deals with standards, but we feel they should be limited to weights, measures, and/or units of time.

B) Article I definition of a second be changed to "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom" (atomic time) whereas "ground state" is defined as "zero magnetic field."

Point B is due to the fact that the time required for Earth to make a full orbit around the sun takes two milliseconds longer every day that passes. But Cesium 133's properties will take much longer to change, if they in fact ever change. It is more a matter of Gethamane's desire to back a resolution that will stand the test of time.

However, it is The Holy Empire of Gethamane's intent to stand firm against Article II of this proposal until it is relocated to another, more appropriate, proposal.

OOC: I'm not sure a "slippery slope" argument is appropriate here. I understand the desire (and personally support it) to not cater to Godmodders in the UN, but a standard of weights and measures is still fairly basic.

I'm all for standing against an "official dictionary," or similar bull, but in reality, Weights and Measures (including time) are (or rather, were) a real issue, and I don't think it's unreasonable that we have to deal with it here.

OOC: I'm not sure a "slippery slope" argument is appropriate here. I understand the desire (and personally support it) to not cater to Godmodders in the UN, but a standard of weights and measures is still fairly basic.

I'm all for standing against an "official dictionary," or similar bull, but in reality, Weights and Measures (including time) are (or rather, were) a real issue, and I don't think it's unreasonable that we have to deal with it here.

OOC: This actually is a discussion worth having in and of its own right (and probably better off separated from any topic) because even though we aren't talking about actual game mechanics, we come close to doing so and certainly are touching upon roleplaying guidelines of a sort. I think of this as a sort of wish list ... I wonder if this has been discussed before here?

If we really want to pursue a standard of weights and measures, I would say that since most folks are just going to assume the SI or English units (call it a hunch), I'd actually advocate we just c&p some of the basic SI ones. I'd hate to see what happens if newbies just fire off proposals without reading that we've adopted some crazy standards (or good ones, as the cesium suggestion is).

Question: Did the League of Nations or United Nations ever pass a resolution adopting a standard of measures? I know for a fact that no such provision is in the UN Charter ... and more to the point, the Statute of International Court of Justic (the World Court) Article 13 is the first reference to time (years) and yet the Statute only adopts English and French as the official languages. It doesn't continue to say that it will use one measurement system or another.

In other words, I think we are going a step beyond what the real UN has done ... though that in and of itself should not limit us. We have our own rules and own goals. So if people really want to continue down this road, I'll play along and offer advice, but I'd still rather we not.

Of course, the speed of light in a vacuum won't ever change either, being the universal constant C, upon which all relativistic physics is based. We assume that since the speed of light is a constant, and speed is distance over time, that if we define a constant distance and a constant speed, that the derivation of time will be trivial to derive.

Cessium is a relatively stable element, but the speed of light is absolute.

This sort of jibba jabba is simply stalling on the part of lawyers and hooligans, and we will not stand for it.

Don't make me come over there.

OOC: In the real world, the measurement of time is based on the cessium atom, and the measurement of distance is based on the speed of light over time (the meter is defined as the distance light goes in a fraction of a second).

There's absolutely no reason why the definition has to go

Atomic Averages define time -> Light over time defines distance.

instead of

Atomic averages define distance -> Light over distance defines time.

It's entirely interchangebable and there's no reason why it has to be one way or another. I chose to define it in the other direction because it is a roleplaying excercise and I figured that there was no particular reason why the exasperated Hooglastahnian delegates would make the same coin flip that historical humanity did. It adds versimilitude without actually changing the results (the second is still precisely the same amount of time, the meter is going to be exactly the same length - but now the second is defined by the meter instead of the meter defined by the second). /OOC

We concede the point regarding the definition of a "second" to Hooglastahn. Though we feel that referring to our nation as "hooligans" is distasteful and is far from diplomacy. More to the point, it was hardly necessary to get your point across.

Secondly, no effort was made to explain the appearance of Article II of the proposal.
The Holy Empire of Gethamane will stand behind Articles I and III, but we still await an explanation regarding Article II.

OOC: Absolutely you're correct about the second, my bad. I just want to make sure there is the minimum opportunity for loopholes here (though, I suppose you can never -really- be certain).

Mikitivity: I believe you're right regarding the real UN. However, the real world does contain an international organization for Weights and Measures, I do believe, and it is a luxary that we currently lack. If we pursue this path (though, judging by responce so far, I'm not certain it will happen), the UN is the reasonable choice. And you're right; simply "borrowing" standards that already exist would be far simpler than coming up with our own ;)

Article II seems every bit as important as Artiles I and III. Our United Nation includes colonies of robots, crab people, and even dancing penguins. Whenever a resolution refers to "people" all kinds of questions come up as to whether this is refering to the citizens of countries full of crab people or nations where half the populace happen to be clones of the other half.

Consider this actual argument:

Where do you get the idea that warbots and Vat grown soldiers aren't people?
Quite honestly I couldn't give a flying yellow monkey if you send your "killer robots of doom" or "uber-scary clones of doom, but not quite as much doom as the killer robots" off to die on some God-forsaken rock, this resolution is about protecting children - as in people.
I am Ambassador Bogeyfeather of Dancing Penguin. We love this proposal, except for one thing. As we are a nation of, well, dancing penguins we wish to make sure that these laws will protect the young of all intelligent species, not just humans.

Hey as long as dancing penguins understand what a year is, then you'll be afforded the same rights as human beings in my Confederation.

We can't just wave our hands and announce that common sense shall prevail - because these answers given about the same proposal don't match. If a sapient penguin is a person, a sapient war clone must be a person as well. And so on for the reverse argument. While we admit that some nations would doubtless prefer standards in which they were allowed to strip the rights of certain sapient creatures away - in the UN we should probably go around defending the rights of dancing penguins to the same extent that we do for humans or genetically modified talking plants or human beings.

OOC: The real UN has never had to define what a person is, save to announce that people who are female are still people and protected by human rights provisions, as are ethnic minorities. However, this UN really does have nations full of robots, vampires, corpse eating monsters, and penguins.

The real Earth has a relatively simple problem to deal with. There's only one sapient species on the planet - so the only thing you have to worry about is the Hitlers and King Sauds of the world trying to pull a fast one and define certain humans as non-people. We have a much bigger problem, because we include lots of sapient species, and there is actually legitimate debate as to whether some of them should count as people or not./OOC

Standards are important.

it will require much work and debate, but even the concept of "person" should be clearly defined.

We can begin by discussing what we mean by the term "sapience".

The representatives of Ketrana, a wife and husbands team, confer for a few moments before the female rises. "We have conferred, and in so conferring have come to a decision. A set of standards regarding such diverse concepts as time and person-hood are unusual to see in the same measure, but to be entirely honest we are concerned that this issue has gone unadressed for so long in the first place. Standardized measurements can only help to foster agreements between nations: if we can not agree how much time passes between two events, or how far it is between two points, how can we hope to settle border disputes or manage trade agreements between nations? And as to the definitions of a person, well," she shrugs, "We are representing the sole delegation of our people amongst humanity. And we are not alone in our unusual status. Nations exist without any humans whatsoever, and so that needs to be addressed. If this is an organization devoted to equality for all peoples and to the protection of peace and freedom for all nations, then these rights must be extended to all beings that can claim membership."

The Holy Empire of Gethamane appreciates the position of nations such as Ketrana. Gethamane is a nation of humans, but we believe the rights and civil liberties afforded to humans should belong to all sapient species.

However, it should be noted that the United Nations has not demonstrated this sensitivity in some previous examples of note:

In The Universal Bill of Rights, the word "person" (including the plurals "persons" and "people") appears only twice:

"Article 7 -- Any arrested person must be assumed innocent until proven guilty."
"Article 9 -- Any persons who violate any of these articles shall be held accountable by the law."

Likewise, the Child Protection Act contains the word "person" (including "persons" and "people") only twice:

"Bearing in mind that the peoples of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human (Emphasis added) person..."

"1. States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the minor from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person(s)."

In fact, many important UN Resolutions don't include "person." They specify Human Beings. I personally assume it to be innocent oversight, but it is an oversight that needs addressing.

The Holy Empire of Gethamane firmly believes that the UN intends to do the best for the nations that belong to it, and often the best for the nations that choose not to belong. In no way am I accusing the UN of racism (OOC: What's the proper term for discrimination based on species? :P ). However, we use the given information to suggest that this proposal be kept for weights and measures, and a separate, more comprehensive, proposal be created for defining a "person" as well as rectifying the oversights in previous resolutions.

Yes, there should probably be a "legally human" provision. However, I am currently too drunk to write it myself. Currently, I think this can best be hashed out by the Unified Voard of Standards who shall be empowered to define such terminology as it comes up. That's what we'll pay them for.

Don't make me come over there.

[OOC: The proper term for discrimination based on species is "Racism". The term became used for minor color and eye shape gradations in humans because in the bad old days people actually thought that some humans were different species from other humans. Unfortunately, this means that when people hear "Racism" they think "discrimination based on skin color" which according to the root meaning of the word it isn't. As such, English has no word for descriminating against someone because of their species.]

OOC: Freaking English Language. /OOC

The Holy Empire of Gethamane will support the proposal on the condition that a "legally human" clause is explicitly entered into the proposal.

We feel that an explicit clause for "legally human" will assist in clarifying the proposal's intent, as well as encourage nations containing non-human citizens to approve the proposal.

We are envisioning something similar to the following:

"Article IV All future and previous instances of civil liberties being granted to UN member nations based on race will henceforth be granted to all persons as defined in Article II"

Obviously, Gethamane welcomes and encourages suggestions for improvement of the Article and any continued suggestions or commentary regarding the proposal itself.

That is entirely workable and we shall do so as soon as possible.

[OOC: Does anyone know how to do that?

As far as I can tell, this would require me to submit a second and entirely different proposal with the additional articles.]

That is entirely workable and we shall do so as soon as possible.

[OOC: Does anyone know how to do that?

As far as I can tell, this would require me to submit a second and entirely different proposal with the additional articles.]

Article II seems every bit as important as Artiles I and III. Our United Nation includes colonies of robots, crab people, and even dancing penguins. Whenever a resolution refers to "people" all kinds of questions come up as to whether this is refering to the citizens of countries full of crab people or nations where half the populace happen to be clones of the other half.

On that note, though I argued against the need for defining widely excepted English terms, I agree with you on Article II. In fact, I'd suggest that you separate Article II and make it its own proposal.

Let us welcome the robots, crab people, clones, dancing penguins, and others into the NationStates UN with open arms (or in the case of the human killing robots with open Claws of Death).

Though bear in mind that since the majority of nations are human ones, that we should probably define issues such as "human rights" to really be reserved for sentient species. Obviously a few of us may disagree on what is sentient and what is not, but when a nation joins the UN, it does so because the rest of the world has recognized it. The citizens of UN member states are what I'd call sentients and the intended subjects of any human rights resolution.

When my nation advocated in favor of the Children in War resolution, we did so keeping human children in mind for the biological age requirements, but the basic extension of the human rights, holds for the crab people as well.

With that in mind, I would expand your Article II (which I'm hoping you'll put into a separate proposal, because I'm not in favor of defining what a meter is, because some clown will then argue what a cesium atom is if you use it as your yard stick) to include a phrase that states that genders and ages for non-humans would be treated equivalently with respect to the species in question.

For example, it is well known that replicants only function for a 4 years (this is a design specification ... it is unknown if any unofficial replicants have ever been created without this fail safe). The age old question is, how long would it take for them to mentally develop? The flame that burns twice as bright, burns half as long.

It is very difficult though for nations that aren't confronted with multi-species diversity to really hold a yard stick telling nations what is and what is not right. With that in mind, I think a vague resolution is called for. Not a specific one.

10kMichael

On that note, though I argued against the need for defining widely excepted English terms, I agree with you on Article II.

Of course, while some things are widely accepted, the goal here is to make them universally accepted.

So long as member Regions include:

Luna (Member states: Raphaelleia, Wounderland)
Magic (Member states: Vili Pentakulo, RavynX)
Moon (Member states: Deehoc, Colonial Lunar States, Lunarbase 54-b)
Space (Member states: C18X, Free RR, Other Side of The Coin, Angels of light, Alien Friends, Tommasini, Andrewsland, The Tritanium Tochiro)
000 Middle Earth 000 (Delegate: The People's Republic of United Middle-Earth)

and so on and so on and so on... then its absurd to believe even for a seocnd that when we put the word "year" in any of our correspondances that the people of Middle Earth won't happily use the Middle Earthian Year - whatever that happens to be. Now, the Czarists we have in here use the Julian Calendar, and most of us use the Gregorian Calendar - which is only off by a day per handful of years, cumulatively. Now the Middle Earthians use King's Reckoning or Shire Reckoning, which is a whole different thing.

The lunarists presumably use the "day" as their long period, as it takes a whole month for a region of the moon to move from lighted to dark to lighted again.

Seriously, go look at the regions we actually have - there are 900+ of these guys, and many of them are off planet or from alternate dimensions. Heck, we even have a Region called "Sex" where our illustrious member state "CrazyGoNuts University" hails from.

There is a UN Delegate from Atlantis, who probably keeps track of time on some giant underwater crystal thing or something. There is a UN Delegate from Alpha Centauri, whose calendar is presumably based on the calendar of whatever planet around that star they occupy. There is another delegate from Alpha Draconis, and their calendar is based on whatever orbital period Vexis happens to have.

Basic standards of time are in fact actually essential.

Really.

Don't make me come over there.

[OOC: No, this is not Godmodding. This is simply a fact that has to be dealt with in a RP fashion. We have to hammer out a method of dealing with the fact that some of our member states are located on Mars (UN Delegate: Snillmon), or whatever. This is a real problem that our nations really deal with on a day-to-day basis if we want to conduct interregional trade. It is absurd to dismiss this sort of thing as being unnecessary to the peoples that we are supposedly representing.]

We, the free people of Vault 21, are pleased that someone has finally attempted to get the UN protections given to the Human species granted to sentient beings of all kinds, be they artificial killing machines, or penguines, or what have you. We are equally pleased that this proposal was made by our very own UN delegate. However, we are alarmed at the present lack of a clause in the proposal giving that the age of non-human beings such as war drones and penguines be taken as the replacement ages for proposals such as children in war. As a quick example, a war drone can be a fully functionaing and rational being, in fact as rational as a person of 21 at the least, at it's first start up; another example is that a cloned embryo can reach maturity anywhere between 2 hours and 16 years or more dependant on the methods of creation. We would feel far safer knowing that these age differances were taken into account, so as to not cause confusion when 20 year old pre-adolescent elves begin to invade a country despite the fact that this should be against UN regulations.
Sponsored by VaultTech

On that note, though I argued against the need for defining widely excepted English terms, I agree with you on Article II.

Of course, while some things are widely accepted, the goal here is to make them universally accepted.

So long as member Regions include:

Luna (Member states: Raphaelleia, Wounderland)
Magic (Member states: Vili Pentakulo, RavynX)
Moon (Member states: Deehoc, Colonial Lunar States, Lunarbase 54-b)
Space (Member states: C18X, Free RR, Other Side of The Coin, Angels of light, Alien Friends, Tommasini, Andrewsland, The Tritanium Tochiro)
000 Middle Earth 000 (Delegate: The People's Republic of United Middle-Earth)

and so on and so on and so on... then its absurd to believe even for a seocnd that when we put the word "year" in any of our correspondances that the people of Middle Earth won't happily use the Middle Earthian Year -

[OOC: No, this is not Godmodding. This is simply a fact that has to be dealt with in a RP fashion. We have to hammer out a method of dealing with the fact that some of our member states are located on Mars (UN Delegate: Snillmon), or whatever. This is a real problem that our nations really deal with on a day-to-day basis if we want to conduct interregional trade. It is absurd to dismiss this sort of thing as being unnecessary to the peoples that we are supposedly representing.]

I disagree. Even when you called it a Middle Earth Year, you treated it as a proper noun. Surely all of these regions and countries you listed, don't use English at home! And yet, our NationStates UN resolutions are presented in English ... people seem to understand us.

Let's take the definition of distance as an example. It is proposed to make something called say a meter. And we'll base it on a previously defined time and some atomic gizmo. Great, that much we can agree on. But somebody (OOC: a Godmodder) will eventually say that in their special culture that what you and I think is maybe a cesium atom, they think of as our chocolate chip cookie.

While it is true that your nation has a list of standards, and that my nation has a list of standards, I think that the minute you attempt to nail down the specifics of what you'll call "important things", that you will actually be creating more gaps.

[OOC: There is nothing "absurd" about pointing out that by creating a list of standards, in what is a very limited medium that you will be opening up TONS of loopholes. We'll spend years defining things after each and every loophole that somebody else comes up with, and here I'm talking about the semi-reasonable ones, not cases where somebody changes a word because he / she doesn't like a resolution.

Roleplaying is great fun. And coming up with standards is fine, when you've got things you actually can define. But we don't have a world map, histories and facts are passed on by oral traditions -- i.e. people say something, we have to assume what they say about their country is true, countries move between regions, populations grow, wars can be ignored ... etc.

While it is true that part of playing the NationStates game is to create international rules and standards, I personally think there is a strength to drawing that line at a common sense boundary. Your article II basically says, "Well people have non-human minorities, so we'll now recognize that." Articles I and III should be equally simple by saying, "It is impossible for us to define everything so let's agree that when we talk about measures we are using the SI system."

Frisbeeteria did a great job about writing a concise resolution that basically reaffirmed the NationStates rules and current roleplaying practices. That is what I'd like. OTOH, I think you are underestimating how annoying people who are at the end of their rope in advocating against a resolution will be, and actually trying to come up with specifics is gonna give them the tools they need to convince you that they aren't Godmodding, but instead just exploiting a weakness in our combined effort to define things.

Remember, the real UN doesn't have an official system of units. It *does* have official languages. Several of them in fact. And I'd be willing to bet that technical groups like the WHO, WMO, IMO, World Bank, and others do have the standards you want. I just think between having to nail things out in a bulletin board and in something short enough to not confuse newbies, that we'll do a half as good a job as the real thing.

/OOC]

10kMichael

...

Remember, the real UN doesn't have an official system of units. It *does* have official languages. Several of them in fact. And I'd be willing to bet that technical groups like the WHO, WMO, IMO, World Bank, and others do have the standards you want. I just think between having to nail things out in a bulletin board and in something short enough to not confuse newbies, that we'll do a half as good a job as the real thing.

10kMichael

Although the UN itself does not have an official system of units, it is closely affiliated with the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (http://www.bipm.fr/en/home/), which standardizes metrology practices for all of the industrialized world based on the Convention of the Metre (http://www.bipm.fr/en/convention/).

Also, any nation unsophisticated enough to mistake a cesium atom for a chocholate chip cookie would be hard-pressed to isolate an isotope of that cookie with 133 protons and neutrons and excite this isotope in such a way to be able to measure the period of its radiation with sufficient precision on which to base a system of time (correcting for special relativistic effects as well, of course.)

I think it's worth noting that what some nations may define as a 'meter', others would prefer to call a 'metre'. Likewise cesium/caesium (I've only just realised the former isn't a spelling error.

The problem with highly specific standardisation (or standardization) is that niggling difficulties like this really bug people. Let's also not forget that some nations are rather fond of archaic measurements such as the 'inch', the stone and even the peck.

In short, I agree with Mikitivity that we should settle for a more general resolution. I do think this is a very promising proposal and I'm interested to see what form it eventually takes.

Art Randolph
Speaker for Legal Affairs

I always thought Cesium was the correct and Caesium was a mispelling. Oh well whatever.

British spelling of words with Greek roots is closer to the root form, which often combined e with other vowels, such as in "encyclopoedia".

I personally think the word conveys more meaning that way, by acknowledging its derivatrion.

Let's take the definition of distance as an example. It is proposed to make something called say a meter. And we'll base it on a previously defined time and some atomic gizmo. Great, that much we can agree on. But somebody (OOC: a Godmodder) will eventually say that in their special culture that what you and I think is maybe a cesium atom, they think of as our chocolate chip cookie.

There's already a resolution to use metric distances in UN countries.

The "Metric System" resolution was already passed by this body. When we say kilometers and grams, there is no conversion. However, there has been no calendar conversion legislation.

That's a separate problem.

Don't make me come over there.