7.7 general thoughts

[Txurce]

This is not true. There is such a thing as logic. Certainly many things are subjective, but many things are *not* subjective.

"Everything is subjective" is a recipe for nonsense.

But don't tar me with making a pure appeal to authority; I wrote a paragraph explaining why it wasn't correct.

I said "all interpretation is subjective" - not that there is no such thing as logic, or that everything is subjective. For a guy who says he recently wrote a doctorate, you play pretty fast and loose with your quotes and paraphrases.

 

[Ahriman]

I realized where some of our recent misunderstandings might come from...
I think with associations and relationships. Did a and b happen together?
You think with one-to-one exactness. Does a = b or directly lead to b?

Yes, I think it is important that the benefits of policies be logically connected in some kind of causal way. Merely having two things that happened at the same time in a particular instance gives poor flavor and can lead to really weird implications. For example, cold war-era US built up a huge nuclear arsenal, and was a democracy, so by the "two-things-happen-together-in-single-case" test, you could have a Democracy policy that increased the build rate of nuclear weapons and reduced their resource requirements. But that would be bizarre; it wasn't anything about being a Democracy that led to the nuclear buildup. Most democracies don't build up lots of nuclear weapons; nuclear weapons are not inherent to the idea of being a Democracy. Similarly, the British Empire was a key factor in ending slavery throughout the world, so by the "two-things-happen-together-in-a-single-case" test, you could have Imperialism give some kind of abolitionist benefit. But clearly that would be crazy; it wasn't anything inherent about being an Empire that led to their anti-slavery kick, it was a particular brand of political/religious liberalism. The modern US has free trade and a huge economy, and is fairly religious relative to other rich countries. But it would be bizarre to make religious policies boost the economy and manufacturing; religiosity didn't cause economic boosts. It would be weird to have Theocracy boost oil production, even though both Saudi Arabia and Iran are theocracies with lots of oil.

So, yes, I think it is very important to have policies have effects that are plausibly caused by the policy in real history. If you want to think about what Nationalism should do, you look at the set of historic examples of strong Nationalistic behavior (and *new* nationalistic behavior) and you look at what they have in common. You don't just pick a single example and look for concepts occur at the same time. Most big swings in Nationalism don't improve the economy, you are just cherry-picking an example where there was something of a swing of Nationalism associated with a war and where output increased, associated with a war.

This is why I'd argue for some of the name changes around the Liberty tree. What is a common theme of representative governments? They're representative, and people have more say, and there is less unrest and rebellion. What is a common theme of meritocratic societies? They put competent people in power and so tend to make policy decisions, and so are more productive (in an economic or industrial sense, either could fit).

Does this make sense?

I understand what you're saying, but IMO, no, it doesn't make sense.

Trade benefits are just not a common feature of Nationalist societies; the effect feels really out of place. Socialism doesn't boost scientific output, the effect feels out of place (socialism should arguably give happiness, but there is at least a semi-plausible argument for the building maintenance cost reduction in that public health systems, utilities and other such things can often be cheaper).
Just like Democracy shouldn't boost production of nuclear weapons, merely because these happened together. Happened-together is not a good criteria.

Professional Army
Me: Safety is associated with happiness.
You: Walls do not equal happiness.

Walls aren't associated with professional armies. It is perfectly plausible to me that there could be a policy that boosted happiness from walls. But that policy shouldn't be Professional Army. I don't object to this one as strongly on flavor grounds, but it isn't a great fit - and it doesn't work very well on gameplay grounds (a military expansion strategy in general doesn't make you want to build walls, it makes you want to build units - so I would shift the happiness to barracks/armory/mil academy and then arguably increase the upgrade cost reduction benefit). [The reduced upkeep cost makes it easier to field a more experienced/higher skill/better trained army, so this does make some sense with Professional army. If you have a military of professionals, then it will be much easier to maintain standards and retain skills; this is much harder to do with a conscript army, because you are constantly rotating in new people and rotating experienced soldiers out.]

Nationalism
Me: World War 2 is associated with rising nationalism and stronger GDP.
You: Nationalism does not equal a better economy or military.

The policy isn't World war 2, the policy is Nationalism. Nationalism is not associated with stronger GDP in general, Nationalism is way more than just WW2. Nationalism would be about the 19th century unification of Italy and Germany, anti-colonial nationalist movements throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia, various examples of jingosim, etc.. Nationalism makes it easier to keep your people in line because they favor Your Type instead of Their Type; a logical effect would for example be a boost in happiness in cities you founded, as opposed to puppets or occupied cities (you could hack this by giving +X happiness per non-occupied city and +X unhappiness per courthouse, so you only got a net happiness boost from founded cities). And Nationalism makes people more willing to defend the homeland, which is why the military benefit makes sense.

The kind of thing you have in mind for WW2 production is much bettered modeled by a Total War-type policy; a temporary huge outpouring in support of a massive war effort. Or maybe something that boosts the economy while you are at war. But the idea of Nationalism leading to a sustained long-term peacetime improvement to non-military economic output is very strange.

 

[Ahriman]

More on how the GDP increase during WW2 was temporary, due to wartime spending, rather than a sustained economic boost:

The closest I can imagine – and it is not very close – is the defense build-down at the end of World War II.

That build-down was foreseen and planned even before the end of the war. It occurred over three years, not three weeks. Still, it was big:

In an economy of about $200 billion (in the money of the time), annual government spending was reduced by $56 billion.

And what was the real-world effect of the build-down? In the 12 months from 1945 to 1946, GDP dropped by almost 11%.

Happily, the US economy of 1946 was well-positioned to absorb the government cutback.

1) Consumers had accumulated large savings through the years of bond drives, military pay, and rationed goods.

2) Nobody was surprised. Everybody knew that the war would end, and that the military would thereafter shrink rapidly.

3) The cutback was associated with the triumph of American institutions and a more hopeful future: victory, peace, and reconstruction.

Result: by 1947, the US economy was growing strongly again. (Although GDP did not catch up to the 1945 level until 1950.)

http://www.frumforum.com/large-cuts-will-shock-the-system