- Pronouns
- he/him
- TNP Nation
- El_Fiji_Grande
- Discord
- El Fiji Grande (#3446)
NationStates, as with most political simulations, lends itself towards the drawing of parallels with real life politics and situations. Everything from historical events to modern political party lines comes into the crossfire of debate and legislation. Within this Molotov cocktail of law, come two primary schools of thought. There are those who are able to shelve either all or part of their real life convictions in favor of adopting differing ones to roleplay their nations, and then there are those who are more attached to their real life beliefs and allegiances, which they then pursue and perpetuate in the NS world. An additional way to represent this divide is between in-character (IC) and Out of Character (OOC) beliefs held by players.
While neither way of playing the game is objectively wrong, their conflict in various parts of NS inherently causes issues even with players acting in the best of faith. This becomes especially apparent in the World Assembly as potentially inflammatory and controversial topics are legislated upon and the fallout of arguments, repeals, and redrafts commence.
Specifically in the General Assembly, the topics of abortion, LGBT rights including gay marriage, and environmental reform have had their fair share of heated debate and controversy. While very civil and constructive debate can be had regarding any of these topics, they tend to spiral out of control on a regular basis, some more than others of course. Abortion in the WA has been host to it all, seeing many attempts at resolutions and repeals of said resolutions. These discussions include thousands of comments on hundreds of pages of forum threads.
The most heated, perhaps even toxic debate comes from those who blindly apply their real-life beliefs without considering the other side’s position. Instead, the WA should be seen as an opportunity to build a more nuanced and balanced understanding of the topics at hand. Additionally, topics like LGBT rights and environmental reform open the floodgates for the more toxic parts of real-life politics to pour in through passionate and often shortsighted debate by those who do not separate their out of character beliefs from their in character persona. Things such as identity politics and labeling of opponents lead to open flaming in forums, as well as near OOC harassment directed at those who oppose proposal efforts.
Sadly, while the Security Council possesses these same problems, the partisan split can be much more obvious at times. This can be most easily observed in the use of condemnations and liberations targeted at the more extreme ends of party lines such as openly fascist and communist regions and players. While the extreme of any political stance is sure to be toxic and harmful to discourse in real life politics, no thought is given to the in game aspects of in-character role play and the separation between someone’s IC vs OOC stances. This causes the verbal crucifixion of people who try to rationalize and defend the “tainted” groups when those groups come under attack by those who are unable to separate IC vs OOC stances. No matter how reasonable and factual their arguments made may be, those who try to think rationally and see from a neutral perspective will be labeled as sympathizers to the undesirable group and be cast aside by the unhinged opposing party. To many of those who apply their real-life beliefs here, a zero-sum game is played in which advancing their chosen agenda is all that matters. They pile on excuses and irrelevant OOC items to justify toxic and harmful IC behavior which can begin to hamper moderation efforts as well. Unfortunately, this reduces complex and nuanced topics regarding extremist politics to flame wars and muckraking, with those who wish to participate in logical debate staying quiet and waiting for the storm to blow over.
A concerning symptom of the examples above is observed in the quality of proposals which manage to make quorum during these times of heated debate. More common in the Security Council, this can be best observed during the string of preemptive liberations targeting allegedly fascist regions which were consecutively proposed some eight months ago. While there may have been due cause for these liberations to take place, their writing was well below standard but still easily made quorum and were subsequently passed following heated and toxic interactions as described above. Some of these liberations were of such a quality that they were repealed a short time after passage. This can be so easily done in the SC because the proposals only have a singular function with the text of each proposal simply being reasoning. Many players may approach this with a Machiavellian mindset and ignore quality flaws for the sake of the passage of the proposal and the result it entails. This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest issues as it allows for a degradation of writing standards at the hands of inflammatory politics and player divides, which will ultimately harm the WA.
In conclusion, heated debate and passion is healthy and normal for the WA. I encourage everyone to find an issue they are passionate about and write or support legislation on it - that's how our community grows. However, issues arise when players begin to assume that their opposition is arguing with the worst possible motives or that they believe that they can harm their opposition and their argument by abusing an IC or OOC position. When debating and attempting to understand someone’s position, it should be a priority to understand where they draw their convictions, or else you may be arguing from two whole different perspectives and only toxicity and flaming will follow. This is not to deny that bad faith actors exist in the WA, but rather to outline that there are differences in the way people argue and hold their convictions, and the differing stances between two opposing parties doesn’t necessarily indicate bad faith, or any disrespect at all.
While neither way of playing the game is objectively wrong, their conflict in various parts of NS inherently causes issues even with players acting in the best of faith. This becomes especially apparent in the World Assembly as potentially inflammatory and controversial topics are legislated upon and the fallout of arguments, repeals, and redrafts commence.
Specifically in the General Assembly, the topics of abortion, LGBT rights including gay marriage, and environmental reform have had their fair share of heated debate and controversy. While very civil and constructive debate can be had regarding any of these topics, they tend to spiral out of control on a regular basis, some more than others of course. Abortion in the WA has been host to it all, seeing many attempts at resolutions and repeals of said resolutions. These discussions include thousands of comments on hundreds of pages of forum threads.
The most heated, perhaps even toxic debate comes from those who blindly apply their real-life beliefs without considering the other side’s position. Instead, the WA should be seen as an opportunity to build a more nuanced and balanced understanding of the topics at hand. Additionally, topics like LGBT rights and environmental reform open the floodgates for the more toxic parts of real-life politics to pour in through passionate and often shortsighted debate by those who do not separate their out of character beliefs from their in character persona. Things such as identity politics and labeling of opponents lead to open flaming in forums, as well as near OOC harassment directed at those who oppose proposal efforts.
Sadly, while the Security Council possesses these same problems, the partisan split can be much more obvious at times. This can be most easily observed in the use of condemnations and liberations targeted at the more extreme ends of party lines such as openly fascist and communist regions and players. While the extreme of any political stance is sure to be toxic and harmful to discourse in real life politics, no thought is given to the in game aspects of in-character role play and the separation between someone’s IC vs OOC stances. This causes the verbal crucifixion of people who try to rationalize and defend the “tainted” groups when those groups come under attack by those who are unable to separate IC vs OOC stances. No matter how reasonable and factual their arguments made may be, those who try to think rationally and see from a neutral perspective will be labeled as sympathizers to the undesirable group and be cast aside by the unhinged opposing party. To many of those who apply their real-life beliefs here, a zero-sum game is played in which advancing their chosen agenda is all that matters. They pile on excuses and irrelevant OOC items to justify toxic and harmful IC behavior which can begin to hamper moderation efforts as well. Unfortunately, this reduces complex and nuanced topics regarding extremist politics to flame wars and muckraking, with those who wish to participate in logical debate staying quiet and waiting for the storm to blow over.
A concerning symptom of the examples above is observed in the quality of proposals which manage to make quorum during these times of heated debate. More common in the Security Council, this can be best observed during the string of preemptive liberations targeting allegedly fascist regions which were consecutively proposed some eight months ago. While there may have been due cause for these liberations to take place, their writing was well below standard but still easily made quorum and were subsequently passed following heated and toxic interactions as described above. Some of these liberations were of such a quality that they were repealed a short time after passage. This can be so easily done in the SC because the proposals only have a singular function with the text of each proposal simply being reasoning. Many players may approach this with a Machiavellian mindset and ignore quality flaws for the sake of the passage of the proposal and the result it entails. This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest issues as it allows for a degradation of writing standards at the hands of inflammatory politics and player divides, which will ultimately harm the WA.
In conclusion, heated debate and passion is healthy and normal for the WA. I encourage everyone to find an issue they are passionate about and write or support legislation on it - that's how our community grows. However, issues arise when players begin to assume that their opposition is arguing with the worst possible motives or that they believe that they can harm their opposition and their argument by abusing an IC or OOC position. When debating and attempting to understand someone’s position, it should be a priority to understand where they draw their convictions, or else you may be arguing from two whole different perspectives and only toxicity and flaming will follow. This is not to deny that bad faith actors exist in the WA, but rather to outline that there are differences in the way people argue and hold their convictions, and the differing stances between two opposing parties doesn’t necessarily indicate bad faith, or any disrespect at all.