Return to Democracy?
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by playerunknown
Hi.
So I have been discussing with some people the idea of returning the eUK to a democracy (okay, by this I mean the old proper eRep system - without dictator. I know it's not exactly democracy and arguably the new system allows for a more democratic one, but I'ma just call it that for simplicity's sake).
Firstly, Why?
Meta Congress
So, I'm sure most of you are familiar with the current state of congress with it's made up laws and legislation. If not, then basically, it's a sh**-show. Half the laws contradict each other or aren't followed at all like the Woldy's Angels act. CC did a pretty good article taking a look at the current legislation which you can read here http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-2608245/1/20 .
So how will a return to democracy fix this? Well, there would be no need for it. Congress would have their previous powers back and be able to vote and propose laws using the default game mechanics. The meta congress can be wiped and we can return to the proper congress system.
Fun
So... I think some would probably argue with me on this point, but for me personally, I found the old politics system much more interesting. With the current system, basically a few have overall control of it. If anyone challenges or doesn't agree with everyone else, congress can pretty much remove or disallow anyone from participating in congress... which is no fun. Sure, with the old system there were PTO attempts and other risks, but it made things interesting and gave people a reason to play and stay engaged. And this is a game no? Fun is meant to be had.
And honestly, I would probably a welcome a PTO attempt at this point because there is f*** all else happening. I miss the drama from the old days.
MTO Risk
Pretty much the main reason we currently have the system we do is because of the risk of a MTO attempt. However, recently the price of starting a military coup (or liberation) has been increased to 1 million cc (plus CO costs), making an attempt a lot less appetising and do-able. This means the UK could return to a democracy and be fairly safe from a MTO. I would advise though that money is stored just in case one does take place, but with a fairly large rainy day fund (which the UK can currently can afford - see the recent financial report by the lovely Huey https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-2608935/1/20 ) and the help of allies, the eUK would be safe.
Actual Power Back To Congress and the CP
The is kind of an add-on to the meta congress but basically, currently, the only one with any kind of actual power is our beautiful dictator, Mr Woldy. While he has been a great dictator, he's the only one who can press buttons. And he's not super human, he can't be on at any time of any day. But with the old system back, congress and the CP would have their powers to propose laws and vote on laws themselves. Not only that, but it will be much quicker to get things done. Currently, the system can be a complete ball-ache to get things passed.
Like for example, a tax increase on imported missiles which I asked a congress member to propose around 2 weeks ago. They proposed it to congress pretty much the day I asked, however ONLY NOW has it been voted on. It's ridiculous. With the previous system, congress will have 24 hours to discuss and get it sorted, there's no messing about with pointless crap. Another one is the CP impeachment... around a week apples was absent, with the old system congress can just propose a vote after a short discussion and get a new CP in just over a day.
So how would this be paid for?
The price to return to democracy is an expensive one. As I said above, it comes with a 1 million cc price tag. I, personally can not unfortunately pay for it all, however I can put down 200-400k towards it.
The rest I would need help with. So if you agree with the returning the eUK back to a democracy and can provide any of the funds to help, let me know.
I will also speak to congress about potentially assisting with it... although that might not go down well. Will depend on if congress would like their actual powers back.
What do you think?
I am basically writing this mostly to get an idea of the general consensus and thoughts of the eUK on this. If a fair chunk was against it, I would probably put it off but the current system is incredibly uninteresting and a complete mess.
Now eRepublik finally embeds youtube videos, I can share with you the beauty that is h3h3 in each article..
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If you think a return to democracy will keep us safe from MTO, think again. 1mCC is nothing to some, and they'd MTO just for a shiny medal.
Keep the current Constitutional Dictatorship, but burn the current legislation and replace with a simple, plain English document stating responsibilities of all. Scrap the 24hr debate/24hr vote, and replace with one 24hr debate/vote period.
Thing is with that, congress have to vote to pass it, which is unlikely.
Although I guess we could at least attempt this route and it fails, then return to democracy.
Congress voted the damn reams of legislation through in the first place, even though I expect less than half have actually bothered to read it. Given even a half-baked argument, most of Congress will likely vote for anything...
Congress votes usually go two ways unless you're tackling either paying them or altering massive national systems (dictator vs democracy etc.)
Either they'll be totally against something no matter how good the argument for it is, or they'll vote through something ridiculously easily with almost no arguments in favour.
"and they'd MTO just for a shiny medal."
Many countries now sell that medal and it would cost alot less than setting combat orders and fighting a normal country with fighters
Exactly. If someone wanted to mess with the UK, they could easily wipe us, and it would cost a lot less and last a lot longer.
Yes, I think we should.
Over recent months my view has changed from being a strong supporter of the Constitutional/Defensive Dictatorship to being open to change. I still think what we did was right for the times 14 months ago and if we had a large enough number of people participating month in month out, it could still be a success. But it has reached the point where it is draining the life out of the eUK and we need excitement, fun or whatever angle you take, else we're just drifting away into oblivion.
Obviously there are risks involved as you've highlighted and who knows maybe we end up regretting a change but I think on balance at present it's worth the risk.
No, keep it as it is.
Why?
Mainly security reasons. It has served us well and Woldy is perfect for the job so why change?
Because under the current system most congressman and presidents who are supposed to follow the legislation that keeps the system as it is don't even read the document they're supposed to be following.
Also the Speaker can effectively prevent any proposal from congress ever going to vote as only he can run votes when there's no buttons. This has been the case before when people wanted to up import tax on air weapons.
Thirdly, every politically orientated player is bored to the point of near suicide.
That about covers the case for change.
Scrap the current legislation and replace with something in plain English.
If the Speaker does abuse his power by preventing proposals, impeach him.
I get the security reasons, I would say that's definitely a valid reason (although less so now).
But it has only served us well in that sense. As a political system, it has been mostly a mess and a rather large waste of time and in my opinion, one of the biggest causes of inactivity, at least on the political side.
The default political mechanics work much better.
Changing the document to the same thing in easier english just means we're doing the same thing without much change.
Big change was supposed to happen when we switched from PMs to articles, instead we got the same rubbish in a public forum rather than a private one. Altering the document to plain English won't help much long term, but if people are totally insistent on keeping the current system it wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea. I feel other potentially more crazy options should be explored first, though.
Rob, not necessarily. If the new legislation/constitution is simple, short and to the point rather than the myriad wall-of-text documents we currently have which have barely been read by many, more people might be inclined to take notice. Also, if it's put out on the media rather than a gDoc and linked to from all government/congress/speaker articles, again more people will read.
Sad fact is, Congress will remain the same old faces doing the same old things month in, month out unless we see a sudden baby boom of interested parties. See Mr. Knee's points below.
Switching from PMs to articles had the same principles in mind as what you're going on about now. Having more people take notice of congress dealings was supposed to make it somehow better.
What it did instead was mean the same thing was done in a slightly different way where the only benefit is congressmen can have some absolutely mad bants with CheetahCurtis and Pannion Nomad at the cost of my leaks articles being totally gutted and left to die. In other words: not very much was 'fixed' per se.
I reckon a similar thing would happen with your proposed changes, where all that would happen is proposing legislative stuff wouldn't be task reserved solely for the masochists and the drunk.
The only reason people turned away from democracy was the security risk, the legislative arsing came a bit afterwards when Addaway got a hard on for it because reasons. I don't think very many people think the current system is really much better than what we would've had before, and it's sure as hell a lot more of a pain to get actual game laws changed. (although funnily congress voting to pay themselves proved surprisingly easy for them...). Seeing as the security risk basically isn't there anymore, there's no reason for the current system to be chosen over democracy.
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If you want some fun just start a revolution.
Asking people's opinion and discussing it and then putting it to congress and then discussing it some more is boring!
A civil war would be brilliant - Royalist against Parliamentarian. I'll give you 100 cc towards it.
I think ESO so far have around 500kcc (if everyone chips in) + the NMU. We are half way there
We aren't using NMU funds
its now gone up to ~750kcc \o/
I would but would rather the government then not pay a million to then reinstate Woldy...
While I think it would probably be unlikely due to the cost, congress can be rather unpredictable and pretty idiotic at times.
They'd totally shout at the government to put him back, as not having him goes against all the laws they haven't read.
This is the most sensible proposal I've seen in ages. Yes, let's get back to playing the game
For your air missile import tax increase, I had to propose it again before it went to a vote and even then I had to wait a few days 'cause the speaker claimed to be "waiting for reports" on the last import tax hike even though a report on those had been out ages ago.
I would agree that either a return to democracy or my proposed thing from ages ago (http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/just-burn-it-all-down-pls-reform-deform--2579552/1/20) are the way to go. Atm congress seems to be totally unable to do anything different at all, ever. So either completely getting rid of them or giving them full buttons is only way to make anything work properly again.
lol, nick, i know you just want to do an MTO..
If you already have the dictator i think you should just keep it, and not waste money getting rid of him.
I don't have 2million+ cc to achieve it 😛
Like I said above, MTO's are incredibly expensive now.
Long live King Woldy!
I assume by that you don't want a return to democracy.
As you're a citizen of an enemy country doesn't that confirm that a return to democracy is a good idea?
The Monarchy is good for the Kingdom and good for the world.
Voted. I am unsure if a democracy/a dictatorship is best. However I wouldn't mind the UK having a skirmish between Woldy royalists and eUK democratic forces (very very expensive though). I am a fan of democracy, but in this case long live king Woldy. o7
Well, due to determination bonus, it would be pretty much to stop a liberation.
It would only get expensive if the eUK decides to waste 1 million on returning to a dictatorship, which in my opinion would be a complete waste of public funds.
*pretty much impossible
The current system appears to be working so why change it? King Woldy has been reliable and consistant so there isn't even an issue of getting rid of the dictator for being a erm... dictator...
Or is this because of last month or so when some in congress moaned about not getting their gold?
Errm did you actually read the article?
I did read the article. yes.... You have just failed to convince me of the need to change a system that as far as I am concerned is working well and that no big reason to change it.
Nobody's saying Woldy's been bad, we're saying that the current system is boring and makes congress immensely crapper than normal due to bogging themselves down in legislative arsing around.
Actually reading more than just the title of an article is often a good idea.
Crappy than compared to when exactly? The political module was broken and getting dull long before Plato took a sledgehammer to the game and added the dictator module. Congress was bogging themselves down in legislative arsing around prior to the dictator module. I stopped standing for election largely because everyone was voting on the same issues every month - first week dicking around deciding who the speaker should be, second week voting AGAIN on if the income tax rate should be changed to 3%, the third week was discussing if the PM should be impeached and by the time a vote might happen, it was in the last week and no one saw the point anymore. Congress e-mails was about who could post in the dumbest image in order to try and break the thread.
Yeah what we have now is similar except there's no images and everybody's too scared to ever change the tax rates on anything under any circumstances.
An interesting side point though: So far the majority of people saying that the system is working well at the moment are the people that haven't been involved in actually dealing with any of it for quite some time/at all.
Things won't improve by scrapping the dictator role. The reason why politics is boring is because the eUK has about 50-60 active (unique?) players and it is generally the same small batch of people who take the political module seriously. In the old.days when parties were over 100 people strong then there was a lot more effort made and a lot more rotation between people who wanted to be there. Nowadays it is largely the same people having the same conversation every month.
Lot of the reason for disinterest is Plato screwing around the game and limiting decisions to "should we raise the tax rate to x%?" debates. Since circumstances doesn't change on a month to month basis then there is nothing for congress to actually do. It is the game that is boring and this won't change by asking King Woldy to step down.
Of course some people might find it fun for a while as it will lead to a load of joke proposals for the lulz but then congress will then just moan about how some people don't follow protocol and should be banned from election....
No one bothers with Dictator thing no more when did you last see a coup month and months ago, the UK has little to offer and the cost to take us over will take them ages to get back now we hardy make any money in tax. I cant see it making much difference but as a supporter of democracy I cant say no.
We still have democracy, Woldy does what he's told to do.
If I want to impeach the cp it took ages last time having to beg the speaker to do it. I'm not fussed either way enjoy getting bh awards and building my account nearly level 201 yeah baby.
So impeach the Speaker if he's not doing his job.
You are aware of how congress votes go right? They'll suddenly be vehemently against a speaker impeachment for no good reason.
Well, there's a reason it's known as Mongress...
I'm impeaching him for the second month now, still the proposal didn't reach the discussion stage...
I think that "citizens can put their ideas forward" thing is slightly misleading in that an actual current congressman has to put the idea forward to make it official like.
I was in Congress when I've proposed it...
well then I want to kms