Attempting to Fulfil The Plan: ISOT Edition

[x]Extensive Exports
[x]Agree to Both
[x]Limited Legalization

Teen Spirit makes a decent argument for naval support in the coming wars and we do want that boost to incomes over the next several turns. The risks of being used by Crete and New Washington is fairly minimal IMHO, because we were planning on hitting their enemies anyway eventually.

Meanwhile a lot of the stuff we would ban under the anti narcotics policy is actually helpful in controlled situations, and some will go missing no matter what we do.

[X]Extensive Exports

[x]Extensive Exports
[x]Agree to Both

I'm leery of giving new washington a boost but since the eastern med operates on interstate anarchy rules and new wash is a trash fire that's disliked by all its neighbors we can just backstab them later. I'm absolutely down to go Nazi bashing with Crete, it giving us a foothold into Italy is even better.

Gonna say extensive exports, a bunch of Egyptian nobility frying their brains with DMT is a cost I'm willing to let them pay in exchange for more money to continue our breakneck military expansion

Crazycryodude said:

Is anybody willing to explain why they're voting for Moderate Exports instead of Extensive Exports to me? I genuinely don't understand why we'd intentionally limit our trade income and give up the market share to rival states when the nat 100 means we can just do it - not only at zero political cost, but actively being rewarded for it politically as well.

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For one I want as much political support as possible for when we inevitably don't hit the goals of the 3 year plan. For second, I'm okay having Molly for internal consumption, I'm not okay with selling Molly to other states.

I think there is a good chance New Washington gets destroyed before we can even consider helping them anyway, especially if we are busy expending manpower and forces against the Pirates over the next couple years. But I like taking Rhodes in large part because it will give us much easier Naval and Trade access to Tuscon.

If we can push through New Washington and push Christ's Kingdom out, we can both take Tuscon and have a great foothold to push North against the Airforce groups over the next several years. But that cannot happen without taking Rhodes first.

Crazycryodude said:

Is anybody willing to explain why they're voting for Moderate Exports instead of Extensive Exports to me? I genuinely don't understand why we'd intentionally limit our trade income and give up the market share to rival states when the nat 100 means we can just do it - not only at zero political cost, but actively being rewarded for it politically as well.

Not going for Unrestricted Exports, sure, that makes perfect sense. Don't want to turn our own population into a bunch of crackheads to make a quick buck, and Differential Controls is just doing the Opium Wars on Egypt but with fentanyl. But why the aversion to Extensive Exports when we got both a nat 100 on the drug politics and a double 100 on acquiring what's possibly THE most sophisticated pharmaceutical industry in the WORLD? We can absolutely meet the demand in a way maybe only 2-3 other states can, the Central Committee will give us a medal for doing it, and leaving the demand for those rival states to capture instead just funnels resources to our enemies.

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I don't think other states will hit a nat 100 on their own drug policy and I don't want them to think of us as the source of the problem if some of the harder stuff create issues for them, even if I'm not afraid of it domestically due to our policy crit.

Nyvis said:

I don't think other states will hit a nat 100 on their own drug policy and I don't want them to think of us as the source of the problem if some of the harder stuff create issues for them, even if I'm not afraid of it domestically due to our policy crit.

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I don't think this is as big of a deal as you're afraid of, at least in the next couple years. The export quantities will still be somewhat limited, especially spread out across the entire world for everyone who wants some.

The traders are not going to be selling hundreds of pills of Molly to random nobles. They are going to break up what we sell them into dozens of individual packets, and then act as a steady supply over time. But because such travel takes weeks, the supply has an inbuilt moderation tool in the short term. Don't get me wrong, it still has some danger potential in the longer term, but no one is going to come after us over this in the next year or two, and I think it's worth the short-term risks.

Also, I didn't see it mentioned anywhere that we could produce Molly for domestic use and not export it. If we want access to it for domestic treatments then we inherently are going to run the risk of an illicit market that we aren't in control of. So I think it's just better to put it out there under our control and use it for psychological treatments domestically.

Magus Zanin said:

Also, I didn't see it mentioned anywhere that we could produce Molly for domestic use and not export it. If we want access to it for domestic treatments then we inherently are going to run the risk of an illicit market that we aren't in control of. So I think it's just better to put it out there under our control and use it for psychological treatments domestically.

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Good argument, I think that outweights my concerns, I'll update my vote.

Magus Zanin said:

Also, I didn't see it mentioned anywhere that we could produce Molly for domestic use and not export it. If we want access to it for domestic treatments then we inherently are going to run the risk of an illicit market that we aren't in control of. So I think it's just better to put it out there under our control and use it for psychological treatments domestically.

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Good point, changing vote.

Hmm I wonder if there'd be a problem narratively speaking because our leap in the pharmaceutical industry came about due to New Washington exiles disagreeing with their actions and jumping ship. Obviously we'll have a much stronger watch on them, and some of the profits from any exports will be going back to them and their departments (and they were already willing to take bribes before).

Hmmm, probably not a problem but something to consider.

Kirai said:

Hmm I wonder if there'd be a problem narratively speaking because our leap in the pharmaceutical industry came about due to New Washington exiles disagreeing with their actions and jumping ship. Obviously we'll have a much stronger watch on them, and some of the profits from any exports will be going back to them and their departments (and they were already willing to take bribes before).

Hmmm, probably not a problem but something to consider.

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It's going to be very funny when we build a memorial to exemplary comrades to them

And that's exactly why we should do so. Make a big show of recognizing excellence in workers regardless of their previous affiliations and maybe they'll see why our system is great for them!

Kirai said:

Hmm I wonder if there'd be a problem narratively speaking because our leap in the pharmaceutical industry came about due to New Washington exiles disagreeing with their actions and jumping ship. Obviously we'll have a much stronger watch on them, and some of the profits from any exports will be going back to them and their departments (and they were already willing to take bribes before).

Hmmm, probably not a problem but something to consider.

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I think the actions they objected to were less about drugs and more the incorporation of multiple slave states and the extremely destructive war with CKE. So long as we don't start tolerating slavery and genocide, we should be okay.

I really do think that being able to give full and proper PTSD treatment to the combat veterans we're going to acrue over the next decade or so is going to pay massive societal dividends as time goes on.

As doing that without Molly is all but impossible without armies of professionally trained therapists? I really do think that This is the best way forward.

Nervos Belli said:

I think the actions they objected to were less about drugs and more the incorporation of multiple slave states and the extremely destructive war with CKE. So long as we don't start tolerating slavery and genocide, we should be okay.

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Yeah makes sense. I just think it'd be incredibly ironic if we start doing this, roll a nat 1 somewhere, and the people we poached for New Washington defected somewhere else.

[X]Limited Legalization: While the uptime War on Drugs was undoubtably a mistake and some fairly harmless substances should be legalized, it's still not a good idea to let any Downtimer decide to buy meth when someone pushes it on them. Especially undesirable would be someone getting those in other countries addicted to drugs in exchange for cheap goods, like some dark version of Victorian Britian. (+15 Political Support)

Anti-Junta Diplomacy:

[]Agree to Both: So, I'm not really sold on the New Washington side of this deal for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I dont think It's worth the clay it's pressed into - from either direction. I don't think we can trust New Washington to come to our aid/ be reliable during the airforce junta conflicts, or that we can or should honour our side of that agreement.
Also do not like the precedent of making false promises, yes every state is built on/ by oathbreaking, but the sooner we can build a reputation for reliability/ honest dealing the better. It gives us currency to spend on backstabbing if nothing else.
When there is an impression that we will do what we say, that's alot of planning power for taking into account how other states will behave/ will calculate thier own real politik.
I dont think refusing this deal signals naivety either.
I think all relevant parties will be able to see the deal as a farce, airforce included.
So I dont think it helps protect us in an meaningful way.

Meanwhile, on the Cretan side. I believe they have the force to help, and the incentive to do so. We also have an already established diplomatic channel with them. With regards to Rhodes, It's worth giving up the island to elliminate the slaving fascist pirates early. Yes, we are perfectly capably of taking it alone, but the time it would take to build up a strong enough navy to invade with is all time Rhodes get's to continue existing, harrassing our shipping and doing slaving fascist pirate things.
We do need to outpace Crete, so as to not get encircled and so on, but Rhodes itsself doesnt add anything to the problem that the current Cretan holdings already do, nor does it significantly add to Cretan manpower or industry. It's a prestige win for them. One that get's us a foothold in Italy/ across the Adriatic (allowing us to oneday get local naval superiority and potentially lock Crete out of the Adriatic).
The one reason I can think of for why we wouldnt want Crete to take Rhodes, is so that we can control the De-Nazification and liberation of the island personally. Which I do get.

[]Agree to Cretan terms: Leaning this.

[]Agree to New Washingtonian terms: Leaning against this.

[]Agree to Neither: Cretan boats, guns, explosives, and fighters atleast, they are like the one american led power other than us that bothered to build up downtime industry.


Official Narcotics Policy:

[]Anti-Narcotics Action: not this one

[]Limited Legalization: While the uptime War on Drugs was undoubtably a mistake and some fairly harmless substances should be legalized, it's still not a good idea to let any Downtimer decide to buy meth when someone pushes it on them. Especially undesirable would be someone getting those in other countries addicted to drugs in exchange for cheap goods, like some dark version of Victorian Britian. (+15 Political Support)

every option excepting unrestricted export already says not to make and sell meth. so this one is redudant/ needlessly cautious.

[]Moderate Export: not like we should ban export of DMT or something to them if the local government is okay with it. The mass production of modafanil as a moderate preformace-increasing replacement for caffeine will also be pursued, both at home and abroad. (+15 Political Support)

dont know what modafanil or DMT really do. Am in favour of decriminalisation in general. the current circumstances are one where drugs arent already on the market. which complicates things. anything made is an implicit endorsement of use. Am still in favour of trusting people to be able to decide what drugs are right for them. with the caveat of rehabilitation being readily available. (which is arguable a drain on educated manpower?)

[]Extensive Exports: export some substances on the harder end, such as 2C-X derivatives, MDMA, and methaqualone. (+10 Political Support)

also dont know what any of these do. Am tempted to vote for it, purely on the basis that MDMA is good for treated PTSD? and yes Limited legalisation would inherit purely medical usage from Anti-Narcotics Action, but the tyranny of psychiatry and psychriatric gatekeeping of medicine isnt something good to emulate. Ultimately I think it is preferable to have people who ''self-medicate'' in excess or destructively, than to have people refused treatment for ''not having enough wrong with them'' or ''being fine'' or even being force to take medicine that isnt right for them because the doctors ''know better''.

[]Unrestricted Exports: not this

[]Differential Controls: haha, no.


[X]Agree to Cretan terms
[X]Extensive Exports

oh, I didnt even get into how I dont want to artificially prop up New Washington, or how helping them in anyway would sour relations with the Kingdom of Christ on Earth.