Towards the Future
- Thread starter Blackstar
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
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- Tags
- nuclear war (war)
The energy crisis is not about the energy resources themselves, its about our ability to either extract them or use them. We cant maintain our nuclear capabilities right now, much less expand them in a useful timeframe. Considering the quality of our capital goods will go down the shitter, nevermind the quality of our workforce nuclear will not be the solution to any of our troubles
Tabascoheath
Unkempt, Evil-eyed Charlatan, and Pseudo-Mystic
- Location
- Your Nearest Orbital Habitat
[X]Plan plugging the holes
- Location
- The great frozen north
Effectively, you budget by ministry. The mechanic of the "funding applies top to bottom" thing is that if you want to perform an action, you must fund all the actions above it in the same ministry also. For example you want to fund [/]Locomotive Production (2 budget, indicated by the slash). It is the third action in Infra, with [//]Yard Restarts (double slash, so 3 budget) and []Further Housing Initiatives (no slash, so 1 budget) above it. Thus you must perform those two actions also, and you would need to give Infra a total funding of 2+3+1 = 6 budget.
The idea seems to be that the minsters decide what is high or low priority in their ministries on their own accords, and Gal only decides how much money each ministry gets without being able to directly chose what the ministers prioritize. I agree it is not conveyed clearly, and perhaps that the format for indicating funding allocation in our plans is unnecessarily complex.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
No, it makes sense.
Though it's a little bit vexing if there's no "scrap this specific project" whatsoever, like, strike this one in particular.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah, well, what I'm imagining is something that might not exist right now because Galchobar's government is a shambolic mess, but something a little different from that.
The standard mechanic here is that ministers have a list of actions, A, B, C, D, E, F,... and that each of these must be done in alphabetical order.
The mechanic you describe lets us just arbitrarily decide to do Action D and no others.
What I'm imagining is a mechanic that lets us do something like "once per turn, pick an action B and knock it back to the bottom of the queue, telling that minister that you still support the rest of their sequencing but don't support that."
But that would be how things would tend to go if the government weren't being run as a series of siloed unaccountable fiefdoms with Galchobar teetering awkwardly on top of the whole edifice.
Okay, so, I think with the information gained from @Blackstar about the MinInd's plans and pitfalls, I think it'll be good to look at the dynamic between the MinInd, MinDev and MinFin, as their own goals and ideas, aswell as how they clash are key concerns for us. Although first, I thought I'd mention one curious thing that Blackstar seems to have dodged around when it comes to the MinInd's problems: the 'degrading' workforce. This is something I should've considered more myself; we already know that his policies are wildly unpopular by the general population for their heavy handedness and 'attrition'. When Blackstar says that fully playing into the MinInd's plans is viable as an industrial policy, I think she's being cheeky and downplaying the severe societal costs involved there. When we are losing our educated workforce it's not just an economical concern, it's also a very big concern for civilian morale and overall discontent. For those reasons I think that going for a broader, more comprehensive plan to increase production without the same amount of damage will be needed.
However, back to the main point: We already know what the MinInd thinks and wants, and his faults; see Blackstar's post about it. Meanwhile the MinFin and MinDev are the two people that are more in opposition to his policy, or more specifically they are the ones seeing and dealing with the consequences of said policy. Both of them are complaining about what he is doing and are pushing for projects that try to fix that. First, the MinDev is the easy one; all his projects are good, with no downside apart from the fact that they spend budget. The issue is, of course, that they compete with other, potentially higher impact projects. He's also right now the least effective department; his inexperience gives him a 1 in 5 chance of failing every project he tries straight up. Despite this, his projects, specifically the education and knowledge focused ones, are critical if we want to pursue an alternative economic policy. Libraries are simple, effective and easily scalable. We need them now. Those databases are also very important but I think it's for the best that we chase them next turn when he's a little more sure of his post; the more projects we give him this turn the more of them will inevitably fail.
The MinFin is more interesting and will require some more care. She sees what the MinInd is doing, and unlike the MinDev who's mostly concerned with the societal impacts, she has very strong economic disagreements. The whole thing is crude, inefficient, self-harming and just overall horrific, and she hates it. She despises it in fact. And, in the end, she isn't wrong. However, we still do need those horribly inefficient state factories because they're the ones pumping out the basic goods that fuel our economy, such as it is. Her problem is that she's doing what she knows, which is banking. This is great when it's a problem that good financial policy can solve/help with, however in the end no clever handling of financial policy will magic up the necessary amounts of machinery to keep everything running. Her best policies are the ones that minimize the damage the MinInd is doing to the shaky private sector that is critical in keeping a trickle of spare parts, while the worst ones are the policies trying to poke holes in what the MinInd has built up.
The MinInf and MinAgr are kind of on the sidelines of this. The MinInf are mostly worrying about his own problems, and they are real, however the fact that he prioritized a big ticket shipyard project over immediate stabilization of logistics makes me think his issues can be delayed without immediate catastrophic effect, although he definitely needs more love next turn. Meanwhile the MinAgr has some very solid projects for us in the form of turning various algae products into industrially useful materials, mostly plastics and shit. The reason these projects are so great is because they use a (relative) minimal of machinery and tooling, since the feedstock is produced by algae paddies that are simple to set up and just require dumb labor to scoop up the algae and dumb it in barrels or something. Her own issue is that she's got big ideas for population growth and wants to implement them as soon as possible, which makes it awkward to deal with her. We'll have to see going forward how we pry the industrially relevant projects from her grasp.
However, back to the main point: We already know what the MinInd thinks and wants, and his faults; see Blackstar's post about it. Meanwhile the MinFin and MinDev are the two people that are more in opposition to his policy, or more specifically they are the ones seeing and dealing with the consequences of said policy. Both of them are complaining about what he is doing and are pushing for projects that try to fix that. First, the MinDev is the easy one; all his projects are good, with no downside apart from the fact that they spend budget. The issue is, of course, that they compete with other, potentially higher impact projects. He's also right now the least effective department; his inexperience gives him a 1 in 5 chance of failing every project he tries straight up. Despite this, his projects, specifically the education and knowledge focused ones, are critical if we want to pursue an alternative economic policy. Libraries are simple, effective and easily scalable. We need them now. Those databases are also very important but I think it's for the best that we chase them next turn when he's a little more sure of his post; the more projects we give him this turn the more of them will inevitably fail.
The MinFin is more interesting and will require some more care. She sees what the MinInd is doing, and unlike the MinDev who's mostly concerned with the societal impacts, she has very strong economic disagreements. The whole thing is crude, inefficient, self-harming and just overall horrific, and she hates it. She despises it in fact. And, in the end, she isn't wrong. However, we still do need those horribly inefficient state factories because they're the ones pumping out the basic goods that fuel our economy, such as it is. Her problem is that she's doing what she knows, which is banking. This is great when it's a problem that good financial policy can solve/help with, however in the end no clever handling of financial policy will magic up the necessary amounts of machinery to keep everything running. Her best policies are the ones that minimize the damage the MinInd is doing to the shaky private sector that is critical in keeping a trickle of spare parts, while the worst ones are the policies trying to poke holes in what the MinInd has built up.
The MinInf and MinAgr are kind of on the sidelines of this. The MinInf are mostly worrying about his own problems, and they are real, however the fact that he prioritized a big ticket shipyard project over immediate stabilization of logistics makes me think his issues can be delayed without immediate catastrophic effect, although he definitely needs more love next turn. Meanwhile the MinAgr has some very solid projects for us in the form of turning various algae products into industrially useful materials, mostly plastics and shit. The reason these projects are so great is because they use a (relative) minimal of machinery and tooling, since the feedstock is produced by algae paddies that are simple to set up and just require dumb labor to scoop up the algae and dumb it in barrels or something. Her own issue is that she's got big ideas for population growth and wants to implement them as soon as possible, which makes it awkward to deal with her. We'll have to see going forward how we pry the industrially relevant projects from her grasp.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Dr. Warcrimes is kind of the poster girl for my "I wish we could tell a minister to just shut up about a specific project for now and revisit the question later, knocking it to the bottom of the queue."
Red Rationalist
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- Andro-Orlando Hair Saloon
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm a bit surprised that absolutely nobody voting has a issue with giving the local police to the CSS. Everyone is just ok with the secret police having people in every city police department. This is absolutely a deal-breaker for me, you would be infecting local councils with the cancers of a surveillance state. Seriously, Ròs is just as big of a threat to democracy as Gal.
Aside from that, the funding decisions are overly spread here IMO. I get that Blackstar made a clearly a shock effort in industry will cause labor shortages , especially in educated personal, but this is plan takes to much of a gamble on non-industrial development while failing to focus the budget sufficiently.
With this in mind, I will make a modified version on my previous plan, while keeping a lot of focus on capacity for worker training.
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Red Rationalist
Spinning in eternity
- Location
- Andro-Orlando Hair Saloon
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Plan Autonomy, Income and Education
-[X]Universalize
-[X]Educational Initiatives First (-3R temp)
-[X]Do Nothing (+1R perm)
-[X]Education for the Masses
-Governmental Actions
-- [X]Organization of Democratic Movements:
-- [X]Mobilization of the People:
-- [X]Development of Financial Assets
-Budget
--Committee of State Security: [] (1 R)
--Orbital Command: (1 R)
--Military: [//][] (4R)
--Ministry of Infrastructure [] (1R)
--Ministry of Development [][][] (3R)
--Ministry of Agriculture (0R)
--Ministry of Industry [/][][//][](7R - 5R = 2R)
--Ministry of Finance (0 R)
Total 12/12 (due to Educational Initiatives)
Income next turn: 18 = 19 (current) -2 (Northern Reconstruction) +1 (Do Nothing) - 3 (Collapse) +1 (Consolidate Units) -1 (Scrap Metal ) +1 (Heavy Industrial Construction) + 2 (Petrochemical Intensification)
potentially 19= 18 + 1 (private economy incentives)
An explanation on my spending priorities: I push the industrial funding far enough to get petrochemical intensification, which will allow us significantly more funding next year. This added funding can than be used to steadily expand industrial production, while also compensating for the issues that come with the industrial sector via funding other initiatives (bio-production, education, private industry). It's an option that allows us to delay austerity for two years or so, which will be vital for fixing shortcomings.
Some of the top priorities: Funding for private industry, so we have a private industrial base that can pick up the slack. This also brings us quite close to restoring Elf-pedia, which will help with skill issues termendously. And obviously Crew Rotation, so some of the expertise is spread around.
I'm also deliberatly not funding finance this turn, since I consider spending at this time to be erronous. For financial reform to be effective, we must first have a sufficient private sector to regulate. Thus development of a sufficient private sector via via private economy incentives takes priority. This will also allow us to persist from salvage longer, which is a added plus.
In short, this plan maintains council autonomy, while giving us enough income growth to pursue a diversified spending next turn. In short, an anti-austerity plan version which mixes industrial development with educational prioritization. I absolutely plan on funding bio-industry experiments next turn, when income is more readily available.
-[X]Universalize
-[X]Educational Initiatives First (-3R temp)
-[X]Do Nothing (+1R perm)
-[X]Education for the Masses
-Governmental Actions
-- [X]Organization of Democratic Movements:
-- [X]Mobilization of the People:
-- [X]Development of Financial Assets
-Budget
--Committee of State Security: [] (1 R)
--Orbital Command: (1 R)
--Military: [//][] (4R)
--Ministry of Infrastructure [] (1R)
--Ministry of Development [][][] (3R)
--Ministry of Agriculture (0R)
--Ministry of Industry [/][][//][](7R - 5R = 2R)
--Ministry of Finance (0 R)
Total 12/12 (due to Educational Initiatives)
Income next turn: 18 = 19 (current) -2 (Northern Reconstruction) +1 (Do Nothing) - 3 (Collapse) +1 (Consolidate Units) -1 (Scrap Metal ) +1 (Heavy Industrial Construction) + 2 (Petrochemical Intensification)
potentially 19= 18 + 1 (private economy incentives)
An explanation on my spending priorities: I push the industrial funding far enough to get petrochemical intensification, which will allow us significantly more funding next year. This added funding can than be used to steadily expand industrial production, while also compensating for the issues that come with the industrial sector via funding other initiatives (bio-production, education, private industry). It's an option that allows us to delay austerity for two years or so, which will be vital for fixing shortcomings.
Some of the top priorities: Funding for private industry, so we have a private industrial base that can pick up the slack. This also brings us quite close to restoring Elf-pedia, which will help with skill issues termendously. And obviously Crew Rotation, so some of the expertise is spread around.
I'm also deliberatly not funding finance this turn, since I consider spending at this time to be erronous. For financial reform to be effective, we must first have a sufficient private sector to regulate. Thus development of a sufficient private sector via via private economy incentives takes priority. This will also allow us to persist from salvage longer, which is a added plus.
In short, this plan maintains council autonomy, while giving us enough income growth to pursue a diversified spending next turn. In short, an anti-austerity plan version which mixes industrial development with educational prioritization. I absolutely plan on funding bio-industry experiments next turn, when income is more readily available.
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I think people are too afraid of the CSS. Yes, it's a secret police, yes they're not nice in any sense of the word. However, Ros is a pro-democracy idealist. Her ideas of democracy are kind of whacky, but they're much less so then Gal's. The question is do we trust Ros and the CSS to migate the damage of Gal's very good ideas, and in my mind the answer to this is a hard yes. We've already seen this play out with how the CSS reacted to our big relocation goof. They of course did their job and clamped down on the most threatening anti-state activities, more harshly then we, the players, would have wanted. However, Ros also strongly argued for reversing policy and being more light handed.
Quite frankly, I think we have to trust Ros and Singleir. Not in their loyalty to Gal, but in their loyalty to our species and their survival. They're doing their best to keep the collapse of society at bay, and it shows. If we don't trust that they're doing their best to keep this tightrope act going then this all becomes much, much harder.
There's actually a really good reason for putting 2 Resources on MinFin, and that's this:
The Minister of Finance is completely correct here; if we want to see gains from the private sector then the state sector cannot continue bullying the way it does. If we are going for the MinDev's private sector funding then we absolutely should pick up this one aswell, its an extremely clear synergy.
Red Rationalist
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Just because she recognized at one point Gal is fucking up does not mean she supports actual democracy. Her ideal vision is a vision of the old system, where the surveillance state wouldn't go to far and target the wrong people. If you give her power, you have no guarantuee that the wrong people are not the people who critize Gal to hard. She wants a softer surveillance state causing less discontent, not a free society.
We know here to be power hungry, so any chance for her clique to launch a coup would end up with her at the top as the new dicatator.
Ok, no. We should not structure our funding around potential synergies. Nurturing a private sector is a longer project which will take multiple concerted efforts. I see no reason to reschedule my funding plan so some projects involving the private sector happen in the same year. Synergy is not a reason for introducing an 2R additional burden in a already tight budget.
For this reason, I priotize education over financial reform. I plan on undertaken more extensive reforms next turn with a decent budget, but stopping our income from collapsing takes priority.
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I support structuring it that way because if we do the alternative and push all the way up to petrol intensification we've effectively locked ourselves into the MinInd's wild ride. This is a viable industrial policy, but as I considered in my post analysing the interactions between the MinInd, MinDev and MinFin we're completely ignoring the societal cost of this. Like, losing educated people matters more then just to our economic potential, it means a lot of people being fucking worked to death and the societal upheaval that follows, which then will cause Gal to start snapping back. Also, if all goes well this softer, more careful development could potentially slow down the economic crisis to -2R per turn, which will have strong, positive results for us. Sources of +R Baselines will probably pop up over the course of the crisis, and a slower collapse will make those pay more dividends while a faster one will make them do very little. Even if none of those hopes happen and even if everything goes terribly wrong our budget is still not collapsed next turn, it'll be at a bad but workable 15R. However if things go well the situation could be completely flipped on its head with a solid 17-18R and a slowed down crisis that now burns down our economy at only 2/3rds of the previous rate, therefor giving us more time to maneuver.
Edit: I do not think your plan can make that work because you're doing Education over Mass Prep, which makes the budget not work out that way. That's fine. That's why I'm supporting letting
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Red Rationalist
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This is a mixed solution, and our option aren't as binary as you make them out to be. To quote Blackstar:
This is the economic equivalent of deficit spending, and I trust our ability to make up for future time pressure by spending tactically in the next turns. Stating there are only two ways, with heavy industrial investment being wrong is incorrect. This balanced approach can also solve the issue.
There are also social costs to letting the industry collapse. You are ignoring the other part of the equation, where mismanaging the austerity leads to insufficient economic growth, and our lack of vehicles and industrial output fails, leading to collapsing supply lines, leading to mass starvation.
Your argument relies on the assumption we can find ways to slow down the economic crisis without industrial development, especially next turn. Since the crisis is caused by a lack of chips, I'm not optimistic. Solutions take time, which is why I favor heaving a greater budget upfront.
Well, maybe I care about protecting a nascent democracy more than I care about having a nice budget this turn. The budget of the following plan will be superior to the alternative budget, and the industrial development is better positioned to start chip production faster. This will likely allow us to slow down the industrial collapse.
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You misunderstand what I meant by locking us on the MinInd's wild ride. I didn't mean that there were only two options, however what I am saying is that if we pick Petrol Intensification then that inherently limits our options going on in the future because it worsens the collapse. The worsened collapse means we HAVE to chase floorcap faster to compensate, and we can do that with alternative methods to an extent it's still how things are gonna be. It also means that trying to get a less bad collapse is effectively wasted effort at that point, as its just us dilly dallying instead of committing.
I agree there are more then two paths, and after this turn no matter how it goes we still have options. What those options are drastically changes though. I think implying that the plan I'm advocating for will lead to industrial plan is not fair, considering that it'll probably leave us with as many resources as yours next turn; 2R possible baseline, 1R possible (and 1R tiny chance of) floors and 1R assured floor/baseline, while yours gives 3R floor/baseline and 1R possible baseline + 1R tiny chance of floorcap, but will worsen the collapse leaving us with 1R less guaranteed next turn. This leaves you with more baseline sure, but the amount of resources (and therefor our overall industrial production) is quite likely to be the same.
Your plan has merit, I think it'd work when it comes to the industry aspect. I just don't think it'll be worth the societal cost. I therefor like the other plan, as while it still leaves more work to be done when it comes to raising the floorcap it should still leave us with a similar budget for the next turn and give us more time to work on the damage raising this floorcap will do to our society.
Red Rationalist
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Yes, it means faster development. There is also no guarantee we can avoid petrol intensification next turn without locking ourselves out of the industry tree.
I'm going to remind you here that your favored plan involves transferring the control of all police forces to a single person, who is also in charge of watching the military. And again, my plan heavily emphasizes education to compensate for the make up for shock labor. It builds libraries, and accomplish fund a basic internet reconstruction next turn. You can't pretend that every plan that favour strong industrial investment results in a dysfunctional society, regardless of the efforts taken to limit the damage.
I'm going to show the calculations later for transparency, but I would like to remind everyone my plan achieves a higher resource while spending 3 R on protecting democracy. I'm achieving these results next turn while using 75% fewer resources.
Autonomy, Income and Education
Income next turn: 18 = 19 (current) -2 (Northern Reconstruction) +1 (Do Nothing) - 3 (Collapse) +1 (Consolidate Units) -1 (Scrap Metal ) +1 (Heavy Industrial Construction) + 2 (Petrochemical Intensification)
possible income: 19 = 18 +1 (Private Economy Incentives)
Plan plugging the holes
Income next turn: 16 = 19 (current) -2 (Northern Reconstruction) +1 (Do Nothing) - 3 (Collapse) +1 (Consolidate Units) -1 (Scrap Metal ) +1 (Heavy Industrial Construction)
possible income: 18 = 16 +1 (Private Economy Incentives) + 1 (Bio-polymer Industries)
For Plugging The Holes to even keep up, they need to give the power hungry opportunistic CSS minister complete power over local police forces.
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When I say societal impact I thought I made it clear I meant popular discontent bubbling over and Gal lashing back, if not I'm making that clear now. I'm not talking about some nebulous 'worse society'.
And as I said before, I frankly think we have to trust Ros's desire not to have things collapse. The long term issue of Ros is not gonna particularly matter because the current regime is, in my mind, doomed. Gal has fucked up enough that I don't think he has a chance of staying long term, and everyone else in our cabinet is tainted by association. The question of the CSS and the police will not be impacted in the way you seem to think by Ros, because she won't be charge of them for all that much longer.
I don't think Mass Preparations are a threat to democracy in the way you seem to think; democracy at this point is inevitable I believe, since the current regime is not stable enough to keep a claw-hold on power in an authoritarian manner forever. The only question is how much of a shitshow a transition of power to an actual democracy will be. Now, Mass Preparations can definitely make that worse by having angry armed men in the streets. However, Ros and by extension the CSS have shown themselves to mainly be focused on improving stability, and they do it quite competently compared to everything else we did before. Ros isn't gonna use the militia's to do evil secret police stuff to local councils because she's a secret policewoman; she's probably gonna hate the fucking idea in principle because it's creating another potential flashpoint she then has to deal with.
The idea of Ros couping us is also interesting, because if it happens, and happens successfully, it'd probably be a good thing overall for our species. The main threat is not to democracy now despite Gal's delusions, it's societal collapse. Both the military and the CSS clearly agree on this, or well, Singleir and Ros specifically agree with this. And they're probably working in lockstep aswell. This is of course a massive red flag for the security of Gal himself, as if they set up their cards right they could likely very easily knock him off the top. However, they won't do that as long as they think it'd be a bad idea for preventing societal collapse from setting in.
So, in conclusion Mass Preparations is bad, but it's the kind of bad Ros specifically will mitigate because that's what we've seen from her actions so far.
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Red Rationalist
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Her ability to implement a surveillance state without things blowing is precisely the issue. That means her brand of authoritarianism and her potential dictatorship has staying power. She is capable of slowly rolling out authoritarianism without causing sufficient corrective pushback, unlike Gal who makes blunder after blunder.
Amusingly enough, I think you are running into the exact same cognitive trap as Gal. You assume any government following this one will necessarily be a democracy, provided there isn't a mass uprising. You assume everyone in this regime is doomed and incapable of holding onto power. I disagree. Competent authoritarians can remain in power for decades, if they can manipulate systems competently. Just take a look at Salazar, whose dictatorship lasted longer than his life time. And in a system like ours with fledgling democratic institutions, competent authoritarians are especially dangerous.
Her tree literally involves monitoring dissidents in democratic councils (soft monitoring), and founding fake radical parties to persecute dissidents (synthetic party organization). I think handing her the power over local police and not expecting her to use that for eliminating dissent is divorced from reality.
Okay, stop. How are you still ignoring the piece in her bio that specifically states that she wants true democracy? Yes, she wants it to be a police state aswell, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want a true democracy same way Gal wants a true democracy but at the same time wants armed militants ready to topple any 'oligarchic' rulers.
As for your other points the fact of the matter is that the CSS is not the political powerbase she'd have to work with under the current regime, so she literally can't do whatever the fuck she wants under the current regime anyways. The current regime is the officers clique with already defined goals:
She can probably get the agreement of the conservatives to set up some authoritarian thingy that isn't democratic for some reason, despite wanting a true democracy, but everyone else is still there and they'd probably disagree quite violently if that were to happen.
Red Rationalist
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Let's read her full bio, shall we?
She wants a system organized along the old lines. The prior system was a democracy in 5 sets of quotation marks and if you eliminate the "excesses" (two sets of quotation marks) and build a true democracy, you still end up with authoritarianism. Combine that with a hunger for power (she will literally take any chance to gather power) and it's safe to say her true democracy would involve her on top, with a surveillance state suppressing any democratic movement challenging the "true" democracy. Be more skeptical about any adjective like "true" before democracy.
And the fact that we'd have to be in control of her actions and her 'potential dictatorship' for this is not a factor?