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[EuchreJack]

I actually like the gas prices issue because it's something we all think about, and is a current hot button.  When nobody cares about gas prices, it could get "lost" in an update.

My rational for the public attire comes from current and past political conditions, specifically the Arch-Conservative societies in the East.  Though I had forgotten that there are many ways an Arch-Conservative society would look.

Anyone else see the movie 1984?  It's important to note that while the masses are ruled by one set of rules, the people in charge live by totally different rules.

Good point on the conflict with Arch-Conservative gas prices and Elite Liberal war stance.  Logic failure on my part.

At least the war issue seems interesting, though it's kind of funny that both World Wars occured under Liberal presidents (the first World War occured under the term of a former college dean, and we all know colleges are hotbeds of liberal thinking).

[E. Albright]

Public Attire... or ethics.... or whatever... Althought  It would be nice to have a modifyer that reacts to what your squad is wearing I don't believe conservatives would punish people for showing skin... The women = sex object business is a VERY conservative one, a way to dominate.

...and controlling women's sexuality by controlling their dress is also a VERY conservative one. E.g., Prarie Muffins. If you've never encountered adherents of the American Christian modesty movement, you've laid a sheltered life... probably a geographically sheltered life, but a sheltered life none-the-less. Like many things in politics, this issue is not a simple one-dimensional spectrum. There are right-wingers who are appalled at "liberal Hollywood" fashions, and there are left-wingers who are appalled at the commodification of women as public-gratification sex objects.

If you want to cram this into a single stereotype, I'd go with L+ being complete freedom-of-dress (i.e., you can be starkers in public (conservative strongholds excepted) with a green level of conspicuousness), whereas C+ would regulate everyone to wear Conservative Attire (in which, of course, suits and uniforms would be counted; for women I'd assume ankle skirts and long sleeves, while guys would have khakis belted at the waist and button-up shirts as a minimum), unless you were, say, a hooker in the appropriate "den of filth" location.

[E. Albright]

Anyone else see the movie 1984?  I kind of see Arch-Conservative society being like that.  It's important to note that while the masses are ruled by one set of rules, the people in charge live by totally different rules.

Worth recalling that Orwell wrote 1984 as a left-wing critique of socialism (and its authoritarian big brother, communism), not of capitalism or fascism. He had plenty of bad things to say about those elsewhere, but 1984 was cautionary against left-wing authoritarianism. This is mostly relevant in that LCS plays up to the "conventional political narrative" in America, under which everything political can be neatly divided between two philosophies, Liberalism and Conservatism, ignoring stances that don't neatly fit these narratives (libertarianism, anarchism, etc) and trying to ignore contradictions arising from trying to shoehorn others into it (e.g., communism is Liberal, and never mind that we just said liberals hate strong law enforcement, etc.).

Which is to say, 1984 is probably too nuanced for LCS, except as an extremely broad source of caricature. IMO.

[Fieari]

You know, one thing we could do for LCS is make it able to simulate any extremist group through mapping out a larger Political Spectrum.  If we had the game simulate a more complex political system, but made the game REPORT everything to you as a single axis... I think we'd have something a lot more interesting.  So we can keep Liberal and Conservative corners of the spectrum, but also add Populist and Libertarians.  I'm sure each corner of the Nolan Chart could support a Crime Squad of their own, and each would see the issues as EXCLUSIVELY on their particular diagonal... while the game actually would track things on both the X and Y axis.  All four crime squads could also be in the game, leading to loose occasional alliances.

[Skeeblix]

I think this one above me is the best thing I've heard in a long time. It would involve HUGE changes to the structure of the code and the way things like public opinion and political actions are worked out, but if it could be feasibly pulled off, it would make this game even more incredibly brilliant than it already is.

[Earthquake Damage]

I am awesome.

You are awesome.

[E. Albright]

You know, one thing we could do for LCS is make it able to simulate any extremist group through mapping out a larger Political Spectrum.  [...] All four crime squads could also be in the game, leading to loose occasional alliances.

Even if we don't place an underlying more complex spectrum, we could go ahead and muddle something out like this. I tried to map out some random organizations' policy concerns a while back; this could be done without recourse to a nuanced-but-hidden political matrix, but I'll admit a hidden complex political matrix is intriguing in principle (tho' I dislike the Nolan Chart as being rather skewed towards a Libertarian world view, and wholly ignoring the possible existence of classical anarchism). I'm not sure how shifting alliances would play out in practice, however. My temptation would be to assume that in practice Foo Crime Squad would be attacked and dismantled by the LCS as soon as feasible, even if its politics might be momentarily aligned with the LCS agenda. This arises from the undirected nature of activism in the game ATM; there doesn't seem to be a generalized way, let alone a reason, to only attack certain aspects of public opinion. Yes, some actions might target certain policies, but can we, e.g., avoid raising a stink about taxes for the moment to avoid alienating the Libertarian Crime Squad?

Which of course is not to say this too couldn't be added, just that it might require some general jiggering of how public opinion is attacked.

[EuchreJack]

Alliances might be out of our reach, but dogpiling the winner is a definite possiblility.  For example, the LCS could be sieged at the drill factory by the CCS, and sieged at the paper factory by the NRA.

[mainiac]

War in general is too complex an issue methinks.  Just listing the elitely liberal philosophies we've got Wilsonian internationalism, Truman's ideological crusade in korea and of course hippie anti war protest, three completely at odds point of view.  In the arch conservative camp there's America first isolationism, Neo conservativism and Manifest Destiny Imperialism, three likewise exclusive ideologies.  War in general is not liberal or conservative, a specific war might offer clear L+ and C+ possitions (like the current war in iraq or vietnam) but the whole idea is too convoluted to fit nicely into the whole dark humour of the game.


I'm begining to regret starting this topic.  People are offering a more naunced world view and I believe a naunced world view is very much NOT in the spirit of the game.  Remember, the whole starting premise here is what if you strip away all the naunce of politics, leaving it as the righteous us and the corrupt them who must be destroyed.  I think all  this talk of complex ideologies kinda dilutes that idea.

[Fieari]

The trick would be to make certain that every extreme end is equally ridiculous, and preferably counter-productive to their own means.  I mean, the LCS wants tighter gun control, yet makes use of guns like they're a private military!  If you were to keep the hypocrisy from every angle, and make every angle an extreme-to-the-point-of-silliness, it'd keep the mood well enough.

E. Albright has a very good point though, that you can't really attack specific issues right now so much as "general liberalism".  Before going to a more expansive political spectrum (I won't say more realistic, for the very reason Albright dislikes the Nolan chart) this is the feature we really need, for each issue.  Bombing Anti-Abortion rallies, for instance.

[EuchreJack]

I'm sorry, I was just trying to help.  I guess I need to rethink the issues.  I'm sure I'm not the only one.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

No need to be sorry, I think this is a very interesting topic. Obviously the majority of the suggestions contradict each other, and there are counterpoints to most ideas, but that's okay, it's good to explore and get a feel for the pros and cons of different directions.

One of the things Toady had listed on the to-do list for LCS is having a more robust list of issues and laws, noting that LCS doesn't even cover everything on the ACLU website. Off hand, Disability Rights, Drug Policy, HIV/AIDS, Immigrants' Rights, National Security, Racial Justice, Religion & Belief...

Expanding the Liberal Agenda screen wouldn't be too hard, it'll probably have similar code to the current poll screen where you can page through the issues. But another game issue that people have mentioned is targeting specific issues more effectively. Right now, every site is arranged with a collection of issues it affects. This works pretty well for shooting up the police station or pressing the big red button at the nuclear plant, but it's not obvious where gay rights or abortion fits. The answer is the courthouse right now for both, but the point is that it doesn't feel like you can target issues very easily.

So one question I have is how would you like to see being able to target specific issues? To give an example of an idea for how to enable more focus on specific issues, you could have the LCS be able to pick a set of issues that are emphasized especially heavily, and have your actions be more effective on these issues. Activism, the Guardian, writing to papers would also focus on these issues. Perhaps the longer the LCS emphasizes the issue consistently the more experience and credibility you build with it, thus further increasing your power with the issue, a mechanic that you can see in play in the President Forever games.

That's just an example I'm throwing out though, and I'd like to hear other ideas too.

[Gantolandon]

If you want to implement organizations, you could also make them to emphasise some points (more than one). A decisive victory over them would push the issues away from the viewpoint they represent. It would be particularly interesting in case of entities not so conservative in some viewpoints. For example, targeting the police would make people to be more hostile towards them... but in this case they will propably find gun control less appealing. If the cops look incompetent, citizens will have absolutely no reason to disarm themselves and give away their freedom into hands of the same force LCS taught them is not to be trusted.

[E. Albright]

For example, targeting the police would make people to be more hostile towards them... but in this case they will propably find gun control less appealing. If the cops look incompetent, citizens will have absolutely no reason to disarm themselves and give away their freedom into hands of the same force LCS taught them is not to be trusted.

This depends. If you're arguing the police are incompetent at protecting citizens from criminals (which is, all other things being equal, what you're doing simply by not being caught if public option isn't positive towards the LCS), then yes, self-defense arguments are more applicable. If you're arguing that the police are brutal, unaccountable, uncontrolled loose cannons (i.e., publicly funded vigilantes pursuing their own agenda as they see fit), arguing that the proper response is more vigilantism would be a harder sell. The trick is to not "beat the police", but to "rip the corrupt heart out of the fascist goon squad so it can be replaced with accountable elected peacekeepers". Spin, and all that. Though yes, if public opinion on police is on the C+ end of the spectrum, I'd wholeheartedly agree that defeating the police at that time would have undesired side effects.

[E. Albright]

War in general is too complex an issue methinks.  Just listing the elitely liberal philosophies we've got Wilsonian internationalism, Truman's ideological crusade in korea and of course hippie anti war protest, three completely at odds point of view.

[nitpick]Wilson's foreign policy had some misty-eyed idealism, but the man was nothing resembling L+. Nor Truman.[/nitpick]

In the arch conservative camp there's America first isolationism, Neo conservativism and Manifest Destiny Imperialism, three likewise exclusive ideologies.

[nitpick]Manifest Destiny imperialism isn't really mutually exclusive with isolationism, nor with Neocon imperialism... tho' iso and neo are pretty much ME[/nitpick]

I'm begining to regret starting this topic.  People are offering a more naunced world view and I believe a naunced world view is very much NOT in the spirit of the game.  Remember, the whole starting premise here is what if you strip away all the naunce of politics, leaving it as the righteous us and the corrupt them who must be destroyed.  I think all  this talk of complex ideologies kinda dilutes that idea.

Don't regret it! It's good to have these discussions. Even if we have an insanely nuanced underlying political model, we can overlay it with crude, simplistic caricatures. This is to my mind a positive, in fact, as we can have righteous zealots not willing to concede the negative effects of their crusade... properly done, this can be played for black humor.

I'd agree that some issues aren't compatible, and I personally think "war" would be one of them. Its problems are that it excessively involves foreign actors, that it may not always be "active", and that as you note it doesn't cleanly align itself onto a one-dimensional political spectrum... tho' actually, a more nuanced spectrum would help with that, as it'd break up some of the monolithic blocs that make things look quite so contradictory.

However... "role of the military" or somesuch would be a great issue, IMO. In terms of effects... At one end we could have Posse Comitatus repealed, with armed-and-armored humvees participating in the high-speed chases after site actions, and soldiers and/or mercenaries sometimes being swapped in wherever police officers appear... maybe even a risk for martial law to be declared, with police entirely sidelined and sieges suspended in favor of all-out assaults and/or air raids. At the other, we could have mercenaries outlawed, moderate soldiers amongst the ranks of the rarely-seen soldiers out and about (who'd never have more arms than civilians off-base), and the National Guard being unavailable for police sieges. In this case, a military base and some factory tied to the military-industrial complex would be good to add as well.