HagridOfTheDeep
Junior Chimp
Posts: 8,763
Political Matrix
E: -6.19, S: -4.35
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« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2013, 02:22:40 PM » |
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Real numbers, not arbitrary ones.
Votes cast in regional elections may be a gauge for how good our politicians are at engaging the crowd, but these statistics don’t speak to “decline” in and of itself. Right now, Atlasia does have the numbers to sustain five regions and an active federal government. The problem we have is that these numbers aren’t engaging. I understand that not everyone is receptive, but I think it’s clear that the potential is there—we’re just not harnessing it. All we require is a handful of active participants to turn the game around, and there’s a huge pool of Atlasians from which we can draw active participation. If people were actively deregistering and our citizenry collapsed to around a hundred people, we’d have a problem on our hands. As it stands, new people create accounts on the forum every day—so really, in the foreseeable future, I don’t see anything that could speak to the need for huge institutional changes. Instead of condemning the regions and scheming over their elimination, we need to reach out and take it upon ourselves to make regional debates interesting.
Part of the problem, I think, is the obstacles that some of us are purposely putting in the way of regions. Operation Rim Job took skill, effort, and engagement. Its architect is now running for president and claims to be in it for good reasons. Not sure if I buy it, but that’s what we should’ve seen from the start. That skill, effort, and engagement could have gone into the region, not into destroying it for others. Why would anyone want to jump into regional affairs in the Pacific and spend their time managing a group of trolls? So that’s one obstacle.
The rhetoric, too, is a problem. We are approaching the regions as if they’re a stepping stone to the senate. They don’t matter—they just exist so people can get their footing in the game. That’s true to an extent (and, you know, I think it’s important, and it’s part of the reason why I don’t think we should totally can two regions), but they are so much more than that. So many issues fall under the purview of the regions, but, unfortunately, the preoccupied with small-item debates. Part of the problem is that the people who know Atlasia the best concentrate at the top. Once you’ve been a senator, why downgrade to your regional legislature? The regions are coded wrong, which, I think, stunts their progress.
I absolutely think changes need to be made. Cooperation between the federal government and the regions really doesn’t happen, so the regions tend to operate in isolation as if what they do doesn’t matter. We should focus on increasing this type of cooperation. I think one place where we can do it is in the execution of federal legislation. The position of Secretary of Internal Affairs is ambiguous and unsuccessful. I think we ought to look at institutionalizing CARE and having the SoIA serve as the administration’s ambassador to the regions. If the senate passes a broad green transportation bill, CARE can iron out the details amongst itself and work on drafting a type of signing statement that discusses how the regions will interpret the implementation of a bill. These can be issues that the executives bring to their legislatures for further discussion. I mean, obviously this is a rough idea, but I just feel like instead of working creatively with what we’ve got, people are content to give up.
If you ask me, there are other ways to make the regions interesting. There’s loads of potential that we’re choosing to ignore in favour of an easy fix. All it takes is some creativity and a desire to want to make the regions work. You get five or six people who really want to make a difference, and the game will flourish. It’s doable. Why aren’t we focusing on that? I’m not sure. Maybe there are other agendas at play. But to give up now would, I think, be an even bigger show of this game’s decline.
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