September 13, 2003
Nation-Building
While doing an internet search to refresh my memory about a book I read earlier this year (Jennifer Government, by Max Barry), I stumbled across an online game that Barry has created called Jennifer Government: Nation States.
The premise of the game, which is free, is that you create a nation with certain values - you can be authoritarian, capitalistic, socialist, wishywashy liberal, libertarian, Marxist, anarchistic, and so on. You can also be an independent corporation (as is the case in Barry's book). You choose a name and a flag, a national animal and a motto. Your nation has to handle certain issues, can join the United Nations, deal with other nations, and so on.
I only found out about it about 15 minutes ago, but have already started my little country, called Lud-in-the-Mist (after a marvellous fantasy novel by Hope Mirlees), which is summed up, based on the questions I answered, as:
The Principality of Lud-in-the-Mist is a tiny, safe nation, remarkable for its complete lack of prisons. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 5 million love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.
The government -- a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, socially-minded morass -- devotes most of its attentions to Social Welfare, with areas such as Law & Order and Defence receiving almost no funds by comparison. The average income tax rate is 47%, but much higher for the wealthy. The private sector is almost wholly made up of enterprising fourteen-year-old boys selling lemonade on the sidewalk, although the government is looking at stamping this out.
Crime is totally unknown. Lud-in-the-Mist's national animal is the gerbil, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the florin.
And this is my flag, custom-designed: 
Mine is but one of 79,000 nations in this world. A brief look at the some of the others reveals the typical range of world wide web users; many of them immature (the Republic of Sh*t), some of them witty (my favourite: the Holy Empire of 9Cats with its motto, "Nap a Lot").
It might be fun. We'll see how it goes. Long live the Liberal Democratic Socialist Principality of Lud-in-the-Mist. Our motto: What, me worry?
Posted by wetcoast at September 13, 2003 11:20 PM